Another Christmas come and gone!

Well, another holiday season is almost over... crazy! I hope you all had a great time with family and friends... like I said before, any reason to sit around and stuff myself silly with the friends and family that I love is all I need!

I've taken some new pictures of the duplex and the first side is almost done! The wood floors are actually getting redone as I type and the kitchen tile will go in this week. We were there yesterday and I was about ready to move my own stuff in! John told me to focus... rental income will be good!

The kitchen... cabinets are all painted, new ceiling and new ceramic tile will be going in this week!
Ohhhhhhh the Oyster White on the walls is luscious with the ultra pure white trim!!

Upstairs hallway

Keenan, our contractor says this color makes him want to vomit... but I think Robin's Egg blue is very lovely and bathroomy!

These were the floors underneath the groooosssss carpet upstairs... I can't wait to see them refinished!!!

Bedroom.

So, this year John decided to have the 1st annual Packard of Vermont Christmas Party! We rented out a cute little bar in Bristol and had an amazing lasagna dinner, drinks and of course desert. So much fun! (clearly)

Gimmie my poolstick!

"What'd ya find?" A III's trademarked saying

Farley LOVES the snow!!!!

So, I'm sure most of you have heard about or seen John's new "hobby"... aka... the new Massey Furgeson tractor he got a few months ago. The storms we got hit with a few weeks ago had him plowing up a storm... op and then there was Josh right behind him in the little bobcat! Like kids in a candy store...

new tractor - if you squint you can see it

So, I came outside and poked my head around the corner... only to find Farles sunbathing in one of the Adirondack chairs...

Ohhh just giving daddy some kisses.

A few weeks ago we headed up to Smuggs for the weekend and stayed with Jackie at her condo. After a long day of riding there was nothing better to do then go play in the inflatable fun zone! Jack was of course the only one who could do the rope walk thingy.

This is about as far as I made it. (and I sware my toe isn't really touching)

The girls!

Our growing baby boy!

John decided to weigh Farley... he weighs 86 lbs!!!

My boys sunbathing today... ohhheeee

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving! What in the world is better than seeing all of my awesome Porter family all the while forcing down whoopie pie after whoopie pie and eating countless other awesome, wholesome foods? John and I left Wednesday and made the 6 hour drive (via Rt. 2 - hello road rage) up to Aunt Judy's in Dover-Foxcroft, ME... at yuuut! We met up with some of my old Dover friends and then Thursday morning headed to Patten... another 2 hours north (about 1 hour south of Houlton... aka way the heck up there) to where my grandparents live. I hate the fact that there's 6-8 hours between us and them! Anyone who is willing to petition a highway straight through the air from here to Maine please contact me.

Aunt Ju Ju and myself! A majority of Thanksgiving was spent with my little cousins braiding our hair... we of course all looked FABULOUS.

Ella and Shawn

Jeff looking GLORIOUS!

Gillian making the magic happen.


Aunt Debbie, myself and some fabulous braids.

Momma and me!

Too much turkey!!!

Moving right along...!

Well, our first month of renovations is almost over and everything is moving along great! John is the king of bartering.. THANK GOD! .. so we've had quite a few contractors/handy men who owe him money for cars, etc... working 6 days a week on the house. Pictures of progress below! Enjoy!

Roof repair! You can also see the new stone John brought in for where we will be expanding the parking... 1 layer of many!
All the overgrown bushes gone! John got in there with the bobcat and ripped um' all out!

New sheet rock throughout the whole second floor! whoo hoo!

Ohhh new doors! Maybe not as much character as the originals but much prettier and much more energy efficient :-)

New back doors!

Old yucky kitchen ceiling gone!

Washer and dryer!! Ok, let this be a lesson to all who read. Last weekend I strolled into Sears, picked one lucky sales lady and told her I need 2 sets of the above Kenmore washers and dryers. I got a good deal, 10% off, free delivery and 0% 0 payments for 1 year and walked out feeling golden! Well, Thanksgiving day with not much else to do but peruse the black friday sales flyers with my lovely Porter ladies, I spotted the Sears flier and noticed a "$699 a pair" headline right below the exact washers and dryers I had just purchased. (I wasn't 100% sure it was the exact pair I bought but I thought it was worth a call to Sears when I got home with my sales receipt). Low and behold, it was the same model as my 2 sets... and after a brief 10 minute phone call to the lovely people at Sears, I was credited $850 to my account!!!! YES, $850.00!!! So my 4 years of being a sears employee and honoring countless price adjustments, I finally got my own :-) Sears isn't the only retailer that honors this... so always check your sales fliers!!!!
New paint, new doors and John hanging up some Christmas lights! (his idea!) Hellooooo curb appeal :-)

Stace came up for a weekend and I put her to work. All my slave labor paid off! We got some priming and skimming done - a small dent in the scheme of things but we felt really useful.

Oh and look - forcing slave labor on my good friend Jackie as well! She looks so happy I may have to invite her back down :-)
Oh! And Jean bean too! The girls sanded and primed all of the cabinets for unit 1. A job well done!

New real estate and a new business!

Ok, so the reason it took me 3 months to post anything is because of course John and I have been busy making sure there's never a dull moment! As most of you know I bought my condo up near Burlington a little over 3 years ago. I've been renting it for the past 2 and have had really good luck and actually enjoyed playing landlady. John and I are planning to build on his father's land this summer and the sub division is moving along at a pretty good pace! We were both getting pretty antsy and decided to start looking into buying a duplex to fix up and rent. So, about 3 weeks after we started looking... WE BOUGHT! We figured we'd keep ourselves busy this winter by renovating and then just when things wind down with this project we'll hopefully be starting the house. We bought a 2400 square foot duplex in downtown Middlebury (each unit is about 1200 sq. feet each has 3 bedrooms). The house was built in 1919 and still has so much original charm! Structurally the house is very sound and a lot of major updates have already been done. It needs a lot of cosmetic love and over the next few months that's what we intend to give it... with the help of some contractor friends! I'm posting a few of the "before" pictures below and when we are all done I will post the after's. We're focusing on the inside right now so we can get the units rented hopefully by the first of the year... really no later then lets say February? :-) Next spring we will be doing new siding and painting all of the trim.

Here she is!! What a beauty!




Front doors, original! Unfortunately they will be departing.

The first Saturday we got to work on the house, John and a few of the guys tackled some big trees in the back yard that had to be cut down... only 1 neighbor's window was broken! Keenan had it fixed within an hour :-)

The driveway had not been used it what seemed like a decade. All the bushes on the left have now been removed.

Unit 1 - original built-ins! All of the wood floors in both units will be refinished towards the end of renovations.

Unit 1 bathroom - needs a new vanity and a few things but not too bad!

Unit-1 kitchen sink! Classic! Unfortunately this will be leaving us as well.
Unit-1 livingroom
Unit-1 built in pantry! I want one!

Ohhhhh, beautiful carpet...

Unit-1 dining room
Unit-2 bedroom... this smells as bad as it looks...

mmm carpet and baby gates!

Unit-2 dining room - all of the woodwork in this unit has been painting.. bummer!

Farley and the living room.

Unit-2 kitchen... red sink!


More Unit-2 kitchen.

So that's a glimpse of what we have ahead of us. Nothing too major but a lot of small jobs. This will be investment property #2 and hopefully not our last one! Watch out Mr. Trump!

And lastly, the other thing I've managed to squeeze into the past 3 months is the launch of my new business, Peak Creative LLC! My friend Jean and I who graduated from Champlain have been talking for a while about starting to do more graphic design work on the side. Back in September on our daily 2 mile walk at lunch we finally said WHY THE HECK NOT. We have since filed all of our legal paper work, chosen our name, designed our logo, worked very closely with the Vermont Women's Business Center and researched our butts off! Our website will be www.peak-creative.com and I will let you all know once it's up and running. Peak will be offering all graphic design services (branding, business identity packages, brochures, web sites, announcements, t-shirts, signage, advertisements, catalogs and much more!). We will also have photography (Jean specializes in family, wedding etc...) and wedding invitation packages. Our focus will be in Vermont, Northern NY, NH and Maine. A large focus on the business will be that it is 100% women owned and 100% awesome at that :-). We both do side jobs currently and want to ease into things slowly so we don't end up working a 100 hour work week :-) . We've already made so many great contacts through the VWBC and can't wait for our official launch. We're not 100% sure if this will end up being a full time gig or not, in the end, that would be nice! I'll keep you all posted and in the mean time if you know of anyone looking for ANYTHING graphic design let us know!