Peace, Joy, and Love

Here's to a Christmas Eve that's full of wonder, joy, and celebration!

Love from Plain

lost and found

Since when does a first haircut turn you from a little sweet precious baby boy into a toddler?  Seriously!  I was afraid this was going to happen when we finally decided to get that hair out of kiddo's eyes and stop the mullet before it got too redneck...  which we did this weekend.   Where did my tiny little baby boy go?  He is lost.  And this is what I found...

I present to you... (sniff)

My boy.  He's growing up so fast!

This evening we tried to get him to say "Cowabunga, dude!"  (You know, flashback to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).  It was pretty hilarious when he finally got out the words "bungabunga dude!"

December is a crazy month

Yup, December is crazy.  And as much as I may whine about being busy or not having enough time in the day... I do just LOVE this month.

I love the special family birthdays -- Aleksandr, Sue, Serenity, Haakon, Josh and Steven.  Whew!  That's a lot, but apparently a good month to share time and experiences with one another as we see some of you for parties!

I love decorating for the holidays.  Yes it can be cheesy.  Yes some people go way over the top.  Yes even I have many lights and ornaments and a few wall hangings in my house... but I have no guilt over "commercialization" of Christmas... because for some reason it sort of brings back the magic that I remember Christmas feeling like when I was little.  Hope, expectation, joy... all those feelings.  I remember just laying on the couch in the dark with my sister Kirsten and just talking and staring at the lit up tree and listening to Little Drummer Boy off Mom's favorite tape...  I swear it was magical and so much fun!  I know those feelings aren't a result of the decorations, but somehow they are connected in my mind because of how much I love them when I was younger.

I love Christmas music!  Top favorite album for the season -- Amy Grant Christmas.  Just can't go wrong with that CD.  Then Late Tuesday.  Their rendition of O Holy Night is AMAZING.

I love cold weather and snow outside, and a crackling fire on the inside.

I love that Gravity rarely has too much work in December, and so I get to keep Steven home with me a lot :)

I love the parties and many excuses to see people that you love, both family and friends!

I love seeing an outpouring of generosity from many folks I know to those less fortunate -- food, gifts, money, volunteering...  and I love giving back to the community I live in, in small ways, and hoping to be a blessing to someone else.  

I love Oly.  Enough said.

I love ALL OF YOU READING THIS!  and here's a shout-out to Grandma Hazel - it was so nice to talk to you last night, and I am sure glad to know that you and Grandpa Russ enjoy reading this blog :)

Happy December 9th.  Happy birthday Josh!

top 10

When it's 18 degrees outside, and I am tired and hungry, and annoyed, driving home from work, trying not to hit a deer, I sometimes wonder why I like living in the boonies...?  You know?  But I just ran across this silly ad that someone forwarded me awhile back that has some funny points about living in Chelan County.  I think it's TOTALLY cheesy, but true, and a fun reminder.  Just thought I'd share it with you!

happy day.

What I am most thankful for today... people!

Oly-Olaferson

 

Steve and Dave

 

Grandpa Mark

 

 Friends that go WAY back.

 

 Snow and bad mustaches.

 

Also... I don't live here this year.  Yay!

Thankful for all the other people in our lives who aren't mentioned today -- know that you are loved!

Now if only it would snow this weekend...  all ours melted :(  boo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Opening weekend at Stevens Pass

Raise you hand if you skied this weekend...
I DID, I DID! 



First time this year.  I only went twice last year since I had an infant at home.  And maybe 6 the year before when I was preggers.  So this was a great day for me!

Stevens Pass was AWESOME.  Good old WA powder.  Backside opened for the first time on Saturday when we were there.  Which means untracked goodness, even on groomers.  Got in 10 runs before noon and got home in time to still get a ton done around the house.  I love living so close to the mountain!

Steve, dad and me.  Ah yeah.

Urban Granola with a touch of Redneck

All these years I have been wearing my Sorels (snow boots)…
Since 1998 when I first got them…
All those years I thought for sure I was cool to wear them everywhere.
Stevens Pass, Plain, Seattle, Olympia…  I was making a fashion statement that said “I DON’T CARE if you don’t think these are cool, because I DO, and I actually need them in the snow.  So stop looking at my feet like that.  Yes I know it’s not snowing here but I just got off the mountain ok?.”

My friend Emma described my style as "Urban Granola, with just a touch of Redneck".  LOVE IT. Thanks E.

Well who would have thought.
You know what’s on the FRONT cover of the new JCrew catalog?  Sorels.

They sell them now.  As a cool fashion winter boot.  There goes my individuality.  But at least now I KNOW I am in style.  Take that fashionistas – I am way ahead of you on this one!!

I may have been rockin these kicks while dancing with a fire hoola-hoop.

Or while playing in the snow with the dogs and Steven.

Perhaps while I was out shoveling snow.

Or getting a Christmas tree with friends.  (Note - they are under the gaiters)

I may have rocked them while hanging out in L.Town.

Or I may have worn them with tights and a skirt?  Not likely :)  But now that I know it's another socially accepted practice in the fashion world... who knows?

walkthrough (walkaround) #2

Here's the second chapter of our remodel saga -- West side (back) of the house.  

Boring to some perhaps, but interesting to me!

 

Spring 2008.  We start exterior wall demolition.  Windows have been removed upstairs as well as some wood trim between the two floors.

 

 Ron and Sue faithfully swung hammers all day.  Thank you.

 

 Complete wall demo!  My job (being 38 weeks pregnant at this time) was supervision.  Oh, and I used Steve's saw to cut down those little vine maple suckers at the back door.

 

 Early winter 2009. We took the stairs out of the inside and moved them outside so that we could still access upstairs.

 

 Door and window to master bedroom are both cut out.

 

All sealed up from the snow!  Luckily there were new stairs framed inside at this time or we'd be out of luck :)

 Later winter 2009, look at all the beautiful windows and doors!

 

Working on the roof.  Also... that dead plant in the foreground is from when the cut down and pulled out my beautiful (old) white lavender bush... I was pretty bummed but apparently it "had to be done" so I sucked it up and moved on.

 

Spring 2009.  Prepping for stucco.

 

Completed base layers!  Oh and my trees are getting leaves!

 

 Getting ready to put up the back porch.

 

 Beautiful post and beam construction, just like the front porch.

 

 Cedar shakes up top.  Good night they took FOREVER to stain and install, one at a time... but Reid did such a nice job and they ended up looking all whimsical like.  The engineer in my keeps trying to find a pattern to how they were installed... but there truly is none, which is why I love them!

 

Looking in the back porch door to the master bedroom.

 

 LOVE my new deck.  We had a recommendation from a friend to put a coffee maker in our bedroom, so that when we have guests over we don't even have to go downstairs and see them, we can hide on our back porch with a cup of coffee first thing... have yet to put it into practice but I really like the idea!

 

Large enough for sleeping outside... without my irrational fear of wild animals getting us all!

Remodel Walkthrough #1

Our remodel was such an overwhelming process that I never got around to posting more than just a few photos at a time.  In fact, to call it a "remodel" is a major understatement.

You could throw in "restoration", or "rebuild" or even "Steve and Jenn were NUTS to even consider this project".  Nuts or not... we went for it.  Someday we are going to put together a coffee table book of all our pictures of the whole process, but for now I thought I'd start from the beginning and work through until this summer.   But, I am only going to show you the outside -- specifically the West aspect (front of the house) in this post.  We'll work up to the rest of it later :)

Summer 2007.  When we first arrived at the property, wondering if we wanted to make an offer, this is part of what we found.  An old structure.  We knew nothing about its history at the time (and are still learning), but just knew that it had some MAJOR character.  Those are pumice stone blocks.  The walls are 14" thick.  4" block, 2" airspace (filled with loose pumice) followed by another layer of 4" block.  A few holes, a few cracks, but a solid structure.  An old milk barn, we are told.  It was also a house, a garage/shop, and who knows what else.  We found it littered with beer cans, so probably an old party location as well.  We thought... could this be remodeled into a home someday?  Is that something we want to tackle?

 

 

 This is the old chicken coop on the property.  It had to be torn down as part of the County sale requirements (it was 3' over the property line).  BUT all the wood was saved, the nails were pulled, and it later became many things inside of our home, which you'll see in subsequent walkthroughs.

 

Looking towards the back of the property.  The buildings (left to right) are the woodshed, the shop, the house, the coop, and the barn which a short time later belonged to Steven's brother and his family.  (How sweet to someday live next door to family?)  It truly was a beautiful piece of property and we were blessed to find it.  We made an offer, and it was accepted.  We were the first owners in the "subdivision".

 

October 2007.  We rented a 40 yard dumpster that fall and COMPLETELY filled it with crap from inside the house.  What a long day.  We started gutting it a week after I found out I was preggers with Oly.  Talk about being tired.

 

Winter 2007/2008.   That winter we didn't do a ton on the house.  Hard to with this much snow, eh?  We just came out every now and then to ski, snowshoe, and play.

 

I see character in this old house, potential, strong bones...  Another hundred years at least.

 

The following summer 2008, we continued gutting.  This time we were taking out walls, siding, nasty old insulation, windows, doors... you get the idea.  There wasn't a whole lot else we could do to the house because we didn't have a construction loan yet, but we did put in our well, well piping, electrical to the well and a temp power pole, and a septic system.   Yeah... we were definitely out of money by then!

 

They used to drive tractors in through those tri-fold doors in the winter,  pull the engines out from the I-Beam above, could slide them over to the other side to work on in the warmth.  We kept the I-Beam.  It is cool.

September 2008.  We move with our 3 month old into a 5th wheel here on the property...  Hoping and praying that our loan gets approved so we don't have to live in there indefinitely...

December 24th, 2008.  Our construction loan is approved!  Thank you Cashmere Valley Bank!

 

January 2009.  Jake and Matt arrive from Missoula to start framing, and Rumann Homes begins a bunch of other work like plumbing, porch footings, septic connection etc.

 

 Luckily we didn't get a ton of snow that January.  We did have a lot of mud though.

 

After the framing of the exterior walls was done, we wrapped it up.

 

We got plastic on the new plywood roof since we knew there was a lot of nasty weather that would continue to come.  It got to whipping when the wind came up (which is pretty often here) but no rips or tears all winter.  Go plastic!

 

Windows arrived and were installed upstairs first.  Those are two small bedrooms.

 

Also arriving was the insulation for our roof.  We decided to leave all the trusses exposed on the inside of the house, and instead we insulated on the outside with 9" of styrofoam.  Talk about energy efficient!  Between that and 14" thick downstairs walls, plus additional insulation...  Our electrical bill should be about $30 or less a month.  In the WINTER.

 All the windows have now been installed.  And now a plug for the beautiful mailbox holder that Steve made me from a fallen down tree out in the backwoods.  I love how whimsical it is.  Good luck taking that one out Mr. Snowplow driver.

 Look!  A front door!  Thanks Frank Lumber (The Door Store).  You know what's crazy? When we were at the door store in Shoreline, we discovered that the store owner actually owns a home less than a mile from this one, which used to be owned by family friends.  CRAZY small world.  Also as we approach spring, styrofoam insulation panels begin being boxed in on the roof.  The gray tarp on the left has all the river rock which will become our stove backing/hearth.

 Spring 2009 has arrived.  And so has the subcontractor who will wrap our house in elastomeric stucco.  Normal stucco can't expand and contract in extreme cold without cracking, but this specialized stuff can.  First though, they did 3 layers of concrete with fiber mesh reinforcement.

 

 The front porch roof is installed.  Look at the beautiful post and beam construction.

 

 ALL the wood above was taken from the old chicken coop and sanded and/or planed down to what you see.  You can still see all the original saw marks from when it was milled.  No light fixtures out there just yet.

 Steve and I went back and forth for a month on what color to get the stucco.  Luckily, I was able to convince Steven that my choice was best, as seen above :)   I spent many hours looking at french chateaus and cabins and other stone buildings and this was the closest color I could find.  Plus, combined with the chocolate brown roof which Steven chose, and cedar trim... it just looked... how we envisioned it. 

This house is truly a collaboration of ideas between the two of us. 

And that folks... is where I leave you.  I won't post final pictures of the house until I give you a final "tour".  Hopefully you can wait awhile because this post took over an hour to write and upload pictures! But there is much more to come.