Extreme Home Makeover - Booyah!

The above picture is of our back yard, and it was taken about a month ago. The flower bed areas were a mess, there was chain-link fence against the house, random metal and wood poles sticking up from the ground, and general crappiness.

This was taken after our house was painted. The front looked great (see pictures from previous post), but the back still needed work. I trimmed the rose bushes and got rid of all the dead branches, but we still had a way to go.

Finally, last weekend, Chris' teacher friends built our new deck! It is awesome!!! It is made out of composite material, but the deck actually looks more like wood than fake stuff. There's a built-in bench in the corner, and we'll probably put a custom-built table over the heat pump to hide it and have a useable surface. Also, we got rid of the weedy flower beds, random metal structures, and have room for our potted plants. We're going to install landscaping around the deck starting at the end of the stairs (where the potted bush is), wrapping around to the house (where the rose bushes are). We'll also put in some paving stones for a walkway, and we're going to build a fire pit about where I stood to take the picture. Pretty sweet, huh?

I fear I'm becoming more domestic, dammit.

Ahhhh, the married life. It seems like it's pretty much the same as the single life, with one major exception. Ok, two major exceptions. One of them I'll not discuss today (dating anyone other than Chris is behind me, and Chris and I are still dating anyway), and the other is this: I suddenly want to do yard work. WTF is up with that???

We've got a lot of home improvement projects on deck (heh heh) this summer, including building a deck. We already painted the house, from a grayish-green rainy overcast color to a bright and sunny (a.k.a. "butter tart") yellow. It is very yellow! There were two other "yellow" houses on our street, but after we painted our house, I don't think they can call themselves yellow any longer. All other yellows must bow down before us!!! We also had our front porch and side porch (with the hot tub) stained a nice redwood color, which goes very nicely with the shutters and bricks.

This is the BEFORE picture. Sorry the picture kind of sucks - I was using the wrong setting on my camera, it got over-exposed, and I wasn't able to do much to fix it in photoshop. But you get the idea. Sad color, weeds galore, boo-hoo.

This is the AFTER picture! Sunny! Yellow! landscaping under control! Flowers on the porch!!! We'll be posting pictures of the back yard after we get the deck in. It will be an even more dramatic makeover! And you will be jealous of our awesome back yard!

So, along with the painting, I definitely wanted to clean up the yard. I bought lots of flowers (hanging basket, pots, long rectangle planters, and even a strawberry pot that I learned how to plant by watching a you-tube video) and repotted my old plants that were in desperate need of attention. There are three rose bushes in the back yard and I took out the waist-high grass and weeds surrounding them, trimmed the hell out of all their dead branches, and got rid of the aphids. I lopped off more of the butterfly bush, which thought it was going to be the boss of me, but it was wrong. I weeded the tall grass from the front yard, and chopped off the dead hydrangea branches. Everything is starting to grow back - the roses are much improved, and you can tell we have bulbs in the front. About a week ago we bought a weed-whacker - I started on the side of the front yard, but that will be a major task. But I think I've got it under control so far!

This is the strawberry pot that was abandoned by the previous home-owners. I emptied it out, watched a you-tube video, then Chris and I planted it with all sorts of herbs and flowers. We even put a PVC watering tube down the middle of it. It looks even better now because it has purple, blue, and yellow flowers blooming from the different plants oozing out of the openings.

Today, I decided not to go to work so that Chris and I could hang out (he leaves for nearly 2 weeks on Friday to go on tour with the Army band). We went to Home Depot and bought a few gardening tools, and scoped out some pavers for below the stairs of our impending deck. The deck is going to be suuuhh-weeeeeettt!!! Built-in benches, then stairs that will eventually lead out to a fire pit in the back yard. We're going to landscape around the back of the deck to hide the septic tank covers, too. After Home Depot, I bought some blackberry bush herbicide, planted (almost all) the rest of the flowers that need a home, and glared at the surviving weeds in the front yard. Someday, my pretties, you will be mine!

All this domesticity is freaking me out. I'm going to go to work tomorrow and talk about fish.

Finally...A Sunny Weekend!

It seems that the weather has finally turned! Lately we've had more sun than rain, and the temperatures are getting to the point where I haven't had to wear my coat to work (although I still wear my wrap sweater and use my space heater every day in my office). So, we took advantage of the sunny weather and headed out for a couple of nights at the coast over Memorial Day Weekend.

Our first task was wine tasting. We drove through Yamhill County, stopping at Penner-Ash (meh), and the Carlton Winemakers Studio (yum).

The view from the tasting room at Penner-Ash - it doesn't look particularly sunny here, but it was gorgeous anyway!

We then made our way to Lincoln City, and drove south just a little way down the coast to Salishan Resort, where we stayed for two nights. It was actually a pretty nice place - our room had a view of the ocean, a fireplace, and the whole thing was kind of like an Ewok village because it was built in the forest with catwalks that connected all the buildings. It was almost like going to summer camp, but with much better food and a bar with a pool table. We even played a round of golf - 18 holes of putting greens (and I believe I won by 4 strokes).

The view from our room - we could even see the ocean.

Chris kind of kicked my butt at pool.

The putting course - it was very pretty, and was even registered as designated bird habitat by Audubon.

Chris may have beaten me at pool, but I triumphed at golf!

Over the course of two days we visited Chris' friends Brad and Tyler, who were working on putting the finishing touches on a rental home they were helping to build in Lincoln City. The place was amazing. No drywall in the entire house - everything was wood. And, it was right on the coast - direct beach access, and lots of windows. We also met up with them at the casino those two nights - I didn't do too terribly well at craps, and Chris did a little better at poker. But we didn't lose our shorts, so I'll consider it a success.

Coming back we had a marginally obscene breakfast at Lil' Sambo's (named after the beloved (?) racist children's book), where there was some random old guy in the parking lot dressed as Captain America. I wanted to stop there because I remembered the story from when I was a kid, and liked the tiger in the front of the restaurant.

I finally remembered the story when I read it at their gift shop. Tigers turning into butter???

WTF??? And why isn't his mask on correctly?

I look forward to more sunny weekends in the near future!

Act 4: The Afterglow!

Ok, I am soooo looking forward to being done with wedding blogging! So this one's gonna be short - it's the last installment of our 4-part series, and I'm excited about writing about more recent events. So let's get crackin'!

Chris and I took our post-wedding vacation (I'm not too excited about the word "honeymoon" - it sounds so mushy!) on a cruise in the Western Caribbean. We went all over the place (in areas limited to the Western Caribbean)! We started in Florida, went to Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, then hit up Aruba, Willemstad (Curacao), then sailed on over to the Panama Canal and Colon, up to Costa Rica, then back to Florida. We were gone 10 days, and one of the best things about the trip was the sun...this spring has been very rainy and gray in the Pacific Northwest region, so seeing the sun again was a welcome sight. And it was warm, too!

We really did have a fantastic time. The food was amazing, we got to dress up all fancy-like on formal nights, I learned how to play craps (1. pick up dice. 2. roll dice. 3. yay!), and we were even invited to eat dinner with the captain on our last formal night because we are just that awesome (or perhaps it was because we were the youngest couple on the ship).

You can view many pictures in the slide show at right, or by clicking here: HERE. Alternatively, you may look at the Cliff Notes version below. At any rate, enjoy!

Our first day on board the Zuiderdam, in Ft. Lauderdale, after traveling all night.
Time for a drink on deck!

Our first stop was at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. Admittedly, this is a pretty dorky picture. I was riding Peanut, and Chris was on Just for You. After our land ride, we rode our horses as they swam in the ocean.

After our horseback ride, we went parasailing. This is Chris and me, probably about 500 feet up; that's our ship in the background. Pretty water, huh?

Our first sea day, and our first formal night. Chris wore his pimp suit, and I wore my skank shoes.

In Aruba, we went boarded a catamaran and went snorkeling, which I've never really done before. It exceeded my expectations, for sure!

I took way better underwater pictures than this, but this picture shows the coolest thing we saw - squid! You can see one near the bottom center of the photo - you might even be able to see an eye if you look closely. They were less than a foot long, kind of brown, and swam in schools of 3-5 squid.

We spent a day in Willemstad, Curacao. We did quite a bit of walking, which led us to a non-tourist, more local market. These boats brought recently-dispatched sea creatures to market booths just off the dock.

Another formal night on a sea day.

We got to go through the Panama Canal to Lake Gatun!

We took a side trip to Gamboa Park, where we got on small boats, tooled around Lake Gatun, and saw some monkeys. These little guys were accustomed to being fed by the guides, unfortunately. But they were super cute!

In Costa Rica, we traveled to the central region of the country for some ziplining. Behind is is the AdrenaLine, a 700 m line that traverses a valley and river.

Our last formal night. This was the black and white ball, which we went to after eating dinner with the captain at his private table with a specially prepared meal. We were pretty fortunate to have that experience!

We spent our last evening on board at the Pinnacle Grill. It was a fantastic meal - here, our server is flaming my chicken kabob. Yum!