Friday, November 25, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving Day, Time to set up the Christmas tree!
The week-end of our big family T-day, Chris & I went to Walmart to kick off our Christmas season by getting some outdoor decorations & lights. I saw this tree & problem solved! I stewed for a few more days just to be sure. Looked at a bunch of other trees, including real ones. But I ended up with the same problems, the heater vent & I really didn't want to wait till just before Christmas to put it up.
So as you can see I picked up the tree and some supplies last night. =)
It is 7 1/2 feet and lightly frosted. I never really liked flocked trees, I always thought they looked fake even when it was done to a real tree! But this one is just right!! It will look awesome after it is decorated!
The tree comes in 3 sections and has clear lights already on it. The branches are hinged and fell right into place as soon as I put the sections together!
This is the tree right out of the box, it only took a few minutes to set it up. We fluffed up some of the branches before this photo but as you can see we could decorate it as it is just out of the box if we were tight on time.
There are a bazillion moveable tips on all the branches so it can be formed just right! And of course I want to add some colored lights too.
We didn't bring most of our decorations with us, (another reason for getting this particular tree) I think it will look great even with just a few decorations!This is the tree positioned, centered, fluffed & ready for decorating. I might take down the curtains behind it so it can be seen outside better.
Time to get busy! I have a lot to do! Oh BTW, I have also been stewing about where & how to set up my Christmas village this year, the box the tree came in is perfect! I will put up the village on the box in the entry!
The last few days have been to stormy to put up outdoor stuff yet so that will have to wait a few more days. I will post again when I get more stuff done!
November 19th, 2011. A VERY Thankful Day!
We had our big family Thanksgiving the week end before the actual day in order for everyone to be here. It is the first time this group has been all together since Mark & I were married, and this year will be our 10th anniversary! Way tooo long for families to be apart!
I loved cooking this huge meal in my new kitchen! We had a 19lb. turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy. Green bean casserole, corn custard, green & fruit salads. Of course we had sweets too, candy left over from Halloween, home made peanut-butter fudge, pumpkin pie & pumpkin bread. Oh, and dinner rolls!
There was lots of room in our big house for everyone to crash on the floor and the grand kids had tons of room outside to run off their sugar buzz! Of course Rowdy was right in the middle of everything! He loves the kids and the company!
It was a great day for Mark & I, we love you all so very much! We are thankful for such beautiful children! And we are excited to get ready to do it all again for Christmas!!
I loved cooking this huge meal in my new kitchen! We had a 19lb. turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy. Green bean casserole, corn custard, green & fruit salads. Of course we had sweets too, candy left over from Halloween, home made peanut-butter fudge, pumpkin pie & pumpkin bread. Oh, and dinner rolls!
There was lots of room in our big house for everyone to crash on the floor and the grand kids had tons of room outside to run off their sugar buzz! Of course Rowdy was right in the middle of everything! He loves the kids and the company!
It was a great day for Mark & I, we love you all so very much! We are thankful for such beautiful children! And we are excited to get ready to do it all again for Christmas!!
November 14th. Keely's Sweet 16 Birthday!
Our granddaughter Keely turned 16 today! Mom gave her a party after school with a couple friends. Of course we were there too. After she opened her gifts we played a birthday game for the last gift. She had to cover her eyes with a scarf. Then she was taken outside and spun around. We then took off the scarf & she was to go find her last gift.
Happy Birthday Keely! We love you!
Happy Birthday Keely! We love you!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Live the Dream!
I guess I need to add a comment here, I actually had a ride on the beach like this when I was guiding! It was on a palomino Thoroughbred just off the race track. It was the first time I rode a horse full out like that, it was an incredible, thrilling ride and just a little scary! This video also reminds me of galloping down the beach on Lacey. Good memories! =)
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
We have come a long way in the last 2 months!
It is hard to believe it has only been 2 months!
A new well has been drilled and we now have good drinkable water!
The second day after move in we went to Sears & got all new matching appliances! I L O V E this fridge! Even though it is actually smaller than the old one, it has A LOT more room. It also has a filtered water dispenser on the inside! The stove & oven is huge too! Good thing because I will be cooking a HUGE!! turkey this year!! 
That same day we also stopped at Selmer's furniture & got these new matching sofas & recliner. I actually found these in the Soldotna Fred Meyers, these are sooooo comfy! And they should hold up much better for us than the micro fiber stuff did! 
We also spent a whole day going to garage sales. First we found 2 nice end tables, 2 table lamps & a nice book shelf with a light in it. Then later we found this really nice coffee w/2 matching end tables and this awesome dinning table! Just the table is 5 foot but is has 2 leafs that expand it out to 7 feet! It came with 4 regular chairs & 2 captains chairs. The chairs have been newly reupholstered and were still in the bags. The table top really needs to be refinished though, a project I will have fun with this winter! (after the holidays of course =) My first project was installing some DVD selves! In doing some math, these 3 shelves should hold about 500 DVDs & as you can see we totally filled them up! =)
My next project was office shelves. Oh yea, I got this nice desk at a garage sale too, only paid $20.00 for it! I have also bought a folding craft table to go under the window. Now with all this space & shelves, hopefully it wont get as cluttered! (hahaha yea right! ;)
Catching Up! (Part 3) Home at Last
We didn't sit in the truck to long, we were to excited! So far everything we could see from the outside & in the dark was so much better than the photos we couldn't wait to see the inside of the house. Mark went in first to flip the main breakers and get some lights on. I had spent so much time dreaming of this moment, of the two of us walking into this new house for the first time together. I was not very happy that I couldn't just jump out of the truck and go in with Mark. But stumbling around in the dark with the walker was not a good idea!
As soon as the power came on the house was filled with several very loud, annoying & distracting beeping sounds! The house has several smoke alarms and they were ALL going off sounding low batteries! So the first really cool thing we noticed in the new house was the very high ceilings! Which at the moment was not a good thing because we could not reach the alarms to turn them off!
We decided to unload the bags we brought with us on the plane, then Mark went in search of something to stand on to turn off the alarms. He managed to get all but two of the alarms shut down. It was still noisy but at least we could concentrate on looking at the house now.
The house is HUGE! The high ceilings give it an even bigger felling. And like the outside the photos didn't even come close to showing how awesome this house really is! It felt like we were walking into a palace and we still can't believe how lucky we are to have found such a perfect home!
About this time exhaustion was overcoming our excitement and even the still chirping smoke alarms. It was about 5am and except for a very short nap on the plane we have at this point been up for well over 24 hours! Then another problem, Rowdy would NOT come into the house! He too was totally stressed out by the move and I guess the noisy alarms were more than he could take. He jumped into the bed of the rental truck & would NOT move! Luckily it was a very warm night so we decided to set up the airbed in the living room & left the door ajar so Rowdy could come in if he wanted to. However we couldn't find the airbed pump, to tired to worry about it, we slept on the floor.
We didn't sleep long but felt refreshed when we woke up. The first order of business was coffee! Unfortunately that was not to happen, what little water came out of the kitchen faucet was disgusting! Brown & smelly! Well we knew there might be some water *challenges* we will have to deal with it.
We had to go into town anyway to get a ladder & some batteries for the smoke alarms but we stopped at a small diner for coffee first. We got our thoughts together & wrote out a "To Do" list. We contacted the plumber/driller that replaced the well pump & talked about drilling a new well. It is going to be a major expense that we were hoping to avoid but we knew it would be worth it in the long run. So an appointment was made for Sept. 9th.
We spent the morning getting supplies (including an airbed pump & a ladder!) We do not have any appliances yet so we didn't buy any groceries. We did get a coffee maker & LOTS of water though! We got home, replaced the smoke alarm batteries & set up the airbed. We were finally able to encourage Rowdy to come in the house.
The internet & phone was sapos to have been turned on a few days before we got here but of course it wasn't! On top of that our cell phones only worked in one very small space by the front windows. So we spent the rest of the day trying to get phone, internet & TV. Our house sits in a dead zone, we have ended up with 3 satellite dishes on the house and even then, we just barley have internet & cell phones! This has actually been a good thing, I have spent more time OUT side in the last 2 months than all of the last 6 years! So yea... it's a good trade!
With that said, this blog is so far behind that important stuff is getting missed! So I will wrap this up in the next blog and bring it up to date!
As soon as the power came on the house was filled with several very loud, annoying & distracting beeping sounds! The house has several smoke alarms and they were ALL going off sounding low batteries! So the first really cool thing we noticed in the new house was the very high ceilings! Which at the moment was not a good thing because we could not reach the alarms to turn them off!
We decided to unload the bags we brought with us on the plane, then Mark went in search of something to stand on to turn off the alarms. He managed to get all but two of the alarms shut down. It was still noisy but at least we could concentrate on looking at the house now.
The house is HUGE! The high ceilings give it an even bigger felling. And like the outside the photos didn't even come close to showing how awesome this house really is! It felt like we were walking into a palace and we still can't believe how lucky we are to have found such a perfect home! About this time exhaustion was overcoming our excitement and even the still chirping smoke alarms. It was about 5am and except for a very short nap on the plane we have at this point been up for well over 24 hours! Then another problem, Rowdy would NOT come into the house! He too was totally stressed out by the move and I guess the noisy alarms were more than he could take. He jumped into the bed of the rental truck & would NOT move! Luckily it was a very warm night so we decided to set up the airbed in the living room & left the door ajar so Rowdy could come in if he wanted to. However we couldn't find the airbed pump, to tired to worry about it, we slept on the floor.
We didn't sleep long but felt refreshed when we woke up. The first order of business was coffee! Unfortunately that was not to happen, what little water came out of the kitchen faucet was disgusting! Brown & smelly! Well we knew there might be some water *challenges* we will have to deal with it.
We had to go into town anyway to get a ladder & some batteries for the smoke alarms but we stopped at a small diner for coffee first. We got our thoughts together & wrote out a "To Do" list. We contacted the plumber/driller that replaced the well pump & talked about drilling a new well. It is going to be a major expense that we were hoping to avoid but we knew it would be worth it in the long run. So an appointment was made for Sept. 9th.
We spent the morning getting supplies (including an airbed pump & a ladder!) We do not have any appliances yet so we didn't buy any groceries. We did get a coffee maker & LOTS of water though! We got home, replaced the smoke alarm batteries & set up the airbed. We were finally able to encourage Rowdy to come in the house.
The internet & phone was sapos to have been turned on a few days before we got here but of course it wasn't! On top of that our cell phones only worked in one very small space by the front windows. So we spent the rest of the day trying to get phone, internet & TV. Our house sits in a dead zone, we have ended up with 3 satellite dishes on the house and even then, we just barley have internet & cell phones! This has actually been a good thing, I have spent more time OUT side in the last 2 months than all of the last 6 years! So yea... it's a good trade!
With that said, this blog is so far behind that important stuff is getting missed! So I will wrap this up in the next blog and bring it up to date!
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