Author: admin

To everyone who reads our web page and blog, and those who wish to leave comments of any sort…

Please leave your name that we can recognize you by. I delete comments that have no name.

Please be polite and courteous to all people here. I enjoy discussions and even debates, but keep it civil.

If you can’t accept these guidelines/rules, then don’t comment on our web page.

Please also keep in mind that Doug is a VERY GOOD computer geek. We have, in the past, backwards traced unnamed comments and rude comments to the user’s computer and so therefore we know who leaves them.

The reason I am posting this now is another unmarked comment was left for us.

Hi all-

For all of you who live in

AK, AR, AZ, CO, DC, FL, GA, HI, IN, KY, LA, MI, MS, OH, PA, TN, TX, and VA

Tomorrow, October 6th, is your LAST DAY to register to vote. If you don’t register, you can’t vote in the November elections.

Even if you think you are registered, DOUBLE CHECK! There are rumors of people being deleted from the lists, so DOUBLE CHECK!

You can probably check online in your state or county, or you can call the voter registration office to make sure.

Please, register, DOUBLE CHECK and then VOTE in November!

FIRST THE BAD NEWS
WE REMAIN MADLY IN LOVE AND
have decided to continue the marriage and as such,

will not be returning any of the fine gifts to you

who so generously gave them. However, as the

rhetorical structure goes, there is also good news.

We absolutely adore what you have so kindly

given us. Thank you, many times thank you.

It will most certainly give us a jumpstart on our

initial attempts at adult lives and help us remain

that excessively happy couple you see in picture

frames for sale at the grocery store.

by Squibnocket, a card company

We had a realtor lady stop by this morning. She is very pleasantly surprised by the whole house because the only picture she had was from two years ago. She seems excited to sell it for us and really likes everything we have done. She gave us a few suggestions, most of what we already knew. Now all we need to do is finish the projects we have started and then hopefully Doug will not have to drive an hour each way to work and I find a job in the metro area.

I get out a glass and set it on the far side of the countertop as close as I can to the next room, and then walk into the dining room towards the light switch and reach for the door. At the last moment, I freeze and blink. The door is gone.

I roll my eyes at myself, turn around, grab my glass and head in the opposite direction to the depth of the kitchen where I find the fridge and the door I was trying to open. I pull out the milk, close the door, pour myself a glass of milk, get a plate of cookies, grab the milk bottle and head back out to the dining room to put the milk away. Once again, freeze, laugh, sigh, turn around, go back into the kitchen, and put the milk in the fridge.

You see, for two months, the fridge was in the dining room while we worked on the new floor and new countertops. But fate intervened and so we didn’t get the grout lines done yet. Out of desperation to have a somewhat normal looking house again, we put the fridge back Saturday. But the damage to our brains is done. The unusual pattern of going into the dining room has been made a habit, and we both catch ourselves several times a day trying to use the invisible fridge.

Now we can have popcorn in our kitchen!

Ok, truth be told, we have always been able to do that, but now there is a new microwave hanging above the stove instead of sitting on the counter top.

But, better than that, Doug built, from scratch, a new cabinet. It has a place for the trashcan and a double door with slide out shelves for storage, a new storage drawer and a huge drawer for the cutting boards.

And, since we put in a new tile counter top with a new back splash, and a new tile floor, and painted the walls, the kitchen is almost totally transformed.

We aren’t quite finished with grouting and then replacing the appliances, but it is looking awesome! Check out the pictures in the gallery.

I have added more pictures to the Family, Artwork, Trips and Adventures, and Randomness galleries. Enjoy!

Doug and Christy at Bridal Veil Falls, Cow Creek, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Doug’s GPS said it was a .2 mile longer hike than the trail sign, and .4 longer than the map. But we had the place to ourselves, the hike was gorgeous and the small amount of drizzle made everything wet, fresh, and gorgeously colored. After the two days of solid rain, what better to do than go see a freshly recharged waterfall.

The trail is a gentle slope up until the last half mile or so. Because it is not accessed from within the main park, there were not a lot of people. I hope to do more of those type of hikes- off the regular trail- and explore more of the park that I thought I knew all about.

It has been a crazy last several weeks.

The short version-

Friends visit, kitchen destroyed, kitchen rebuilt, exterior stripped, Doug’s new job, hiking, camping, fishing, a death, a birth.

The long version-

We have had two friends (D&C) visit our house for dinner and a tour. Both of them really like what we have done with everything. We really enjoyed having them up to the house. They were the last people to see the kitchen intact.

Ah yes, the kitchen. It looked like a scene from “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” for a while. The neighboring college kid, out for a smoke at 3 in the morning, wanted to know why we were still up. “Cutting tile while it is cool and while the mud is soft.” was our response. It is mostly finished with the exception of grout, which is pretty major as the fridge is nearing its 4th week in the dining room and the oven is still disconnected. But a new tile counter top and a new tile floor (yes we completely removed the old ones) with a new back splash and new color on the walls is going to make our remodel of the interior complete.

The exterior is also progressing nicely. It is no longer white. Sort of. Because we have vertical siding with groves in it, it now has stripes. I rolled a medium dark green onto it, and the old white lines are still there for now, until I hand paint every single one. Ug. But the doors and pergolas are in progress of turning “red red wine” and the peaks of the siding on the house will be a lighter shade of the green, and the whole thing trimmed with off white trim. It will be quite a transformation.

Doug’s new job is going really really well and he loves it there and they love him. He is a systems admin for over 400 servers for a world wide company. He keeps the computers running for a big group of people. He is finally with people who also speak geek, and loves it.

Our hiking trip followed a week later by a camping trip up to the Never Summer range was awesome. R&M and their son J and nephew J came with us and we ate the fish they caught for dinner and loved every bite of the smoores made over the campfire.

My aunt died from her long struggle with cancer, so the funeral an hour south of Santa Fe and the cemetery and hour south of the funeral let us see some pretty remote but beautiful areas of New Mexico. It is always good to see family but not under those circumstance. She will be deeply missed.

My best friend S and her hubby D had their new baby E a bit early, so E is in the hospital still but doing well and just the cutest bundle of fuzz. I am so excited for them. I hope he gets to come home soon.

And that is just since the last time I posted!

For everyone that looks at our blog and would like more pictures, Doug has shown me how to put pictures in our gallery. So, there are some pictures from the house there, and almost all of our pictures from our Honeymoon to Australia. Better late than never. There is a lot there. In order, we went to Sydney,
Ayers Rock/Uluru, Brisbane, Lady Elliot Island, back
to Brisbane, and back to Sydney.
Enjoy!