Welcome Samantha!!

We are so excited to be an aunt and uncle again!! Steve's sister, Carol, and her husband, Jim, welcomed their little girl today...2.5 weeks early!! Below are the stats:

Name: Samantha Marie

Born: April 20, 2008 12:07pm

Weight: 6lb 8oz

Length: 19 inches

Big brother Shawn was pretty excited. He was a little reluctant to hold her at first, but gave in....however it only lasted about 3 minutes which was when he told me he was done :)

Windows Live Writer

Maybe I'm the only person who didn't already know about this, but Windows Live Writer makes posting soooo much easier than using the blogger interface. You have so much more control over picture placement and manipulation...it's like writing and inserting pictures in Word. If you want to try it out you can download it from HERE for free.

Wyoming

This past weekend I flew back to Cheyenne for my sister's baby shower. I almost didn't fly out for it, but I'm REALLY glad I did. It was so nice to spend some time with her and her husband. Our visits are far and few between. The weather was crazy...at least compared to California weather...When I flew into Denver Saturday it was absolutely gorgeous...65+ degrees and sunny. Sunday morning I woke up to 1+ inches of snow and VERY cold weather...not sure how cold because we didn't really venture out. Monday started out sunny...snowed a little while still being sunny...became almost white out conditions...then got sunny again all within a few hours. What a roller coaster ride!!

So besides the weather...

Saturday we stopped at Babies R Us so they could pick up a couple of items and had lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. Then we made a pit stop at JJill in Fort Collins so I could buy a new pair of jeans since mine ripped getting into the car at the airport...guess I better start working out again :P We stopped at Susan's inlaws to pick up folding chairs for the shower on Sunday then finally got to Cheyenne around 3pm. We got dinner started since some of Leevi's friends were coming over for dinner then got some wall decorations put up in the nursery and installed the mobile on the crib.

The baby shower was on Sunday. It was a nice turnout. Unfortunately quite a few people ended up sick and were kind enough not to come so they wouldn't get Susan sick :) We had some munchies, played a few games, and Susan opened gifts. Unfortunately my mom wasn't able to come out for the shower due to the price of airline tickets out of McKinleyville, but she joined the shower via webcam. I was the picture taker for the shower, but I used Susan's camera so you'll have to go to SUSAN'S blog to see them.

Susan's goal is to be completely ready for the baby by May 1st (a month before her due date), so after dinner on Sunday, we headed to Target to see if they had any of the big items still on her registry. We came home with a swing and a bouncer among other things which Leevi got to assemble :) And then we did more shopping on Monday. We got some organizers for the closet and kitchen, a few other items for the nursery and very cute little boy and little girl outfits for when they leave the hospital (since they don't know what they are having).

GIRL OUTFIT

BOY OUTFIT

   

The overalls are similar to these, but have a green frog in the pocket instead of the orange dinosaur. Susan has a few frog onesies and a pair of blue and white striped socks to go with it.

It was a really great trip. I'm so glad I got to hang out with Susan and help her get things organized...I can't wait to meet the baby in June!

Around the House

So, again I'm a little behind the times, but a couple of weekends ago, we installed a ceiling fan in our front room. Before we remodeled the front room there was a VERY ugly brass chandelier hanging where most people would put a dining room table. So when we did the remodel we took it down and put a smoke detector in it's place so we wouldn't have to patch the hole. For about a year now, Steve has been bugging me to put a fan in the front room because it gets a little warm when there are a lot of bodies so I finally caved. So here's the fan we chose.



We had to find a smaller fan so it would fit within the constraints of the monorail lighting. So down came the smoke detector and up went the ceiling fan. It was actually VERY simple to install...especially since we didn't have to wire it to a switch since it has a remote control. Here it is up in the room.


Last weekend we finally fixed a broken drawer rail. The one installed by the contractor had a plastic boot on one end (by the way, just about the whole slide is also plastic). They stapled the boot to the back of the cabinet...and well the last time I pulled out the drawer it snapped off, but all is well now.

I also had the joy of trying to get my raised garden beds prepared for planting...essentially what I ended up doing was cleaning cat poop out of GIANT litter boxes since the neighbor cats have apparently decided to use them as such. Now I'm trying to come up with how to keep the cats out after I've planted in the them. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

President's Day Weekend

I know this post is coming a little late...but better late than never :)

We had a great visit with Susan, my parents and my Uncle David. Susan flew in on Friday and out on Monday. Everyone else came Friday and left Sunday. Unfortunately Steve had come down with a really bad cold on Thursday so he was out of commission all weekend...and everyone tried to stay away from him!

We had a girls day on Saturday and headed to Concord to meet Susan's friend Kelsey for lunch at Claim Jumpers. We shared their "Cookie Sandwich" for dessert and between the 4 of us we still couldn't eat it all!!

BEFORE

AFTER

We stopped at Babies R Us on the way home so Susan could do a little browsing (and shopping). We stopped in Livermore to see Angela and Steve and Mason...unfortunately we didn't get to see Adrienne since she was working.

SUSAN AND MASON

SUSAN AND ANGELA

Meanwhile my dad and uncle headed to Livermore to do a little wine tasting...poor Steve was too sick to go.

Everyone left fairly early on Sunday so Susan and I got to hang out together all day Sunday. We had a nice relaxing day hanging around Tracy. Spent some time sitting outside in the "new" backyard talking since the weather was absolutely beautiful.

It was a really great weekend. It seems like the times are far and few between these days that we can all be together.

Irish Beach

Susan, below are the houses we are looking at in Irish Beach for the family reunion in August. Let us know if you have found any elsewhere that you like better. If you click on the name it will take you to the website.

CYPRESS
2Bed/2Bath (K, Q, Sleeper Sofa)

SURFPERCH
3Bed/3Bath (K, Q, Q)

SEA MIST
2Bed/2Bath (Q, Q, Sleeper Sofa)

ARENA VISTA
3Bed/2Bath (Q, Q, 2Twin)

PANORAMIC OCEAN VIEW
2Bed/2Bath (Q, Q, AirBed)


HONEY'S GETAWAY
3Bed/2Bath (K, Q, D)


PATRICIA'S IRISH BEACH HOUSE
3Bed/2Bath (K, Q, 2Twins)

Great Weekend

Friday wasn't the best travel day considering we probably got over an inch of rain and had wind gusts up to 30mph, but my parents made it down to our place in time for dinner. After dinner we called Susan using the webcam. It was almost like having her here...but not quite :( Saturday we headed out to Livermore to pickup the "futures" Steve and my dad had purchased at Retzlaff winery last year. We got to taste their 2006 wines, had a yummy lunch, then barrel tasted the 2007 wines. Finally they picked out which wines they wanted in their cases and we headed out to EXPO design center to browse. There is always WAY too much to look at there! We had a good time "dreaming" of what we could do...if we all had a whole lot more money! Then we headed back to Livermore for dinner at Uncle U's. It is a great Chinese restaurant...not your typical Chinese food. I guess you would call it gourmet Chinese. When we got home, we all played some pool...some of us had better games than others...mine would be one of the worst :) Then they had to leave this morning. Coming for a weekend is never long enough, but it was a great weekend!