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!

Happy Halloween!

It's one of my favorite times of year! Here are some SPOOOOKY pictures from years past.



One of my favorites, is this guy from "Kent" that came to a party. He parked his tractor in our front yard and took his beebee gun out "huntin" tin cans in the backyard. I believe he said his name was Bubba.

I (Witch Matilda) flew in for this event and met up with this glamourous diva. This is my long lost "Lolitta" from high school- Lori G!





The farm girl and the Devil became good friends thought the evening. Halloween brings out the "STRANGE" in all of us!





Whatever your plans for this festive autumn Halloween night- have a safe and happy one!!

What a GORGEOUS day!

Those of you who live in Seattle will agree that yesterday was about as perfect as we can ever expect for weather in the Fall. The highs in North Bend reached 72 degrees, and the warm wind was a welcome gift. I was able to scoot out of work early and take Summit for a 2.5 hour walk near Rattlesnake Lake. We just don't get days like that around here very often, so it was important to enjoy it!

Some of the trees still hung on to a few leaves, but most of them have already dropped due to last week's violent windstorm. The colors around were beautiful though, against the blue sky, and even the bugs were happily hatching (I saw damsels, dragonflies, flying ants and misquitos). The lake level has come way down and in places it looked like you could skip across the sunken trees. What a great day!
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A couple of mornings ago, I got up to let Summit out and was treated to an amazing sunrise. I'll include some pictures with this post- it was really amazing.

A collection of pictures from years of collecting.. Enjoy!

Animals are awesome!

Animals just crack me up. Besides being hilarious they are innocent, beautiful and trusting. Here are some fun pictures. Enjoy!

Fall has come to the mountains!

It was one of those Fall days where you look outside and the sun is shining bright on the trees and you think "what a beautiful day"... and then you hear something on the roof and think "is that rain?"... and look outside and it's hailing. Then the thunder and lightening come "BOOM"... and shake the house. Then the rain. Then you look outside again and it's sunny, as if nothing has happened.

That was our weird weather yesterday. It's part of the Fall unstable air and storm pattern we get in the Northwest during the Fall and Spring Seasons. It also brought this super cold air with it. Vil and I went for a walk after the storm last night. It was a gorgeous, chilly evening, with sun was out setting on Mt. Si. The trees were changinging and the air was cold, so I dug out my gloves and scarf. Turns out it was 42 degrees... brrrr. That's pretty cold for this time of year. The first snow of the year has hit the high hills further up the pass- check out the 3rd picture down.

Here are some shots from our day. Enjoy!