House Update #2

Work continues! Much like the previous post, the work that is being done is the kind that is not exciting to see pictures of. Plumbing is still being moved around and electrical is being taken care of. I've included pictures of the progress of the powder room in the basement though. Also you might be wondering what this turkey has to do with our house. We are lucky enough to have turkey neighbors! Our front "yard" actually faces the backyards of two other houses, and one of those houses has two turkeys and about five chickens I think. We like to think of them as guard turkeys since they usually gobble at anyone who walks by.

They had to cut through the concrete in the basement to connect to the existing plumbing lines, which is trickier because of the radiant heating. That's what those clear tubes are sticking out of the concrete.
That's our toilet and sink roughed in.
This is the pile of dirt they unearthed to get the plumbing put in place.

Five Months

Here's Harper at five months old. She's closer to fourteen pounds now. Harper's days are spent laughing, smiling, eating, rolling over, playing with her rattle, and dragging everything she can into her mouth. She desperately would like to sit up, but still isn't quite there. Harper has also been evicted from Mom and Dad's bedroom this past week. She threw up all over her bassinet late at night. I was way too tired to fuss with remaking it, so into the crib she went. Fortunately Avery sleeps through any fussing Harper does, and Harper sleeps through Avery being noisy. Although one night Harper was crying and we heard Avery tell her to be quiet. Otherwise they are pretty good little roommates.

Our Internet has been down for about five days, so I have some catching up to do. Hopefully I'll get another house update out, and I'll post about when my brother and his family came to visit.

House Update

This Honey Bucket means we are in business. It's probably one of the few times in your life that you would get excited to see a Honey Bucket outside your house, or anywhere for that matter. Our contractor was able to get started these past couple of weeks. Mostly it's been things that are not exciting to see pictures of like rearranged lighting, pulled out wires, and more support beams for our deck.

Here's the ugly, non-working fireplace before:

Now it's gone!

They also framed out the full bath we added on the main floor for the girls, and made the two rooms on the main floor more equal in size. Before there was one big room and a tiny room that was to be the house's second study(really do you need two studies?). Now we have two good sized rooms that are far more useful.

Another Day in Paradise

Last Friday we fulfilled a long held wish of mine by staying at Paradise Inn on Mount Rainier. It's run by the national park system, and has better than expected food if not the most modern of amenities. That's all part of the charm though. We only stayed one night. As you can see there is a lot of snow from our unusually cold and snowy winter. The snowplow had built up some formidable snow walls. We asked about all the snow and the workers said it doesn't normally look like this in June. Enjoy the pictures. In the first one you can see our new Mini Cooper that we christened Allister.

A Quick Trip

Memorial Day Weekend we drove down to Sacramento with my sister DeAnna because we gave our Honda Accord to her since we bought a new car to replace it. From Sacramento DeAnna drove down to Phoenix with her husband Brad who flew into Sacramento on Saturday.

Harper getting some serious napping in while in the car.
Avery kindly offering to drive the Honda part of the way for Daryl. She even put the seat belt on herself. She's no dummy.

We went to a park that also had a dog park in Sacramento. That's Nellie and Paul's dog Ember. Avery seemed to like Ember, but was uncharacteristically cautious around her.

Harper hanging out in the sun.
Avery decided she liked the dog park better than the regular park.