visits with R-C-G-J and Mom

at the beginning of october, while pete was boating around in the puget sound, i spent a long weekend in grand forks, british columbia, with my dear friends roly, christine, and gabriel, and also got to meet juno for the first time. it was a bit of a whirlwind visit that included roly's birthday and canada thanksgiving, but so much fun and good for my soul! we got to hang out with roly's parents too, which is always a treat. i wasn't too sure the border guard was going to let me back into the u.s. - apparently a short visit across the border puts you on par with drug runners. yikes!

 face painting with gabriel - roly is being turned into a clock

 christine's turn!

 gabriel showing off his painted face - a bear faced pancake, a
seahorse-ish creation, and a rainbow on the other cheek. i don't
think i have face painted in nearly 10 years...it is hard!

 gabriel and bugaboo enjoying an apple and the view from our hike

miss juno and her fabulous chick hat from sarah ann

two days after i got back from b.c., my mom flew in from minnesota. when she arrived, we had a functioning shower and toilet in the bathroom. when she left, we had added paint to the walls, concrete counter tops, and two sinks. thanks for being a trooper, mom!

we had a lovely visit - a change of scenery was good for both of us. her visit was nearly two years to the day after my parents were last here for our wedding and my phd defense. we definitely felt my dad's absence, but it was good therapy to make some new, happy memories too.

i think that i would call this trip "the essential california" tour. we hiked in the redwoods in henry cowell state park (with cassie in her buggy for the first time since she recovered from her leg surgery five years ago), took in the sites in san francisco (on a fog-less day!), hiked around yosemite, and visited the santa cruz wharf complete with sea lions and monarch butterflies. and then we put my mom to work in the bathroom... :)

 the fighting banana slug in the redwood grove

 a rare warm and fog free day on the marin headlands

 san francisco's painted ladies

 golden gate bridge from coit tower

 bristlecone pine in yosemite

 giant sequoia tunnel tree in tuolumne grove

upper yosemite falls

 half dome - hiking to the top will have to wait for another trip

 on the beach in santa cruz

after a stretch of 80 degree days in felton, i sent my mom home to temperatures in the 40s. mom, i'll see you back here in february?!

next week we are off to vietnam/cambodia/laos for vacation (mostly) - stay tuned for many, many photos - hopefully from the road. 

so, so close...

pete and i demolished our bathroom on 24 september...that is four weeks ago for those of you keeping track at home. we started with this - 

 why is there a sliding window next to the bathtub you might ask?
so you can get to the office quickly, of course! (sigh) 

the white tile was EVERYWHERE...and it had nearly
a 1/2" grout line. needless to say, with a black dog
in the house, the bathroom never looked clean.

we progressed to this - 

 the "fun" part!

dirty window gone!

we did some initial dry walling and plumbing modifications for transitioning from one sink to two - 

full with dry wall 

pete's awesome circular drain

and then we had contractors come in to set the tub, put in a new (read - smaller, less creepy) window, and tile the shower surround and floor, getting up to about here - 

 48" soaking tub that is pretty awesome

 tub, window, floor, cabinet

and then we were on our own...

pete built the concrete countertops for the vanities and did an amazing job! we are nearly finished with this project, but still have a few finishing touches to install - 

 double sinks (so pete doesn't have to worry about me spitting
on his head?!) and pretty concrete tops (we had just glued the mirror
to the wall so that shim will be replaced by a maple back splash)

 shower/tub

floor

i have discovered that i like the finished product (thankfully) but strongly dislike the process of remodeling...especially when there is only one bathroom in the house. i also learned that everything takes about twice as long as you think it will. i only had to pee in the backyard for a few days...and our backyard shower was kind of novel...

canning - part 2

this week - apples from our backyard! i only made it half way through the apple bucket yesterday and already have 7 pints of applesauce and four bags of frozen, pre-measured slices for pies. i also picked 7 pounds of strawberries yesterday from one of our local organic u-pick places. i usually do this in august, but...well. life happens. regardless, our freezer is now nearly stuffed full of mixed berries for smoothies and apples...and pesto.

we had a bumper crop of apples this year from our little backyard tree (i picked about 30 pounds yesterday)! i haven't used them for anything in the past because they have been pretty wormy, but this year they looked, and tasted great. i've been picking up apples from around the yard for a few weeks thanks to our pesky resident squirrels...i think i just won! :)

 frozen apple slices for a mid-winter pie

 my first jars of applesauce