Yes, I still make cards.....

It's been awhile, but I still love to make cards especially birthday cards.
Here's Adora's 51st card

and Yolande's birthday card

I bought a pack of banners made by Pebbles and combined it with stitching, a vellum bag of cheer, a dotted background using Heidi Swapp's stencil and Color Shine and some sprayed seam binding made for a fun day of card making.

Here's some more...

and here's a picture of my desk...

 which will stay like this for some time, yawn!

Welcome Autumn!

Linda gave birth to her 3rd and final child! Welcome Autumn Rain!

Shed Mahal

With so many projects on our to do list, Christopher can finally cross off build a shed, woot woot!

Here is the spot where we envisioned Shed Mahal.

 progress, progress

may I present Shed Mahal! not only do we have a shed built by Christopher himself, but we also have some enormous sunflowers that attract hummingbirds or so I am told by my neighbor.

Oh, I also must share my purple mountain grass that I love so much planted back in May. Check out how fast they grew!

and here they are today...

While I am on a roll, here is another corner of our backyard. Remember this is what we started with.

and here we are today...

we are getting closer and closer to our end vision. next up garden beds and trellises.

Vacation Rocks!

Hello there!
I am finding myself blogging less, but popping in month to month.
Christopher and I took a short vacation last week which started with the BECU Zoo Tunes Concert. I love Loreena McKennitt and whenever she stops in Seattle I will be there. This was our first time at the zoo for a concert and it had its ups and downs. She was great, but we had 2 couples next to us talking thru the songs which I wanted to slap them upside their heads!
Loreena's voice is so spiritual and pleasing to the ear. She is able to reach deep into my soul making me tear up. She played all of my favorites- Stolen Child, Old Ways, Bonny Swans, The Lady of Shalott, Caravanserai, & Penelope's Song.

Not the best photo, but at least a pic to remember.

After the concert, we spent the next day shopping and awaiting the arrival of Woody who would be hiking with us on the following Saturday.
Christopher and Woody had been planning to climb Ingalls Peak and I decided to go about a week before. I had hiked up to Colchuck Lake a couple of years ago and it was one of those hikes where I said to myself, "Why am I punishing myself?"
I punished myself again on this hike, but in the end it is so worth it. I hiked a total of 9 miles roundtrip to Ingalls Lake and Christopher and Woody continued on to the top of South Ingalls Peak totaling 12 miles roundtrip.

When we returned to the parking lot I looked up and couldn't believe I just hiked up the mountain. It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment.

 Resting point at Ingalls Lake.

Pic of Ingalls Lake taken by Christopher on the summit. I am down there waiting for his return.

 A smooch to let him know I missed him!

 Always after a hike, we find a place to grub. Woody and I are big fans of the 90's tv show Northern Exposure which was filmed in Roslyn, WA aka Cicely.
Roslyn is one town over from Cle Elum so of course we had to stop by. When I entered The Brick I couldn't believe how packed it was. I knew it was going to be a long wait for our food and we were starving, but we waited it out and thankfully the food was tasty. It would have sucked to wait for crappy food. Thank you Roslyn for meeting our expectation!

Will be back shortly to post pics of our newly finished shed that Christopher built from scratch. My baby is handy :)

I Mustache You!

Happy 4th of July

 I was talking with Christopher that we needed to get away from working on the house which is what we do every weekend, so he planned a trip for us out to the coast. I thought we would go back to Shi Shi, but we ended up going to Cape Alava where we would camp just south of the Ozette River.

What I liked most is when Christopher said the hike to the beach would be 3 miles! Music to my ears! We haven't done a 20 miles hike in awhile and I kinda like that.

We saw at least 3 different parties in the parking lot with dogs only to turnaround and leave because pets are not allowed on the beach. It was a heck of a drive in and I can't imagine having to turnaround.

We brought fireworks only to come across this sign. It was a bummer not to light our rockets, but we were good law abiding citizens :(

The hike to the beach went by quick and we scoped out the best perch for our camp site. After we were all set up, our main concern was eating and resting which we did for the next 48 hours! We like to say we did a whole lotta of nothing! Each evening we would roast corn on the cob in the fire and prepare tortellini on Christopher's jet boil then watch the sun set. 

Day 1 Sunset

Day 2 Sunset

It felt good again to put my pack on and take step after step until you hit your destination.

When we entered the beach it was covered in dry seaweed. Thankfully, our camp was further north where less seaweed was to be found. The smell was pretty foul and I can't imagine why folks would want to camp next to that, but sure enough people did.

Our perch is right thru that trail. I like that we picked a spot where people wouldn't be walking thru our camp site.  Here we are sitting on a log doing a whole lotta of nothing!

Hope you had a happy 4th of July! We sang God Bless America and gave extra cheer when we sang "To the oceans white with foam."

Until next time...

A Sizzling start to Summer

Here is the start of two retaining walls that will form the entrance to the garden. My coworker gave me some railroad ties, but still need more to finish. If you know anyone in the Seattle area that has railroad ties to get rid I would be happy to pick up!
Last weekend, Christopher worked his arse off. He picked the hottest day of the year to go up in our attic and finish installing the flex ducting. It was crazy hot, but he got it done! We also picked up pompas grass from his coworker and planted it in our backyard. No easy task either! Once he dug around it, they chained it and towed it out with a truck. He then took an axe and cut it into quarters. We hauled it in his truck and my job was to clean out all the dirt! I hope they survive. They are huge and first of mature plants in the backyard. Photos of pompas grass to come :)

Labor of Love

I love my house. I come home and have so much space to work with. Inside feels comfortable and cozy which I am slowly adding to. Outside is a transformation in progress. Most of my time is spent out there instead of the craft room, eek!
I will get back to scrapbooking, but for now I am manifesting my heart's desire out there.

Here are some photos chronicling our work.

1. Big grassy  rectangle of a backyard. 2. My dad came over with his tractor. (had to take part of the fence down!) 3. Christopher spray painted the area we wanted tilled and my dad went to work. 4. Bought my first plants and laid cardboard down to prevent the weeds coming up.

5. & 6. Covered the cardboard pieces with the organic mulch from Carpinito Bros and laid paths with wood chips.7. Dug a trench to start our edging. We decided on pouring concrete and then thin setting skinny slabs of slate on top. 8. Mapped out our garden into 4 quadrants. Building of the beds are yet to come.

9.Yard is coming along. All the trenches are dug. Just waiting for the concrete. Lots of moss in the back yard to be dealt with later.

10. Concrete poured and the slate tiles have been thin setted. Edging is 90% complete. Just waiting to do the curves.

There is so much more to do in the backyard. We would like to build a shed in the corner, build our garden beds, build 2 trellises, 2 round retaining walls, jack hammer the concrete patio and lay down pavers. It's a huge to do list that we are working on weekend by weekend.

One day I will get back into my craft room...one day!

This day

It has been 9 months since I was watched Skylar crash hard at the skatepark that he broke off part of his front teeth. 9 months! I hear that it's due to his dislike for brushing that the dental work hasn't happened yet. Do you know of all the things to pray for, I pray that God give him a desire to brush day and night. I can't wait for them to be fixed. I haven't had any new photos of Skylar that I felt inclined to snap some while he brushed his teeth. I didn't take any of Seth, but he is so warming up to me. I feel like he is starting to remember who I am when I visit and I don't get the crossed arms any more, victory!

As far as what I am up to, well, being a homeowner has got me working my butt off. I am the official weed eater and lawn mower. I can bust a sweat with that weed eater in no time flat.

I am hoping to show some before and after of the backyard soon...stay tuned :)

Up to my elbows in mulch

Last weekend, we ordered 7 yards of compost mulch and 5 yards of wood chips. I sure felt it in my biceps, triceps and forearms! Christopher worked the math out and it took us 180 wheelbarrow trips to the back yard, ugh!