Happy 23rd Birthday Lyle!

On December 16th we went out to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Lyle's 23rd Birthday. My sister was working that night and she was our waitress. For anyone who has never been to Texas Roadhouse for a birthday, they really like to embarass you on your special day. Since my sister was our waitress she spared no expense for her brother-in-law! The waitress brings a saddle up to the table and makes the birthday boy (or girl) get on the saddle. They proceed to yell (in the loudest voice possible): AAAAAATTENTION TEXAS ROADHOUSE GUESTS, WE HAVE LYLE CELEBRATING HIS 23RD BIRTHDAY WITH US TONIGHT. PLEASE HELP US GIVE HIM A BIG YEEEEEHHHHHAAAAWWWW!!!!! Then the restaurant yells YYEEEHHHAAAWWW! For everyone who knows my sister, this was a very loud yell. Needless to say, she got everyone's attention! Here's a picture of Lyle's embarrased reaction:

Before we left he asked where we were going to eat. When I told him Texas Roadhouse he instantly told me he wasn't getting on the saddle. He didn't even want to sit in my sister's section because he knew what the outcome would be! The only thing that got him to go was the fact that he could custom order a steak. He got a 20 oz ribeye!  Looks like you didn't get all of your birthday wishes Lyle, but you provided entertainment to the rest of us :)

Happy 23rd birthday to my wonderful husband and best friend :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We put up our Christmas decorations about 3 weeks ago. It was a fun evening when we put up everything because Dave and Shirley came over for spaghetti made by Chef Lyle! Actually, let me rephrase this, Shirley and I put up decorations while Lyle cooked and Dave surfed the internet. It's always nice to get to spend time together because they're usually really busy. Hutch and Duke joined in on the Christmas fun as well. They sat and watched us put up the tree. I took some pictures of the finished decorations (and pets) but please excuse the camera quality because I took them with my phone. Here are the pictures:

  


Our tree



Photogenic Duke



He's sweet, but not photogenic- Hutch



Waters Homestead Swag

Finally settled in (and down)!

I know that I've been MIA from the blog for a while, but there has been so much stuff going on in our lives! As many of you already know and witnessed, we got married November 26th! Our wedding was one of the most beautiful and amazing days of our lives. Everything came together perfectly and it was beautiful. We have received so many compliments on our wedding, and people who didn't even attend told us they heard from others how beautiful it was. That really, really means a lot to us! We put a lot of hard work, time and money into our big day and I'm so glad it paid off!

Now that I'm done gushing about the wedding and how fabulous it was, I will give you an update on our lives. Currently, we are in the stage of finding a place for all of the amazing gifts we got. Even though we live in such a big house, it still seems like we don't have enough room for all of our stuff (I think this might be an indication it's time to have a garage sale...) and we're working to find a place for everything.

We are using some of our wedding money to have painters come in to paint the upstairs and foyer in the house. They should be done painting by the end of this week. This is phase 1 of the foyer/upstairs project. I'm unsure how many phases this project will entail... I will be posting pictures of each phase so everyone can see what's going on.  For anyone who's ever seen the upstairs of our house, you can understand why this has to go in phases. There is so much space and so much to do. Luckily, Dave and Shirley did all of the really hard work when they lived in the house (i.e.- new electrical, plumbing, drywall, heating, installing a bathroom) so basically all we are doing is putting in new windows and some aesthetics. The fun stuff as I like to call it :)

Once I have pictures I will be uploading and sharing all of our exciting adventures. Thanks for reading. I promise to be a more dedicated blogger from here on out!

-Cayla

Busy, busy, busy!

We have been so busy the past couple of months so that's why I have been MIA from the blog. Mid-September the guys started in the field. They are moving right along with getting the crops out. So far, they are finished with all of the soybean harvest and have moved onto harvesting the corn. Last night they worked on filling the grain bin at our house and they worked pretty late, but they finished which is a relief for them. All of the corn that goes into that bin is under contract with Frito-Lay, so we have a lot of corn ready to be made into yummy chips :) If the weather stays as nice as it has been the past couple of weeks they should be done harvesting by the end of October, plenty of time to spare for the Wedding! (Thank Goodness!)

The Wedding planning is coming right along. We are about 6 weeks out right now and I am getting so excited! I don't know where all of the time went. It seems like we just got engaged yesterday, but we've been engaged for almost a year now! I had my first dress fitting last Thursday and it went well. Trying on my dress makes me so excited for the big day! The RSVP's keep coming in for the Wedding so I think we're going to have big turn out.

Well, I better get back to working! Thanks for reading!

-Cayla

New Bathroom!

Lyle and I decided to have our bathroom redone in the old farmhouse. The bathroom was something that needed to be updated and it was one of the projects that was most affordable for us to do at this time. Broady Crozier from Gifford did all of the work for us and he is fabulous! I highly recommend him to anyone considering doing upgrades to their bathrooms. Here are the before and after pics (I apologize for the layout of the pictures):


Before toilet



Before shower

After shower AHHH :-)

New exhaust fan/ light fixture

New toilet

Lots of exciting news!

The past couple of days have been filled with lots of exciting news, or should I say babies! Last night we learned that Lyle and I are going to be an AUNT and UNCLE again! Lee & Sara are expecting their second child sometime in mid-to-late February. We can't wait to meet the newest addition to the Waters Clan! We are so excited for Lee, Sara and big brother Lucas!

We are also excited to announce another addition to the family but this time it's to the Emkes side. Kyle & Melissa had their first child on August 9th at 5:15pm. They named him John David (JD) Emkes. He weighed in at 9lbs, 2oz and he was 22in long. He is a beautiful, healthy and happy baby boy. The Emkes' are doing well.

Also, the wedding invitations have been mailed out. I am so glad to say this daunting task of remembering who to invite, finding addresses, putting the invites together and stamping them is OVER! This had to be the biggest job of the entire wedding process so far. It was not fun either. We constantly were going back and saying "did we remember to invite...???". Well, it's all over now and the fun stuff for the wedding begins :) Showers, programs, and preparing for the actual day, hooray!

This being said about the invites, I have to announce a personal PSA... If you receive an invite PLEASE send back the RSVP letting us know if you are coming or not. It's so helpful in determining seating arrangements, how much food and drink to buy and many, many other things. So, please send it back, or else you will be getting a friendly phone call from me sometime during the end of October :) I'm sure every bride goes through this, but I just have to say it. We really want each and every one of you to come to the wedding to help us celebrate. We hope you can all join us.

I love my job :)

At the end of March I took a new job as a Personal Banker at Busey in St. Joe. I have worked for Busey for a little over 3 years and prior to becoming a Personal Banker I was a Teller at a couple of different locations. For any of you who have worked as a Teller before, it is the most unglamerous, glamerous job you could ever work. Many people think that Tellers just get to sit around all day, dressed up and help the occasional customer that comes into the drive-thru or lobby. However, this is a common misconception. Tellers are the backbone of the banking world. NOTHING would happen without Tellers! They have to know how to do a little bit of everyone's job without getting paid to actually do the job. They also do a lot of other stuff that you would not expect them to do. This is why forever, and always the Teller position will hold a special place in my heart.

Now that I've given my shoutout to all the Tellers around the world, I can say I am very glad that I am not one anymore :) I moved up to a Banker position at our St. Joe office. Prior to working in St. Joe I worked at our Campus location. Let me tell you, I've never been so happy to be back in a small town. Working in St. Joe is great! I have a great group of coworkers who all help each other out and support each other, professionally and personally. I have never worked somewhere where a fellow coworker shares with me the trials and tribulations of their child, the depantsing bandit and how they are facing this issue head-on! I truely feel like I have a family at work. I also love all of my customers. It is nice to get to work at a place where people let me into their lives a little bit. Even if that little bit of their lives is telling me about their bowel movements for the past couple of days, I still enjoy it because I know that they trust me enough to discuss things with me.

On top of the great work environment and customers I have, I also really enjoy the small town itself. Currently, we are working on getting a parade float ready for the annual St. Joe Fall Festival taking place this weekend. Which I have to admit I am really excited about riding in :) No other associates in our organization get to ride a parade float, let alone a float made of tissue paper flowers and pipe cleaners. Come on, does it get much better than this?!?

Working in St. Joe has truely made me learn to appreciate the little things in life. We can only take one day at a time, so enjoy these days as they come and take them for what they are worth. Thank you for reading my little shoutout about my job. I hope you all enjoy your work as much as I do.

The couple's shower!

This past weekend Regan, Ashley, Caitlin and Ryan threw us a couple's shower at The Shop! It was so much fun. The shower was a country chic theme, so cute :) They catered in BBQ from a new place in Urbana called Black Dog BBQ. We got a cake from Deanna Loschen, who if you've never eaten her cake you're truly missing out because it is so delicious. There was also tons of wonderful presents given to us and a DJ. The couple's shower was awesome and I recommend anyone who is getting married to look into having one. It was a perfect way for both the guys and girls to get together to celebrate the wedding instead of just the traditional girls only shower. I have posted pics below of the couple's shower! Thank you to everyone who came out and helped us celebrate! Also, a special thanks goes out to Regan, Dylan and Tyler who helped us clean up The Shop on Friday night to be able to have the party there.

Thanks for reading...

The decorations

Country chic centerpieces

Regan (MOH) and Me

Caitlin (BM)  lighting the candles

Regan and I with the Newts :)

Our cake (the design matches the invites) SO CUTE!

Lyle with the gift from the Newts (it was wrapped in Farm and Fleet paper with a duck tape bow)

Cayla

Welcome to our blog!

Thanks for reading our blog! We decided that since we have so many friends and family members with busy lives like ours, we would create a blog to update everyone on what's going on in our life. As many of you already know, we are getting married November 26th, 2011! The wedding is coming up so fast and it is now a little over 4 months away. All of the details seem to be in place and the plans are coming along smoothly. We will be posting information with wedding details in postings to come. For now, I wanted to let everyone in on our projects that we have going on right now.

Lyle & his family just finished up getting all of the crops in for spring. Everything is sprayed & looking great! It seems like we are right on track for a great harvest come fall. Now that they are done working in the fields for a couple of weeks, I have LOTS of projects lined up around the Waters Homestead :) We are having a local guy from Gifford redo our bathroom and he starts work on it July 19th! The bathroom is a room in the house that really needs to updated. He is going to do all kinds of updates including a new shower, toilet, exhaust fan, drop ceiling, new lighting and flooring. I will post photos of the before and after to show the progress we have made.

In addition to the bathroom redo, Lyle is working on the yard and we will also be adding a deck onto the front of the house, which is something I'm thrilled about because the sunsets at our house are gorgeous!!! I can't wait to sit on the deck with a glass of wine and enjoy the sunset. But, for now I must stop day dreaming and get back to work so I can make money to afford the projects! I hope you enjoy the pictures posted below. Thanks for reading and come back soon!!!

The sunsets from the front of our house :)

Lyle & his dad Dave spraying crops