Valhalla Renaissance Fair 2017 July 6, 2017

It has been a few years since we went to Valhalla Renaissance Fair in South Lake Tahoe but we finally made it back. On Friday night we headed out of town on our adventure to fair and there was a mud slide that closed a strip of the highway and google maps sent us on a detour.

What a detour it was too! Started out as paved road, then it was gravel, then it turned into mud. The guys even had to get out to push a car stuck in the mud, up the hill. I was very happy to get back to the highway and off the road. As we got to the highway we found a sign stating that we had gone through the El Dorado National Forest, so I am thinking we were on a Ranger road. Luckily the only thing that happened to my car was mud and my alightment being thrown off.

Jenna had not been before so we make an outfit for your and introduced her to.

Ash was happy that it was cold enough to hear his clock to fair. 

And he got to sit in the falconer’s chair.

After a long day at fair, we went to Fire and Ice in Heavenly Village for dinner. The food was good, company was good and the drinks were HUGE!

Happy 4th of July July 4, 2017

Just want to wish everyone  safe and happy 4th!

First Annual Patrick J. Boyle Award Luncheon July 2, 2017

On May 5th the Santa Rosa Junior College awarded the first recipient of the Patrick J. Boyle Award. The award ceremony was held as a luncheon at a restaurant in Santa Rosa.

A large group on my family was in attendance, to see it be awarded and support my Grandmother. The award ceremony was nicely and the speak given by another facility member who worked with my Grandfather was wonderful. It was nice to see him through others eyes.

After the luncheon the family all went to my parents house for a relaxing dinner together.

All in all a wonderful day!

Bathroom Remodel: Phase One May 4, 2017

Phase one of the remodel for us is planning what we want, getting professional quotes and deciding how to move forward.

Luckily, we already started on some of this phase. We have decided that we want:

• floating 24 inch vanity with 2 drawers

• sink with small bowl and more edge space

• flush mounted medicine cabinet for Ash’s storage

• new toilet
• Tub removal
• Walk in shower with pebble tile flooring 
• Nice natural color tile on walls and bath room floor
• purple and teal towels

I did some research online and found a few remodel companies to do some quotes on remodeling the bathroom. The quotes were all around $12k and that is just not reasonable, so we set up a plan with my Dad.

• The toilet was replaced in February due to plumbing issue.
• We are going to remove the tub and replace with the walk in shower.
• The remainder will be processed in smaller peices.

For this first part, less the toilet, we have a $2,000 budget and a scheduled date in June. It will be so nice to have the new shower and no longer have to worry about bathroom mold.

Surgery & Recovery May 2, 2017

Hello Everyone! Sorry for My leave of blogging absence. You may remember that I was battling with, for a lack of a easy way to describe it, cervical cancer. At the end of Novemberthe performed surgery and removed almost all my lady parts.

The recovery was a bit rough but thankfully I had my family and husband to take care of me. Sadly I am not cancer free yet but I am still battling  and will beat it.

I have some fun this to tell you about and I will get those posts out to you soon.

Thank you for you understanding!

Garage Enclosure Man Cave November 17, 2016

Ash complains about the cats knocking over his stuff in the garage and about not having a space that was all his. We had been talking about a few upcoming projects like enclosing part of the garage and remodeling the bathroom. He had a couple of birthdays coming up, yes a couple not just one, so I decided to supris him. He has a legal birthday and the actual day he was born. I celebrate both for him. In order to surprise him I had to enlist help. Damion and some of our friends arranged to have an all weekend role playing game at their house, which would remove him from home and he would never suspect it was me planning something. My parents agreed to come up that weekend to help me enclose the garage for him. Honestly Dady will be doing most of the work but I will help where I can.

On Friday the gang picked Ash up for their weekend and my parents arrived. Luckily even if they saw each other he would not think anything of it either heee heeee. I walked Daddy through the thoughts I had and he took measurements. Then we went to Home Depot for supplies. 

The main task was to build a wall from the edge of the side door to the edge of the fireplace. This leaves me with a laundry room and access to the back yard for hanging out laundry. The wall has a door so that Ash can close himself in and also keep all the pets out. I even made sure to have a regular door handle on the door since our cat window and open the punch leaver door handles we have in the rest of the house.

Time allowing we also planned to:

• Close the ventalation holes
• Put in a window
• Remove the overhead shelving
• Insulate the walls
• Sheetrock the walls
• Seal the mail box drop box opening
• Install a new exterior mail box

Realistically I knew it was not all going to get completed but my Daddy is a speedy, hard, miracle worker. I am constantly amazed by him!! 

This is what it started out looking like….

This is how it looks now….

Amazing how much he was able to do in just one weekend! Now to see Ash’s face when he got home…..

Old Rugs New Use November 10, 2016

A few weeks ago we replaced the rugs in the living room and dining room. The old rugs were beat up not not dead so I didn’t want to just throw them away. Instead I found new uses for them. 

One rug was moved to the patio for ascetics and dirt control. I think that when it starts raining it will help to dry off puppy feet before they come inside. Plus it looks nice.

The other rug was the more beat up of the two so I placed it in the garage by the washer, dryer and cat box. The hope it that it will help to reduce the amount of cat litter that gets tracked inside. It will also help in the winter to keep my feet from freezing when I am doing laundry.

Makes me feel good to reuse or repurpose something instead of filling the land fills with more stuff.

Bridal Shower For The Groom’s Side October 27, 2016

 

I was given the great honor of being the Maid of Honor for Kacie, my future sister-in-law. Part of this honor is the fun task of planning/hosting the bridal shower for her. At first I was nervous about this task but then I remembered that I have one amazing asset, my Mom!

Things to plan:

1. Location
2. Date/Time
3. Games
4. Prizes
5. Food
6. Guest List
7. Invitations

In February I visited with my Mom and we started to plan out some of the details. We know that the party will be held at her house because it has the space and it is a central place for everyone. Plus the house and yard are AMAZING!! The end of June is beautiful weather and closer to her wedding date. We scheduled an afternoon party.

Before the planning was completed, my position changed to just bride’s maid but that did not cancel the party. Nope! It gave my Mom and sister something fun to do together. They planned the food, decorations and games. It turned out beautiful!!!!

I have such a talented family. They made the centerpieces, the hatters hat, and all the flowers are from my Mom’s yard. So proud!!!

Bridal Shower For The Bride’s Side October 21, 2016

This was the first of the bridal showers for my brother and his bride. I am delayed in posting them, as some of you know but I want to share all the same.

It was a fun hawaii theme with games and laughter.

Even some excitement with the fire department.

Flower Garden Growth October 7, 2016

The plants have started to fill in…the garden is starting to take form. 

Everytime I work in the front yard I have people stop to talk to me about the plants and or about how beautiful it looks.

 

I am quite fond of it myself and Ash even stops to look at it with me. The compliments from him, on how nice the yard is looking, mean the most to me. 

Now I get to build another garden and watch it grow. The umbrella I ordered arrived and I put it up. Now I can sit out there, read and enjoy the yard when my work is done. On top of adding the umbrella to the yard, I replaced some of the smaller plants in the pots and added a couple more to the ground. When I bought some of the first ones I thought that I had a more sun than we really do. So some of them did not survive.

Now that all the planting is done I am adding bark. Over the holiday weekend it was on sale 5 bags for $10. That means that I must stock up on it, right? Well I think so but I don’t think that Ash agrees with me LOL.

Not all of the area will be barked in right now because I am still placing the plants and planning the pathways. At least the additions of the bark around the plants will help reduce the amount of weeds/crab grass that I have to keep cleaned up. But the time I am done it will all be bark and pathways, no more grass.