"The Wall"

Today at 7:30 am the truck load came of our inner locking blocks for the retaining wall in the front of the house. The blocks weren't the standard inner locking blocks. There were in 3 different sizes and are very aesthetically pleasing to the eye, instead of the gray ones that lots of people use.

The first course had to be partially buried and we had to work with the original slope from the road.....the first course wasn't the most fun because it had to be perfectly level!

We finished by the end of the day! The wall is about 5 feet tall and 65 feet in length. It was a lot of work. Jason and I rounded up friends as our "crew" and their help was invaluable.
Tomorrow we will glue the caps on the top of the wall and then it will be filled with the back fill from the other side of the house, which is being excavated and terraced.

A view from the back as it is being excavated.

See the terraces?!?!

Here is my raw neck after and entire day working out in the sun....ouch!

The Footing

Yippee! After almost being in our brand new beautiful house we are able and ready to start with the excavation and yard. We live near the top of a hill, which provides breath taking picturesque views of the entire valley. However, it has made the excavation and yard planning a bit tricky. We are doing most of this project ourselves (thank goodness for summer vacation). Today we got the footing in for the front and are ready to build the first rock wall tomorrow. The second one will be in the back of the house after more excavation is completed. We have a crew of friends and family to help with the rock wall tomorrow, so stay tuned for the progress!

Sweet Little Andy

Our family dog, Chelsea, died at the beginning of May from old age. We had her for about 20 years and it was REALLY sad. On the last day of school one of Kristina's (kindergarten) room moms came in with 6 full bred black labs, and she was giving them away for free on the basis that they would go to families where they would be loved and properly cared for. I called my parents to see if they were interested. My dad had a really hard time with the decision as he was Chelsea's primary care giver, and was still having difficulty adjusting to her death. When she died my parents vowed they were done with animals on their acre. However, they were meant to have this cute little guy. These are the pictures of sweet little Andy. I got to hold the litter of pups when they were 5 days old when the room mom brought them in for show and tell. Here Andy is only 8 weeks old. He has a very docile temperament and is just so sweet. It is kinda funny because his siblings were all given away to other teachers too! What a smart group they will grow up to be!

A day at the Oregon Coast

Jason and I spent the day at the coast a few weekends ago and it was absolutely beautiful! The weather was very warm and we had never seen the tide out so far!
A view of Face Rock....the profile of a face that is looking upward...

Jason was being silly...digging for buried treasure...or something =0)I am sure that I felt "sea things" crawling on my legs as I stepped into the hole!

Visiting with Friends

When we went to Portland, I had a chance to visit with some college roommates, Jocelyn and Kendra. Both Joc and Kendra got married this past Fall, but I was unable to go due of work. We usually try to get together once a year. It is so wonderful to visit with each other because it is like no time has passed at all! That is the best part about having good friends.

"Projecting"

When Jason and I first moved in, our master bathroom was unintentionally the place in the house where we made all our "mistakes." Several of them ranged to accidentally using non-paintable caulking along the shower, to drilling the pocket door stuck in place with hopes of having a second towel rack. So, we decided to re-model the bathroom over Spring Break. I wanted to repaint it and use a ragging technique over the base coat of fresh paint. Once the base coat of new paint was applied we had to rag on a colored glaze and re-mask everything that wasn't supposed to be ragged.

My mom and I ragged on the glaze. I was shooting for the effect of gold to be shimmering on the walls. Here I was panicking because the color of the glaze, which was supposed to be golden, was a cross between canary yellow and the yellow color road crews use to paint lines on the road....not exactly what I wanted.....
We went back to the paint store and got a nuetral tan glaze and a pearl glaze....it was stunning when we were finished....just like out of a magazine!!!
Ahh....the finished look (although the camera doesn't do it justice)!

Spring Break

During Spring Break, we were able to visit with family members who live in the Portland area. On the evening of Easter Jason's sister, Rachel, and her hubby and our nephew Michael ( almost 2) came to visit us from Aloha. Jason had given Michael his first golf set. Michael wasn't too sure what to do with it so Rachel and Jason were helping him with the bag and clubs.

Michael needed a little help getting started.

Poor little guy kept using the driver like a hockey puck, but he was determined to hit the ball into the hole!

Uh-oh! Thanks to uncle Jason, Michael found his ball!
With a little more instruction and Michael was on his way to being a pro.



During our trip to Portland, we spent some time with Ryan and went to a Portland Trailblazer game. It was SOOOOOOO much fun! We also visited Mama and Papa, my dad's parents. Below are some pictures of my dad and Mama and Papa.


Here Ryan, Jason, and I with Mama and Papa. My mom was the one behind the camera =0)