Birthday, Beer & Backyard

It has been an amazing month and I am having a hard time believing that it is already May--Ack!

We started off April with a bang, celebrating my 26th year. Kerry really made it a special celebration with a choose-your-own-adventure themed day. The adventure choices were: a day at the coast, a hike to Silver Creek Falls, a hike through the Forest, or a trip to Portland to check out OMSI. Each trip had food components. Because it was my birthday I got to mix and match the food and the trip.

I decided that, because the weather was phenomenal, that we would stop for lunch at McMenamin's, hike Silver Creek Falls, and then return home making a stop for pizza along the way. Lunch at McMenamin's was great, the hike was beautiful, the pizza excellent, and the company perfect!

My big present from Kerry was a brew kit from our local brew store. While it took me some time to actually get brewing (who knew that yeast had to sit so long), I am pleased to announce that my wheat ale has been sitting in the secondary fermenter for about a week now. Next step: bottling. I will be sure to send pictures of the process.

Here are some pictures from the hike:

We, Hiking.

From behind one of the falls.



Pretty.

Pretty too.

Now what's this about a backyard? Not too long after we bought our house we consulted with Kerry's Uncle, Grant, about the backyard. As a pro landscaper we figured he was more than qualified to give us some guidance. Boy did he.

Up until just a few weeks ago we had just sort of been chipping away at the backyard: putting in new grass, fixing the drainage, planting things here and there; you know, the usual. Right before my birthday we decided that we would look into refinancing our house and as such we wanted to get our humble abode into the best shape possible.

Without a moment's hesitation we spent an entire week repainting all that hadn't been painted since we moved in--most of the house. Because we are intrepid folks, the next week we had patio and retaining wall blocks, 4 yards of bark, 3 yards of dirt, 2 yards of gravel, and what seemed like and endless mountain of sand delivered to our house--we were very hungry caterpillars indeed! The result? A beautifully landscaped yard that we are absolutely thrilled with!

Here are some before and after pictures:Our Backyard as we got it. Notice the puddle and the drowning grass.

Before: The muddy mud pit of doom.

Before: A lovely desert scape.


Before: More dead grass and a bush.


After: A lovely patio, designed by the lovely Kerry

Mid-course: A sump pump, catch basin, and some gravel.

After: No dead grass, desert scape, or bush.


After: A garden wall, healthy grass, no puddle, and good smelling plants.

Catch up!

It really has been ages since we last posted, so I thought I'd do a quick overview of other events over the last few months. Joe will do two updates fairly soon as well.

It feels like we've been going non stop since January, and overall, I think that's true.

In February my Grandma Marion cashed in her birthday present of a pizza dinner made by us along with our company. It was so much fun. We knew it would delight her, but didn't know that it would delight her to that extent. She reveled in having a meal prepared for her, celebrated the dressing, and chortled over the opportunity for leftovers. It was just great to please her so thoroughly. Afterward we hung out in her living room and she and I flipped through some of her old knitting catalogs. I think it was that interaction that launched me into my current knitting frenzy.

March was incredibly busy. We headed up to Puyallup for Elizabeth's 21st birthday, but she was thwarted and sick for her birthday. She stayed in Portland, but we had the weekend all free so we headed up and had a nice visit with the Evans side of the family.

The next weekend we went to Sunriver with our friends Megan and Steve. We rented a perfect condo with a wee round hot tub and a great little kitchen. We cross country skied, which Joe and I miss so much. This was Megan and Steve's second time skiing and they did an amazing job on a moderately complicated loop. They even braved hills that I chose to sit down on at the halfway point in order to slow myself down before continuing down the rest of the hill. We were pooped when we finished, but that made dinner that much better. That night we walked to the lodge for happy hour and had fabulous artichoke dip and a "winter warmer," which was quite tasty. It was a short weekend, but it felt quite luxurious.

The next weekend (see what I mean) we went to the coast for Kathryn and Virginia's birthday. I've known K & V since first grade and we've been buds ever since. Their whole family was there and it was great to see Ann and Jeff and Sarah (it was her birthday celebration as well!). The weather was horrific, but so horrific that it was fun rather than just disappointing. The wind blew so hard the window bulged in and the rain sounded like rocks hitting the window. We had a wonderful time inside anyway. In true K & V style, we filled our day with wholesome activities like "round the clock ping pong" where 3 to 5 people play and run around the table taking turns returning the ball to each other. When that got boring, we switched to one legged ping pong where teams of 2 had to hope on one leg through the whole game. We finally ended up playing musical round the clock ping pong, which is much like round the clock ping pong, except someone runs the music and periodically turns it off. The last one to have hit the ball is out. What happens when only two are left you ask? Well they hit the ball back and forth and spin around after they've hit of course!

Even though we've been busy, it's been a fabulous few months. I think I've brought you all up to date to the point where Joe will take over!

Friends in Alaska

Sorry it's been so long since we posted. I wrote this quite awhile ago, but needed pictures to go with it. This trip took place at the end of February.

In our first post, we wrote about all the major life events that preceded our blog. One of those was making good friends while we were in Alaska. Those friends are two couples, Meg and Neil and Kyle and Abbey.

Joe had a conference in Alaska early last week and we used the opportunity to extend his tickets and use our miles to buy me a ticket so we could spend time with friends. Kyle and Abbey are still there, but Meg and Neil have since moved to the warm land of Texas so Neil can go to flight school. Meg joined us all in Alaska, but Neil was pinned to the books so our set was incomplete. This is Meg and Neil...just as a tribute to our missing part.


Most vacations to Alaska involve whale watching, cruises, kayaking, hiking, skiing, hunting, snow mobiling (machining if you're from up there), and other such outdoor pursuits. As former AK residents, we pretty much skipped all that. We spent the week cooking, playing cards, chatting, sitting in the hot tub, running, rearranging furniture, setting up a new TV and sound system free of cords, contemplating new furniture, and racing to see who could find out the implications of an infant not urinating the fastest to assist Abbey in her homework. We did spend a day sledding, and I shoveled Kyle and Abbey's back deck while playing fetch with Kenzie, but overall it was low key. We also hit up a few of our favorite Anchorage eateries. Moosestooth and Thai Orchid were delicious as usual. Joe and I also had our first visit to Simon and Seaforts amazing happy hour. The rest of the crew had already been and let us in on the secret. Yum!


Really, while it might not be great reading material, the great thing about these friends is the every day. We've had many an adventure together, and I suppose we had a few this week as well, but the ease of just existing together is what makes it special. It's also what makes it so hard to say goodbye each time. Before we left, Meg reminded us we'd see each other again and I think I said something similar about our last dinner not actually being the last. Later, on the way to the airport, I remarked to Joe and Kyle that it wasn't that I wanted to see them for another great extended get together, it's just that I wanted to be able to call and invite them to dinner.

It really is amazing to have such good friends who are so supportive of each other, enjoy their spouses, and are always funny and enjoyable. I am incredibly grateful for all our time together. It was a wonderful trip.

Some photos from our adventure:

Frosting Abbey's Turtle Cake. I haven't perfected it yet, but I will. Meg and I cooked for about 10 hours that day!


Meg and me doing a yoga tribute to Eeva, our amazing yoga instructor. Meg will be an expert on this soon!


Abbey taking a break from studying to join us in the kitchen. She jokingly called us her "wives" for the week. We were delighted to fill that role.


Me, Joe, Kyle and Abbey at Kincaid Park.


Kenzie and Joe doing his slow motion sledding.

Vacation

Joe and I learned an essential lesson this Christmas season.

If you have limited time to take off, take it off after Christmas, not before.

In the past we've had time both before and after Christmas and never really realized how essential the post X-mas recovery time is. So we took the 3 days before Christmas Eve off and went back to work for 3 days starting on the 29th. By Tuesday the 30th, I was so exhausted that I was convinced I was going to get sick, so I splurged vacation time and took off the 2nd of January. I feel much better now and may be able to survive the 5 day work week.

Our vacation round 1 was nice. We had a few days to chill and I honestly can't remember what we did. Due to the huge snow and ice storms that hit the Northwest in the two weeks prior to X-mas, we had a downsized McLaughlin Christmas eve at our house. Dad, Sue, and Grandma and Grandpa Mac joined us. It was very low key, but so enjoyable. We did miss out on the big family Christmas which was moved to the 28th in order to have some rest before returning to work. I know it wasn't the most popular decision, but they all seemed to understand. Given my high level of exhaustion the next week, I think that day of rest was the only reason I made it through.

We spent the 25th in Puyallup with the Evans side of the family. Last year we were unable to make it because we spent the night before Christmas in the ER because Joe had the death plague. It was certainly good to be back in the heart of the family and not to join Dr. Disney (seriously) for another Christmas. Everyone was there, the food was delicious, and the gifts were bountiful. It even snowed a bit more to make it a truly white Christmas.

We cruised back down the freeway on the 26th and had one final round of Christmas with my mom's side of things. This is our smallest Christmas, with Mom, Uncle Robin, Grandma Jean, and the two of us, but it's a great way to end the mad rush that we choose to put ourselves through and enjoy. Mom made cream puffs for dessert, so I was delighted! For Christmas Mom gave me our usual shopping trip on the 27th. We headed up to Woodburn and that shopping trip was probably the most productive and satisfying shopping trip of my life. 50% off at Banana Republic. Does it get any better than that?

We had a low key New Years with good friends which was just what we needed. New year's day was our day to take down Christmas and tidy parts of the house that had been neglected in our vacation lack of routine. Since then we've been sleeping between 9 and 11 hours per night (Yes!) and spending a lot of time relaxing. I must say that our version of relaxation is a bit more active than most, but that is simply because I cannot sleep unless I've expended some energy. On Friday and again today we went for a run. It had been awhile, but it felt great to get back out there. Thursday was a gorgeous day with puffy clouds, crisp temperatures and lots of sunshine. We walked downtown to the post office and to return some books at the library.

Then today...we painted the kitchen ceiling. We'd been kind of grossed out by our ceilings for awhile now, but we've been saving carefully since my job may end in June and the economy is in the crapper. It may be better, but who knows? Anyway, our dear friends Kyle and Abbey sent us a gift card to Loews for Christmas and (can you guess?) we ran right out and got ourselves a massive amount of ceiling paint! Last Christmas our friends Meg and Neil came when our house was about 10 days old (to us) and Joe and Neil took down our hideous neon lighting in the kitchen. They replaced it with great recessed lighting, but the shadows left by the neon light spent an entire year on the ceiling. We extinguished them today. Here are a few pictures of kitchen painting.



















Joe's also been working to fix our shower drain and today he declared victory. Here are some pictures from that!

Travels, Snow, and Old Pictures

It's been a blissful Friday night, probably because it's the first day of our week long vacation. We both miss the lengthy vacations that we had as kids, but we're making the most of this one. Our first task of the evening, weekend, and vacation, was building a snow man. We built a snowman each year in Alaska. I do mean snow man, not snow men. In AK the first snow man lasted all winter. We positioned him at the end of our walk to welcome our guests just before they turned to climb our steps. His name was Edward. We've decided not to name this snow man; chances are he won't make it through the weekend. That's alright though because it adds opportunities to build more than one in a year! The snow also sticks together much better here.

Afterward we came inside and had a delicious pumpkin black bean soup, beer bread, and tea. Now we're sitting next to the fire with the cats baking their brains near the flames.

This will be a post of rather random updates, so bear with me as transitioning may be nearly impossible.

Last weekend we went up to Seattle for our nephew's birthday, the annual cookie bake, the jingle bell run, a bit of shopping, and to see Ana, my friend from college. Kyle, our nephew, is a big fan of fire trucks and emergency vehicles generally, so his birthday was at Engine house 9 in Tacoma. Their claim to fame is the large brass fire pole which is the oldest in the northwest. Because of plummeting temperatures and a good amount of snow, we opted not to actually attend the jingle bell run in favor of leaving Lucas' cheeks on his face. Our other option was having frostbite steal them away. We had a wonderful time at the cookie bake. While it was sad that Joe's parents and Christina, Tony, Cameron and Kyle weren't able to attend, we had a wonderful time with Kym, Aaron, Sarah, Kacey, and Lucas at Auntie Marian's house. As always she was an incredibly gracious host and made the most amazing food. The veggie lasagna was by far the best lasagna I've had in my entire life. On Monday we did some quick shopping and met Ana for lunch. It was so good to catch up and I only wish we'd had more time. We could talk for hours and still be going strong. I'm looking forward to when we have the opportunity to really test our conversational stamina.

Okay, I'll leave you with a few photos that we found on a memory card we forgot we had. They are old pictures from Alaska, but I was overjoyed to find them.


This is Luke playing when he was just a wee kitty. Joe and I had thought that we had no pictures of Luke as a kitten, and he was smaller than this when we first got him, but he's still definitely a kitten in this picture and that makes me so happy!



Here's one of Eleanor in Alaska. In the picture she's looking out our front door and standing on her shoe box. She loved to look outside, but wasn't quite tall enough to see out easily. The shoe box was just what she needed.

The Joys of Homeownership

Kerry and I have been in our house now for nearly a year now. In that time we've installed a new dishwasher, replaced a water heater, put recessed lighting in the kitchen installed a sump and pump in the yard and painted a bathroom (twice). As if that wasn't enough, during a recent visit from Auntie Marian it started raining in our living room. Not that this event had anything to do with Marian's visit it just serves as a nice time stamp and is a nice indicator of the convenience.

A view of our upstairs shower...from the living room.

It turns out that this was not the first time there's been a problem with the upstairs shower, as indicated by the superior patch job by the previous owners. So as Kerry comes down the stairs, there I am with perched on a chair cutting a hole in the ceiling with my Leatherman. The amount of water that was in the ceiling was staggering.


I wanted to make sure that there was plenty of time for the ceiling to dry out before I attempted any repair. So after about three weeks of drying I decided to get to the repair. With a tube of silicon I carefully caulked the shower drain within an inch of its life, letting it dry overnight. The moment of truth came the next day when we ran water down the drain. It took about 10 seconds before Kerry yelled from downstairs to turn the water off; it was actually leaking worse than before. In the words of Dubyah: Mission Accomplished!

In the two weeks that it has actually taken me to write this post, the shower still leaks and there is still a hole in our living room. Not long after we installed the water feature in the living room, the refrigerator died. When this sort of thing happens, one really doesn't have time to sit back and wait for the Sunday ads. One trip to our local appliance dealer (recommended by Home Despot), and a U-Haul rental later we had a new refrigerator. Kerry took some great pictures of the move, but my iPhone is being a wee bit temperamental.

Because Kerry was in a meeting the hunting and picking was left to me. Of course I ran everything by her via text. Here is an excerpt:

Me: Found fridge. White Amana. Will get truck and pick you up. No deliver until Monday
Kerry: Sounds Good
Me: Truck has ramp, will do my self.
Kerry: Ummm....okay....
Me: Second thought, really big. Waiting for you.

The Birthday Master

For those of you who didn't know, I turned the ripe old age of 26 last Monday and Joe made the entire week a fabulous tour de birthday.

On the day itself Joe gave me a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for my morning present (more on these later). This was the perfect present because I love Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but recognize that it has no nutritional value and is therefore best for recreational eating. That evening we celebrated with my mom who was gracious enough to give birth to me on her own birthday. While this is fine now, she admits to not being exactly thrilled to share the day when I was 8 and had 10 screaming girls over for a slumber party. In any case, Grandma Jean and my Uncle Robin joined us for a delicious dinner, dessert, and good times.

Both Joe and I like to have an entire day with each other to celebrate our birthdays. Because of this October 7th was our two-some-birthday day. Now for some background. First, the morning present tradition comes from the Evans side of things. When I learned of this tradition it didn't take me long to claim it as my own as I was essentially offered a bonus birthday present. Who would reject that tradition? I got lucky this year and got two morning presents because Joe couldn't fathom not presenting one on the day itself, or on our two-some day. I need to remember that for future birthday arrangements. Next piece of background: More than anything in the world I wanted a guitar for my birthday. However, I had not asked for one. In fact, I expressly forbade the guitar gift option. I have one, but it's not particularly good and occasionally sounds a bit like a ukulele. The real issue is that I'm not particularly good. I'm just learning and had figured that I could have a guitar once I had earned it with stellar skills. Despite all that, my desire for a guitar was great and I secretly wished that Joe would choose that as my gift, though I was sure he wouldn't because I told him flat out not to.

Okay, background delivered, we're back to the morning of October 7th over the fabulous breakfast Joe made me. When I came down there were two packages next to my plate, which I opened over breakfast. The first was a guitar tuner (yes! good sign!) and the second was a new set of strings for my current guitar. Joe explained to me that they would make it sound less like a ukelele which would help me enjoy playing more (hopes dashed. so sad inside.) I tried exude happiness and joy, but, as I learned later, it was so apparent that I was disappointed that he nealry insisted I open my real present immediately.

Let's just ignore the work day, because that is not exciting. We did go out for lunch at McMenamin's where the voodoo veggie wrap had been removed from the menu but they still graciously assembled one for me. What birthday luck!

Joe picked me up after work and took me home. When we got home it became apparent that he had already been there because there were balloons on the door! He made me close my eyes and walked me upstairs where he instructed me to relax and read one of the magazines he'd picked out for me. Moments later he came upstairs with a gin and tonic and the promise of dinner in a few minutes. After 20 minutes with my Glamour he came up and escorted me downstairs. He'd put up streamers and set the table beautifully. He'd also ordered take out from our favorite terrible ambiance restaurant and displayed the appetizers beautifully. I was so glad that dinner was at home because I was a bit tired and didn't really have it in me to go out. He had also ordered my favorite dish. Again, next to my plate there was a very small package. I was very nervous because it wasn't the size of anything that I wanted. I knew I may have to act so I prepared myself and thought of how perfect the dinner was. After centering myself, I opened the package. It was capo (which is a guitar thingy). I knew that a $20 item was not my real gift so I started to get so excited I could hardly contain myself. Joe took me into the living room and there was the most beautiful guitar and exactly what I wanted. I was positively giddy.

I truly have the best husband in the world.

He didn't even stop there. On Friday he cooked and tidied for a gathering with my highschool gals and their others. Kathryn, Ben, Virginia, Marg, and Casey all came down. It was so good to see them and get to spend some real time together. I think my favorite part was Kathryn and Marg painting their toe nails while the rest of us bummed around.

Yea Birthday and Yea Joe!