Our Mantle

 The Mantle

From Beginning to Finish

Our Mantle is finally complete and up on our wall!!!  Thanks to my dad who made it for us.  It's beautiful and I'm so excited!!!  The two years has totally been worth it now to have the living room almost to completion.  We just have touch ups on the paint and the popcorn ceiling.  Once that's done then we need to put in a new flooring and trim and then it's DONE!!! 

Grandpa Kerr

My Grandpa Kerr passed away yesterday afternoon.  He was an amazing man.  When I was a child he would always try to steal my donuts that he got for us which he actually could never have because he was diabetic.  It was always make me laugh whenever he would try to do it.  I would just laugh and say no, you can't have it. 

He was a World War 2 veteran.  He actually was on a ship during the war that got blown up and sunk but him and some others survived and floated in the ocean for awhile (I believe 3 or 4 days however could have been shorter of a time I can't remember for sure) to be rescued, surviving by smoking cigarettes.  He never talked about it much at all which is understandable.  However I heard the most of the stories when his sister came to town and he shared a lot with her.  He was an amazing golfer winning trophies for it.  He was a baker and made amazing apple pies and he worked in the Portland Steel Mill losing most of his hearing. 

He was the best most wonderful Grandpa and I will miss him so much.  I will always remember the great times we had and all the wonderful memories of him.

Blue

MY HOUSE IS FINALLY BLUE!!!!!!!

It has taken us 2 years to paint our house but it is done!  I'm so so so happy that this week we finally accomplished a few goals.

1.  Painting the house.

2.  Texturing the walls.

3.  Painting the living room walls.

4.  Ripping up the carpet in the living room.

5.  Sealing the driveway (totally wasn't a goal earlier but once we got to Home Depot we couldn't resist.)

2 years I have been waiting for these things to happen and it finally did.

Here are the pictures of the house...Before and After.  (Still have to paint the trim but that will be tomorrow)

 

 Sorry for the picture having sun spots...didn't realize until after the house was painted.

MY HOUSE IS BLUE!!!

Once in a Lifetime Trip

Bill and I decided last year that we were going to go to Castle Danger, Minnesota.  Now I know what your thinking what is Castle Danger and why there?  Well Bill was watching a show and how the picked the place they were going was they threw a dart at a large map and went where ever it landed.  So, there you go that's what we did minus the dart and add a finger and closed eyes.  Therefore Castle Danger here we go.  After googling it I found out there really is only a brewery there so needless to say that's where we were going to go.  Two days before we were scheduled to leave (July 5th) Bill came to me and said that we should go all the coast to coast.  Therefore plans changed.  The new plan was to hopefully Maine.  We were going to leave on July 5th -13th.  However, Bill came home on July 3rd from Fire Practice and asked what was stopping us from leaving on July 4th.  I said him with working with the fire department and he said nope not this year.  Therefore things changed and there we go we left a day early.

 Here was our schedule...

Day One...
Home...Portland...Washington...Idaho...Butte, Montana.
                    Awesome fireworks that we could see from our tent because we were beyond tired.
Day Two...
Butte, Montana...Fargo, North Dakota.
                   North Dakota is GREEN and HILLY!!!
Day Three...
Fargo, North Dakota...Minnesota...CASTLE DANGER, MINNESOTA...Wisconsin.
                   We had the Castle Danger beer at a restaurant.  It was pretty good.
Day Four...
Wisconsin...Illinois...Indiana...Ohio...Pennsylvania...Niagara Falls, New York.
                   Yep there is a town also called Niagara Falls.  It was a long, long day.
Day Five...
Niagara Falls, New York...Massachusetts...New Hampshire...York Beach, Maine.
                   Niagara Falls was absolutely breathtaking!  York Beach is the east coast version of Seaside and Bill took a swim in the Atlantic.
Day Six...
York Beach, Maine...Portland, Maine...New Hampshire...Massachusetts...Connecticut...New York...Pennsylvania
                  Another long day...Pennsylvania is beautiful and nothing besides the picturesque view of trees.
Day Seven...
Pennsylvania...Ohio...Indiana...Illinois...Iowa.
                 Nothing much happened at all.
Day Eight...
Iowa...Minnesota...South Dakota.
                Radiator broke in South Dakota which Bill repaired.  We got to see The Badlands.
Day Nine...
South Dakota...Wyoming...Montana...Idaho...Spokane, Washington.
               Mt. Rushmore a whole lot smaller then I thought it was going to be and Crazy Horse.
Day Ten...
Spokane, Washington...Portland.
               Radiator broke again and replace...got to see a good friend and catch up.
Day Eleven...
Portland...Home...so nice!!!!

It was an awesome trip that was so fun and felt so long that we thought it took a month and a half to complete.  It was seriously amazing to be able to take this trip with Bill.  Next one to the south!!!!

We went through 19 states!!  I added on 12 new ones.  Only 12 more to go!!

AWESOME!!!

One down...95 to go

Today...

got one something off of my bucketlist!!!

Yep.  I sure did!!  I finally after 8 years of living here made a Sand Castle on Sand Castle weekend!!  I know.  I know.  8 years but usually I'm doing something or gone every time the weekend comes up.  Today though we were coming home from having lunch with Bill's parents and Bill surprised me by stopping in Cannon Beach.  I knew exactly what he was up to!!  I was so elated. 

 

My Sand Castle built only with hands no tools. 

 

Now I only have 95 things left to do on my bucket list!!!

Time

My life is flying by and the time is running so fast that I can't keep up with all the things that I want to do.  It's probably most likely just laziness with not being able to get things done but I still blame time.  I'm just so tired after work, before work, that I just don't want to do anything when I get home. 

Luckily though this week I have off so I will be able to get things done.  I get to actually clean my house and actually clean!!  I am going to do my first actual purge of this year this week.  Going through everything in the house and getting rid of all the things that we don't use anymore.  It will be so nice to not have the feeling of being cluttered and closed in.

It will be a fun time. 

I'm looking forward to getting my house clean after almost a year of just glossing over things.  I might even be inclined to take pictures after I clean everything up. 

Backyard

Well this is it.  It's the year of actually working in and around our house!!  It has been a crazy two years.  Last year going on so many trips though was extremely fun but we didn't actually do anything around the house.  This year though I have it all planned out.  Bill and I have the week off and we have already started work.  Bill finished our rock wall for our raised flower bed (pictures to come later).  Next, we are moving to the inside to the living room (because of the weather) and we are going to work on our walls.  Finally getting them back to being real walls, textured and painted.  Then the next step will be to put up the mantel that my dad made for us then the living room will be complete.  I don't care if it's actually gets done this week just as long as we make some progress on the house.  Pictures to come soon of all the projects that we have going on. Right now though I'm relaxing on the couch.