Merry Christmas!

Our very first Christmas in the new house was a huge success!  We had my family over for a good Italian dinner - chicken parm!  The dogs loved having Grandma and Grandpa over, as usual!

Myself, Toby and my mother.

Our living room was just the right size to have everyone over comfortably!  We also set up the Wii for my brother and his girlfriend in the family room, sadly no one played the board games I set out- maybe next year!



Michael and I

We really loved being able to host Christmas Eve, when we lived in Temecula it was much to far away from family!  We just wish Michael's family could have been with us to celebrate!

This cracked me up, Toby sniffed out his present!  Of course Santa brought him tennis balls, what else would a terrier want?


Happy Halloween!

This was our first big holiday in our home, and it was a great success!  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, who doesn't love candy and kids in insanely cute costumes?  The fact that it's my birthday is just an added plus!
 When we were in Temecula, I think the most trick or treaters we ever got was two in one evening.  And in hindsight, it may have just been the same kid circling our neighborhood more than once!  We were hoping that Halloween was going to be more festive in our new neighborhood- and it exceeded our expectations!

Mickey Mouse

Every year we try to carve a few cute pumpkins, this year we didn't have a lot of time so I quickly carved out a Mickey Mouse.  Not nearly as cute as my Puss 'n Boots from last year, but he was recognizable!  We had a lot of kids in Disney outfits, so I think it was a good choice

Ready for the kids!

I really didn't know how much candy to buy, I ended up getting two huge bags.  I was really thankful later for all that candy, because we went through almost all of it! 

This isn't the greatest picture of our stoop, it looked really cute in person.  Our neighborhood was pretty decked out for Halloween, one of our neighbors across the street even made some really cute signs pointing trick or treaters to his front door.  A house near ours advertised that they were not handing out candy, which I think is really just asking kids to egg your house.

Thank goodness for baby gates!

For the most part, our dogs did a great job on Halloween.  Toby was exhausted from wagging his tail at all the kids in costume!

No.

We did get a surprise trick or treater who taught us not to leave the door open!

Really. No!

Is it wrong that I was surprised that a cat wandered into our house?

We had a wonderful first Halloween in this house, and are looking forward to many, many more! 

Stumped

Our yard has been such a project, and we are getting so much closer to having a wonderful clean slate!  After Michael took a chainsaw to our out of control trees in the backyard, he had someone come over to grind down some of the larger stumps.  I can't even explain how giant our yard is with all the random trees out!  I really think we could fit a pool over by the garage.

A few before shots:

It was so wonderful to tear this down!

This is right before we moved in, the structure being torn down is a Japanese Tea Room.  Doesn't everyone have one of those in their yard?  All that's left of this is the cement slab.

This picture was taken after we had chopped away lots and lots (and lots) of plants and hauled them away.

And this is how the yard looks now:

No more ugly palm!



I really think there is room for a pool!



Can you even tell there used to be giant stump here?

Really, this pictures don't do the yard justice- it looks so much better without all the random plants cluttering it up!  And I'm realizing just how huge the yard is, what are we going to do with all this space?

Back to Work!

We used Labor Day weekend to get some great work done in the backyard.  Did you know you can rent some pretty dangerous tools at the Home Depot?  Michael rented a wonderful chainsaw to help us clear away some of the larger plants.

Michael was a pro at using the chainsaw and clearing away all the overgrown trees and bushes in the backyard.

Michael was able to quickly turn all those plants into small stumps!  Notice that there are no pictures of me with the chainsaw, I think we all know it would not end well if I tried to use it.

Back when we first moved in, we couldn't get the cable turned on because of the giant tree and random plants in front of the telephone pole- they are now all gone!

The three overgrown ficus trees are also gone!  Sadly, the orange tree also had to go.  After so many years of neglect it just wasn't growing.

The previous owners of this house really like to decorate the yard with large rocks, bricks and other heavy objects.  This is just one pile.

Toby and Charlie are wondering why humans would put so many rocks in a perfectly good yard.

We always seem to find interesting things in the yard- this is by far my favorite!  I just hope it wasn't a gravestone marker for the family's former pet duck!

The yard is looking so great!  Once we jackhammer up the cement, we can start with a clean slate!

Disneyland!

We have some pretty crazy yard projects coming up, so Michael and I decided to use our free Disneyland passes for a little mini-vacation before we tackle the yard! 

Somehow Michael beat me on Buzz Lightyear :)

We had a really great time, and were surprised by the lack of strollers in the park!  In fact, we were surprised by the lack of people in the park considering it was a weekend in August! 

We were able to check out the newish Pirate's Lair, which was Tom Sawyer's Island when I was little.  It was much nicer than I remembered Tom Saywer's Island, but I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was an 8 year old boy.

What trip is complete without seeing Captian EO?  If anyone can undertand the plot of this movie, please let me know :)

We ended the day on my favorite ride, the Mark Twain.  You know you are old when this is your favorite ride at Disneyland!

Living Room!

The living room/dining room is finally (almost) done!  We went with a blue color on the walls, which I think turned out great!  We wanted a green color but couldn't find a green paint that didn't look like mint ice cream.

View from the dining room, the curtains were from overstock.com and two panels on each side of the massive window worked out perfectly!

Slightly different angle, I love that the Kermit lamp found a home on the bar next to the front door! 

This awesome lighting fixture was original to the house, Michael found a lamp store that restored to it's former glory!  It looks amazing over the dining room table.

View of the living room and dining room.

I'm SO happy with how this room turned out, such an improvement from when we first moved in!

Skunked!

Is anyone suprised that out of all three dogs, Toby was the first to meet up with a skunk?  He got sprayed right in the face by a skunk that was hanging out in our backyard the other evening.  This was the one time that he gladly jumped into the bathtub!
We took him to the groomer's to get a professional bath, and they had to clip off most of his cute facial hair.  At least it will grow back!  Hopefully he learned his lesson, because this was an experience I never want to repeat!

Humbled

This is not a house update, just musing on the weekend.

This past Friday, a lost dog found us.  Michael made every attempt to talk to all our neighbors to find out who this dog belonged to- no one knew but had seen it wandering around for the past month or so.  I come home from work to find a sweet, friendly, adorable fluff ball in our backyard.  Michael had somewhere to be and asked me if I could take it to a vet to see if she was chipped.

After talking to a few people, it seemed better to take her to the shelter- that way it would be easier for her family to find her is she was not chipped.  I dropped her off at the shelter, which was beyond heartbreaking in itself as this dog was amazingly sweet and well-mannered but I figured her owners were most likely frantically looking for her.  I stuck around to see if she was chipped.  She wasn't.  And the little things that I noticed about her (lump on her belly, swollen eye) caused some alarm in the shelter staff and they whisked her away to be looked at.  I gave them my number just in case they needed more information and I wanted to find out what happened to her, I assumed she would quickly be reunited with her family.

Later that afternoon the shelter called me.
She was much more sick than they had thought, likely mammary cancer which may have spread to her lungs.  An eye that had been infected in the past and never treated.  Did I want her?  Most likely her owners would not be looking for her due to her medical needs. 
The family has until Friday to claim her, after that the shelter is going to turn her over to a rescue organization to see if they can help her, but really they just aren't so sure.
The day left me shaken, and made me feel that I should have rushed right down and picked up that dog.  Let her live out her last few months in a loving home, off the streets and out of the cold shelter.  I am still feeling so guilty over the fact that this wonderful creature is alone in the shelter, sick and most likely confused.  What does one do in this kind of situation?
It also made me feel incredibly humbled.  We have been given three absolutely amazing dogs of our own, mostly by chance.  They are home with us (all snuggled up on the bed right now) because we happened to be at the shelter on a certain day and noticed these dogs (or in Toby's case- he noticed us).  It is such a huge responsibility to me to be their mother, and it makes me sad that some people do not share that same feeling of responsibility. 

I'm feeling pretty lucky to be a mom right now.

Betty White to the Rescue!

Ok, not the real Betty White- I should explain.  Our neighbor "collects" cats.  She feeds them and houses a few, so there are many cats running around our neighborhood.  One of which has stood out to us (mostly because it loves to sleep in our driveway).  Everything about this cat is crooked, she even walks a little crooked and looks like she is about 90 in cat years.  I have taken to calling her Betty White, she is a sassy old lady cat.
We were awakened one night by Toby, who was barking like crazy at something outside.  Turns out Betty White was in our trash can, digging around and making a HUGE mess all over the street at about 3:30 in the morning.  We go out to get everything cleaned up, and think that we have cleaned up all our trash.  Until the next day, when a neighbor brings over a check that has been mistakenly thrown away and brought out of the trash can by Betty White!
Michael and I have been sneaking her treats whenever we see her, I think she may be hanging outside our house for awhile and we are more than happy to have her!

I finally found my camera, so I can post a few pics!  I'm hoping to be posting some before and after pictures next week.  Michael has been working like crazy to get our yard functional- and the dogs are loving it!

Baily and Charlie are really enjoying the yard, as you can see!  See how tall the weeds are behind Baily?  They were that tall ALL over the yard, front and back!  It looks so much better now :)  There were also a few trees and things that we took out, the yard looks SO much bigger!

Baily LOVES to sunbathe!

Bees are pollentating the orange tree!  I'm hoping for some fruit this summer!

I also (finally) ordered some curtains from overstock.com, we really need them!  I got a great deal and cash back from ebates.com, excited to put them up next weekend.

Where the Wild Things Were

We finally got around to "trimming" our backyard.  In all honesty, our yard needed more than just a trim- it looked like it could double as a set for "Where the Wild Things Are" with a few Dr Seuss trees mixed in to make it more interesting.  Chopping things down was very theraputic and educational- I learned that we have 3 ficus trees and not 2 like I originally thought!
The orange tree is flourishing with all the sunlight it is getting now, hopefully we will be getting a nice crop of oranges this year!   I must admit, when we were chopping down trees I half expected a Lorax to jump out at us.  It is looking better and we are moved in with internet (yay!) so updates will finally be more frequent!
I will be posting pictures as soon as we can find the USB cable for the camera.  It has to be in one of our boxes...

Projects!

The house did finally close (YAY!) and we have been working like crazy to get it ready for us to move in!  There has been many coats of primer put on the walls, just so we can start actually painting the walls!  The man who lived there before us was a heavy smoker, and we finally have painted over the tobacco stains on the walls. 
We also took down the wallpaper in the bathroom (which was the worst project so far, I swear to never put up wallpaper of any kind!) and the bathroom looks SO much bigger and cleaner.  In fact, the whole house looks much cleaner and smells a lot better!
The next big project will be refinishing the hardwood floors, which will be happening on the 15th- very exciting!
I will be taking pictures this weekend of our progress, I think we will be itching to move in after this weekend!

filled the tank with gas tonight for the first time in the new ‘hood. Since the crystal of the pump screen was broken, I headed inside to pay. I passed a woman wearing an aging, white Toyota Corolla. She stopped me and asked, “Hey baby, can you spare some change?” I responded, “I don’t know if I have anything”. She chuckled, “yeah right!” (Didn’t I realize that she was eyeing my PHAT ride, the new company Jeep?) I asked her if she planned to use it for gas, to which she responded, “yeah right, survival!” Five dollars later, I walked away, realizing by the load of junk in the car that she was probably living out of it. How thankful I am for my friends, family and home!




Shannon and I stopped at the house this evening to find the plumber working by artificial light. The plumbing update is almost complete. I guess we can flush freely for a number of years to come and we have the designer toilet seat to prove it! The electrical update is nearly done, the roof will get torn off tomorrow and we will soon have a means of heat that really works! Fumigation occurs on the 19th. We are very excited as moving day draws closer. Then, the real fun will begin! Now, if we can only rent the condo….

Our awesome bathroom in the new house!

-Michael

Painting, painting and more painting!

The condo is almost all painted, thanks mostly to Michael.  He is a rockstar painter! I wish we had painted the condo a long time ago, the tan walls and white ceiling make everything look so much warmer.  Hopefully this will help us rent out the condo super quickly to great tenants! 

The pumbers started digging up the front yard at the new house today, hopefully all the pumbing work will go easily and on schedule :)  Our awesome real estate agent stopped by to make sure everything was going as planned and sent us a picture of the work that was being done. 

Almost all of the upstairs is painted!