July stuff

As I empty my memory card in my camera in preparation for taking lots-o-pictures on our cruise, I thought I'd share with you some of the ways we spent our July (one of the best July's ever, I might add). Here's some frolicking beachgoers at Waterford Beach, and Hannah and her friend Shannon and cousin Danielle catching fireflies in the back yard. It was a bumper year for fireflies, thanks to all the June rain.

And in true RTR tradition, we bring you two more birthday cakes for our June and July babies, Dave and Dan!

A double rainbow over a sea of red hats

Sara graduated from high school last night under a beautiful double rainbow, which I believe is a promise of great things to come...

Sara's 18

Sara made her own birthday cake this year, and we all enjoyed it..

And while she may be 18 years old now, it seems like yesterday she looked like this.

Easter!

They were complaining that I have not been maintaining my blog. So here are the Easter pics!

The best thing about February..

..is that it's only 28 days long! While we wait for Winter to finish up, February does have a few worthwhile moments. Such as, the superbowl!

And this snowstorm:

And of course, Ethan's birthday!

New Years Eve 2008

We went bowling (the family, and Grandpa K, Jeana and Dani, and Ethan's friend Danny) to bid farewell to 2008... it was a great year!

Here's a list I had posted in January 2008 with some of my goals for the year. Let's see how we did:

1. Get my hair cut - Did it! A few times since then, actually.

2. Have an invisible dog fence put in. Did it!

3. Remodel the upstairs bathroom. Did it!

4. Remove the family room paneling (with its 13 coats of paint) and replace with sheetrock, and have the wall between the family room and kitchen taken down. Did it!

5. Remodel the kitchen. Did it!

6. Replace the garage doors. Nope, didn't make it, maybe in 2009.

7. Take a trip to Seattle with Dave. Nope, unfortunately we never found the time for this. Maybe in 2009, I hope!

8. Take (and pass!) the UANJ baseball umpire exam and become certified to umpire high school varsity baseball! Did it! This was probably my favorite completed project of 2008.

Now for 2009, here are a few of my goals:

1. See Sara get into the college of her choice, along with finding a way to pay for it.

2. Re-pave the driveway, and replace the garage doors.

3. Pay off all our credit card debt from our (greatly over-budget) kitchen project.

4. Remodel the blue bathroom downstairs - the last vestige of the "original" house.

Here's to 2009! I wish all our family and friends a happy and healthy new year.

Christmas Mayhem 2008

T minus 4

We got our tree up, 4 whole days before Christmas! Yay us!

Results

It's a major PITA, but here's how the grout came out. I only got the pantry done so far - this weekend, it's a groutfest for Dave and me.

Plus we haven't gotten our Christmas tree yet! Hopefully we'll get it today, although supposedly we're getting some kind of wintery storm this afternoon...

backsplash

Dave and I put in the tile backsplash last weekend. We used Marazzi Montagna Belluno 6x6 tiles from Home Depot. We got it all done in one 12-hour day. Grouting comes next. I'm a little aprehensive because we used a porcelain tile with "pits" and a stamped design, and I don't want to get grout in the depressions. I have been googling for various techniques, but we will just have to see how it comes out.

ETA: Dave pointed out that I spelled "backsplash" wrong in the title. .. had to fix it!

catch up

We had a very productive weekend - got the tile bought for the kitchen backsplash (new project in the works), got the Christmas lights up - and while downloading the christmas lights picture I came across two other pics I had meant to post: one of my jackolanterns on halloween (ok, a couple months late) and a pic of sara that I stole from her facebook page, that I thought captured her really well. So that's it... nothing exciting going on here. But I am hoping to steal some of my sister's pictures to post from when Jeana and Dani came down for Thanksgiving. But I'm still waiting for her to send them. Still waiting...

Still waiting...

We three

My sisters came over this weekend, and we had a great time catching up. But we did not spend nearly enough time together. We need to make this more of a regular thing, rather than an every-15-year thing.

Bus stop ghouls

Hannah and her cronnies at the bus stop this cold Halloween morning...

First Snow

It's not yet Halloween, and we haven't turned the clocks back yet, but it's snowing anyway.