I think you should...

Saturday was the big housewarming, the day that has had us motivated for the last month (I am pretty sure nothing major will be getting done on the house this week, can we say "bu-urr-ned out!)

Thursday night our friends Ted and Krista showed up and Friday Josh and Jill joined us. So Friday night turned out to be a pre-housewarming party with a very interesting game of Mexican Train. These four awesome friends helped us shop, clean, put in new bark, and they put up with my crazy cleaning attack on the house before everyone arrived (imagine 6 people and 5 dogs trying to get ready for a bunch of people to arrive while I have the entire kitchen and hallway blocked so that I can mop, while reminding them all to make their beds and clean up there stuff, I hope they will forgive me and come back again someday).

The party was a great success! We counted almost 50 guests who came and went throughout the day. Folks started arriving at noon and we didn't get them out until 1:00 in the morning! It was a great day and it was really fun to share our home with all our friends. I think our favorite part was hearing all the suggestions of what we should do next. The favorite subject was the giant sandpit in our backyard, aka "wading pool". I like to call it "the huge hole in my backyard that the stupid people before us dug." Suggestions included:

An above ground swimming pool (not bad, other than it would block the double gate where you can drive into the backyard).

A swingset (I thought this was great until my friend Megan pointed out that we would be the creepy couple with no children but a swingset..."come here little kiddie")

A hot tub (too much work for me!)

Add some trucks and make it a sandbox (not a bad idea, our niece, Ariel, loved it when she was over, plus this is easy and CHEAP).

Put a swimming pool in with a zip-line from the deck to the pool (okay, maybe you should drink some water for a while).

A garden (not a bad suggestion, but not really the best place for a garden).

Other suggestions for our house included:

Building a rock back for our fireplace to replace the wood.
Adding trees in very specific places (it was a hot day, people were looking for shade).
Taking down our bees nests (okay so we never look up at the eaves of the house, and we are trying to take care of that now that we are aware of them).
Rebuilding our deck (yes, that would be the dream)
Adding children (I guess then we wouldn't be the creepy couple with the swing set).
Building a bar under the deck (okay this one might be a winner!)

We had such a great time seeing all our family and friends and sharing our home with them. We may have to make this a yearly event, people can see all the progress we have made each year. I am sorry I don't have any pictures to share, I took two, and it was dark, so I was a lame-o with the camera this weekend. Hope everyone who couldn't make it had a fabulous weekend and for everyone who was there, thank you for everything, it was so fun!

Yards and Sales

It was another busy weekend around our house! Mom came in on Friday night so that she could help us get the house ready and on Saturday morning we got up early (okay she was up early, me not so much) to hit the big yard sale in our neighborhood. We came home with a truck load of stuff! So fun! But the best buy of the day was this:

For 15 dollars! I am sure you recall that we already have a lawn mower, well as is the usual subject of my posts, it died. And I'm pretty sure it died a final death. I was using it last weekend when it puttered out and stopped. It was not out of gas...it was out of oil. This is bad in the world of engines. Turns out it had been spraying oil out the bottom. So instead of spending hours fixing it I bought this baby, and it works! And it mowed our lawn beautifully! And I will have amazing biceps by the end of the summer because it is NOT self-propelled.

Bryce spend the weekend working on our garage. He inherited a BUNCH of amazing wood working tools and stuff, but it is taking a while to figure out and organize.
Look! A picture of me working! Mom and I worked on edging and weeding the landscaped areas around the house.

We ripped out this bush with our bare hands!
Here's mom talking to Paul while taking a break in my "new" lawn chairs from a yard sale.

It was a very successful weekend and we have continued to edge and weed outside this week as well. I will have some more pictures that will hopefully include after pictures coming soon!

The Big Storm

We have been doing so much around the house lately, and I really want to write a super long post about it all, but I have been in class all day, worked half the evening, and now Bryce is calling me to come and help with more weed pulling in the back yard. "I'll be there in a second!!!" So I will leave you with this quick entry.

On Friday night, mom was in town ready to help us get all kinds of things done before our house warming party (I didn't send you an invite Sarah because I thought you wouldn't drive all this way after being in the truck all week! But we would love to have you if you can make it!). So we sat around visiting when this amazing storm rolled in! We had the great idea to turn off all the lights and watch it out the back slider. It was so bright we could hardly watch! The power flickered but we didn't totally lose it.



The next morning I went out onto the recently power-washed, incredibly ugly, will not be painted before the party, deck and saw this:

Yes, we were struck by lightening! Now we know that our deck is not a safe place to watch a lightening storm. These two marks were right next to each other but there is another smaller mark on a different spot on the deck. Crazy!

It's colder in the basement

It has taken me about a month to get things done enough that I could write this post. As the weather got hotter and the basement got cooler, I realized that this is a space we will want to hang out in soon! Here is the before picture of the living space in the basement, before we even bought the house!

This is what the room has looked like for the first three months that we lived in the house. Totally unusable, we barely even walked into this room, only long enough to find something that was still packed or store something else!

Argh! It was such a mess!

And Ta-Da! The after picture! We took out the stove and sold it on craigslist. Our plan is to build a built-in entertainment center where the stove used to be. The walls down here are the same color as upstairs.
Finally we can see the other couch again!
If you didn't see this at our wedding Bryce's Grandpa made it for us out of wood from the old farm in Eastern Montana. This is the first time we have been able to get it out of the box since our wedding.
We have our housewarming party coming up in less than two weeks! So we should have lots to report in the next few days as we work to get everything beautiful before our party!

It's 83 degrees

We all know that I think my husband is amazing, he can fix nearly anything, and if he doesn't know how he will figure it out. I have had an indoor/outdoor thermometer since college. The first place I had it I was able to stick the outside piece on the wall with this awesome sticky stuff it came with. Since then I have duct taped it to a wall, and balanced it on the rail of several decks.

When we moved in to the new house I got the thermometer out, because I like to know the outside temperature when we walk the dogs in the morning. I balanced it on the deck rail, as usual. Bryce saw it, and being the handy and helpful husband that he is he screwed it to the outside wall. In the middle of the wall for all the people sitting on the deck to see. And as mentioned before I've had it since college, at many places, it is UG-LEEY! So as happy as I am that it is permanently up, it's hideous. This evening, after a margarita, I feel that it is appropriate to tell Bryce, "I love you. But I do not know why you put that thermometer in the middle of the wall."

I proceed to show him where it should be, hidden behind the rail on the wall. He goes and gets his drill and moves it. "Thank you wonderful, amazing, Husband of mine." I get up to look at it's new home, he screwed it on to the rail, where the rain could get it. "Um...now it will get rained on." I think he isn't going to talk to me anymore...but he did move it again. :)

So we have this tree...

And it's a dead tree. Okay it's only mostly dead, and there is a big difference between all dead and mostly dead, but in this case the difference is you must be cut down if you are mostly dead. So after spending all morning at church working on the yard there we came home to cut down a few of our own trees and bushes. We borrowed the chainsaw from mom. Here is our dead tree located on the corner of our property:

Clearly this second tree is not dead. But it grew from a shoot that someone should have pulled out. It's in a bad place and it puts shoots all over our yard, it's going to go too...

Starting the chainsaw, it doesn't start up very quickly, this took a while. I almost took a video so that you could enjoy the suspense that I enjoyed. But I got bored and started doing something else...

It took a little push, to help guarantee that it didnt' fall on the truck or the power boxes.

And success! No more dead tree!

I swear to you that the second this tree hit the ground our neighbors from all around came running over to tell us what a great job we are doing and how hard we are working and how happy they are that we are their neighbors and that that tree has been dead forever and finally it's gone, and the people before us were awful! I think you get the drift, Bryce and I now think that we are pretty cool and our heads have grown slightly after the neighborly praise.

Look I put it in the truck! That runs! All the way to the dump and back several times!



Ah, yes, but as is right on par for me, the chainsaw broke down before we could cut down tree number two...

But one of those awesome neighbors giving us praise heard about our little problem and came running with their chainsaw! Almost literally, I swear to you these people could not be more excited that we are cutting down trees. I thought we would be making them mad with all the noise, but no.

So the little chainsaw that could (barely) cut down tree number two. Bryce is taking it to the dump right now, I opted out on a second trip to the dump today. Bryce and I in the truck + two dogs is not super comfy. So I said I would stay home and mow the lawn, clearly that is getting done.



Here is a really bad "After" picture of the corner. For some reason I take blurry pictures at night. But you get the idea, there is nothing left, we took out the bushes too (they are in this picture but they have already been cut down). Now we will work on the soil and then start planting new trees and flowers.

We had so much fun meeting more of our neighbors and we feel so lucky that they are all so kind and generous. After only having talked for 10 minutes, Andy brought over his chainsaw and said we could bring it back whenever we are done with it, no hurry. It kinda feels like a small town :)

That Day

Yesterday was the day, the day I dread for at least a month leading up to it. The day that makes me cry for that month leading up to it. And I didn't write on that day because it's sad and I didn't want to write a sad entry. But although this year, four years since my Dad died, I have been a mess leading up to this day, the day was a good day.

I woke up and spent the morning visiting with my mom about our house, the sun, and babies :) Then I went to work and it was a nice day and I got a lot done, even though there are some scary changes happening there (layoffs, salary cuts, etc.). I got home and had a nice dinner with my husband and then we went for a LONG walk with the dogs. We live about 3 blocks from the power lines. And under the power lines there are nice dirt roads to walk on and Thisbe can be off her leash and RUN! The sun was setting, it was beautiful and we had a great talk about our house, the sun, and babies :). I didn't watch the video of Dad pictures last night because I decided that since I hadn't cried all day I wasn't going too.

Today Bryce dropped our "new" truck off at the mechanic and was explaining how due to some problem with the ignition my Dad and rewired the ignition and you now have to flip two switches and push a button to start it. The mechanic thought this was pretty innovative. And for the first time Bryce called my Dad his Father-In-Law. He doesn't know why, it just came out that way for the first time today.

After he died everybody would say "it will get better with time." This was my least favorite thing that people would tell me, because I didn't believe them and I still don't. My theory is, it doesn't get better, but we learn to live with it, and we have a "new" normal. Things will never be how they were before but there will be a new way and things will still be good. My Dad died around the time of "Life is Good" t-shirts. I also hate these, because life is rarely good. When life is good we have to grab it and run and remember what that was like because most of the time things are not good. Money is tight, jobs are lost, people are hurt, people die, but then there are those times when you have a good dinner, a long walk, and talk about the house, the sun, and babies :).

The one about our Dogs

I love these dogs, I really do...

Rico came to be a part of my life when I spent way too much money on a dog from a pet store. I do NOT recommend this as I now know that many of these dogs come from puppy mills, but I got lucky. Rico and I lived the single life together, walking, cruising for cute boys and bitches, we have been sleeping together from almost three years. The first big fight Bryce and I ever had was over this stupid dog. I have a rediculous, unhealthy love for this dog. My mom asked me recently if a truck were about to hit Rico and Bryce who would I save. I said "well, Bryce has a better chance of surviving." Both my mother and my mother-in-law worry that they will kill my dog and I will never speak to them again. MIL was watching the dogs for a few minutes while Bryce ran off to do something and Rico got out. She knew this because she heard a car squeal to a stop. Afterwards, Bryce and his mom kept telling Rico how I would never speak to them again if he had been run over.

Bryce had a dog when he was very young. After the dog died his family brought home a new puppy for Easter. His youngest sister Bekah nearly ended up in the hospital she was so allergic. Bryce and his older sister Sarah recommended sending Bekah to live with Grandma and Grandpa so that the puppy could stay. Needless to say they didn't agree to that arrangement and he never had a dog of his own.

Our second dog Thisbe, I blame on my mother. She sent me an e-mail from a co-worker selling puppies last summer. We had talked about getting a lab puppy after we got married and found a house. But here were these adorable little puppies and my MOTHER of all people, was encouraging me to get one for Bryce. They would be ready to go home on his Birthday. So I got the brilliant idea of surprising him with his first puppy for his 25th birthday. Never "surprise" someone with a puppy. Puppies are A LOT of work and you need to be prepared, not surprised. On a beautiful August day I left work early, picked up this puppy and put her in the back yard with a ribbon on. Bryce got home and I said come out here look what I found! He was in shock for about three days. I'm pretty sure he likes her now :)

At 5:00 this morning Thisbe starts to whine. Not a constant "I need to go potty" whine, but a short quiet whine that wakes you up just enough. And when you are about to fall back to sleep, she does it again. Because Rico and I have been sleeping together for 3 years, he knows the second I'm awake and starts stretching, which results in him scratching my face off. So he licks it to make it better. Now Thisbe knows we are both awake and the whining is more serious. So I throw back the covers and to their great excitement put them outside.

But this is not what they want. They want food. So they stand outside, scratch at the door, continue to whine. So now in my anger I get up, stomp out, grab the bowls from outside while trying to hide from the neighbors because I'm in my underwear, Thisbe smashes into the screen door (again) bending it, so I can't hardly close it anymore. I throw her back outside, head down the stairs and of course, fall... on my butt, down three steps.

Now, sometimes, the food is enough, they will play outside and I can go back to sleep. But not today. Today everybody is out at 5:15 in the morning running, riding bikes, and walking dogs. So they bark....and bark....and bark. So I make them come back in, and you know what they did?!? They went back to sleep...

I love them, I really do...