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Melissa and Casey get hitched

Melissa has become Melissa Marshall Rock. On October 16, 2010 she married Casey Rock. We spent a few days invading their space and here are some of my favorite pictures. Fortunately I remembered to plug in my camera battery before we left Utah. Unfortunately it didn't make it into my suitcase I'm waiting for Melissa's photographer to get the really good photos. But here are a few to remember the day by ....

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MAINE HERE WE COME!!!

We went to Maine in hopes of seeing beautiful, beautiful country side with lots of wildlife ... especially Moose(s)!

AND DID WE SEE ONE?????


NOT!!!!! Not a single one! But we did see ....

a squirrel!

This is what we did see though ....
The Atlantic Ocean in Kennebunk, Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor Maine, etc., etc.
Lots and lots of colorful leaves
Canterbury Shaker Village
The largest display of Legos in Manchester, NH
Gilbert's lobster rolls
Plymouth Rock
The Mayflower

All in all ... a good trip. And oh by the way ... the GPS has saved our marriage!

Our Home 2010 Landscaping

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New girl on the block

What is in a name???? Whenever we get a new puppy for Guide Dogs for the Blind we always see if we can guess the name before they get here. I always offer a prize ... but I don't think anyone has EVER been ever to guess one yet. But this one I'm sure we would have never came up with. Let's see if I can remember some of the names we guessed:

Scott said Nellie. Kate and John had a list, but Namby Pamby was their first choice. Melissa said Nala, while Amy and John guessed Nevada, Nelly, but Amy loved Nibbles etc, etc, etc. I personally was hoping for Natalya or Nadia .... BUT it never works out the way I think it should!

IT IS NIGELLA!!!! Now why didn't we think of that????!!!??? Named after a famous British food critic (female). She's on the food channel I guess all the time, but since I get to cook all the time, I don't really watch the food channel. The name comes from Nigella Lawson's combination of her fathers name, Nigel, and her mothers name Vanessa. Personally I think Nanessa would have been a better choice! I think Nigella sounds like something we saw in high school biology when we looked at swamp water under the microscope:(

But let me tell you she is a cutie. And here she is!

So of Bevy, Jean, Belinda, Amelia, Hailey, Violet, Adele, Thistle, Mollie, Dora, and Elena I think maybe Nigella is the most original (but Thistle was in the running also!)

they tie the knot (matador horns?)

On Wedding Eve in Cabo the Great Aunt Julie (which she loves to be known as) hosted a wonderful dinner at Mi Casa eatery. So much fun with Mariachi band, and the waiters really played it up by giving Amy a spanish conquistador hat and then made bull horns for John out of his napkin. Here are some of my fav pics of that night. Thanks Jules and Muriel ... so much good food and fun memories!

To the Dump

Look at my poor little car! This thing weighed a ton! Literally!!! It took 2 men to lift the 1 1/2 foot pieces of branch (so demeaning to just call it a branch). Zach called it family bonding. We love you Zach. Thanks for coming to our rescue. Even though we didn't let you use the chainsaw without health insurance!!!!

The BIG TREE

Grandpa has a tree. A BIG TREE!!! And let's just say the there have been few wind storms in the area lately. So when I walked around the back of his house .... I kept saying .... "This is a job for professionals!!!!! This is a job for professionals!!!!!" Why does no one ever listen to me????? Well here are the pros ... Scott, Zach and Kim to the rescue.

I had 911 on speed dial the whole time. Luckily I had to go get lunch at the very last couple of cuts or the 911 would have had to be for me. The diameter of the tree at its base is 27 plus feet.

This is the tree that has shaded all the family gatherings, the volleyball games, the river floaters, etc. In fact Kim said that growing up he never even thought summer was hot, because between this trees shade and the river that runs behind their house it was a kid's paradise. Unfortunately it had to have a major trim.

Next time we need to call the PROFESSIONALS. (I think it is testosterone or something that makes guys want to cut things up???? Don't get it! At all!!!

A Red Hot Time

We're winding down with the time we have with Elena and taking every moment to get pictures of her so we can remember how sweet she is. Last night we visited the local fire station as a puppy club ... at the end of the visit we had a photo shoot! I love this picture on the front of the fire truck!

Mean Mother Nature

Mother Nature played a mean April Fools trick last night, and here it is!

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Goodbye Boots, Hello???

Well I threw the snow boots, snowmobile suit, snow pants, etc. to the basement today! YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!!!!! I'm just a little sick of winter and sooooo ready to be warm!

Do I think it is done snowing??? Of course not, it is only March. But I'm sure hoping it doesn't stick if it does!

Goodbye Boots! Hello ????

Went to my favorite store today! Not one that most of the girly girls like...but one that really speaks to me. I remember going here occasionally as a child with one of my parents, and it is diffinately a time warp thing for me. The store itself has evolved a bit and no longer sells chicken feed, but if I only had a picture of the antique drawers that are faced with beautiful and colorful vegetables pictures. LOVE IT THERE! I especially love it when I get someone fun to wait on me. My favorite is the guy who is probably in his fifties, with slicked back hair who tells a story about each vegetable and what his indian grandmother would do with it! Now he is a wealth of knowledge!

Well I didn't get "Slick" today, but I got a woman who was very friendly and was passing out hugs to the other workers. I could tell she loved her job ... such a nice feeling.

So the picture is of some of the onion plants they sell there. Better watch out they go fast. I got a little back ground on these plants from one of my favorites in the area. Fred grows the biggest onions ever! When fall arrives he ties the tops of a couple of them together and hangs them from the trees in his back yard to dry out. Then he stores them where his wife doesn't smell them. In the spring of the next year he takes a few down to Anderson's so they can put them with the onion plants....and when people see the size of them the bundles of plants seem to walk out of the store on their own (at least that is the way he tells the story).

Fred's daughter Barbie is also wonderful. It is so fun to go to her yard ... she has taken gardening to the extreme. She has a plant in her house that she has had since she was about 12. Because she is about 50 you can tell that this is one girl with a green thumb.

Well Barbie told me to buy the onion plants then fill a tub about 4 inches with potting soil and place the onion plants in the soil standing up about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in depth. This gets the onions starting to grow roots and when the soil in the garden finally warms up you can transplant them directly out there. I did this last summer and I must say that I had pretty wonderful success, to the tune of we are still using onions from the garden and they will probably last us through June or so.

So to all you gardeners, take a hike to Anderson's Seed and Garden store. It will remind you of times past with great people. But don't wait until May 20th when everyone else in the valley will be there trying to get what they want. It is really a store with a following ... and I'm proud to say I'm one of them!

my nightstand

I think I might have ADD! This is a picture of just some of the books I'm reading (on any given night!) Seems like I'm so tired at night after working on the basement that I choose one. My "carry through" is all "carried out!" All in all I've decided that I don't really LOVE big books. I like the little ... "get through 'em" type books. I'm kind of wading my way through the following:
Massacre (the story of Mountain Meadows)
Angels among us (the story of the Willie Handcart company)
Going Rogue (the story of Sarah Palin)
Half Broke Horses (the story of a women growing up in AZ/TX area). LOVED IT! It is by the auther of The Glass Castle which I also loved and is the all the stories of her grandmother that she was told during her growing up years.

I love to read! Especially true stories and how people survived. I guess you can tell that by the books I am reading. In the windowsill (no room on the nightstand) is "The Viccar of Wakefield" which was recommended by a friend. I wonder if I will ever get to it.

almost finished

My life as a carpenter!

Basement Project

My heart goes out to all of you have ever had to build a house from scratch! SOOO many decisions. We're just finishing the basement and sometimes I think ... "I can NOT make one more decision about things". Especially after we painted the bathroom. Laid the tile next to it and I said ... "all wrong". We repainted within hours to a more silver gray, instead of a greener gray. I'm still hoping that all the pieces come together OK. I AM NOT AN INTERIOR DECORATOR! LuAnn where are you when I need you! Oh that's right I have a budget to stick with ... OK LuAnn stay away!

So while I was in Texas for 2 1/2 weeks awaiting cute little Adelaide's arrival Scott and Zach start the basement project. I've been gathering pieces for 3 years now (since we moved in here). A tub, toilet, sink, lights, sheet rock mud, etc. It seems like when I go away Scott gets a bee in his bonnet and things really start to roll. I like it when I go away! We are now getting close to finishing the bathroom (that's one out of three). The only things left are the window sill (all 13 pieces ... yes the builder did not lie when he said that there are 13 pieces in each window casing) and the crowning glory ... the toilet installed. Because Scott and I do not do this everyday of our lives we are slow ... oh so slow. We have to think out each little project. Let me tell you that add so many decisions and then cut a board wrong and it is the ingredients of a little argument! Last night I threatened to walk off the job ... what's he going to do hold back my wages?

I consider myself the sous carpenter. I do a lot of the prep work, the cleaning up, the buying of supplies etc. (Much like a sous chef). I work with the pretend carpenter, not a real carpenter. I'm learning about all kinds of miter joints, compound miter joints, thin set, grout, paintable caulk ... call me with your questions and I'll refer you to YouTube! We eat dinner watching YouTube segments about tiling, grouting, cutting baseboard and crown molding! We have learned so much from those little blurbs! Now I'm looking for someone who has done Venetian Plaster ... can't wait to tell Scott what my plans are. He usually just knows it's easier to join in than to fight me.

Anyway I tried to pull the color gray from the tile we used (used all over this house but with warm tans and browns). I could see a spa like bath in my mind. Calm, soothing gray ... needless to say the bathroom's been painted three times now. Primer, then a green gray, then a more silver gray. I think it's finally coming together, but I must admit for awhile I was pretty scared that I might have to paint it again!!!

So I'm off to THE BASEMENT. Time to prime last nights work on the window casings then off on my daily trip to Lowes to buy the missing baseboard that we need ... again!

Looking back ....

I was looking for pictures to print for our "near to be finished" basement bathroom and found this one of the sandrail that we went on while visiting the Oregon coast. It was a "white knuckle" ride, full of screaming, cussing and "oh my, we're goin' die". If you ever make it there it is a "must do"!

And NO WE DID NOT LET SCOTT DRIVE!!!! Even though he probably would have loved to. The driver jumped out to take our picture (before the excitement) and of course Scott slid right over! AND YES you do need protective EVERYTHING wear! Not sure we looked this good after the ride! The couple in the very back ... were very quite the whole time! We were screaming! Way worse than a roller coaster! $25 a person for an hour ride ... right up there with helicopter in Hawaii! We are SUCH ADVENTURERS!

THANKS JUDY AND ALAN for such a fun vacation! Where we goin' next???