Life in the Little Red House

Deck

2009-08-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Cayden making sure Daddy is doing a good job!

Kitchen

2009-08-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Hardwood hickory floors

Hickory cabinets with quartz countertops

Ground Source Heat Pump

2009-08-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me to tell you anything about this thing...that's Jacob's department, but I know it is going to make our house VERY efficient

Paint

2009-07-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Attaching the plate to the panel

Garage windows with sills

Cayden's Room

Master Bath

Entry

Laundry room

French doors in great room

Great Room

Kitchen

Siding complete

Sheetrock

2009-06-15T08:55:00.001-07:00

Sheetrock/mud/tape happening now...paint by next weekend!

Great room (from upstairs)

Master Bath

Master Bed

Great room ceiling

Entry way

Looking into kid rooms and down stairs

Stairs

Great Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Entry (from great room)

Into Great room (from entry)

Gram's kitchen

Gram's Living

Laundry

Garage

Garage

Soffits

2009-06-15T08:51:00.001-07:00

Cayden Scott-April 17, 2009

2009-06-15T08:47:00.001-07:00

So I know I'm WAY behind on this, but I've been a tad busy:)
Here's the little guy!

Ground Source Heat Pump

2009-04-14T09:49:00.001-07:00

Installing the loop for the ground source heat pump.

Basic info. on how the ground source heat pump works: Greatly simplified, the water will go through the pipes and collect heat out of the ground to heat the refrigerant during heating mode. It will work the opposite in cooling.

More on the unit after it arrives. Probably later this month.

500’ of trench 8’ deep

Five 500’ rolls of poly pipe

Nearly 2500’ of ¾” pipe

Soldering up some plumbing:

Shower X 3

2009-03-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

My third baby shower was thrown by my wonderful mom for Sasha and I. It was a lovely event with family friends, many of whom have known me since birth or childhood, including some childhood friends from the Galloway Gang. One of the most special parts was when my mom asked each person to share one of their first memories of Sasha and I. While I had heard many of these stories before, it was so fun to hear them again and realize what an important role all of these people have played in my life. Cayden is one lucky guy to have such amazing people surrounding him! Thank you to my mom for the great shower!

Baby Shower 2

2009-03-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

On February 21st, Jessica, along with Deb and Gram threw me a wonderful baby shower. The whole afternoon was so fun and perfect and I can't thank them enough! The food was delicious, especially Gram's homemade chicken salad, the decorations were adorable, the games were fun, and I received so many wonderful gifts from family and friends from all parts of my life.

The lovely spread of food

Won't that be the truth!

Tamara and Nicki, teacher friends from Yelm

Jess helps Grandma Velma, Gram, and Lil

Guess how big my belly is game...and I saved the pieces from both showers to compare!

Now Daddy and Cayden have matching shirts!

So cool! A diaper cake made by my friend Jen

Maia and Lee

Velma, my mom, Jen, and Karisa

Jacob's favorite gift...a REAL tool set that Cayden can use alongside Dad (and there's Colby's mom, Nancy!)

Stacy, Tamara, Nicki, and Nancy work on their quilt pieces. Gram had each guest complete a quilt piece and she sewed them together in this amazing wall quilt that I've hung in Cayden's room! What a special keepsake he'll have, and what talented artists I have around me.

Duct Work

2009-03-15T16:19:00.001-07:00

Electrical

2009-03-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

The weekend of my baby shower, Jacob, Brian, Fritz (Karisa's husband) and Matt Freeman all worked on wiring the house.

Our living room fireplace

Gram's Fireplace

Wiring the panel

Mo

2009-03-15T16:08:00.001-07:00

Mo has been very interested in all the new baby gear piling up around the house...he thinks this bed looks just right for him

And this stroller concept definitely looks interesting

More Siding

2009-03-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

Baby Shower at Work

2009-02-07T15:09:00.001-08:00

My wonderful coworkers at LP Brown threw a baby shower for me and another woman who is pregnant. It was very fun. We played games including guess how wide Devin's belly is

and make the cutest clay baby

They also showered me with many wonderful and cute gifts, including a gift certificate for diaper service (we are planning on using a diaper service for our cloth diapers).

Siding

2009-01-25T14:37:00.001-08:00

In rain, shine, or SNOW Jacob keeps on going!

Jacob's framing shop-cutting up all of the pieces for the window trim.

Tyveked in the snow

Insulation going up

Hardiplank siding-we bought pre-painted siding-Jacob's grandma's side of the house

Back side of the house

Jess and Tom's Wedding

2008-12-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

Jacob's sister, Jessica, married Tom last weekend, December 6th. The bride was gorgeous and the wedding was beautiful. I was happy to still fit in my dress:) A few pics from the day:

Windows, Cont.

2008-12-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

Our house in the snow. All front windows and doors installed.

Windows

2008-12-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

The house has been wrapped up (well, since it is my Christmas present, it's only fitting:). Windows and doors are being installed.

Roof On

2008-11-09T10:16:00.001-08:00

Front of house

Front of house-garage

Back of house

Side of house

Roof Sheeting

2008-11-09T10:10:00.001-08:00

2nd Floor Framing

2008-11-09T09:57:00.001-08:00

Looking down into the front door and entry way from the upstairs overlook.

One kid's bedroom

Jacob framing up the closet of the 2nd kid's bedroom

Looking across the walkway into the kid's bedroom and bathroom

Looking out of the master bedroom door

Inside the master bedroom

Master bedroom

Looking into rec room

Nook in master bedroom

Jacob looking on as his dad frames in the master bathroom

Stairs and Second Floor

2008-10-06T07:11:00.001-07:00

Beams on the second floor

Sheeting on second floor

From master bedroom looking across walkway into other 2 bedrooms

From other bedrooms looking across into master bedroom and down into living room

Entry way and Jacob is standing in the rec room

Framing the First Floor

2008-09-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

Jacob took the week off from work to frame. Most days he had his dad, grandpa, Frank, and Brian to help him and on Friday Chris Egge took the day off to help too. It was amazing to come home from work each day and see the transformation that has taken place. We can now walk through the first floor of our house and get a real idea of how it will look and size. Gram was pretty excited to see her apartment come together too.

From the kitchen looking into the living room. That is a 20 foot wall which will creat the vaulted ceiling in the living room.

From the kitchen into the dining nook.

From the living room looking into the kitchen

Looking into Gram's apartment.

Gram's Living Room

Getting the entry way wall ready

Entryway going up

The first floor of the house!

Progress

2008-09-23T18:55:00.001-07:00

So lots to catch up on. One of us has been slacking on posting pictures and the other one of us has been building in every spare second, we'll let you guess which is which:)

Stem Walls:

Backfilling around the permeter.

Floor Sheeting:

Laying/Pouring the Footing

2008-08-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

Laying the Footing

The far section of the below picture is the outline of the kitchen/dining room with the living room to the far left.

The part with the dirt mound in the center is the garage and then looking on to the rest of the main floor.

Pouring the Concrete.

Digging the Foundation

2008-08-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

Jacob and Brian measured out the border of the house and sprayed with orange paint. It was exciting to see where the house will be and its shape. Then they had to move a bunch of dirt around to try to make the ground level.

Corner of garage

Back corner of house and breakfast nook.

Moving Dirt

Compacting the dirt

Digging the footing of the house. Jacob used a laser level to get the ground exactly the same depth, but had to hand dig most of the outside border of the house where the footing will go...very tedious work.

Timber

2008-08-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Down went some trees. Unfortunately we had to cut down 6 trees along the perimeter of where the new house is going. This was a very exciting event to watch. The tree cutter did a terrific job and managed not to touch an ear of corn in Dave's garden (although the wind created as the trees fell did make a few stalks lean over a bit). Jacob and Dave trimmed the branches and we saved a lot of the branch pieces for firewood. The logs got picked up by a log truck and taken to Mankee Lumber.

Time for a little play

2008-07-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Even with all of the work going on with the house, we still found a weekend to play around a bit. We went to Mason Lake near Shelton with our friends Clayton and Tiffany for a day of playing around on the boat. A guy who was on the camping trip had an awesome camera and came along while Jacob, Clayton and Tiffany went wakeboarding. He took many, many pictures, but I've chosen a few of my favorites to post.

Jacob was practicing his jumps...for some reason he likes to hold on with just one hand.

Catching some air

Uh oh...He's going over!

Ouch, that's going to hurt (I'm sure Jacob will be very happy to see I've posted pictures of him falling:)

Clayton was rockin the jumps

The lake was a bit too wavy for Tiffany's taste, but she gave it a shot anyway.

Mobile Home Demo

2008-07-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

Larry used his excavator to demolish the mobile home.

Going...

Gone!

Jacob cut up the base of the mobile so that it is in pieces small enough to take to the recycling place.

We're Building Our Dream House

2008-07-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-12-29T21:40:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-21T18:35:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-12T06:45:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

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.

Devin, Chris, Amanda, Jacob

Maia, Ben, Lee, Colby

German beer anyone?

You look awfully happy...how many have you had?

BBQin some dinner at the cabin.

Dinner is served.

A little cards.

The Helpful Cat

2007-10-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Mo helps out while I'm on the computer..."I've got to keep my eye on that mouse"

Oh, I'm sorry, am I blocking your view? Well, you'll just have to look at me instead!

Paris

2007-10-14T12:01:00.001-07:00

We loved Paris! The weather was a bit cooler, everyone was nice (contrary to popular opinion) and they sights were fantastic!

Of coures, the Eiffel Tower

At night it twinkles for 10 minutes at the top of each hour. This was set up for the Millenium celebration and continues to awe onlookers.

Notre Dame Cathedral

The infamous gargoyles

Beautiful Rose Window

Saint Chapelle Church with its stain glass walls, each telling a story from the bible.

The Louvre...any DeVinci Code readers will recognize this picture from the book.

The Crown Jewels. That's a 40 carot diamond in the middle, situated behind about 40 layers of glass.

The Mona Lisa, not as impressive as it's made out to be...it's actually quite small and behind 40 layers of glass of course.

King Louis IV and his Palace of Versaille

Lovely gardens

This guy really liked to show off...His famous Hall of Mirrors

What a stud!

Let them eat cake!

The Musee d'Orsay was built in an old train station. It houses a large collection of Impressionist artwork.

The Arc de Triomphe

Of course we went up!

Looking down into the traffic roundabout nightmare...the only roundabout where the cars in the circle have to yield to incoming cars. And check out the Smart Car, how cute, playing with all of the big kids.

Looking down the Champs de Elysee

The obelisk that they stole from Egypt.

Sacre Couer Church sits upon a hill overlooking Paris.

The view from our hotel balcony, SO romantic!

Hey, it's Jacob Street!

Florence

2007-10-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Me at the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's most famous bridge, overlooking the Arno River.

Oh yes, the Candy Shop!

We came across a street parade one evening.

Baptistery Doors...Michelangelo said its bronze doors were fit to be the gates of paradise.

At this delicious restaurant we were serenaded by accordian players.

The Duomo -this Gothic cathedral has the 3rd longest nave. It was built with a hole in the roof, awaiting its dome...oh, but the dome technology hadn't been invented yet, no matter, they had confidence that someone would figure it out eventually and then they'd be ready for it.

Wow, that's a tall bell tower...should we climb it? Oh, why not, so up we went 270 feet and 415 steps into Giotto's Campanile!

Overlooking Florence

Midway up...

And we made it!

Yes, the Red Garter is hosting a Beer Pong competition for those who are interested:)

Rome

2007-09-08T08:53:00.001-07:00

Ahh, Welcome to Rome and its delicious fresh drinking water that can be found in public fountains all over the city. Yes, we waited and observed others doing this before diving in, but it was so nice and refreshing in the blazing Italian heat.

The Borghese Gallery-featuring Baroque sculpture.

Outside and inside the Pantheon.

Beautiful sunset over the church of St. Agnes in Piazza Navona.

The Trevi Fountain

The Colosseum: All we could say about this is WOW! This 2000 year old building blew us away. The engineering of this place is amazing!

They removed the floor so we could see underneath into the chambers down below where they kept the animals and gladiators until they were ready to bring them up to the arena floor using elevators.

From the Colosseum looking out over the Roman Forum.

Jacob's favorite animal:)

Looking from the Colosseum at the Arch of Constantine, which marks the military coup that made Christianity mainstream in A.D. 312.

The Roman Forum

Arch of Septimius Severus

The only original bronze doors.

The three tall Corinthian columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux.

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Casesar, not to praise him". The burning and burial site of Julius Ceasar. Reading the story of what happened at this very spot in 44 B.C. gave Jacob shivers, even in the 95 degree heat.

Let the games begin! A field for sporting events.

Rome-Vatican

2007-08-15T18:32:00.001-07:00

We arrived at Vatican City around 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The Vatican Museum is only open the last Sunday of the month, which it turned out to be, so the line was long. We waited patiently in the heat for 2 and 1/2 hours before we were let in to this 4 mile long museum of beautiful artwork ranging from ancient statues to modern paintings, with Michelengelo's amazing Sistine Chapel as the cherry on top at the end of the museum.

View of the dome from the gardens at the museum.

St. Peter's Basilica: The strict dress code was that shoulders had to be covered and no shorts or dresses above the knee. It was SO hot, that this was a bit uncomfortable.

Inside the church, looking up at the huge dome. This is the largest church in the world, and the richest one!

We climbed the dome of the Vatican. This is looking down into the church.

Outside on the dome. Looking out over Rome.

Vatican City (actually it's an independent country, consisting of over 100 acres, its own police, post office, radio station, train station, etc.)

Venice

2007-08-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

We spent one day in Venice. It was a wonderful city, with no cars, only boats. The main boat transportation system called the vaporetti, is like the bus on water. We explored Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Basilica and wandered around town. We found a cute little restaurant out of the guidebook (Rick Steve's is awesome!!) and had delicious cinchetti (little appetizers) and pasta with crab and tiramisu. Jacob enjoyed partaking in the 1 euro glasses of house wine (ordering this was his best Italian phrase:) Over the course of the trip I slowly developed a taste for wine too, as it was almost cheaper than water. By the way, turns out Jacob is really good at finding his way around...I would have been walking around in circles all day down the narrow allies, but he knew where we were each time. Venice is a lot bigger than we thought and we only got to explore about half of it while we were there...of course we did have to spend some our time eating the gelatto and pizza that you buy from the stalls in the street.

On the Rialto Bridge (Jacob is looking uncomfortable because I made him wear his slacks in the 90 degree weather so we could get into the church...he conveniently (actually mistakingly) left these clothes in the closet at the hotel in Florence:(

St. Mark's Basilica

The Doge's Palace

View of the canal from the Doge's Palace

Germany

2007-08-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

We were only in Germany briefly. We spent one night in Hamburg on our way to Bremerhaven, where we dropped off our car at the port so that it can be shipped back home to us. We took the train from there to Bremen.

We wandered around the town of Bremen, a cute town with beautiful building and lots of shopping.

The train station

Jacob's building:)

We celebrated our 3 year anniversary that night at the Ratskeller Restaurant, where we were tucked away in a liitle nook and served rather interesting German food.

Meeting Our New Car

2007-08-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, Volvo picked us up and took us over the Volvo Factory. This place is huge! We were greeted warmly, took care of paper work and then the lady asked if "we were ready for her to deliver our car?" Heck yeah!!

Here we are, the proud new owners of a titanium grey V50 wagon (with red Swedish plates that we can keep on the car).

Even though Jacob got to drive it most of the time in Europe, we know whose car it really is:)

Our car got its first rainbath early on. It rained most of that day in Sweden and while we drove it through Denmark and Germany. But let me tell you, the rain sensing wipers are very cool, they automatically go to the speed needed to take care of the rain on the windshield.

At the factory they took us on a Safety Tour, highlighting Volvo's hightech safety features. Here is Jacob playing a video game...each time he sees the moose he is supposed to brake as fast as he can...then his reaction time is compared to how fast the Volvo safety features would kick in in this situation.

Then we drove our brand new baby 600 miles-down the coast of Sweden and across this 10 mile bridge into Denmark. Then we went through Denmark and into Germany...and here's where it got fun (or at least for the speed freak one of us). In Germany, we drove on the Autobahn. Jacob rather enjoyed cruising along at 115 mph (110 mph on average for one part of the trip), keeping pace with the German drivers in their Mercedes, Audi's and BMW's. It actually doesn't feel like you're going as fast as you are because everyone is very considerate and stays in the right lane unless they're passing. Another interesting sight we saw was many people going on camping trips, pulling their camping trailers with all types of cars. We saw absolutely no full-size trucks on the road anywhere (and only 2 smaller trucks). People use their cars to do everything they want...who needs to use all of that gas anyway.

Europe Trip Day 1-Gothenburg, Sweden

2007-08-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Gothenburg, Sweden on Saturday evening. We made it through the 9 hour flight to Copenhagen and then the 35 minute flight on a prop plane to Gothenburg. Our taxi driver drove us to our hotel going about 160 kilometers per hour, in a Volvo of course:) We were so tired that we went to sleep at 7:30 p.m. that night (after a delicious dinner) and then were up at 4 a.m....it took us awhile to get in the groove of this new timezone. We ate an awesome buffet breakfast at our hotel, with all sorts of fun food we've never had before with new flavors (we could already tell that eating was going to be one of our favorite parts of this trip).

We set off for a day of exploring Gothenburg.

We walked to the waterfront and took a boat tour of the port on our way out to the Alvsborg Fortress.

Jacob in front of the canons at the fortress

The tiny church on the fotress (picture taken from the balcony) and Devin on her way up the winding staircase to the balcony.

Jacob in a prison cell...that'll teach him a lesson:)

When we got back we went on a tour of the navy ships and submarine.

Then we took a boat tour of the city through the canal (one bridge we went under was so low that we had to sit on the floor of the boat to go underneath). Then we went to the Universeum where Jacob pet a stingray

We ended our day by going to Liseborg, the theme park, where we ate and wandered around watching people play "lottery" type games where they won humongous candy bars.

Spring Barrel Wine Tasting Tour

2007-07-19T10:16:00.001-07:00

April 28th brought us to the Tri-Cities Area to visit our friends Britt and Jerry. Clayton and Tiffany went with us to take part in the "Spring Barrel" wine tasting event. We got on a tour bus at 10 a.m. and began our day driving to different wineries in the area. From 10-5:30, we visited approx. 9 wineries (we lost count somewhere along the way), partaking in free tastings and buying bottles to share on the bus as we traveled to the next stop. It was a beautiful day and we tasted a lot of very good wine. We hope Britt and Jerry will invite us back next year....or I hear that "Fall Crush" coming up:) Thanks for a fun weekend!

Leaving for our fun-filled day, sporting our all-access passes to the wineries.

At our first winery, Bernard Griffith.

On the bus!

Jacob is trying out his gymnastics skills after drinking wine for most of the morning...not bad.

We picnicked on the lawn of one of the wineries.

Could I offer you some wine? Tiffany served as our wine server on the bus!

Sunday morning, Jacob, Clayton and Jerry went fishing on Jerry's boat. Jacob was so excited to catch all of these fish.

Jerry is an expert and cleaning fish in record time. He sent us home with some fish, which Jacob made into awesome fish and chips.

Kitchen Remodel Part 2

2007-03-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Here are the lower cabinets and appliances going in. The only thing out of our control, the counter top installer, changed their original promise of a one week turn around time from time of templating to install. Now it's going to be three weeks. The pictures below show the upper cabinets installed. The kitchen is now pretty much ready for the counter tops with a few trim pieces and odds and ends left to do.

Mia posing in the new kitchen.

Now that this refrigerator is in, we get to have Marlene's old refrigerator (which is similar to this with double doors and water/ice). This will replace our old 80's, yellow refrigerator with many of the door shelves broken off. We are excited for this:)

The wall behind the stove is also going to be painted red. My mom will have more cabinets than she knows what to do with (but I'm sure she'll fill them all in no time). Jacob and Brian are pretty much awesome if you ask me!

Kitchen Remodel Part 1

2007-03-07T19:47:00.000-08:00

Jacob and his buddy Brian have been remodeling my mom's kitchen for the past two weeks (in their spare time:). They are doing an awesome job, so here are some pictures of the process. First we wanted to get pictures of what it looked like before they tore everything out.

The new remodel includes new cabinets, appliances, wiring, plumbing, walls, floor.. basically everything. The main entryway was widened over 18" and the rear window framed in smaller to allow for cabinets along the back wall.

While removing the old soffits we found three different layers of wall paper. I'm guessing the brown stuff is from the 40's.

Bye bye walls. The old knob and tube wiring had to be isolated, removed and three new circuits added for the new kitchen. this was necessary to bring everything back to code.

It only took Brian and Jacob 1 day to tear everything out of the kitchen and haul it to the dump. They removed over 4000 lbs of material from the old kitchen. The next day they were able to start rough-in of the new mechanical systems to include duct work/vents, wiring and plumbing.

New window being framed in.
Once everything was roughed in they could start putting the walls back together. Below you see the new mud tape and texture.

We know the accent walls looked a little pink at first but after the second coat and letting them dry they turned out very nice deep red. here you see some of the finishing touches before the floor and cabinets can be installed. The turquoise room is the small bathroom off of the kitchen. Keep posted-cabinets will go in this weekend. More pictures to come.

Our Babies

2007-02-19T09:57:00.000-08:00

Jacob and Mo get ready for the Seahawks game.

They love to sleep intertwined on our bed.

Project Firebird

2007-02-18T17:28:00.000-08:00

Many of you have heard of the infamous Firebird. So here it is on our blog. I'll start from the beginning and try to catch you up on what's transpired thus far and our future plans. Now that our remodel is virtually complete we are going to focus on finishing my lifelong dream of taking a muscle car and turning it into a modern day sports car. When I'm done it will corner, accelerate and stop better then any other production car on the road and yes, this includes most Ferraris. Take a closer look and tell us what you think and um, don't tell me I'm crazy because I already know. Devin would agree it takes a some weird kind of addiction to try and take a muscle car from the 60's and make it do what I hope to accomplish before the end of the Summer.

I knew Devin understood who I really was when she decided to buy me this old 1968 Firebird. I had been looking into the older F-body cars as a great basis for a potential sports car. They are small, thus light, and have a ton of aftermarket parts available to supe them up. This is mostly due to the huge popularity of the 67 through 69 Camaro's.

Above you see it when we first brought it home and started the tear down. We purchased the car for $600 with no engine or transmission. Which was perfect for what I'm planning. The car had very little rust. One year later I saw one for sale without a front clip (frame) for over $2000 at a local swap meet. This gives you an idea of how good of a deal we got.

Some very interesting things you'll find when you tear a car down this far. It had been in multiple accidents and painted more then three times. This is probably why it had so little rust compared to most cars you see of this age.

This is the start of countless hours of fabrication. Here you see I decided to cut off and build custom air dams as well as smooth out the firewall. Keep an eye on that old front subframe. It won't be around much longer.

After the rough in was complete of the new firewall I concentrated on the rear axle. A mini tub was required to fit the huge 335 (roughly 13.5" wide) Michelan Pilot Sport tires in back. Since I was starting from scratch I chose the rim offset, roughed in the rims and tires where I thought they should go, then built the Axle to match.

Below you'll see where I had to cut, notch and build offsets for the rear subframe. Another modification that was required to fit the huge tires beneath the rear wheel wells.

Since the springs had to be relocated inward roughly 1.25" to clear the rear tires I decided to replace the rear shackles with rollsliders. Roll slider technology is typically used in circle track racing. It helps keep the car's roll center from changing as the spring deflects.

This picture is taken through the rear trunk pan. I had to remove the pan due to extensive rust. It came in handy when I had to build the offsets and weld in the slider box.

No one would know what this is for but it is kind of a custom one off idea I had for locating my rear shocks. The car sits so low to the ground that the upper rear shock mounts had to be relocated. I built this bar to serve as a location to mount the rear shock to as well as provide additional support for the rear subframe.
Below you'll see the rear wheel tubs back in place as well as the final touches on my six point roll cage. The cage is built spec and welded directly to the rocker panels. I bent custom weld plates to match the angle of my rocker panel for a smooth finish.

Below I've attached before and after pictures of my monster rear axle. Swap meets are great. I bought this full floating Ford 9" complete for $150. Some time, energy and a few more bucks... and we have a virtually unbreakable rear axle. It was shortened over 5" to accommodate the offset for the rear rims. Gotta love it.

The heart of the beast
Here you see the all aluminum LS1 engine with T-56 6 speed transmission. As well as custom front clip that makes use of Corvette C-5 front suspension parts. For all of you who don't understand what I'm talking about, this basically makes the car lighter and stiffer than most production cars as well as give it limitless possibilities for racing parts. I'm estimating the cars dry weight at around 2800lbs when complete. The frame was designed to my specifications by Art Morrison enterprises out of Fife.

The original design of these cars require the frame to be bolted directly to the body. Unfortunately it's only in 4 locations so it is almost impossible to keep from flexing. There are many aftermarket companies that build connectors that weld or bolt between the front and rear frame to keep body flex to a minimum. So as you can see I decided to take this project to another level when I cut the floor pan and welded it directly to the car. This will not only make the car lighter but it will also make everything solid as a rock.

The Transmission will be supported from above to grant greater ground clearance. Another benefit by welding the frame into the car.

Now with the LS1 mocked into place I can begin to figure out how the steering is going to work... :). As you can see the car sits much lower. It's roughly 4" in the front and over 4.5" in the rear. the front tires are 285's sitting on a 10" wide rim.

Wilwood vented slotted rotors and calipers on all four corners are going to keep high speeds under control. Up front you see the the awesome six piston calipers and vented rotors.

Steering linkage is mocked in place as well as the 15 to 1 rack and pinion steering and engine mounts.

Our trip to the cabin!

2007-02-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

We took off for a weekend at Jacob's familys' cabin near Lake Wenatchee on Jan. 19-21. It took us a long time to arrive at the cabin on Friday night, and when we got there we found the cabin hiding behind this pile of snow. Apparently, since the cabin isn't used very much, the snowplows come through and pile the snow on the side of the road. After awhile, it creates a huge mound, which has to be dug out to reach the driveway up to the cabin.

Ben and Lee and Jacob digging away.

Jacob insisted on getting his truck all the way up the driveway...actually he just liked putting his beloved truck to the test. There were spinning tires and revving the engine, but finally he made it all the way up the driveway. Ben and Jerry are looking on as Jacob makes another attempt.

On Saturday, Jacob and I, Clayton and Tiffany, and Britt and Jerry went up to Stevens Pass for a day of skiing/snowboarding. Colby and Maia and Ben and Lee stayed behind to hang out at the cabin and take a trip into Leavenworth.

I was all smiles before going down the mountain for the first time. Check out my new jacket that Jacob got me for Christmas. It was put to the test while it snowed all day long at the mountain. There was about 5 new inches of snow while we were there. It was very powdery, which was so nice when I fell a zillion times. Before leaving for our trip, Jacob insisted that he was going to be my "snowboard teacher" and that I didn't need to take a lesson. No sooner than we got in line for the "Daisy" lift (or bunny hill) for my first attempt, and Jacob was already trying to ditch me. After a glare or two and reminding him of his promise to be my devoted instructor, we got on the lift. The first trip down the mountain was a bit rough. I couldn't figure out how to slow down, so I would get going out of control and then I would fall hard, just to stop. Jacob proved to be quite the teacher, not:) He kept calling out tips to me, but of course I had no idea what he meant, so we were both getting frustrated. At one point he told me "I don't really know how to explain it...when I'm snowboarding I just feel it, so I can't really tell you how to do it". Tiffany (who's also a teacher) and I decided that we were going to use that line with kids in our class who weren't understanding something, just kidding (ex. I don't know how to explain how to read...I just know how. Sorry, you're out of luck). We teased Jacob about that for quite awhile. After finally reaching the end of the mountain, I was nearly in tears and sulked off, never to go down the stupid mountain again. However, after a break in the lodge, Tiffany found me and I decided to try again. Now Tiffany proved to be a much better teacher, being calm and patient with me, while giving me advise that actually worked. By the third time down the mountain I was finally getting the hang of it. I think I'll go again sometime. The next morning I discovered new muscles in my body that I never knew I had. I was quite sore for about a week, but no pain, go gain, right?

Us driving home from Stevens.

On Saturday night we all went into Leavenworth for dinner at the Allie Cafe, an Italian restaurant. On Sunday we cleaned up the cabin, and closed it back up. Then Jacob and I stopped in Leavenworth to look in the shops and have a Brat before our trip home. We are looking forward to planning another trip to the cabin for October Fest!

New Years 2006

2007-02-18T16:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! We welcomed in 2007 at our friend Eric's new house. We played games, the most popular being Attack Uno, where you never know how many cards you're going to get. All of the usual suspects were there and we had a fun evening! We hope 2007 will be a great year for everyone!

It looks like Ben is going in for the kiss, but I'm not sure if Eric is ready...
Colby and Maia gaze lovingly at one another.

How many cards will Lee be getting this time..

Ben and Lee-Aren't they cute

Erin and Casey kick back

The girls-Me, Erin, Lee, and Maia

Christmas Cat

2006-12-29T14:10:00.000-08:00

We had a very busy four days. On Friday, the 22nd, we attended my parent's annual Christmas party. It had been rescheduled from the previous Sunday due to the wind storm. Saturday we celebrated Colin's 22nd birthday with a dinner at mom and dads. Sunday, Christmas Eve, we went to Jacob's Aunt Christie and Uncle Mike's house for an early dinner and got to see his whole dad's side of the family. From there I dropped Jacob off at Church with his mom and grandma. I went home and put the second ham of the day in the oven. Later my family came to our house for dinner and our annual Christmas Eve viewing of Miracle on 34th Street. Christmas morning was spent here at home, with just the two of us. Later we went to my parent's house where we opened gifts and had an eggs benedict breakfast. That afternoon we went to Jacob's other aunt and uncle, Kerry and Susan's house where we had finger food and opened more gifts. We also did their traditional grab bag, where you never know what you might get considering items range from lotion, a bag of quarter, candles, to cans of garbanzo beans that have been recycled many a year. We had a lot of fun, but were definitely ready to crash when we made it home. We hope your Christmas was a joyous one!

Here is our cat, Mo, trying to blend in with the presents under the tree.

Look at these snoozers. They needed a nap after a long Christmas weekend!

Wild Weather

2006-12-17T00:51:00.000-08:00

Dec. 14th, 2006
We had another cycle of wild weather in Western Washington. This was a major wind storm, with gusts overnight of 65 mph. The evening started while I was at Jacob's aunt and uncles house for a spa party. We heard a big gust of wind and then the whole house had a huge shake. We all froze with fright. Kerry came running out from the back room and said, "I've been worried about the cedar tree in the front yard all day, and I think it just came down onto the house". Sure enough, the huge tree had completely uprooted and was propped against the brand new remodel side of the house. Luckily, everyone was safe but a bit shook up. I quickly headed home amidst already wild wind. The evening proved to be a scary one. After finishing making sugar cookies for my kids to decorate the next day (I knew that if I didn't make the cookies, then school would be on as usual and then I wouldn't have the treats for my kids, so I stayed up to make them) Jacob and I decided to stay in our downstairs guest room instead of in our upstairs bedroom. Our house is completely surrounded by huge trees so I was a bit nervous. It was very loud with the wind wipping against the house and branches thumping on the roof. Finally I dozed off, but was awakened around 11:30 by Jacob jumping out of bed and announcing, "that's it, we're moving the mattress into the other spare room", which is across the hall and further away from falling tress. Apparently he had been awakened by the house shaking. We think that might have been the tree falling (picture below) on the side of the driveway. After moving the mattress and settling in bed again I couldn't sleep with the amazingly loud sound of the wind and the shake of the house as good size branches hit the roof. Then we were treated to a light show as all of the transformers began exploding. We thought it was lightning, but later realized it was probably just a series of transformers. Needless to say, our power was out. We awoke to a huge mess in the yard and the announcement that over a million people in western washington were without power. All of the area schools were closed, which was a huge bummer considering it was our last day before break and I was unable to wrap up remaining projects and give my kids their Christmas gift and say goodbye. Of course, good old Sunset Air was on the one block of Lacey with power so Jacob got up and went to work. The house was super cold so I ventured out to get coffee for myself and Jacob. There were only a few places with power around town and these were massivly crowded. I think I waited in the Starbucks line for 40 minutes. Our power finally came on around 5 p.m. on Friday. As of late Saturday night my mom and dad's power was still out. It has been a wild couple of days. I'm glad to be getting back to normal!

The view of our side yard covered in branches.

Big branches down by the road looking up at our house.

This branch got lodged straight out of the ground.

The tree that came down. The sheer strength of the wind snapped it at its base.

Turkey Day!

2006-12-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

Our family celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday afternoon of Thanksgiving weekend. Sasha and Chris went down to Bend, Oregon to be with Chris' family from Wednesday through Saturday. Jacob and I went to his aunt and uncles house, where we celebrated with them, his seven year old cousins, his sister and her boyfriend, and his mom and step-dad. We had two delicious meals. I braved the crowds on Black Friday morning (crazy, crazy, I keep telling myself) and went to Circuit City to buy a new digital camera (at least I was dealing with the chaos to get myself something:). Finally 2 and a half hours later I emerged from the store, triumphant with my new camera and a gig memory card that cost $1.99. I went to a couple other places then called it a day, way to many people for my taste.

Jacob spilled his drink on Mia, my mom's cat. Strangely enough, she didn't seem to mind and continued to sit on Jacob's lap. We also celebrated Chris' 34th birthday with Candles on the pumpkin pie. His actual birthday was on Thanksgiving.

Happy Halloween!

2006-11-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

Jacob and I went to our friend Eric's house for a Halloween get together. We went as Danny and Sandy from Grease.

Colby and Maia

2006-09-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Colby and Maia were married on September 2. It was a beautiful ceremony and a very fun evening.

The ceremony

The ferry terminal had a gorgeous view!

I found a way to reuse my dress already!

Karisa, Toni and I

Jacob's mom and sister came up for the event!

Best buds since middle school, now both married men:)

A beautiful and delicious cake.

The first dance, aren't they cute

Jacob's toast ( mild compared to the best man's)

Jacob can't resist an opportunity with the mic, yes, that's his 2nd rendition of "Faith" in two weeks.
Dance party!

Sasha and Chris

2006-09-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Sasha and Chris were married on August 19th. It was a beautiful day and we all had a wonderful time. The bride and groom looked happy, in love, and amazing! Here are a few pictures from the special day!

Us at the rehearsal.

Aren't they cute in their matching color schemes.

The final touches on Sasha's hair.

Me at Macy's getting my make-up done.

The fam in front of the house.

Putting on the garter.

In the limo...

The kids.

Here comes the bride!
The ceremony
Signing the marriage certficate.
My toast Mom's "6" kids

Mom dancing the night away.
Jacob serenading the bride and groom.

The last dance of the evening...

sigh, so in love.

Leaving the party!

Bedroom Finished!!

2006-07-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

Our beautiful bedroom and bathroom are finally finished. We are still working on completing the other half of the upstairs, which will be an office, but for now we are moved in and loving our new room!
Snoozing cat is optional with this bed set :)
Looking out from the bed. The door goes into the walk-in closet.
Devin's dresser and the access door to storage space. The door out to the other room can be seen past the dresser.
Looking into the bathroom. Jacob did an amazing job of tiling the entire bathroom in gray and white, which accompanies the light yellow accent walls.

Kauai

2006-07-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

Jacob and I took a wonderful trip to Kauai July 3-11. We stayed on the east shore for 3 days, followed by 5 days on the south shore where we met up with our friends Britt and Jerry. Kauai turned out to be a beautiful island with very diverse land regions, ranging from the ocean to dry desert canyon to lush green rainforest. We were very active on this trip and participated in many activities including hiking up to the top of the "sleeping giant's" nose and in the Waimea Canyon, snorkeling at "Tunnels Beach" at the far North Shore, a fishing charter trip for Jacob and Jerry, a helicopter tour of the Na Pali coast (that you can only reach by boat or helicopter) and the canyon/crater, a kayaking trip up the Wailua River to a hidden waterfall and rope swing, boogie boarding and of course lounging by the ocean and pool with a Mai Tai in hand.
Sunset at the Beach House Restaurant on Poi Pu, where we enjoyed an excellent dinner. And I just had to show a picture of the fabulous drinks:)

Your ink blot test of the day. This is the "Sleeping Giant" mountain. Look closely and you will see the outline of the giant. The point near the left top is either his ear (if he's laying on his side) or his nose/chin. We hiked to the top of the ear/nose which was an elevation of 1000 feet. We had an excellent view of most of the island.
Jacob wants to enter this picture in a Corona commercial contest. All we need to do is insert a bottle of ice cold corona on the hood of the jeep and we're set.
The Wailua River, where we later kayaked. Jacob taking a shower in the waterfall pool.
Could Jacob just look at the waterfall from the bottom like everyone else? Of course not, he just had to climb through the forest so that he could stand at the TOP of the falls! Hiking in the Waimea Canyon with Britt and Jerry.
Boogie Boarding in the surf.
Jerry and Jacob's catch of yellow fin tuna (yes, they caught all of those). We BBQ'd up some on our last night there and it was delicious.
Jacob, Devin, Luca (our pilot) and our lovely helicopter. There are NO doors on this beast and it's awful windy up there and a bit bumpy, and a word to the wise from Devin...if you get motion sick at all then a helicopter trip might not be your cup of tea. As beautiful as it was from the air, Devin prefers to stay on land for her sight seeing. Pictures from the air follow.

Matt and Becca's Wedding

2006-07-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

On June 24 we ventured down to Cannon Beach, Oregon to share in the wedding of Matt and Becca. We stayed at the Surf Sand Inn, where the wedding was taking place. The boys helped set-up chairs down on the beach while the girls took part in the afternoon ice-cream social served by the cabana boys:) It was a gorgeous day, as you can see, and the wedding was beautiful.

Eric escorts his bridesmaid down the aisle.

Becca looks gorgeous as she walks down the aisle to meet her groom.

Picture perfect!
Crazy Kids (Chris and Amanda / Ben and Lee)

Jacob has to pay off Becca to dance with him:)

The Fun Stuff

2006-05-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Greenboard going up in the bathroom. All these angles were a blast to cut and were even more fun to mud, tape and sand.

All textured and painted. Finally some trim. The pictures don't do it justice but i'm sure you get the idea. Jacob tiling around the bathtub and the floor.

Tile tile everywhere, the tub surround, floor and shower are all tile. Here are some messy installation pictures. It will look much more clean once everything is grouted and trimmed out.

Painted and textured.
As you can see we now have two blue accent walls in our bedroom.

Introducing Macgyver!

2006-05-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

Our newest addition, Mac, is very sweet. At first he was tentative to get close to Mo, and would hiss whenever he got near. But soon brotherly love was formed, and as you can see, now they're good buddies.

2006-04-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

The ditch for our new water line. Jacob dug it himself, with his bare hands (and the courtesy of the DitchWitch). Since we were already needing new plumbing for the upstairs, we decided it would be a good time to update the whole house, considering we were using a line from the 1930's. Advanced Plumbing did a great job for us.

Oops, there goes the cable.

All Fixed!

What a stud!

Cutting the new ceiling vents for our new gas heat sysem (no longer will our heat be supplied by one large oil vent in the living room floor).

Mo checks out the new escape route from the upstairs!

Installing Duct Work.

Check out this mean machine. It has a 98% efficiency rating.

We will miss you, ZZ!

2006-04-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

We are very sad over the loss of our beloved cat, ZZ.

A Transformation

2006-04-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

Jacob and Brian have worked on remodeling my mom's bathroom for awhile, due to the multiple ordering/ shipping problems created by Home Depot. But finally, it is done and looks great. Here are a couple of "in progress" pictures.

And finally, some pictures of the finished project.

Progress

2006-03-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since our last post. We HAVE been making some progress on our upstairs, but this is in between Jacob remodeling my mom's bathroom, going to school, and oh yeah, working (if you have any other ideas for ways for him to fill his days, he'll take them, he's still has about 5 extra minutes in his day to spare).

Jacob set our jet tub and is working on preping the shower area. He has finished wiring the electrical panel for upstairs (so we now have working lights up there) and will continue working on rewiring the rest of the house.

A view from outside the bathroom looking in

Ooh, I'm so excited to use this.

The shower frame Our can lights
The new electrical panel
Working light switches

Duct work The insulation is mostly in

Hooray for Advanced Plumbing!

2006-01-11T19:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the awesome work of Advanced Plumbing Technologies, Jacob's step-dad Larry's plumbing company, we now have all of the plumbing installed for our new bathroom.
These pictures feature the new style of wall for your computer room or office (it's all the rage), which leaves your room with an open air feel about it. We had to tear down the wall of our computer room, in order to run the plumbing lines through it from upstairs. This was the ultimate romantic and enjoyable evening to spend with my hubby as we began the project around 8:30 on a Sunday night, with no prior

warning, and quickly became coated with a thick layer of plaster dust (as did every nook and cranny of my house). Anyway, Larry's company spent the next few days installing lines, etc., doing a super job. We can't thank them enough!

We have Gas!

2006-01-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

Wow, in order to bring the gas line up to our house they had to burrow under Yelm Hwy, a busy four lane road and install the line. They even had to close down traffic in one lane each direction for part of the day (makes you feel kinda special)! We now have a gas meter installed and are ready to begin paying exorbitant gas bills (although the oil wasn't cheap either).

We will be putting both our furnace and our stove on the gas line.

Happy New Year 2006!

2006-01-01T15:16:00.000-08:00

It's looking like a bathroom...

2005-12-30T16:48:00.000-08:00

Jacob has been slaving away upstairs and has now put in some insulation and framed in our new bathroom. We took a 3 hour trip to Lowe's and came back with all our bathroom necessities, including a jacuzzi tub (yay!) and picked out the colors for the bathroom (grey, white, and yellows). Jacob's step-dad, Larry, is going to help us with all our plumbing needs.

The tale of two spoiled kitties...

2005-12-30T12:55:00.000-08:00

Our two cats, ZZ and Mo, are like two spoiled children. They have a special diet with high priced food and bottled water, due to ZZ's urinary tract problem that keeps sending him to the cat E.R.

They also have toys aplenty, are allowed to snooze where ever they want, and are given loads of pets. They sure had fun this Christmas with the wrapping supplies... and thanks to Jacob's mom, they had a little Christmas treat of their own...new catnip stuffed mice. This is them "getting high" and loving it:)

The Roof needs to go!

2005-12-30T11:45:00.000-08:00

This past summer we came to the conclusion that our little red house needed a new roof. What was currently on the top of our house, keeping us dry (although we did cross our fingers every time it rained) was the cedar shingle roof that was installed when the house was built sometime in the early 40's.

Cedar Shingles aplenty...we gave these to anyone who wanted some kindling for the winter, plus we had to take a load to the dump!

Jacob, and a buddy from work, along with his wife and I stripped the roof of the cedar shingles, installed plywood to create the airgap to bring it to code, then put in the new roof. We had gorgeous weather for the project, except for one morning when we awoke to the dreadful sound of rain. Of course this was the day that we had pushed our luck and decided we didn't really need to cover the bare, open roof with tarps. That was a real bonding experience for us as we traipsed up to the roof in the rain and attempted to get an unruly tarp to lay flat.

However, in the end we have a beautiful new roof that does keep out the rain!

Upstairs Remodel Phase 1

2005-12-30T11:36:00.000-08:00

Pretty much as soon as we signed our house papers we applied for a home equity line of credit so we could begin remodeling our upstairs. When we moved into our house in 2003 the upstairs of our house was in two sections. The first section contained a room that was haphazardly "finished" with some sort of insulation (more to come on that topic) and semi-walls. We did a little bit more to it, including putting up sheet rock and framing in a closet. This has been our bedroom for the past two years. The other half was completely unfinished and has been used as storage.

Our plans are to completely refinish the upstairs, put a bedroom in the other side of the upstairs, install a new bathroom, a walk-in closet, and still have room on our existing bedroom side for an office/rec room. So, at the beginning of December we packed up our stuff, said a tearful goodbye to our super comfy king size mattress and moved our bedroom downstairs to our guestroom. Jacob started demo immediately (captured in these pictures) and found some quite interesting things.

First, he discovered that the prior tenants had apparently not had the means to properly insulate their bedroom, so they used whatever they had on hand, including sheets, pieces of shag carpet, old curtains, newspaper, etc. Quite disgusting to pull out from the ceiling. However, he also found some pieces of newspaper, dated 1939, which goes to show how old this house is.

Example of "something" being used as insulation.

The Happiest Place on Earth

2005-12-30T10:42:00.000-08:00

From Dec. 17-Dec. 21 Jacob and I took a trip to Disneyland, along with my brother, Mikhail.

The park was all decked out for its 50th anniversary celebration, along with Christmas, so it was pretty neat. We spent our days running from ride to ride, trying to get fast passes to minimize the wait time on some of the more popular rides, eating (I think Mikhail wins an award for the most Churros eaten), watching parade (after parade) and firework shows, or if not watching these events ourselves, then navigating our way through the huge crowds of people while they watched them. We even got to pay a visit to "California" Santa!We also spent one day at Legoland.

We didn't know much about Legoland going there, but it turned out to be quite cool. Everything was made out of legos, which was quite impressive, considering the size of some of the buildings and creations. (Yes, these are all made from legos)

And off we go...

2005-12-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

We've started this blog to share what's going on in our "quiet" married life in good old O-town. Some of you may not know that we recently purchased a house, the one we've been renting for the past two years. It's our cute "Little Red House" on Yelm Hwy that sits on almost 3 acres. We are VERY excited to finally have completed this process, which ended up taking almost a year. We're lucky to have had the opportunity to buy this house and property from close family friends of Jacob's! We hope you enjoy keeping up with what's going on in our lives and we'd love to hear from you along the way!

Our own little apple orchard!

The garage/shop!