Life in the Little Red House

We're Building Our Dream House

July 5, 2008

The time has finally come to begin the process of building our new house. The house has been over a year in the planning process so far, from picking the perfect plans (then changing our mind) then picking the real perfect plans, to working with the city through a short plat process (breaking our property up into smaller pieces due to density requirements) and then finding out that it wasn't necessary, and finally submitting our plans for approval. The actual physical work began today with moving Diane ("Gram"), Jacob's grandma, out of her mobile, since we will be building the new house in this location. On the main floor of our new house will be an apartment for Gram with a living room with a kitchenette and dining area, and bedroom/bathroom. She has been such a good sport about moving out of her house, but in the end we hope she will love her nice new home even more.

The mobile before

Kameron and Sophie helped Larry with the excavator.

The plants and trees were dug up with the excavator.

Gram's plants found a new home for now.

Gram's home for the next year or so. Gram will be living in the Bustetter's 5th Wheel next to our red house during the building process.

A couple of days later, Jacob just had to try out the excavator. Boy, did he look like a kid in a candy store...he was just so excited and having the best time.

He played around by tearing down the metal shed. It looked like the t-rex from Jurassic Park when he grabbed the roof with the jaws and threw the whole thing down.

The mobile has been stripped of doors, windows, porch and they have begun to take off the metal siding. Larry will demo the whole thing next week.

We will be trying to keep up to date on blogging the process of the house, so come back and check it out again soon!

Mom's Residing Project

Jacob and Brian recently completed the big project of residing and painting my mom's house. The house was in desperate need of some new siding and paint as you can see in this "before" picture. When they removed the old siding they found a bunch of rot in one side of the house in the structural beams, so it was good they did this before the house fell over.

Check out the "after" pictures. Wow, what a difference it made...it looks like a whole new house. My parents love it!

Shoes and Sunbathing

Mac enjoyed our recent sunny weather with a bit of sunbathing!

Mo decided that my fleece lined crocs would be good to investigate.

Can I fit my whole head in there?

I'm just going to walk away...

All that playing can wear you out!

Snow

In February we took a trip to Mt. Hood with some friends. There was a ton of snow, needless to say. We stayed in a chalet at the lodge for two nights. I even tried skiing and found it much easier and much more fun than snowboarding, and also found my professional instructor much more helpful than Jacob's "teaching" (when he tried to teach me how to snowboard the year before at Stevens, his advise was that you just had to "feel it"...and let me tell you, I wasn't able to "feel it"). A fun weekend getaway!

Diggin out my car (which did GREAT in the snow).

The Lodge (I guess the Shining was partially shot here)

It snowed non-stop the whole time!

Christmas in Maui

Dec. 18-26th we traveled to Maui, Hawaii for vacation. We decided this year to take a year off from the traditional celebrations of Christmas and gift exchanges and instead gave this vacation as a gift to ourselves (I know, talk about selfish). We had only been to Hawaii in the sumertime, so when we left and when we returned it was still warmish here. This was much different because we left the rainy, mid 30's weather and went to sunny, low 80's weather. It was so rejuvinating to get some sun rays. We had a very relaxing time. We missed our families on Christmas, but overall liked the change of pace.

Us on our lanai at the Westin Hotel on Kanaapali Beach. We were supposed to have a "mountain view" (i.e. parking lot view) with our good deal package, but when we walked into our room, this is the view we had instead. Well we weren't about to complain.

Even though it was 80 degrees outside, it was still Christmas...

Flamingos in the lobby of our hotel

One of the 5 pools at our hotel

On Christmas Eve we took a day trip along the mountain side and ended with dinner at a well-known Maui restaurant. We visited a lavendar farm on the side of Mount Haleakala. There were many varieties of lavendar, all smelling wonderful.

The cute little gift shop selling everything lavendar you could think of.

We visited the Surfing Goat Dairy Farm where they make all kinds of cheeses. We said hi to the cute baby goats.

We ate a delicious meal at Mama's Fishhouse Restaurant.

Beautiful scenery

We took a hike to see the blow hole. We walked along some gorgeous coastline.

Then we came upon some interesting rocks where water over time had eaten away at the rocks. Me checking it out.

Hmm, what's in there?

Oh, so that's what it does!

Us at the Hula Grill.

Just another Maui sunset

Jacob body surfing

Christmas dinner was eaten on the lanai of our condo unit. Jacob BBQ'd some steaks and we enjoyed the view as we ate the delicious meal. I must say, a much different Christmas than most, but one we'll never forget!

Tamara's Wedding

Tamara and Jason were married November 11 at the Capital Rotunda. They had a reception following at the Heritage Room in Downtown Olympia. I taught 3rd grade with Tamara 2 years ago in Yelm and we have stayed in touch since then.

Stacy, Tamara, Me and Isabel

Jen's Wedding

On October 19th we attended Jen and Seth's wedding at the Palace Ballroom in Seattle. Due to heavy traffic we sadly missed the ceremony but arrived for a wonderful reception. Seth, being an outstanding chef, planned the entire menu, which was amazing and was served family style at tables. Jen and Seth were so happy and it was a perfect evening.

The girls from high school.

Does Jacob look half asleep, or is just me?

First Dance, so in love (sigh)

Letting loose

Oktoberfest in Leavenworth

October 5-7, we went with a group of couples to stay at Jacob's grandparent's cabin near Leavenworth. It was opening weekend of Oktoberfest, so we went into town to join in the festivities.