We have fun too...

Finishing up the Kahlua Cream pie!


Joe's dynamite ribs... they went so fast, we didn't get a cooked picture :)


Mal's first fire, he was totally mesmerized by it.


Rach and I at Red Mango in Seattle. If only they had one in Spokane...

Yard Updates

Before the sod - looking very, very brown...


Two of the five pallets of sod that were delivered - Joe and I moved almost all of this by ourselves. My folks showed up and helped out with the last 1/2 pallet or so. We could hardly move the next day...


Putting down that 1st piece


Insta-lawn in progress


About a week later.... ahhh, so much better!

Facelift.

The day we moved in, actually maybe even before that, we new that the yellow paint would be going away. What we can't figure out is what took us so long to get around to actually painting it. Finally decided to go for it yesterday! Here's some evidence...

Before Photos
Living room all cleaned up


Dining Room - with new chairs (finally)


Work in Progress Shots


This one is as close as it gets to the actual color, not capturing well on camera at night.


You can kind of see the accent color in this one, under the arch.


Parting Shot of the Night
This is the current state of affairs. Not everything is back up on the walls yet. May switch a few things around and still need to hang the curtains, so more pictures later when everything is completely finished.

Photo-a-day Bandwagon

So Joe figured out how to upload the pictures from the new SD card, I'm going to bombard you with some recent pictures and a few quick updates...

Joe and I just celebrated our 4th anniversary together! To document our 5th year, I've decided to join the photo a day band wagon for two reasons - to see how everything changes around our house and life with all the projects and changes underway, and to hopefully improve my photo taking "skills".

Sept 23, 2010 - Sleep's Cabins, where we stayed for our anniversary in Sandpoint, Idaho.


Sept 24, 2010 - View from the dock, Lake Pend Oreille

Sept 25, 2010 - Fall Crocus blooming in our yard


Sept 26, 2010 - Cirque Du Soleil


Sept 27, 2010 - Mal's "Apartment" he's getting bigger every day but still very much a kitten, he thinks everything was made for him to play with :)


Sept 28, 2010 - Living room getting a face lift... goodbye yellow!


Sept 29, 2010 - Caprese Salad for lunch

Green Side Up

It seems like we have been working on our yard forever, well at least all summer. We've had the yard down to dirt for awhile now, so when the sod showed up Friday, I was pretty excited. Enough so to spend the day covered in dirt, moving 35 pound rolls of sod all over and meticulously laying them in place. The "insta-yard" feeling was pretty strange. Everything else seems to move at a snails pace, so to have a full yard of green grass in a matter of a few back breaking hours was pretty incredible. ... my quads are still sore :)

I'll put up some evidence once I figure out whats wrong with my new SD card.

Canned Peaches

Rachel and I went to Greenbluff yesterday and picked peaches at Hidden Acres. I'm trying my first attempt at canning peaches, well anything really. To me ripe peaches are summer at its best, that and barbecued baby back ribs and passion ice tea.

Malcolm is getting pretty big and is quite the little hunter, I'd be interested to see what he would catch if we let him outside. Right now he still mostly an indoor kitty. Our neighbor has apparently seen coyotes in the park, so we're a little reluctant to let him outside just yet. He doesn't seem to have a healthy fear of animals bigger than him. He's already trying to chase all the other cats out of the yard (they're easily twice his size).

The weeds mentioned in the last long ago post are now completely gone. Our yard has been leveled to dirt, we're working on a stone retaining wall in the front yard. So far we've been reusing all the rocks/materials that were already here. Joe has just about finished repairing the sprinkler system and laying sod is next... would like to have this project finished before the snow flies.