Thursday, December 31, 2009

Last day of 2009

Let's take a look outside, this last day of 2009 ....



It snowed!  Everything always looks better after it has snowed.




Happy New Years Eve!






Sunday, December 20, 2009

It Snowed



It snowed!

Everything looks so pretty after it snows.  The jingle bells are wearing bigger snow hats than they did yesterday.





Glad I got the reindeer up before it snowed too much yesterday. They are wearing snow hats too :-)




We ended up with about 7-1/2".  Not a lot compared to the 20" in parts of Maryland, VA and NC, but a lot for around here. We usually don't have a "White Christmas", so this is exciting for us. 

And, yes, I measured it :-)




Enough with the snow, can we go in now?



Saturday, December 19, 2009

More ....


Let the wrestling begin .....
























I got to watch a wrestling match earlier this morning.  This was after a game of "your toy is better than mine"  They each had a toy but they were eying the other's toy.  Then, as if on a signal, they would stop, look away briefly, and then pounce on the other's toy.  Repeat for 10 minutes.

Then we had the wrestling :-)

We've had a stint outside and now all is quiet and peaceful.
























For now.

Snow & Such

Wow, two blog posts in a month!  Is this possible?  LOL


Bought the dogs each a coat and they arrived on Friday.  Luce accepted her coat without qualm, but Blaze was paralyzed in his.  Just stood there and would barely move.  Had to drag him outside while Luce was bouncing all around him.  The next time I brought The Ball out with me ... that took his mind off of the jacket  :-)


Common picture here when The Ball is out.  Luce waiting for Blaze who is waiting for The Ball to move.

Today is Saturday and it is snowing.  The states further south of us are getting dumped upon but we only have maybe an inch so far.






The Koi are hibernating

Blaze is getting used to his coat ... he still thinks he is going to die when I first put it on, but getting used to quicker and quicker now.


Wednesday, December 9, 2009

In progress

Been a while since I posted again.  Things have been busy and disorganized around here.  Was secretary for a bunch of agility trials since August, plus went to trials, and even got to go to Scottsdale, AZ for USDAA's Nationals in November!

But the biggest thing has been our kitchen/familyroom.  Under construction since August.  Sigh.  It takes that long when we are all busy working and trying to squeeze in other things, so it just gets done in the spare time.  And there hasn't been much of that this fall!

We decided to redo the kitchen so some degree ... including painting the kitchen cabinets and stripping the 23 year old wallpaper.



Evan spent the last few days that he was home on the kitchen.  We used a chemical stripper.  That combined with 23 year old wallpaper placed directly on bare drywall = takes a long time.

While we were at it, we also decided to add some trim to the bottom of the cabinets.  You can see the tile backsplash that we had on the walls, plus the cabinet color before we sanded and painted.


Boy, does Hugh ever hate mitering :-) but he did it :-)

The cabinet doors all had to come off, get washed down and sanded.


We also decided on granite countertops.  So, the old counters had to come off ...


... before the new ones could be installed.


We are still in the midst of painting.  A beadboard backsplash was put in and we also put it on the island.
In the meantime, I still went to trials and Blaze even earned his Advanced Gamblers title and is in Masters Gamblers with a Q!


And ran a bunch of trials, including a VERY MUDDY trial at Fair Hill, MD


We have now taken all of the wallpaper off in the adjoining family room ... I rented a wallpaper steamer which made the job a LOT easier and faster!  But, again, the wallpaper was put on the bare drywall with no priming or sizing.  I would love to decorate for Christmas, but it is kind of hard when the family room looks like this:


Maybe some lights on the ladder?