Saturday, October 27, 2007

Here are the highligts of this week:


Tuesday morning, Hannah and I put this pumpkin together - Mrs. Pumpkin Head.

Tuesday evening, the girls did some painting. Nana sent some paint and foam things for Halloween.





Nana also sent these decorations which we hung up today.


They also did some more painting today with the supplies Nana sent.

This is Halee's picture.

This is Hannah's picture.

We spent all day at home today. I was the only one to go somewhere and it was to the recycling bins. At one point in the day, I went upstairs to this! It also got all cleaned up.

Ed got a lot of things crossed of his "to do" list today. It was quite exciting for me to see these things get done!

The first thing was to move the controller for the bath tub. When the plumber installed it, it was on the side of the tub (where there patch is on the left). It was very hard to use. You had to sit on the floor, and bend way over. Then if you wanted to change the setting while in the tub, you had to stand up and bend over to the floor. Well, this will be much better. Now we can patch the big hole the plumber cut to install the drain pipe too. There were several other holes around the house that got fixed too.


I had bought this light fixture a long time ago. It got put in the closet and forgot about. Today it got hung up. This is in the entry way.



The best part of the day was my office cabinets. We purchased them very soon after we moved in. The delivery men piled them in the room (still in boxes and that is why I had to go to the recycle bins) and they have been there every since, until today. Ed got them all hung. The next part will be to build the countertop. Ed is going to do that too because it costs WAY too much to purchase it! But for now, I can unpack more boxes that have been packed for 18 months. I can find all my stuff again!


This is the craft side.



This will be the office side - computer desk.


And Ed did all this stuff without any trips to Home Depot! That's worth writing in the record books.




Monday, October 22, 2007

Golden Gate Bridge

Because Ed's uncle is an iron worker on the Golden Gate Bridge, we were able to take a tour of one of the towers. Only employees are allowed to take 2 tours a year in the tower. They are only able to take 2 visitors with them. So, it is a great priviledge for us to do this. So, I will try my best to share "the view" with you.

We took this picture from the Highlands. I wanted to put it on here to show you which tower we went up. We went up the south tower, which is the tower on the right.

This is the enterance to the tower.

This is the elevator that takes you to the top. It is VERY small for 3 people. Ed and I each stood facing the corner and Woody stood with his head against the wall. It's about a 4 1/2 minute ride to the top.

When you get out of the elevator, you have to climb 2 ladders. Then you open this hatch and you are on the top!Here we are standing on the top of the tower. The towers have three "rungs" and we are on the top one.



I have a small fear of heights and felt most comfortable staying on "solid" ground. Ed and Woody, however, felt that the metal grate going around the tower was safe and went wondering around to the outside. So, this is a picture of Ed beside the left tower with the north tower in view.


And this is the right side of the tower.


And this is me on "solid" ground.

Here is a view of what the roadway on the bridge looks like from the top. This is facing towards the city.
Oh, and the girls. They were not allowed to go in the tower - you have to be 16. But they tried on the hard hats. They are much cuter in them than me, don't you think!

So the girls hung out with Aunt Cheryl on dry land. They spent some time shopping (Aunt Cheryl bought them a souvunier) and they watched the boats. They also were watching us. Cheryl called Woody on the phone and he took this picture. It is probably too hard for you to see in this small picture, but the Cheryl and the girls are sitting on the bench to the far left.



I'm sure if Ed was writing this blog, he would add all the details of the structure. So, if you want that info, you'll have to email him. It was a great time and great views! Thanks, Woody!

San Francisco

We just back from San Francisco. (I don't know why this is underlining and how to change it, so . . .) Here are the highlights of our trip.

Here is Halee in the airplane. She said this was her favorite part of the trip.

This is the ocean around Jenner, California. We went to see the ocean on Thursday afternoon. As we headed out, it got all cloudy and the farther we went, the foggier it got! We got out and looked anyway! Here are the waves crashing over some rocks by this sand bar. At the very bottom right of that sandbar are some sea lions. We got to see one swimming right close to the shore, but couldn't take a pictures because he would be up and right back down.
On Friday we went to Armstrong Redwood forest.

In the Redwood forest, was a theatre. The girls decided to put on a show for us. You can ejoy them too!





Saturday was our big day in San Fracisco. We spent all morning looking at and on the Golden Gate bridge. I decided to make that it's own blog, so here are the highlights from the rest of the day.





This is on Pier 39 in Fisherman's Wharf. The girls saw this carousel and immediately wanted to ride. So, Uncle Woody treated them to this ride.



The whole reason we went to Pier 39 was to see the sea lions. There are tons of sea lions resting on these platforms in the bay. They are noisy and stinky! We watched several of them fight and push each other off. It was humorous!




The whole time Ed and I were on the bridge, Cheryl and girls watched the boats out in the bay. Cheryl said that every time they would go to walk around, Halee always wanted to watch the boats. She talked about the boats all day. Even at the beach, she just wanted to watch the boats.



Here is Hannah playing on the beach. We didn't much time for her to play in the sand. We tried to make time for her to play on the beach on Sunday, but traffic was bad and we just barely made it to the airport on time. So next time, more beach time!




For those of you who don't know, we went and stayed with Ed's aunt and uncle in Cotati. This is them in their backyard. Woody built this waterfall . . .



and this pond. The girls enjoyed looking for the fish.

We all had a great time and plan to go back some day. There are soooo many things we just weren't able to do or spend much time doing.


Check back soon and I'll post pictures of the bridge. I just didn't have time to do it yet and I thought it might be too much for one blog. So . . .





Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Tues, Oct. 16th

Today has been a productive day for me. This morning Hannah and I made some bread dough. This afternoon, we shaped them into snakes and put cinnamon and sugar on them. We are supposed to bring a "s" snack to school next Monday. We'll bake them and freeze them and they'll be ready for school.


I also got some unpacking done. Sounds crazy since we have lived her for 6 months now. These boxes are some that got packed 18 months ago when we moved out of our house. They have been "in storage" since then. It was fun to get some of things out. But some of the things are going away. Ed will be so glad! I haven't been able to do it until now because I haven't had the space to put them. Now that my pantry is almost complete . . . I have room. It is filling up!


This is the other side of the pantry. These shelves are for cans. I still have to paint the front part of each shelf and Ed needs to attach it to the wall. Then all those cans (well, most of them) will go here.


So because I was unpacking those boxes, the storage room got a little cleaning too. There is still one box (or so) that I can't find. I looked at all the boxes and none of them say kitchen things. I know of 2 things that I am missing and one of them is the reason I started the whole thing!

The other exciting news is that Halee had a little accident last night. Well, actually it was a bit of a scary accident. She was running from Hannah in the kitchen and probably not watching where she was going and busted her head open on the counter top. She hit the corner of it. I was thinking it needed stitches, but after a phone call to a friend, I decided to just put some "new skin" on it. That is a type of "glue" for cuts. It is only about 1/4 inch long, but goes all the way thru the skin. This is our first major accident!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Sun, Oct. 14th

Can you believe another week has gone by? Here are the highlights.

On Monday, the girls had a fun time playing with their daddy. First they did this trick of being on top of dad's feet and they he would drop them over to the side. They loved it!


Then they played a game of hide and seek and dad was the monster.
Nothing else really exciting happened until Friday. The girls and I went to Billings. I needed to get their annual picture made at Sears. But mostly they had fun playing at Gramma's.

Here is Halee coloring at Gramma's house.

Here is Hannah and Gramma having a tea party.


Then on Saturday, cousin Chloe came too.
Here they are playing dress up.




Here they are trying to take a nice picture for Gramma. It didn't work out too well!





Here they are throwing leaves at each other.





Here they are cooking with the sand.




They had a blast playing together!





Monday, October 8, 2007

Mon, Oct. 8

Well, here are the pantry shelves. He's actually not done as he is going to put some shelves that angle down for cans. (The kind that rolls the cans to the front.) But for today, this is much improved. I wished I would have taken a before and then the after pictures. Before I had taken some scrap wood from the neighbor's house and put it on some paint cans and made 2 shelves that way. All this food was piled in there on those 2 shelves and the floor! So, you can see how relieved I am to be able to see what I have!



You are probably saying that I have enough food to open a grocery store! Well, not quite and I am low on a few things. I try to buy only the things that are on sale. When they are on sale, I buy a large quantity. I do most of my cooking from what is in my pantry. Alberston's is having a great sale this week and I will fill these shelves up more after I go shopping tomorrow! Plus, I have several boxes in the storage room to unpack yet. I just didn't have the room for the extra stuff until now.
I also got 2 doors completely stained and polyurethaned this weekend. Here is what the pantry door looks like. It looks very different from the unstained door we have been living with for 6 months (yes, we have lived here for 6 months now!) I was quite excited to get these 2 doors done until I counted how many more I have to do - 20! I have 2 more started and 18 more to go. Wanna come help?

Also on Saturday, I took the girls swimming for fun. They've been in swim lessons for a while and we have some free family passes. So, . . .

This is Halee.


This is Hannah.

It was a productive weekend, I feel. Now, I'm tired and we are off to bed early today!












Saturday, October 6, 2007

Snow in Montana, Sat, Oct. 6

On Thursday, I finally set out some fall decorations.

Today, we wake up to snow on the ground. Hannah can't wait to get outside to play in it.





The only snow shovels we have right now are child size!



The exciting news of the day . . . Ed is building my pantry shelves. Stay tuned!