Our day was Merry and Bright...and yes! Our Christmas was WHITE!

Not to sound like a sappy Bing Crosby record.. but MAN... oh MAN did we have a spectacular Christmas! We had a nice lazy morning and then took the dog for a walk at about 11:30. Coming back (it was a long one) at about 1pm, it started in snowing. It kept up, at times blizzard like, the rest of the day and into the evening. We felt so lucky- not only are we enjoying the first Christmas at the new house... but then... even more perfect....we get a WHITE Christmas! We were giddy.

Vil and Summit enjoying the fire and watching me cook our dinner. Look how beautiful the snow is out the window behind them....
And it just kept coming....
This picture just cracks me up. Traci, Mike and boys sent these great slippers and Summit grabbed ahold of the packaging on them. He tugged and tugged at it until I nearly slid across the floor. This was taken just after he managed to tear it off (and thankfully left the slippers in one piece). He's very good at opening gifts- we give him a wrapped present and he lays down with the gift perfectly in his paws and starts ripping the paper with his teeth. When the package is open, the paper is all ripped, but the gift is always in one piece. We didn't take any of him doing that this year, but Vil managed to get the camera for this picture.
More White Christmas! BRRRRRR.... One little Summit... and a partridge in a pear tree...

Climbing!

Since it's winter and it's cold.. I can dream of the fun times summer brings! House building has been our priority, but we can't wait to get back out and start rock climbing again. This last June, I went with my company and helped organized a climbing demo in Leavenworth. It was a great time- full of everything from rain to hot sun. We got to climb with some of the world's best climbers, including my personal fav... Brit Griffith http://www.patagonia.com/usa/patagonia.go?assetid=1879. She's a crazy girl and everytime I see her, we end up having a good time. She helped me get up a super hard climb (mostly by pulling- thanks B), but also by really stellar instruction on "this foot here, this hand here, etc." She demo'd it a zillion times- to my two attempts. It was so much fun. Here are a couple pictures, including one of Brittany making it look easy.

I couldn't resist...

Mom sent this and I just cracked up. Good times.

The Crane Ride

I was looking through some pictures from the building process and thought I'd post these great shots. When our house was going up, they used this really big crane to stack the logs. They were using an industrial harness to trim the logs up high and asked if I was interested in going for a 'ride'. Of course...I couldn't miss THAT opportunity! It was a hoot.

Um yeah... I, uh, won't be coming in to work today...I can't find my car..

Here are some picture from the Dec. 1-2nd snowstorm! It dumped and dumped and in about 10 hours we had 17+" of snow! Since we had no where to go, we had a fun time enjoying the weahter!

The main road in our neighborhood... Yesterday's form of transportation, today's form of transportation. Yes, that is my car.
Vil's car beneath the layers....
Two elk hunt for food in the snow on our road...
We headed out on the snomobiles and fixed our neighborhood gates- they were stuck open because of all the snow..
Laurel and Hardy...

The beginning of the snow yesterday in our front yard..
There are three vehicles in this picture- can you find 'em?
Vil and Summit in the front yard.
Our little creation in it's element...

First Thanksgiving in the new house!

What a fun day we had! Mom came down and we had Thanksgiving- just the three of us- in our new kitchen! There was so much to be thankful for...a new kitchen, some great food (turkey & fixings with sparkling apple cranberry- YUM), great company and the blessing of this new house! We are slowly starting the move in process... and just picked up some furniture for the living room, where we were able to sit and watch the sun set on Mount Si for the first time in that room! Mom spent the night and she and I did some 'steaming' in our steam shower, then she got to break in the new bedroom & bathroom upstairs for the first time ever. Of course, she didn't get to sleep very long because the sales started early on Friday- door busters were a must! It was a Thanksgiving of firsts....to remember!

Recent House Pictures

Rock work on near the doors is complete... below: pictures of the master bathroom- coming together. We will order mirrors shortly to go in the valance frame.... My favorite... our steam shower with 6 body jets and two showerheads (one has yet to be installed)
The view of our walk in closet.
The carpenters on this job are amazing. They can spot a fallen dead tree in the forest, and have the ability to see a railing. The stairs themselves still have plywood down to protect them as the upstairs get finished.

Cool stairway- new lighting installed going down into the basement.
Notice- all the floors are done!! That's huge progress!
My kitchen is going to be one of my favorite spots. The chandelier (above the island) is missing its' shades here, but it looks amazing when they are on.

Tile work on backsplash and behind stove complete.
Three cheers for my pantry being finished!!!
It's all in the details. Here is the pantry door, done with handmade stained glass. To the right is our fridge with custom panels and cool tree branch appliance pulls.

We're coming down home stretch, which still feels like forever. There are many more things to do, but we are told that in the next couple weeks the carpenters will be done with mostly everything. There is still dusting, cleaning, staining and quite a bit of random work that we will do ourselves, but it's looking like we might actually be cooking Thanksgiving dinner in our new kitchen. THANK GOODNESS!!! I'm so cooking deprived- I'll be going absolutely crazy with cooking for a while (I have visions of cor don bleu, stuffed mushrooms, butternut squash soup and chocolate chip cookies!) During this transition, I've realized how much I miss it and how much of a decompression time cooking has become for me. Although.. not doing dishes has been great!

The house is a work in progress and will be that way for quite a while. So many details to do that we can do ourselves! We'll move in and continue working- but at least we'll have a functional kitchen and be able to start getting stuff out of storage (I'm not even kidding when I say that opening each of those storage boxes will be like Christmas)!

Enjoy the pictures. I'm so pleased with how everything is coming along! Won't be too long now!