J&K Wedding Video

Just a few months late, but I've uploaded Jordan and Kristen's wedding ceremony video to YouTube so you can go check it out :)

Thanksgiving in San Francisco!

I'm super thankful that I have family in driving distance (sort of)! This thanksgiving since plane tickets anywhere would be absolutely outrageous and we can't take the pups on a plane, we decided to road trip it down to San Francisco. It's the first Thanksgiving that all of my siblings live in SF now and they were all staying in town for the holidays, so we got to join them! We left bright and early (actually dark and early at 4am) to start driving down. We left with perfect time to miss all the rush hours in the big cities on the way. We made it into Walnut Creek just before Kimberly got home and just in time for supper for the night. 

 Welcome to California!

 Our road trippers.

Thanksgiving morning we got up bright and early for our second bi-annual family turkey trot! Some how it managed to be the only morning that it rained, but we warmed up and it dried up while we ran. It's such a great was to start a day that's you're going to spend the rest of it eating!

 Turkey Trotters (Lance wasn't feeling well so he passed this one up)

We spent the rest of the day watching football, eating snacks, and preparing for the big feast later that day.

 The feast

 The feasters

Eventually we busted out the desserts and spent the rest of the night picking at leftovers and playing some hard core apples to apples.

Friday we spent the whole day watching football, playing with puppies, eating leftovers, and playing more games.

Saturday we headed into the city bright and early to watch some more football at Jordan and Kristen's apartment. We started out with the Michigan/Ohio State game where Michigan pulled out a huge win!! It was awesome. Uncle Tom and Aunt Leslie were in town visiting Eric and Melissa too, so they all came over for the game too. It was another full house of family football fans! Right after that we switched over to the Auburn/Alabama game. Not quite as positive of an outcome, but still a great game. War Eagle!

 Jordan and Kristen's Street

 Football Fans!

After all the football watching we went for a little walk down the street to a park by the water to let the dogs stretch their legs, and quite honestly to get a little exercise for all of us who have been siting around eating all week! Shortly after we decided to hit the road back to Seattle. We wanted to miss all the Sunday traffic so we left around 5 Saturday night and drove through the night. Thank goodness for our Hunger Games audio book which kept us alert most of the night.

 Walk in the park

Goodbye San Francisco!

We got back to Seattle at 6am which turned out to be just in time to miss all the closed roads and traffic from the Seattle Marathon which was starting a couple hours later! After a quick nap we headed over to the house for a little more work. Although it might have been a little more productive for us to work at the house over the holidays, it was so nice to spend it with family instead, and we had such a great time in the bay area. I can't wait to go back again!!

Floors!

Floors are almost in!! We've got the whole front room and bathroom done so just a little more work in the bedroom, closet, and laundry room. They look great! I was a little nervous at first going with such a light floor, but I think it makes the space look a lot bigger and brighter, which is just what we need. Speaking of brighter...all our lights are in now too! No more working by work lights on extension cords all over the house. Also, the heat is on now, so no more freezing our little booties off in the middle of the night working!

Clearly Ben and Tara have been incredibly useful throughout this whole process.

We noticed that our paint is from Rochester, MI! Yay for having another little piece of home in our home!

Tiling has starting in the bathroom! I was super nervous starting it, but it's really not too tricky once it gets going. There's still lots more to do on this, but that's what the next few nights are for. Only a few more days till our first night staying in our new house!

Crunch Time!

Oh my goodness it's almost time to move into our house and there's so much left to do!!! The end is slowly coming into sight though and it's amazing. I can't wait! In the last couple of weeks we have finished tearing down the plaster walls, insulated everything and had drywall put up, mudded, sanded and primed. Tonight we started the final painting of the walls! This weekend we also ordered our floors which will come in later this week and that will really be the last big step before we can move in.  We'll probably spend most nights this week painting and next weekend will be a big one with lot of finish work and we'll start the moving process!

 I'm so glad we were able to actually insulate our house, I think it will make such a huge difference.

 Drywall is done and primed!

 View in our bedroom and closet!

 Our kitchen with drywall!

 Living room with drywall! It looks so much cleaner in there!

Starting to paint! It's looking awesome!

It's really starting to look like a real house now!

Just to break up all the house pics, here's a few delicious recipes I've tried out recently too!

These cinnamon rolls are surprisingly easy to make for a quick weekend breakfast to watch football with, and they're super delish. I'll definitely be using this recipe again!

Lavender shortbread cookies. These are also super yummy, however, they were a but more time consuming and finicky. The dough was super dry so hard to roll out and cut out. The shortbread taste was really great with a hint of lavender. Recipe found here.