New side yard!

I have been a total blog slacker lately, but I have a good excuse! We are finished with our house! And because I have been so happy to be done, I have been celebrating by doing a whole lotta nothing! It's felt great to spend my afternoons on the couch watching TV knowing I don't have anything pressing to do!
We finished everything on the 13th and had a bbq later that afternoon to show off the digs. People seemed pretty impressed so that's good. I didn't take any pictures at all at the bbq, but here are the pictures from Labor Day weekend, doing the side yard work.
Raking the dirt out flat

Dick, Peggy, Rick and my Dad laying sod

Amy inside painting the mouldings

NEW GRASS!

And other direction!

I actually need to get out there and take some more pictures because we put down some gravel and did a few other things. And I need to get some before/after pictures up for you, but this is all I have for now :)

Lost in Translation

Before I throw away this hilarious brochure I got from a cabinet supply company, I thought I'd share with you a few of the sentences on it. First of all, it's for a place called "Best Cabinet and Granite Company" and on the outside of the building are two "thumbs up" symbols, except they're showing the palm side of the thumbs up, instead of the top of the hand. Like you put your arms out to each side and did thumbs up. It's just a folder with some cabinet info on it. The front says "Not just another cabinetry. We made just for you.
The inside left says (below a bunch of Korean symbols) "'Best Cabinet & Granite Supply' aims at producing high quality, humanity and personalized products." What?
And the inside right says (just exactly like this): "SOlid Wood classical and heavy look provides a feel of Returning back to 'Returniong'"
I'm sorry, it was just too funny to not share.
Not just another blog post. We made just for you.

The Air Show

Last weekend Rick and I went to the airshow. Dick and Peggy's neighbors run the fireworks there, so they were kind enough to get us in for free, and into their special tent, where we had nice seats, free food and drinks and free earplugs all day!
I had never been, so I was sort of excited to go, but also didn't know what to expect. The weather was beautiful and we had an excellent time.
An F-15 flyby

Plane acrobatics

A blackhawk helicopter. I was amazed by the size of the rotors!

a cool old WW2 bomber. I liked the artwork on the side.

Truckosaurus!

Truckosaurus eating a car and breathing flames. Pretty sweet!

The best part-the Thunder Birds. If you don't know anything about them, it's pretty cool actually. They are Air Force pilots specially chosen to fly as Thunder Birds for a few years traveling all over the world doing air shows and showing off what they can do. They fly in super tight formations that take amazing skill. I couldn't believe the tricks they were doing, and being that close to fighter jets is a really cool experience.
A good detailed shot so you can see the design on the planes, and also how close they fly to each other.

There are 6 of them-4 that almost always fly in tight formation, then 2 solo pilots.

One from top. Again, check out how close together they are.

All in all, it was an impressive day and I was really glad I went!
I do have new pictures of the house/yard, but I am not going to post them yet. We have some people coming over on Sunday so I would like the last few things we do to be sort of a surprise to them. I'll get pictures up after then. We are SO close to being done. The living room is painted, the backsplash is tiled and grouted, we have a new side yard...
just a few things this week to get done to perfect it all-finish hanging the cabinet door pulls, painting the ceiling, putting everything back where it belongs, cleaning, get the carpets cleaned, yard clean up, hanging some siding etc.
I have to publicly thank Dick and Peggy for coming up 2 weekends in a row and working their tails off with us! They have been great! My Dad also came this last weekend and helped, which was great too. This week will be really busy as we cram all the last minute stuff in.
I don't know if I'll know what to do with myself after Sunday (well until school starts on the 28th)!
In other fantastic news, since we are done spending money on the house (for now), yesterday morning I thought I'd check flights to Puerto Vallarta. We've been talking about trying to go in November to celebrate my 30th birthday, but we've been putting all our money into the house, so I honestly didn't think it'd be feasible. Well, I stumbled upon insanely cheap plane tickets so we booked it! The tickets were only $300 each, round trip! That is so cheap for Mexico. So we are going from November 10-18th (my bday is the 22nd). I have been iffy about turning 30, but I feel so much better now, knowing that we are doing something fun for it, and that I have something to really look forward to. We booked our hotel too, and are staying in a really nice all-inclusive. I am thrilled about that as well, free food and drinks for 8 nights will take all the stress out of everything, and we can still go out to eat in town as well.
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed your last weekend of summer. Take care!

The Big Haul

Rick's parents came up on Saturday and helped us do the big construction debris clean up in our yard. Sadly we've been accumulating all that construction debris for 6 months in our yard.
The deck was covered with junk, this is the deck after Rick hauled all the stuff to the back. Remember we had to rip up that section back in April to get to plumbing.

The deck looking the other way with the hideous gate that I have always hated.

A better shot without the gate

The back and shed with all the junk. The shed has been filled with a bunch of crap since Rick moved in, we were even able to get rid of that crap!

More junk

The other side of our house-where we took the very first stuff out-the old bathroom shower door and vanity etc

Looking at the yard the other way

Our first load to the dump was exactly a ton-2000 lbs.

Rick ripping up the deck

Our last load was nothing but wood-2080 lbs.

The side yard after

The yard after

Looking back at the shed after

and no deck!! We also ripped all the gutters off the house. They didn't even have a downspout so there was zero point to them. I am so happy they're gone!

So this coming weekend we put in a new deck or patio. We haven't decided which yet. We think it'll be a deck, but a little different than the last one. We are planning on having some people over on the 13th of September so we just gave ourselves a big fat deadline. There is still a lot to do before then, but I think we can do it!

Our first anniversary

We had a great time in Bend for our anniversary. We spent some much needed time relaxing and hanging out. We were able to have dinner with our friends The Cases one night, and had a couple's massage in our room on Sunday morning, which was heaven!!
Sunday afternoon we went to the High Desert Museum, which was fun. We were disappointed because the otter they have was hiding, and so were most of the other animals, like their fox, and porcupine, but we saw a few cool birds, and we were really impressed with their displays inside about Native Americans etc. We learned a lot actually.
This fat little guy begged welcomed us

Rick and a tipi at the museum

The museum grounds

Rainbow trout

Trout pond

The view upriver of the Deschutes from the bluff where our hotel was

And downriver towards town

Rick and I on our way to our romantic dinner at the Blacksmith

My dinner: filet mignon with pancetta and gorgonzola, and grilled peaches. It was truly amazing.

Rick's dinner: tri-tip with sour cream and tortilla strips, on a potato pancake and some sort of corn soup.

Our waiter making bananas foster. It even came on top of a dish with banana bread cubes. It also was amazing. I highly recommend the Blacksmith. It was delicious and really not all that expensive.

Happy anniversary!

Monday we came home over Santiam pass and stopped at a little place on the North Fork of the Santiam, a place that Rick used to go growing up.
Salmon Falls

Clear water and river rock

Another of the falls.

All in all we had a really great time. It's hard to believe a year has gone by already!
Yesterday Rick and I were able to get the kitchen floor all grouted and finish the tile behind the kitchen sink. Getting closer and closer!

Happy Anniversary Rick!

Tomorrow is our first anniversary! We are headed out of town to Bend for the weekend, but I wanted to make sure and publicly tell my husband Happy Anniversary!
Our wedding day was perfect and beautiful and this last year has been great, even though we've spend half of it with all sorts of stress remodeling our house. Rick is truly a great husband, and he spends so much of his time and efforts doing whatever it takes to make me happy.

Thank you for always telling me how beautiful I am, even when I don't feel like it.

Thank you for letting me do nice things for you, which makes me happy.

Thank you for standing by my side and supporting me.

Thank you for being spontaneous and loving to surprise me.

Thank you for always kissing me goodnight.

Thank you for holding my hand, and going places with me, even if you don't want to.

Thank you for giving me all the independence I need and want.

Thank you for making life exciting!

Thank you for standing up for me.

Most of all thank you for loving and supporting me and for being the best friend and husband a girl could ask for. Congratulations on one happy year, and here is to MANY many more! I love you!