Golden Birthday

Today is my golden B-day - I'm 29 on the 29th. Ever since I was little I remember getting really excited about it being my birthday and then going to bed that night and wondering why I had been so excited. This one is not so different. Don't get me wrong, I had a great day, just nothing spectacular considering this marks the beginning of my last year in my 20's. The highlights of today:

• Watching Regis & Kelly this morning while I drank my coffee.
• Eating dinner with my family - pizza and homemade ice cream. Yum.
• Presents - one of them wrapped in a snowman bag (thanks for recycling Ryan).
• Homemade ice cream.
• Phone calls from family.
• Did I mention homemade ice cream?

"Auntie Jenny" gets a prize for being the first to call this morning. Kristina gets a prize for the heaviest gift (it is still in the car until Ryan can help me unload it). Mom gets a prize for making the most excuses for not calling me until 12:30 (don't get offended mom - you know I love you). I'm not sure what you've won...I'll have to get back with you on that.

Looking back on the last year I can say it has been a pretty good one. Let's see...I got to buy my first house, I got married, I finally earned my degree, and I got to see family and friends that I haven't seen in years. Guess it was a pretty good year. I can only hope the final 365 days of my 20's will be just as great. Please tell me 30 isn't so bad. So here is what I look like at 29 (in my new B-day hat - thanks Ryan) (stupid self-portrait - but a post just isn't a post without pictures)

And here's my girl Bailee

(the longest relationship of my life)

Making Time for Family

Growing up, my sisters and I spent a lot of time with our cousins. Summers, school vacations, and holidays were spent together - any excuse could be made to make the trip to Santa Rosa. Somewhere along the line, we all grew up and unfortunately grew apart. As we all know, life tends to get very complicated as adults and we just haven't made much effort in maintaining our cousin contacts. This weekend was our opportunity to get back in touch. Thanks to the amazing efforts of William and Jesse, we gathered for a weekend of BBQ, family, and camping fun. I wanted to post a few pictures of the weekend fun but I ran into two problems. One is that everyone was so busy catching up and chatting that most of the pictures are of people standing/sitting in circles which means I have pictures of the backs of peoples' heads (guess we forgot the group photo part). The other problem is that my mom and I took so many pictures it was difficult to choose just a few. So, here is my best effort at narrowing down the pictures, trust me, this is just a small sample.

Just for fun, I thought I would start with a pic that was taken about 16 years ago (I'm guessing). Almost everyone of us was there this weekend.

Breakfast time - YUM! Thank you Candy & Dale! Campfire time - a very important part of camping.

It's just not a campfire without roasting marshmallows. The new generation of cousins - guess I can't sit at the kid table anymore. More campfire time - my favorite part of camping. Brandon about to take the plunge.More visiting...

Cheers to Skyy Camp!

Once again, special thanks to William & Jessica - you guys are awesome!!

Thanks for all the food and the toilet paper.

Sorry about the pic, this is the only one I have of the two of you together.

I know this isn't everyone that was there - hope no one feels left out. We'll just have to do this more often and get more pics. It was really nice to see everyone and catch up on life. I know one weekend wasn't long enough for me so I hope we do this again soon.

Shop Update

Here's the progress on the shop over the last week. It is almost completely sealed up now and awaiting a roof and stucco. I think Ryan is getting pretty excited. He is like a little kid with a new toy (a really big new toy).

The Skeleton

Ryan - working hard or hardly working? Hmm... What it looks like this morning:

Before & After

I may sound weird, but I really like before & after pictures - of projects, things, people, whatever. Sometimes our memories don't serve us as well as we would like so "before" pictures help you realize just how much things change over time. I have really enjoyed watching the changes around our house from working on projects here and there and even by the changing seasons. The person who lived here before us was very elderly and the place had gotten quite run down. The grass, trees, and brush had overgrown, the house was filled with spiders, and there was garbage buried in random places, like the bottom of a pond (see picture below). Needless to say, we have plenty of things to do around here.

One of our projects has been our ponds. When we moved here, there were four ponds in a row. All were dry, the first two were overgrown by brush and blackberry vines, and the third was full of garbage. After a huge fire, some trimming, and a lot of digging, we now have three beautiful ponds.

Pond #1 - November 2007:

After we burned most of the vines & brush - December 2007:

It's amazing how much everything grows - August 2008:

Pond #2 - November 2007:

August 2008:

The 3rd and 4th ponds have been combined into one large pond...it is still a work in progress and I just realized that I don't even have any pictures of it. Sometimes I can't believe this is still the same place Ryan showed me over a year ago. I thought he was crazy when I first saw this place, but I guess it turns out he was right all along.

The Shop Project

Owning your own home comes with all sorts of possible projects. I personally find it overwhelming when I consider all the things that could be done around our place. Fortunately, I don't have to get them done all at once. Ryan reminds me all the time that we have years to get everything done. So our first big project has been Ryan's shop (interesting that his project came first, don't you think?) This shop project has been consuming most of Ryan's time over the past few months. We are fortunate to have lots of help from family and friends, but since Ryan insisted on building the biggest shop in Oroville, it is taking some time.

Here is the blank canvas. See how nice and green everything is? This picture was taken way back in March. I honestly don't think it has rained since then.

Moving dirt....lots of it....

Pouring concrete...lots of it... Notice the gray sky? No we were not experiencing rain in July, nor it is fog, it is SMOKE. We have had terrible wild fires this year. Our sky looked like this for almost a full month. This actually was a "good" day for the smoke because you could almost breathe outside. Somedays it would be so thick that you couldn't see more than a mile or two. There are still some fires up in the mountains, but we have been able to enjoy blue skies again for a few weeks.The walls are so tall, I don't think Ryan realized it until they went up. SO TALL (14 feet to be exact) And of course it wouldn't be a big shop without big trusses.

The workers are here today to start putting up the trusses and the shop is looking even bigger. I'm excited to see what it will look like as a whole building. Maybe we'll have a "shop-warming" party when it's all done.

Our Home...

Last summer, Ryan and I bought a home together, and I think only a handful of people have seen it. This is really OK because it isn't exactly the Taj Mahal, but we like it and it includes 6 acres so I can't really complain. So here it is in all its glory:

This is our driveway looking from the house to the road. Obviously we're having a really dry summer...I don't think there is any other kind of summer in Oroville.

I have tried to describe to many people the various shades of brown/orange/rust in my house, but words can never really convey the true brown-ness of our home. From the carpet to the walls to the bathtub everything is some shade of hideousness. Here is a picture of our livingroom, and yes, that is rust-orange colored wallpaper with gold metallic accents. I removed the pink curtains as soon as we moved in. I don't think they had been washed since 1978.

I don't want to sound like I'm just complaining. We are really enjoying living here and are slowly making progress.

Before/After:

I swear it is the same wall!