House Project

Oliver and I decided that white on white walls just weren't working for us anymore and so we have started a huge home project. This is what we accomplished this weekend...



First we taped and washed the wall between the kitchen and living room and then this is what the wall looks like with primer.

Then we decided that we should paint the whole living room too and so we taped and washed the rest of the room. Oliver had the job of taping the ceiling...

This is the finished wall painted between the kitchen and the living room - red (with an orange tint). You can see that it matches the bench and what you can't see is that it matches a picture frame on our wall and some DVD holders. In a future post you will catch the whole vision.

And this is me putting the second coat on in the living/dining area. We had to paint the second coat after work on Monday since we barely finished the first coat Saturday night. It was late after we got home from work and so we weren't able to finish because we lost our light. Hopefully we will finish Tuesday.

Then we still have the kitchen, upstairs office, bathrooms and our bedroom to come. We bought some matching book cases and got rid of our hodge podge ones that were generously donated to us at all different times in life. We also got drapes for our bedroom. So, stay tuned, because more house project pictures will surely be coming!

PS - Thanks to Kristen Farmer for all her help picking colors, drapes, furniture arrangement suggestions, etc. She was so easy to work with and you can tell her that we sent you her way!

Annual Teton Trip

We have had some very sad days because I lost my camera, then found it. Then I lost the battery charger and cable to connect it to the computer. When I found my camera it had a little battery left and so these our the few pictures that we took while in the Tetons. Then when we got back from our vacation I couldn't get the pictures off the camera because the battery was dead and we couldn't find the cord. Alas - the gremlin problem has been solved at our house and so here are the pics and the story of the trip...

Oliver's family goes every year and stays at Colter Bay and we had a fantastic time. We hiked, saw wildlife, went swimming, played games, slept, read, ate, ate, ate and had fun.

We hiked several different places in the park but these photos are from our hike up Garnet Canyon. This canyon goes between the middle and south teton and we hiked up to The Meadow which is the base camp for hiking the other Tetons. The 5.4 mile one-way hike had us ascend 9,300 feet and I am happy to admit that it totally kicked my hiny. But we made it up, had lunch, and came back in just about 5.5 hours. The view was amazing and we had a great time.


Here is Oliver with the middle Teton behind him.


The base of this mountain is The Meadows and those are all the boulders that we had to climb over. The way up through the boulders really wasn't fun because Taylor and Emily went ahead without us and we lost track of the trail so we did a lot more boulder climbing then we needed to. But coming down was better because we saw where the trail was...


Last year when we went to Colter Bay we didn't hike - except for one Sunday stroll and so this year I opted to leave my CamelBak at home. That was a bad plan - I really needed it. But the ranger told us that they hadn't had any trouble with people drinking from the falls in the 20 years that he worked there and so I filled up on the way up and the way down. (The gestation period for giardia has come and gone and all is still well.)


Amazing tree struck by lightning...


View of Taggert and Bradly Lakes - we started at the same elevation as the lakes - YIKES!

The day before our long hike we meandered four miles one way to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point from Jenny Lake. It really is a relatively flat first three mile and then the last part had more kids on the trail then anything and so it wasn't that difficult. Dad rode the watercraft across the lake one way and we met him up at the falls and then we all walked back. We saw a mom and baby moose and several other little critters. Plus, Taylor and Emily managed to nearly give mom a heart attack. The only disappointment was that it was a really crowded hike. But we had a great time. Aren't Tay and Emily such a cute hiking couple?


We also saw deer, antelope, a fox with a dead animal in it's mouth, and two bears (black and grizzly). It was a great year for animals because it wasn't that warm and it rained for an hour or so everyday to help keep them out in the daytime for us to enjoy!

Alma Mater

We had a great night with our friends from Westminster. Most of graduated in 2004 with our first degrees and then again in the last few years with a second degree. We have married and some are starting families. It is so fun to be friends with these great folk and we are glad that it worked out that we were all around the same week this summer from all around the United States! Hats off to our alma mater...