Happy Halloween!!!

Haunted Luau birthday party

I have been so busy at work and at home but I managed to make a small online scrapbook of the Haunted Luau birthday party for Dylan and Olivia last Saturday. PS, the scrapblog.com website is really easy to use for making online scrapbooks and more than a little addictive. Here is the link for the much larger online scrapbook version:

http://www.scrapblog.com/48DA18A3-91F6/1D71BC8F-01CE

(copy and paste it into your browser)

or you can just look at the smaller one here:

Our new granite counters!!!

It's finally here! Our new granite counter tops! We like to call it 'Tig-belly' inspired by our Terribly Tignatious Tiggers' belly. The door pulls are similar to that of Zoe's Entrancing brown Eye and the (future) backsplash will mimic the Fabulous Fluffy white Fur of Kendra. Hehe! Our kitchen is animal-inspired!

Super Spooktacular Halloween Party!

Click on this link...

Super Spooktacular Halloween Party

Birthday wishes

Happy Birthday Gamaw!!!

Who says we don't have a back yard?!

some pics of the outside of our house...
It was such a beautiful day today that Rick and I went to the plant store and bought some autumn plants that I put in the 'back yard'. It's not much but Zoe does her business there in the mornings. Of course, it is unacceptable for her other 3 'business opportunities' throughout the day. She's very religious as she will only conduct 'major business' on the holy ground at the church which is 3 blocks away. There's also a few pics of the front of the condo. We aren't supposed to do any planting in the 'front yard' but I decorated it for Halloween. A far cry from the decorating I did at my old house but it will do.

Our Kitchen update...

Since the wedding, Rick and I have been (very slowly) renovating our kitchen. Once that is complete, we will start on removing the ugly saltillo tile flooring downstairs and replace it with stained bamboo wood planks. After that... the master bathroom which, I'm sorry to say, is carpeted. yuck.
Anyway, we started in the kitchen from the ceiling and are working our way down. The ceiling installation is nearly complete. I just want to caulk the seams and add some trim. Then we'll put some rope lighting behind the crown molding to uplight the wrought ironwork. Then we removed the plastic laminate counters, backsplash, and sink. Rick cut out plywood counters that is to be the base for the new granite counters, which we are supposed to have installed today but the sub called and asked to delay the project. :( Hopefully by Tuesday night we will have them. We bought a new sink and faucet and added cabinet hardware. We also bought glass shelves to go over the sink. After much debate, we decided to leave the cabinets instead of replace them. I just didn't want the headache of a complete redo. But, if we still hate them once everything else is in place, we will hire someone to refinish them. Our kitchen is s 'U' shape and there is a ton of wasted space in the two bottom corners so Rick came up with a way to utilize that space. He put a platform on slide hardware. One side of the kitchen has a custom made 'lazy Susan' and the other has a wire shelf attached to the platform. I think it's great!

A day at the spa

I was at Mom and Dad's house the other day looking at some pictures on his computer and I ran across these. They are from when Dad and Uncle Paul went to Pennsylvania for Dad's business at the beginning of this year. While they were there, they stopped at one of Uncle Paul's friends' house. They also went to Hershey to see what all the chocolate hype was about. Before they knew it, they were coaxed into getting a man's mani/pedi! Hehe! These pictures are so funny! They loved it though. Chocolate in every candy dish, full access to the spa amenities, and lunch in the Oasis Room.

Save the Ta-Ta's!

This past weekend I took Rani ans Olivia to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure (for breast cancer). I thought it was important that Olivia see how many other women (and men) are going through the same thing her mother is. We estimated that there were about 40,000 people there. It was amazing and inspiring. There were so many people just sitting on the sidelines cheering others on too. Before the walk started, Olivia seemed sad but she quickly got into the CURE spirit (though walking 3 miles was a little difficult for her). Afterward, Rick took us to Mission Burrito, one of my top faves, for lunch and then he went swimming with them while I passed out on the sofa! I can't believe I was the tired one when I used to be a distance runner! Anyway, the girls had a great time. We even made t-shirts the night before to wear while we walked, which was a good idea because they had already given out the 28,000 shirts that they made for the race. We saw shirts that said 'Save the Ta-Ta's' 'Fight like a girl' 'Ta-Ta sisterhood' 'I am the CURE' 'fIght CANcer' but my favorite one was 'save-second-base.org'. It's a good thing Rani didn't know what that meant!

Click on the link to see all of the pictures...

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IaMmzlsyatLk

Our new dining room table!!!

We finally set our dining room table up and I absolutely love it! It is slightly too large for the space we have but I don't care. It's beautiful. We even got the two parsons chairs from a different store and are waiting for them to ship us the chair covers for them. Then the dining room will be complete (aside from the flooring). Take a look...

Our refurbished hutch

Rick and I have been working on a dining room 'hutch'. I found a metal wardrobe holder in Rick's study which he used as a cup holder so with much debate, I finally got it out of his man space, dusted it off and put it downstairs. Then we added wood planks to each tier. We cut the wood, drilled fancy holes, glued the planks together, vigorously sanded the planks smooth, stained it multiple times... and Tada! What I thought would only take a day to do ended up taking 2 weeks but it's finished...mostly (I still want to put a few coats of varnish on them)and I think it looks great! I've always wanted something to put all my pretty stuff on and now I finally have it. It's not exactly what I had envisioned but I like it. Now if only the table we bought last weekend will fit in the room... Personally, I don't think it will and we should get a smaller round table to allow for plenty of walking space. We plan to put it all together this weekend in between demoing the kitchen counters and adding new plywood to the top of the cabinets because next weekend our granite counters are set to arrive!!!