Hello Home Ownership!

Yay, we own a home!! Now it's time to start all the renovations. Lots more pictures to follow I'm sure. We got the key Friday night and popped on by the house to do a little surveillance before the weekend. We tore up a little bit of the carpet Friday night just to see what we were dealing with. Luckily most of the wood floors underneath are in pretty good shape. Unfortunately there's also a lot of patched up places where walls used to be and such. One of the bedrooms also have the original old floors so they don't match all the rest of the floors. We'll find out when all the walls are down what's really going on with the floors though. We should be able just to patch up a few places and sand them down and refinish them for some nice wood floors!

Saturday we went back to the house to get started with some work. We tore up all of the carpet and stuck it out on the back porch for now. Hopefully next weekend we'll have a dumpster that we can start throwing things in as we tear things down. We were also sticking around the house in order to receive all our kitchen shipments. They finally showed up around 4 in the afternoon and took a while to get everything into the house. They delivered everything other than the countertop and sink which we'll order from another place. So now we have a lot of appliances and even more flat pack boxes in our living room awaiting assembly and installation into our brand new kitchen! 

This coming week some of the construction crew should be coming by to start reinforcing the ceiling from above so we'll be able to tear down all the interior walls. Then we can start rebuilding everything. We'll have lots more progress in the next few weeks and I can't wait to see it all finished!

 [living room without all the carpet...ready to tear down the kitchen]

 [trying to get the new fridge up the steps]

[our kitchen all boxed up]

On a little less positive note, Friday I took the day off of work mostly to take Tara to the vet to have them take a look at her little toe issues. The vet didn't seem to think it was as serious as cancer which needed toe amputation like last time, but they did think it was necessary to remove the toenail surgically to prevent infection which could result in a need for tow amputation. They were able to get her in the same day and remove the nail and bandage her back up and she got to come home with a cute little red cast on her foot that looks like a little Christmas stocking...how festive! She's doing really well with it and seems to be recovering fairly well. Everyone at the vet clinic kept raving about how sweet she was and how well she did with everything ;) I'll take her back on Monday to have the bandages removed and hopefully she'll be able to recover completely in the next week or two. The vet kept telling me to make sure she doesn't go on long walks or be too active. I had to laugh at that and remind them that she's 13 years old and making it once around the block is a pretty big feat for her these days. I don't think making sure she's resting will be an issue!

A few more fun recipes to mention while I'm at the whole blogging thing. Last week after we had eaten supper I had a craving for cupcakes. I really didn't want to make a whole batch or go walk somewhere to get them, so I found this awesome recipe that makes just TWO cupcakes! What a great idea and perfect for a random craving in the middle of the week! The recipe can be found here. I just whipped up some chocolate buttercream to go with it and a strawberry to top it off! I think I'll definitely be trying different versions of this recipe to make it other flavors but still in a tiny little batch! Definitely satisfied my cupcake cravings for the night!

Another recent craving...or constant craving of mine is for rhubarb! I made some delicious strawberry rhubarb scones a few nights ago that made a perfect easy on the go breakfast for both of us for the rest of the week. I love rhubarb and it was so easy to bake it into a little treat that I could enjoy the every morning with my cup of coffee ;) The recipe that I used to make them can be found here. Enjoy the deliciousness!

Do You Hear the People Sing?

I sure heard them sing! Singing the song of angry men! Friday night we went to see Les Miserables at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle. Ryan surprised me with tickets since I made it quite obvious that I really wanted to go to it. I wasn't really sure what to expect since it's a relatively small theater, I was kind of expecting a little local production. I was completely BLOWN AWAY! It was amazing! Of course I'm sure it helped that I am slightly enamoured by this musical to begin with. I am always just so stunned by how great all of the songs are and the story and the sets. The performers were really perfect for each character and it sounded just like the Broadway soundtrack on my ipod ;) I think having a smaller stage made it that much better too. There were great stage sets that just filled the entire stage and they moved them seamlessly from one act tot he next. I had such a great time and it was quite possibly the greatest musical performance I have ever seen!

Saturday it was a beautiful day in Seattle! Mid 80s and perfectly sunny, so we were planning to take the dogs for a swim at Discovery Park. We made it to the park and up one hill before Tara hurt her little toe and didn't seem to be too motivated to go much further, so we stopped and took some fun pictures in a field and turned around and headed back down the hill to the car. My poor little old lady. I'm a little nervous about her little toe though, it's looking a little too similar to how her last toe injury started out with a loose toe nail and ended up with a toe amputation. Hopefully I can get her into the vet this week so they can make it all better. I can't wait till she can move into the house and wander around the yard as slowly as she wants to her little hearts content. In the mean time, here's a few pretty pictures that we got!

Just a few more days till home ownership! We should be closing on Friday and starting renovations that weekend. We already ordered most of our kitchen (cabinets and appliances) and they'll begin to be delivered on Saturday, so we can start tearing out all of the existing stuff and the carpets. Hopefully we'll have a construction crew in their starting next week to do all the major stuff and get the ball rolling so we can move in! I'm sure I'll be taking lots and lots of pictures. I can't wait to do a before and after comparison!

Ben Swims! (sort of)

Last Friday I got to see ANOTHER one of my middle school buddies who I really haven't seen since middle school...soooo, going on 15 years?? Golly I feel old! Cherri and her fiance (they got engaged on the way to Seattle) just moved out here, so we met up with them and Leigha and Nino for dinner and drinks at a fun little place called 'Pies and Pints' where pretty much the whole menu is variations of pot pies...how fun! It was great catching up and now we have more people to add to our little group of Michiganders ;)

Saturday we headed up to Bellingham for a day of trails. Ryan was meeting up with a group of people to go on a pretty popular mountain biking trail for a few hours, so Ben and I found a few good running trails to try out.

After a few other trails, we ended up at a big park with a lake and several more trails and dog parks and such and Ben got to run off any last little bit of energy he had left (which wasn't much). When Ryan was done with his riding, they met us at the park for a quick swim in the lake to freshen up and try to get Ben to swim a little! Ryan took him out till he couldn't touch anymore and let him swim back to shore. At least we know now that he is capable of swimming, now we just need to motivate him to want to do it on his own! Hopefully one of these days it'll kick it. Either way it was cute.

Just over a week till home ownership!! That means next weekend might be our last free weekend for a while. It also happens to be our 6 month anniversary weekend ;)

Jalapeño Whoopie!

This may be one of my all time favorite things I have ever made, Jalapeño Cornbread Whoopie Pies with Honey Buttercream filling. It's just like delicious cornbread shmeared with butter and honey except it comes all wrapped up in one little sandwich all ready to be enjoyed! I've tried several whoopie pies before, most of which were adapted from cupcake recipes, but this was my first stab at a somewhat more savory flavor and I'd say it's a huge hit. I'll definitely be trying out a few more savories in the future. This one had just the right punch of spice from the jalapeños contrasted with the sweet honey buttercream...AMAZING! I got the recipe from here. The only thing I changed was using about 4 times as much honey to make sure I achieved that delicious cornbread with honey taste.

I can't wait to have a pretty white kitchen to take better food pictures in! And it'll be much much bigger. 2 more weeks till home ownership!

Seattle Wedding Weekend

This weekend one of Ryan's co-workers got hitched! They had actually been engaged long before we were and finally tied the knot. It was nice to actually go to a wedding right downtown Seattle. We could have easliy walked to it, but decided to drive a little closer since I was in heels and Ryan was in a suit and we didn't want to be tromping around the city in our nice clothes. The groom's family owns a winery over in Eastern Washington, so they donated all the delicious wine for the event. Even before the wedding started they filled us up with their wine. I think this was the first wedding I've been to where I've been sipping the wine during the ceremony. Our little place cards were also little bottles of home made limoncello which was super cute, and they had home brewed beer with labels that had their cute little puggle's face on it. There were a lot of super cute little personolized touches to everything. The cake was actually made by one of the other firm partners' wife who has a little training in culinary fields. It was delicious and super pretty! I would love to be able to bake like that some day. Really I just need a reason to bake a big cake like that so I can practice! The wedding was a ton of fun and I think the couple was super pumped to have it over with and get to be married finally.

Another fun surprise for me Sunday night...The Pioneer Woman picked another one of my photos as a semi finalist in her photography contests! This time the theme was black and white photos. I submitted a few different ones, but the one she chose was this one of Ryan's little brother, Aaron, during a hike we did last summer. I guess the pioneer woman just likes little brothers since those are the ones she keeps picking of mine, good things I have such cute ones! You can see the post with my photo here. If I keep this up, maybe I'll even win someday! Even just making it to the final round of picks I think I would win a prize and she gives out some pretty awesome prizes. I'm having fun just seeing my photos pop up on her blog for now though, it's pretty awesome!

Seafair part One!

This weekend was kind of our start to Seattle's Annual Seafair. There are events all summer long, with the big shebang next weekend with the boat races and Blue Angels air show. Saturday we started out with a visit to one of Ryan's projects so he could check out an issue that the client was concerned about. Also, I hadn't seen this one under construction yet, so I wanted to check it out! As usual it's awesome and has some amazing outdoor spaces and views of Lake Washington. We're also nerds and were checking out some of the features in the home for use in our soon to be home renovations. It's nice to be able to see in all of these houses how things work so we can get an idea of what we want in ours. Plus we can also price it all out that way too.

The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering around Seattle, and picking up our race packages for the Seafair race that night, which is what we did Saturday night! The cool part about this race is that it runs part of it along the parade route which is packed with people waiting for the parade to start, so there's lots of people to cheer for you! It's also a pirate themed race, so lots of silly people get dressed up as pirates to run. It was good to get a good run in for the day. On the way home after the race we walked by the beginning of the parade route, so we got to see a lot of the floats and other participants before they started the parade.

After a quick shower we headed back out to the craziness of Seafair in an attempt to get some dinner at 'Serious Pie', Seattle's famous chef, Tom Douglas's pizza place. It just happened to be right on the other side of the parade route, so we scooted across at a break and put our names in for a table. After waiting a few minutes we started hearing cannons going off right outside so we stuck out heads out to watch the rest of the parade which included several floats of pirates shooting off ridiculously loud cannons! I'm sure there were a plethora of less than amused small children who felt the noise was slightly excessive for a nice family event. Luckily there were only a few shot off right by us so it didn't kill our eardrums too badly. Back inside we had a great dinner. The pizza was good, but I must say the highlight of my meal was my amazing root beer float! When I saw it on the menu I knew I had to have it and it completely hit the spot...mmmm tummy love.

Sunday morning Ryan got up bright and early to head off to ride bikes down mountains, which gave me some free time to grab brunch with my favorite Queen Anne ladies, Sarah and Leigha! As much as I'll miss living right down town, I think Queen Anne will be a nice change and I'm eager to get to know all the little local places over there. We also just had a ton of things to catch up on with Leigha's baby news and Sarah just getting back from Paris and our house buying plans! It's so amazing to see how much we've grown up from our little West Middle School selves ;)

Later that afternoon since I had some more free time before Ryan got home, I decided to try out some recipes. I was completely obsessed with the strawberry cupcake I had at the Capital Hill Block Party last weekend, so that was my first challenge to try to recreate. I made angel food cake cupcakes and little whoopie pie wafers and topped/ filled them with a delicious strawberry butter cream. I still think it was pretty amazing, but I probably could have pumped a few more strawberries into it. Either way, I'd say it was a success. As usual with my excessive baking I brought the rest into work so they could get devoured by others before I put myself into a permanent sugar coma. Sad thing is that I set them out when I got to work just after 7am and they were gone in the next 30-45 minutes. Apparently people think cupcakes are an appropriate morning treat! Delish!