Road Trip!

So our big 1 year anniversary is coming up in less than a month. Back when we got married we talked about where we would go and what we would do for our 1 year anniversary. I think it was sometime this spring that we decided to go to Yosemite National Park and meet up with my Uncle Steven to hike half-dome. I did this once before, several years ago with my brother and Uncle Steven. And I would like to insert a picture here, but I can't fine one, so they must be on a disc somewhere...

Anyway, the original plan was to fly of course, but then I realized for two people to fly it would cost twice as much as driving my super efficient Dodge Neon. So we thought how fun would it be to drive to Yosemite and camp all the way there and back with all our sweet new camping gear that we got for our wedding? So on Wednesday morning we will be taking off to drive to Yosemite. On the way back we will drive through the Red Woods and hopefully find a camping spot on the beach.

We are both very ready for a break from work and excited to try out our road tripping skills as well as all our sweet camping stuff. Now if I could just get excited about packing and shopping for our trip...

Tune in next week for pictures of all our fun! (I keep going on and on about how fun this is going to be, please don't be surprised if you come back and find pictures of us with flat tires and stranded on the side of the road, it runs in my family!)

Babysitting

Earlier this summer our niece Arielle was over for a visit. We were pretty busy mowing the lawn and cleaning out the garage, so we showed her the dog kennel:

We are going to be GREAT parents!

Happy Birthday!

Bryce celebrated Birthday number 26 on August 29th and I then I celebrated number 27 on September 17th. Although Bryce still holds to the "fact" that he is older than me. Here is the first birthday cake I have ever made for Bryce.

Then my very sweet niece decided to help me out a bit, so the spelling of Bryce's name changed slightly as her hand entered the cake unexpectedly...I only cried a little bit even though I thought it was funny, I still cried, silly hormones...



This has been MY favorite present that he recieved (so far). He has learned a lot about pregnancy and babies and it has made him very understanding (and worried in a very sweet way!)
I bought him this light so that he can continue working even after it gets dark out, haha!
Here is Bryce trying to guess what this present is by touching it, he couldn't guess. His parents bought him a chop saw, now he can really get a lot of work done.
Then it was my Birthday! And my amazing sister-in-law Bekah made this amazing cake! I love Rainbow Brite and Bryce asked her if she could make me a cake, she did awesome, and all by free-hand even.
This is my surprised face when I first saw the cake.



Bryce bought me the Belly Book. I've been having fun filling it out and taking pictures to track being pregnant. So fun!
We both had great birthdays with our families and each other of course. We got lots of fun baby things, including a Little Saints blanket from Carroll College and a Cougar stocking hat from WSU. Our baby will be all decked out whether in Montana or Washington!

Nothing but the best for our Baby

Last weekend we went to Ione, it had been forever since we were there! Bryce and Paul were busy helping mom rip out carpet and remove the popcorn ceiling in one of her bedrooms. So I had to find my own project. This is located in our barn, if you have ever played in our barn before, or any barn for that matter, you know that they are dusty, dirty, full of hay and manure! So any guesses on what this item might be?

If you haven't guessed yet, it is a crib! The crib that both my brother and I slept in as babies. I tried to look up the brand and such to see if I could find retail value for it from 1982, but no luck. However, my mom believes she paid around $500 for it, this was of course partly because we lived in a camp in Alaska and had to pay a lot for shipping, but still, it is a very nice piece of furniture. And since I'm trying to be "green" and save some money, we are going to fix this up for our baby!

Don't you just love the stack of hay on here, lets hope the baby doesn't have hay fever like I do!

Oh so dusty!

Here I am working on getting it all dusted and cleaned off so that we can put it in our car.

The crib is in pretty good shape, it was properly stored until about three years ago when Paul decided to organize the garage. He wanted to throw this away! Mom told him to put it in the barn, not on the floor in the barn like he did, but at least it didn't get wet out there, or chewed on by mice!

It's pretty beat up from 10 years of child use and moving it several times. At some point the plywood that was the bottom of the drawers and the part that the mattress sits on did get wet and rotted out. So we will have to replace those pieces, otherwise everything seems to be there. It will definitely need a light sanding and a new coat of non-toxic stain to make it look new and beautiful. Good thing I have an engineering husband to figure out how to put it together without any instructions! You lucky Dads that bought new cribs with all the pieces and instructions...HAHA!!!

It isn't an antique yet, but it's half way there, maybe someday our children will use it for their children, then it will be an antique!

The Deck

Here it is, the one you've all been waiting for. The one that I've given so much hype and lead up that I really hope it's as good as you are all hoping for! The deck is finished! It has been for a few weeks now, and this morning I finally remembered to take some pictures. First, a reminder of what the deck used to look like:



And here is the frame for the new deck, just getting started!
The top of the deck is done!
Now working on the stairs, this was a whole family project, Bekah at the top to help level things out there, Alan and Laurel at the bottom to make sure everything was straight at that angle.
Here are the stairs, finally in place! Thisbe only had one accident running up the half finished stairs and then flailing about as she landed where there were no stairs, a scary couple of minutes, but she was fine...
And ta-da! The final result, with new, up to code, children and dogs can't fit through, railings!

Beautiful! It's the same size as before, but Bryce laid the boards at an angle which looks very pretty and is more sturdy. He put in so many screws and bolts that you can lean on the rail and it doesn't even wiggle! A couple of neighbors have walked by and told us how great it looks, and now we have a nice, pretty place to hang out this fall!

Random From Me

So I really do have a great post about the deck coming up. But I have to take "after" pictures, and for some reason every time I think about it it's dark or I'm at work. And one of my readers (okay my husband) requested that I post something. My two cool cousins Sarah and Denise posted a bunch of random things about themselves this week, and since I can do that from work (and I can't upload pictures of the deck) I'm going to copy them!

I am reading "No Future Without Forgiveness" for one of my Master's classes, it is about South Africa and it makes me so sad to read about how the black people who lived their were treated before Nelson Mandela was elected President, it's like they were not even humans, or dogs for that matter.

My little brother just moved in with us again...I'm not stoked about it but I am hoping for the best. Like please don't leave your socks on my kitchen floor or your pants in the living room (seriously, why did you take your pants off in the living room?!?)

I am 10 weeks pregnant this week! That means I am a quarter of the way! I am so freaking excited! And freaking overwhelemed. I keep thinking, did I really think this whole having a BABY thing over? I mean, I have to PROTECT it and take care of it and I want it to have a perfect little life, but sometimes life really sucks and I won't be able to fix it all the time. How do you do it mother!?! (especially with me because I FREAK out about EVERYTHING!)

My husband likes to sing me little made up songs, like "Keely potty pants" (because I use the bathroom a lot now that I'm pregnant) and songs about me to the tune of "I dream of Jeannie." (Are you glad I wrote a post for you to read now, honey?)

I let the dogs in bed with me, Bryce HATES it. But they make me feel so snuggly and loved. It makes the bedding gross, which I really don't like, but I do really like how I feel when they are near me. (note: this is when Bryce is not in bed with me...mostly)

I am terrible about grocery shopping, I really don't like it and I like to tell my mother that it's because something really bad happend while at a grocery store but I have repressed the memory. I think it's really because living in Ione when you get groceries it takes several hours and hundreds of dollars to stock up. Needless to say, there are usually not enough groceries at our house.

The magic 8 ball on my desk just told me the baby is a boy, we shall see!

Hopefully this motivates me to post about the deck soon! Oh and Shawna's wedding which was last weekend!