Christmas 2008

Well, Steve and I spent most of the week of Christmas SICK!! I got home from a work trip to Portland on the 18th and started getting a little cough on Sunday. I went to work Monday, but ended up coming home early with a fever. Steve got a fever on Tuesday and we didn’t get rid of it till Friday morning. Not the best way to spend Christmas!

Before Christmas I met up with Amber, her parents, her brother, and her niece for a belated birthday dinner. I was really great to see her…it had been way too long!

I made the usual swedish tea rings for friends and family in the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. I think I made 10 in all this year.

We also went to our neighborhood Christmas party which was a lot of fun. It was at our neighbor’s house and scheduled from 4-6pm…I don’t think we left there until 10pm. We played charades forever and everyone had a really good time. We’ve decided to make it a twice a year event.

Even though I was sick, I made it to my sister-in-laws house for Christmas Eve to deliver gifts. I spent a couple of hours visiting. Unfortunately Steve was way too sick to go. Here are some pictures of our niece and nephew (Samantha and Shawn) from the evening.

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a safe and happy New Year!

Cats

Well, Saturday we had a little more excitement than we really wanted. First thing in the morning we caught Sam chewing on a flower arrangement in the kitchen. We didn’t think much of it until he started dry heaving. After talking with our normal vets office they wanted us to take him to the emergency vet in Dublin since they don’t have overnight observation. We really didn’t want to make the trip into Dublin, so I called and talked to them first. They suggested calling Animal Poison Control (I didn’t know there was such a thing). So we did. They charge a $60 consultation fee, but it ended up being worth it. Our best guess was that he had chewed on eucalyptus which is apparently poisonous to cats. They said to take food and water away from him for 2 hours, then give him 1.5 tsps of milk of magnesia and watch him for 20 minutes to make sure he keeps it down. He did and he seemed MUCH better this morning. And we were happy that instead of a trip to Dublin, we just had to make a trip to the local store!!

We finally decorated the Christmas tree last night. I think this is the first year we’ve had a Christmas tree since we’ve had Coco Bean. She was intrigued by the whole thing. She kept propping herself up in the braches with her front paws. This morning we found a couple of ornaments on the ground, but all in all she has done far better than we ever anticipated. We figured the whole tree would have been toppled over by now. So here is a picture of our tree this year.

Lots of Catching Up

Where to start…we finally finished “the project” and as always, it was just in time for a big event. We even got the carpets cleaned and the tile and granite cleaned and sealed. It was SOOOOO nice to have a clean house again.

We got some new wall art for the front room.

We bought the best litter box in the world. It cost an arm and a leg, but so far it is SOOOO worth it. It actually washes the litter (it uses special washable litter) and then dries it. We have it scheduled to run twice a day. It scoops the poop, mashes it up and it goes down the drain with the wash water. We never have to touch it except to add litter every once in awhile (which we haven’t done yet) and change the sanisolution cartridge (which lasts a month). We were afraid Coco Bean wasn’t going to use it, but after about a week she finally did and with no accidents from either cat!!

Wednesday afternoon I made my annual run to Whole Foods for the turkey and tenderloin roast and made it home by 2 to do a little food prep. We ran a couple of errands and got some dinner and on the way back we got first a text message from the alarm company, then a phone call from the alarm company telling us that our sliding glass door had been opened and asking if we wanted them to dispatch the police. Since we were only 5 min from home we opted not to have them dispatch. We had trouble turning the alarm off when we got home and the poor cats were huddled under our bed trying to get away from the awful sound…can’t say I blame them. We found our back door open a few inches. So whoever tried to break in must have been scared off by the alarm. We were afraid they tried to break in to our neighbors house too so we ended up calling the police out to have them check it out since they were out of town. We found out that our slider, even when locked, can be opened if pulled hard enough…so we dropped a 2x4 in it to prevent that from happening again. A little scare…but all is well.

After all that happened my parents and grandma arrived around 9:30pm. The evening turned out to be a little more eventful than we were expecting!

My uncle came on Thursday morning and Steve’s family came around noonish. We had a great Thanksgiving with! Good food, good wine, lots of desserts, and great company :) Everyone had a really nice time…at least I hope they did :) I know Steve and I did. And now I finally have some more pictures of Samantha.

    

Friday we did a little shopping…no not 4am shopping. We headed out after lunch to help my grandma shop for some new clothes. And she came out with quite a haul too!! Friday night we put up our new FAKE Christmas tree. I always said I would NEVER cave and get a fake tree…well I guess this is what I get for saying never. I do have to say that the tree looks pretty real for being a fake tree. We still don’t have it decorated though…maybe tomorrow night. Mom and Grandma played a little Wii Bowling…I think my dad and Steve got in on the action too, but I didn’t get video of them.

 

 

Saturday morning everyone left and Steve and I headed out to visit with Trisha and Jason and to meet Anthony for the first time. It was so great to see them. Anthony has such a great little personality. For being sick, he was cheerier than I would have been! I wished we lived a little closer and could spend time together more often. We’re hoping to see them again a Christmas.

And finally, to wrap up the weekend, Steve and I went shooting on Sunday. After the attempted break in on Wednesday, Steve decided he wanted to add a pistol to his gun collection, so I tried out a few different guns to see which I liked best. I guess we’re in the market for a Springfield 45 now.

Well, I think that about sums up the big gap in time since my last post. I’ll try to post a little more often from here on out…but no promises :) Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

FINALLY!!!

We have officially finished the crown molding!! We got all of it up last weekend…and let me tell you by the time we got it all up, I was worrying about what this was going to look like because it was UGLY! But with a little sanding, a lot of caulking, and some touch up painting I was really happy with how it all turned out. Our “project” is just about done. We have 4 more doors that need to be sanded, painted and re-hung with the new hardware.

From the kitchen           Looking into the kitchen

 

Looking toward the office  Dealing with bullnose corners…no fun

Anne’s desk in office      Steve’s desk in office

Office looking into hall                   Crown Molding

Here is the new door hardware we are putting on everything

Weekend

Well, we had a productive weekend, but I feel like we still have a ton to do! Saturday was a shopping day. I bought some new clothes at JJill, Steve got a new cell phone, and we made a trip to Trader Joes…had to stock up on essentials like carne asada, organic whole wheat spaghetti, and brown basmati rice. Sunday on the other hand was a working day. We got some more stuff moved into the Tuff Shed, got a solar powered light installed in the Tuff Shed, sanded and painted 2 doors (we still have no doors on any rooms adjacent to the hallway except our bedroom), mowed the lawn, and installed the nailing strip for the crown molding. We’re hoping to get the two doors hung tonight, but every time we change out door hardware, the door never seems to close correctly. The new hardware never seems to line up the same way as the old hardware…I guess we’ll see how it goes. Well, I think that’s all the excitement around here. Maybe with some luck we’ll have some crown molding up next weekend!I can’t wait to have this project done…our house is a complete disaster and everything is need of a DEEP cleaning!

Lights & Crown Molding

We finally got our lights this weekend. I really like the way they look and with 7.5W bulbs they put out just the right amount of light. We put motion sensors in the hall so the sconces will automatically come on when someone starts walking down the hall. It’s really nice! Unfortunately one light doesn’t quite work right, so we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. Here are some pictures of our lights.

So we are still trying to pick out crown molding for the hall and office. Here are the 5 we were looking at. I think we are leaning toward one of the last three. What do you think?

And here’s a picture of Sam. He decided to sleep in our laundry basket on top of all the dirty clothes!

Project Update

So we have a majority of the painting done. We decided that we are going to install crown molding, so that’s why the wall isn’t painted all the way. We just ordered some samples to see what we might like. The floor was installed Friday & Saturday (most of it anyway, we were just short so the closet in the office isn’t finished). We got the switches and new switch plates installed (lights are supposed to be in this week). So I thought I would post a couple of pictures. It’s difficult to take pictures in our hallway, so it’s a little dark.

  

   Hallway from gym         Where the 2 hallways come together

            Office                  New switches and plates in the hall

So last Friday we had a message on our answering machine warning us that there was a chicken in our yard. The message was absolutely hilarious…but anyway, by the time we got home there was no chicken. However, on Sunday the cats started going crazy and we looked out the window to find a chicken sitting on our fence. It jumped into the neighbor’s yard. We went over to the neighbor’s since they weren’t home to make sure they didn’t have a chicken floating in their pool and the chicken was chasing a cat through the yard. The whole thing was quite comical. So here’s a picture of our neighborhood chicken (we haven’t seen it since).

We also had a praying mantis…at least I think that’s what this is hanging out on the side of our house…doesn’t blend in so well on our white house!