Devin and Chelsey

Happy Birthday Hubby Bub!!!

2010-02-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to this Super Cute, adorable, Stud like Man! Today he is 26! I love you Dev!

Tree Project!

2010-02-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

So we had this BIG giant Tree smack dab in the middle of our backyard, and it was making the grass into a mud pit because it was soaking up all the water, and the sun could never get to the grass as well. We have a septic tank, and were also concerned about the roots tearing into the tank and ruining it. It also made alot of needles fall onto our covered patio and it rotted out the roofing and it started leaking onto the back deck. So this project that we decided to take on, redo the porch. It either needed a new roof, or needed to be made into a deck, either way, PERFECT opportunity to take the dang tree down after almost 3 years of trying to find a good reason! We still hymmed and hawed trying to really decide if we wanted to, and at last, Decision was final!!! It made ALOT of wood. The rings that were counted was about 98 and that wasnt' even the lowest ring on the tree. We decided that we didn't want to pay any more, so we chopped the wood ourselves. Devin was out there almost everyday, and along with a few helpers... Papa Geoff (Dev's dad), Ben (good friend), Chase (little brother),Cameron (the next door neighbor), Jon, (friend), Troy, and then I was stacking all the wood.

Here is all the boys at work.

Devin left this mess in the backyard. It's another 90-10% done. Every project he has done, he gets about 90% way done with it and then quits at it. So 2 weekends ago, I spent a lot of time rolling this logs and debris out of the way. They were extremely heavy and I got really soar, but dang it, I did it! This is pretty much all the wood that was chopped by hand. It's about 3 1/2 rows of wood. Trying to get it all sold now.

So, we got THAT project done, only to start on the new one, which is the deck. More picks to come!

Family Pictures!

2010-01-29T09:21:00.001-08:00

So for Christmas, we had ALL 6 of us kids in town with our spouces and parents! This was the first time in like 8 years that we were ALL together again! Despite having 6 siblings together, we really did have a great time! No bickering, no fighting, no tears. It was fun!

While everyone was in town we got family photos done. My Very good Great friend Christina was kind enough to take the time away from her family for a little while to come and shoot these photos. Not everyone had a good attitude about it in the beginning, but as the time went on, everyone kinda loosened up and started having an good time with it. So this is of Kara (Dean and Chelles baby) and Addie (Lance & Kristene's youngest)
As much as Chase and Makenna fight, they actually do love eachother (ages 17 and 16)

And we kinda like eachother too!!!

We aren't exaclty sure what was going on in this picture, but I have never seen this man so delightful in any picture! We think mom maybe pinched him, but who knows!

This is more of them, just a nice picture! Plus Mom had to show off her new bod she's been working on! Whoa who, go mam!

The Salisbury Clan. Lance, Kristene, Daylin, Kadin, and Addison (addie)

We is the Whole group being kinda silly! Wow there's a lot of us!

And All of us siblings! From 6 to 9 so far!

The "Holmes" clan!

The Sheldon Clan! Dean, Michelle, & Kara

And then there was the whole group! We have expanded over the last 8 years, but in such a good way! I thank God everyday for the wonderful Big Family that I was so truly blessed with. I love you guys!

Help

2010-01-18T16:51:00.000-08:00

Can anyone help me with my blog? I am really disliking it because I can't seem to get it to work. All the info that's supposed to be on the right top side of the page seems to be at the bottom. I have tried everything I thought it could be. Any help would be great, as if I can get it fixed... I will Blog more! I promise! So you are helping me help you!

Insanity

2009-11-17T11:19:00.000-08:00

So lately I've been really frustrated, pissed off, annoyed, Everything. I used to be a happy go lucky kinda gal and was smiling all the time, and having a good time, just all the time. Now, not so much. I don't know what's been getting me SOO down lately, but I don't like it. I want the old Chelsey back and I'm not sure how to find her. I feel like I need to get away from everything and anything and just do some soul searching. I'm getting irritated easily lately and I feel bad for Devin who is having to put up with me. )-: I know that part of the problem is that I want a baby so badly, and it just isn't happening for us. Everyone keeps saying, "it will happen soon", but it never feels like it's soon enough. I feel like I'm behind the time and my times a tickin. I want to add a baby to our little family and start the adventure of Parenthood with Devin. We have Everything we need for a baby and everything we could ever dream of having. The only thing we really need to buy would be more diapers. Between a lady that I babysit for and our friend Ben & Christina, we have everything we need, except a baby. Please Lord bless us with a baby...... (-:

On a side note, I started working out about a month ago on the Jillians Michael weight loss program. It's a combination of eating a certain amount of calories and doing circuit training. I have only lost about 2 pounds, but I've lost some inches off my waist and my hips which is nice. I'm mad because I didn't take measurments when I first started, I only took them a week ago so I don't know how I first started. Dang, oh well. I thought working out was supposed to let out happy endorphins and all would be well, but nope! I am sleeping better in the night though and I go to bed very tired.

I sold one of my guns the other day and replaced it with a smaller one that I could wear instead of having it in my purse. I feel bad when I take my purse places and there's kids in the house. Who knows if one of them might go in there when I'm not looking and take it out and play with it. It's a safer bit to not have a gun in my purse all around. This is what I got! This isn't the exact one that I got, but this is for reference on how small it is! I think it would do the job if I ever got into a precarious situation.

I got to go on a ride along with my friend Ben on Saturday night. He is a Sheriff Deputy with the King County Transit Police. We went out and along all the bus routes in Seattle areas. We got to wake up Bums or people that were sleeping in the bus stop, Stop people from smoking and drinking in them as well. He handed me a list of things that are illegal to do when you are at a bus stop and I couldn't beleive how many items were on that list. We also drove around scanning license plates all night looking for something that wasn't "Clear". We found one lady that had a suspended license from Bremerton, but we didn't arrest her, we let her go with a warning. We also found a kid that was 17 and was smoking and drinking in the bus shelter. He also had a suspension from riding the bus for a year from a robbery on a bus. Ben handcuffed him, took all his posessions and placed him in the back of the car. I then listened to his sob story about nothing in life was his fault and he began to cry. I stared forward because I didn't really want to talk to him. Ben called his mom and let her know what was going on, and then we released him to walk home. We didn't get to arrest anyone and take them to jail, BUT I got all on questions answered and feel slightly better about Devin possibly going into law enforcement. I had a great time, and it was a such a fun experience to be able to see what he does on a daily basis, and to get to know my friend just a little better as well. I am truly grateful for him and him being able to put his life on the line everyday when he goes to work. I think that Police Officers are underestimated for the jobs that they do everyday. It takes a wonderful person to be able to do so, and an even stronger spouse/family to be ok with letting them go everyday.

Devin spent all nights last week going to hunting class. He left work at 4pm and drove straight to sultan about an hour and 40minutes away. He was then at class till 9pm and drove home. He got home nightly at 10:15pm. )-: It was hard without him there for most the week, but we did it and he ended up passing the class with a 100%. I'm so proud of him for working so hard and getting his license. He is now going deer hunting this weekend with Ben (which is the last deer hunting weekend here) and then he gets to hunt duck till January. I am excited and hopefull that he will be able to bring home a deer and to come home safe!

Well that's a little update over the last month!

WOW, it's been a while

2009-10-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

So I've realized it's been a while since I've blogged, it was getting to the point where it felt like no one actually is reading these things so I didn't care. Alot has happend since August. We celebrated our 2 years wedding anniversary on September 29th. We went on a hot air Balloon ride to celebrate. It was amazing, and totally worth the time and Money spent. We started meeting at a Winery in Woodinville where we met the 2 vans and all the poeple. We then got into the vans and drove to a location in Maltby. We all got out and they filled a balloon with helium to watch it go up so they can see which way the winds were going. when they decided that it went too far West we drove over East more and found a spot by a church in a huge open field.
(This was the end of our ride after we landed)

This is us at the Winery waiting for the Vans to come.

These are the 2 vans parking at the Winery. Everything they need was on that traiolr.

This is our "pilot" at the fields when they started taking in all off the trailor to set it up.

And I was SOOO excited!!!

They hooked the balloon up to the basket and put fans on each side to inflate it a little so they could get all the twine and ropes un crossed.

Looking inside was Awesome looking!

This is the top where they had to secure all the strands.

And my cutie hubby posing as they started to raise the balloon up.

To catch a moment in time together!

This is when we took off. It was really cool how they did it. They hooked a long rope to the front of the van, and connected it to the bottom on the basket. They then made the fire with the propane as it started to lift up. When we were lifting up enough off the ground, they then unhooked us and away we went!

This was our trail balloon. It was REALLY cool being able to see them lift up after us, and it was fun watching them behind us since you can't see yourself.

This is the veiw looking up the middle of the balloon. It was such a pretty day and it was about 65 out, but with this flame, it kept me nice and toasty in my tank top.

This is a lake that used to be open to hunters coming out to duck hunt. Since they closed that down, it is now a private lake that people live on. The Pilots do touch and go's on this lake when the wind is just right. We didn't quite get all the way down to the lake, but we got pretty close.

This is a veiw from the balloon over looking to Seattle. If you look close enough you can see the space needle and keep in mind, we were in Woodinville. That's such a beautiful view.

This is our follow balloon, you can see how close they came to the lake. It was amazing.

Oh my hubby. He was SOO nervous to do this, and by his kind graces he knew I wanted to so bad, he sacrificed him being scared to take me. However, once we got off the ground about 100feet, he was no longer scared! What a trooped, I love him!

And us! Yeah!

Our pilot talking away! At one point he offered us an in flight cocktail, which turned out to be a bottle of water. It was a tiny bottle too. The only thing he asked we that we keep the bottle inside the basket. Hmmm, I wonder why?

This is a view of a Winery that we flew over, and a veiw also looking straight down! It was magical!

This was the other balloon landing in the field after us. It was so cool watching it come down over the power lines and everything. It was an amazing trip and we will always remember it! hmmm, I love you hubby. <3>

Cat Naps

2009-08-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

We have been go go go the last few days. We are now down to 4 kittens in the house and 2 of them are going to the neighbors this upcoming Monday. Which mean we will have the 2 left that we are keeping. Dolc'e and Gabbana. Dolc'e is a girl and Gabbana is a boy. They look identical only Dolc'es face is a little wider. Devin was so tired the other day he decided to take a nap with his little dolc'e. Here is a picture of Gabbana, I've just now realized that I haven't really taken any of him and I'm a little sad about that.

This is the last group shot that I got of all 7 before they started leaving us. If you look at it, Dolc'e and Gabbana are the only ones that are looking AT me, the other ones could care less. It has been a fun ride with them, but MyLee(the mamma) has been the most overprotected animal I have ever seen. She has gotten in countless fights with our other fluffy cat Myzzie over nothing. Myzzie will come into the house from the cat door and MyLee will start attacking her. I'm pretty sick of it. I would have loved to have the kitties around for a long time but it's better that they are going so the house can get back to normal.

These are our babies now, since everyone that I was pregnant with are now starting to deliver, it's nice to be able to have some babies in the house to try to get my mind off of it. SIGH.

A new Best Friend

2009-07-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

So 4 weeks ago out cat Mylee had 7 kittens, and over the last 4 weeks it has been really fun and hard having them around. I have been trying to handle them as much as possible to get them used to people and trying to get them used to dogs as well. We have successfully made best friends with Maui and her and it just happens to be the one that we are keeping.Her name is Dolc'e and she is the sweetest kitten. Every time I come home from work and she hears my voice she instantly wakes up and is meowing for me to pet her. She is also the first in her litter to use the litter box and to have the first poop in there too. She is such a cuddle bunny and oh so friendly.

ALL of our kitties are starting to get friendly and sweet. They all wake up and start meowing for attention. when you pet them, they stop meowing. It's so very sweet. I need to take some pictures of all of them so everyone can see them. We have about 4 who have homes, and need to find the other 3 good homes. they are very loveable people, so if you are looking for one, they are free!!!!

OUR 1995 BMW Convertible for sale!!!

2009-07-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

1995 BMW 325iC Black Schwarz II Exterior Black Leather Interior Power Sport Seats with Leg Extension Factory Rollover Protection (rare) Automatic 5 Speed Transmission with Sport Shift OEM 6 Disc Changer Power Soft Top in good condition Upgrades: Bavauto High Performance Ignition Coil Set OEM M3 Body Package (Front bumper, Side Skirts, Rear Bumper)

Professionally painted and installed 18" M6 Replica Wheels. Aftermarket Angel Eye Lighting, Upgrade Full Cold Air Intake System, Bimmian Micro Antenna, High End Clifford Alarm, (Remote Start, Starter Kill, Remote Lock/Unlock, Panic, etc.) Smoked Front Turn Signals, European Clear Corner Tail-Lights, New Alternator.

Needs new hood shocks.

This car is in great shape and other than the hood shocks, there is nothing wrong with it. It drives great and looks incredible in person.

Devin is available for test drives and for you to come take a look at it. This is my 8th BMW that I have owned and I am a participating BMWCCA member. I take great care of my cars and work on all my relatives' cars for them. You will not be dissapointed.

$4900 This is below blue book private party value for this car in good condition (which it is) with current mileage of 194k I am offering it at this price WITH all of the upgrades I have put into it.
PLease follow the link for PICTURES!!!
http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/cto/1283463304.html

Baby Kitties Have Arrived

2009-07-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

So last Sunday Mylee (our 1 and a half year kittie) had her babies. We unfortunatly had to leave her RIGHT before she started. She was pacing around the room going in and out of her box and meowing. She would also growel everytime she had a contraction. When we got home 5 hours later we checked on her and she had delivered what appeared to be 6 babies. (I was hoping for 4 just so they would be easier to get rid of, but lately god has has WAY different plans then what Devin and I have). I started petting Mylee and she got up to come see me. SURPRISE, there was one hiding. She had SEVEN, SEVEN baby kitties. Holly cow, what were we going to do now. Ugh. So we showed the neighbors (they already planned on taking one, but they are now taking 2) and we are keeping one, so that's 3 down and 4 more to go now. We ended up with 1 Grey striped (which the neighbor is taking) 2 PURE black (not a mark on them) 3 brown/black/grey tiger stripe (neighbor is taking one of those and we are keeping one) and 1 Tortie (like her mamma).

I touched them alot that night and Mylee got pretty ticked at me and refused to feed them. It was a battle with her for the next 6 hours trying to keep her in that room with them. We would close the door and she would claw at it for a while, and meow, and she even pushed the screen off the window and ecaped onto the back deck. We kept her in there overnight and during the day while we were at work. Eventually, she got back into the swing of things, and she now spends almost all her time with them. In one week I can't believe how much they have grown. They are already getting so cute and so soft. I check on them everyday to make sure they are all still breathing and still with us. She hasn't shown any signs in wanting to move them at all and I'm so happy about that.

Here are just a few photos of them, since when I pick them up they cry and Mylee doesn't like that.

This Tiger is personally my favorite!

This is the only Grey one.

Mamma and all 7 babies.

Doing OK

2009-06-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

(This is Tatum's Urn. We keep it on the fire place mantel with my dad's urn)
So, we are doing ok. Father's day was a little hard (especially because we lost Tatum a few weeks ago and my dad passed this last October), but we started doing some projects around the house and just worked together. We made it through the day together!!!

My milk I think has finally cleared up and is gone, and I have started missing my old boobs, and old body. I have lost half my baby weight, and I still have 4lbs to go. We are walking everyday with the dog (and I'm talking LONG walks, either 1 mile, or 1 hour) and I started back on weight watchers again. I hate the feeling when you start because you feel hungry ALL the time, and boy do I feel hungry. It makes me want to eat much much more then I did while I was even pregnant, that and since I know i'm not supposed to have cookies, it makes me want them more. But i'm hanging in there and not giving in, at least not every night. I want to get back down to my pre-baby weight. I can fit back into my normal jeans (some of them are a little tight, but I can button them and wear them all day). Physically I'm feeling great, just emotionally once in a while I'll get a little sadness. We went down to a street Fair in Puyallup this last weekend and there were pregnant ladies everywhere, and that made me sad. I know that we will get another chance again, but it's sad for the one that you lost. I love the fact that we got to see her and hold her, and we have a few pictures from the photographers (Now I lay Me Down To Sleep) and I love those even more. It helps the healing process for me to have these beautiful photos of Tatum for us to keep. I printed out one of them so far and it's in a frame in her room. It's precious and beautiful! I feel so lucky to have that!

July 7th is our check up appt. At that appt we should be getting back my blood results and the placenta results. We are hoping that it all can give us some insight to what happend, but most of all if we are ok to reproduce and try again with out the fear that the placenta will fail again (we are pretty sure it was the placenta). We would like some good news after all the bad news. If we can figure out the finacials again I think we will end up trying again in 3 some months.

Devin has a test today for a new career path (I'm not allowed to say what it is yet). I know that he will pass this test, and when he does he will probably start this new direction within 4 months. At that point he will be a lot happier with his job and hopefully be ok with me getting the new career that I want (stay at home mommy).

That's about it for what's been happening with us. We are just hanging in there and loving on eachother more and more. Life is still turning around and we are turning with it, we are just trying to get back to a normal life, with the normal every day happenings! Don't be afraid to talk to us, we really are doing OK!

Our Birth Story, Tatum Hailey Trowbridge

2009-06-08T09:29:00.001-07:00

I figured since it's been a week that I would finally sit down and type out this birth story.

We went in on Thursday May 28th to get a growth check. The appt. didn't go as well as we thought and much to our surpirse there was no longer a heart beat. She checked the blood flow to the head and the heart areas and there was no more blood flow. She had passed away and they don't know exactly when. We then headed down stairs to our normal Dr. office to talk with our OB. We got down there and immediatly got a room. Our Dr. came in to talk with us and get my vitals, and then to talk about the next step. She was going to be out of the office for the weekend, so she wanted us to schedule the birth for Monday. That was going to be hard knowing that I was walking around with a dead baby in me for that amount of time, but I wanted her as my Dr. there so I agreed.

Saturday we got scheduled to go down to Swedish to OB Triage so that they could start my dialation process. When I got there they checked me and I was about a finger tip dialated, so at that point my body had gotten the message and started it on it's own. However they wanted to help the process along to make sure I was ready for Monday. I will only partially discribe the process as it's gruesome and just plane MEAN. The had to stick these dialater up me and there were 7. They leave them there and they release some sort of chemical that helps with the dialation. It's very uncomfortable but yet they tell me to go home and relax and maybe see a movie if I'd like. This was at 3 in the afternoon and there was no way I was doing anything but laying on my couch taking in all the Vicodin that I could.

Sunday morning came around and I woke up at 8am. Layed in bed for about 30 minutes when I started feeling slightly crampy. I then went and took a shower and just sat there as this pain started and I just couldn't sit anymore. I got out and warned Devin that he may want to think about packing his bag and taking his shower. I then went and woke up my mom (who was staying with us in our guest room) and warned her that she may want to get up and start getting ready. (she had kinda explained the night before what contractions felt like, so I got the heads up a little). I then went directly to my bed in my towel and just layed there as I was told to count how long between the contractions. It started at 7 minutes apart. I rolled out of bed and put my sweats on along with a tank top. I had already packed my bag on Saturday just in case they had to addmitt me when we went in. When they got to 5.5 minutes apart I had Devin call the Dr. to see if we should head in yet. The nurse told him to have me Drink some water (because I could be dehydrated) and then to have me take a shower. WHAT???? Is she kidding me? Seriously? So I drank some juice to see if that would help. Then they got 4 minutes apart and mom left to get Tom and meet us at the haospital. I got up from the couch and headed to the rest room because I was starting to feel slightly nauseous and Devin handed the garbage can to me and it looked gross. I made it right into the bathroom and opened the toliet just in the nick of time, to progectile Vomitt over and over again. I was not feeling very good at that point. So I sat back on the couch and started counting some more as Devin watered my flowers for me and got the bags in the car. When they got to 3 minutes apart we took off for the hospital which was about 40 minutes away. Well, when we got into the car they started to be 1.5 minutes apart and I hated time right then. I would just look at the clock in the car and think to myself "oh dang here another one comes" right before it would happen. I think that was the fastest trip to Seattle that Devin has ever taken. I'm not sure how fast he was going becuase I had my eyes closed everytime a contraction came, but I'm sure at one point that I saw him going about 90. FINE by me at that point the sooner we could get there the better!

Once we got there it was a painful walk through the lobby and up the stairs to get back to the OB Triage while walking through those stupid contractions. I got onto the bed in so much pain that I didn't really want anyone to talk to me. They took the dialators out (which they only found 6, so somewhere there is another one that they STILL can't locate) and they never checked to see how dialated I was. What is wrong with people? I layed in that bed for what felt like a lifetime waiting to get a birthing room. It's a good thing that Devin has family conections because his parents had called in the friend who is an Anesthesiologist and I guess he used to be cheif of staff there too, so he made a call and got us a bed. So right before I got moved i felt like I needed to pee so Devin went with me to the bathroom (after taking about 10 minutes to get out of the bed) and I then just sat there going through contractions leaning my head on his because I was exhausted and in pain. Nothing happend so I got back up and as I walked out the door they got me a wheel chair. I sat down and felt like I had to throw up again. They handed me a little pink dish that I threw up in a few times until they had to give me a bucket. They wheeled me to the room and I felt like I was going to die.

They got me into the room and onto the bed. Our friend Paul came in and tried to give me an IV before he did the epideral. Problem was that I was so dehydrated that they couldn't find a good vein for quite some time. He finally got it in and then I had to sit kinda sideways on the bed so he could get the epideral in. He missed the first time and my heart started racing and my ears were ringing and the 2nd time was a hit and a go. I still felt them a little bit but not as painful as before. He bid us fairwell and wished us luck and he was on his way. I got to lay in the bed on my left side (because it was the most comfortable position I could be in). The nurse checked my signs and then walked out of the room. Within 5-10 minutes of getting the epideral I felt this really weird sensation and I had Devin get the nurse. She checked me and then looked at me and said "oh hunny, that was her head". I looked back at her and said "oh that's disgusting". At that point I told my sister, her hubby, mom and tom to leave the room so we could be alone while birthing the rest of her. It took about 30 minutes to get the whole thing done, especially because I could no longer feel the lower half of my body. She came out all in the sack and they took her and cleaned her up. We then got to see her and be alone for a few minutes. We had the family come back in to be with us. She was born at 1:15pm. Total labor time was 4 hours and 45min. Her name is Tatum Hailey Trowbridge, she weighed 9.1oz, and was 10inches long. She had beautiful hands and feet with the cutest nails on them.

We had some photographers (a company called, Now I lay me down to Sleep) come and take pictures of her for us for when we are ready. They also got our family photo for us. It was very hard, but I'm SO glad that I had Devin there with me the entire time to take care of me. He was and still has been a wonderful support system to me and I love him even more every day for it.

I took a few days off from work and just layed on the couch on percocete and vicadin. On Wednesday morning my milk decided to come in. I spent the next 2 days on the couch with cold wash cloths on me trying to keep them from leaking. Didn't work, it just kept a little of the pain down. IT's been 5 days now and they are still slightly leaking but seriously deflating fast. That part is sad. Yesterday was a hard day and I'm sure there will be many more hard days to come that I'm not looking forward to. Anyways, that should be it, but here is our first and only family photo with Tatum (you can't see her because they did cover her up)....

Devin's TATTOO......

On Monday Devin decided that for his Grieving process he wanted to get something to remember her by. He decided to get her foot prints tattooed on his body (hist first and I'm sure only tattoo). We went down to the tattoo shop and it took about 30 minutes. It's almost all the way healed now and I get a little emotional every time I look at it. I'm glad he got it done! So here it is, and you can see the size comparison of her little foot next to my pinky finger...

Sad Day

2009-05-29T16:03:00.001-07:00

So yesterday we went in for an Ultrasound to check the growth, and to much of our surprise, little baby Taytum was no longer with us. She wasn't moving, there was no heart beat, and there was no more blood flow between her and the placenta.
Saturday we are going in to start the inducing process, and on Monday morning at 7am we will check into Swedish Medical Center to go through the labor and delivery process. Once she is born her body will be released to a funeral home, that will do the cremation for us. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers so that everything on Monday may go as well as it can. We made it through 26 weeks of pregnancy, and now it's time to say good bye to her.

Quick little update

2009-05-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to give a quick little update about the baby. I don't want to explain everything from the beginning but here's what's going on lately.

We started going to a new hospital (Sweedish Medical downtown Seattle) where the Doctors gave us different information then the ones that we have been seeing (at Valley Medical). This ultrasound shows that her brain is full and her heart is full, and her kidney's look fine. We then got an amnio done that day to find out if she has any syndromes on why she is so small. She was 4 weeks behind at that appt.

We saw an Echo Dr. a few days later that checked her heart. All her chambers are there, but she might have a possible hole between her bottom 2 chambers, and a possible blockage in her aeortic valve. We have another appt. with them sometime in June. If she is born with these problems she can get open heart surgery within a few days and that will fix the problems. The Dr. seemed very positive about her heart being just fine and being able to be fixed just fine.

AMNIO- came back Normal. They did 2 different tests on it. The first one was a fast track that was 98% accurate (which was normal) and the 2nd test came back on Tuesday and that was normal the rest of the 100%. So we are in the clear with her. There is nothing Wrong with the baby itself. They are thinking that it might have to do with my placenta. The last ultrasound that they did showed that it was abnormally bigger then what it should be. The blood flow looked fine going through the placenta to the baby.

So they haven't figured out anything with her size and why she is 4 weeks behind in growth, and there aren't really any other tests that they can do to figure it out. The plan for now is to just keep going check ups and ultrasounds every 3-4 weeks to watch her growth. Our next appt. is on next Thursday the 28th and we should know just a little bit more on her growth size. She isn't really kicking too much more lately, although I have felt her ONCE with my hand. Other then that she just mostly rolls and I can feel that pressure.

I appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers that have gone into her and her success so far. We are slightly hopeful now but aren't getting our hopes up too much. We still haven't bought much, just the absolute necessesities, the crib and the car seat.

Well that's all I got for now, things are looking slightly up.....

Here is the 24 week belly pic, it's still not too big:

And here we have her hand saying Hi to everyone!!!

Hawaii Vacation!

2009-04-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

So we took a much needed Vacation to Maui. We went for a week and got away from it all. We flew out on Friday the 17th and came back Thursday night the 24th.Here we are at the airport waiting to catch our plane.Here's the plane!Here we are on the plane happy that we can finally see land!The land we see! Finally to Maui! When we got to Maui we got our rental car which was a Convertible Sebring, not the greatest car but it did get us everywhere we wanted to go, and we only used a half a tank! We got to the hotel which was the Ka'anapali Beach Club and here are some views from the room...View from the Balcony toward the waterView from the balcony to the Koy PondOf View of me on the balcony. The View from our door going down to another Koy pond and the restaurant area in the middle of the rooms.another view from the balcony on a bad day.

Once we got settled there we went swimming down at the pool for movie night. They were playing 27 dresses, we watched a little as we swam and then it was time for bed. We spent the next day putting around and then going on a dinner cruise that night. It was ok, the weather was good, the food was ok and the magician was ok. I wouldn't reccomend that trip but it was an adventure. WE did see a few whales while we were out there, so we got one on the camera, it was a picture right before it came up out of the water, the thing was massive.

WE spent the next few days lounging around a visiting Lahina (front sreet) where we shoped and ate at some restaurants, here are some of the Lahina photos:

WE rented some Snorkel equipment (it was sad because I have such a small face that the normal size didn't work for me and it leaked, so we had to go back and get a childs size mask for me)and did snorkeling outside of our hotel, (an I got a panic attack the first time in the water, so Devin had to go out for a while with out me) so here are some views from the beach and those fishies:

Ok so we did take a Snorkeling trip. We were supposed to go to Molakini, but the weather was severely bad the day we decided to go. So we ended up going out farther to an area that is a reserve. Much to our surprise when we got there, there were dolphins in the water that we got to jump in and swim with. I was SOOO happy about that since the "swimming with dolphins at the place" was off limits to pregnant women. But out in the open ocean they can't Stop me. MMMMWWWWAAAHHHHHH. Anyways, we didn't see much out there because it was murky because of the wind, but we did get a few photos of that trip! Totally worth it!

So here are just a few random ones from the week:
The last day. The last day we took it easy. We had dinner plans at the Lahina Grill (very upscale restaraunt) so, we played mini golf, and then went to dinner.. so here are the photos from the last day)-:So I know there are a lot of pictures, but so many people have been requesting them that I tried to get them all on one post. People it took me seriously 5 days to do this post, so I hope you really enjoy the pictures and the not so much commentary.

A Big Expand

2009-04-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

OK so I haven't posted for a little while about the little growing baby, so I'm going to spill it all now.
March 30th we had a follow up appt. with the Genetic councelor. The week before I got my blood taken from my Dr. so they could compare it to the blood from the beginning of the pregnancy. We started the appt. off waiting in the waiting room for an HOUR before we were even seen. Devin and I knew that we were getting an ultra sound and getting to find out the sex so we secretly took Kristene (my sister) with us and we told her it was just to meet with the counselor. So when we finally got called into the office I told her as we were walking in the door that we were going to be able to find out the sex that day..... I think she was pretty excited to be part of it!!!

We then got into the room we sat in there for another 15min. before the lady came back. UGH we were so annoyed at this point already. She started the ultra sound and did a lot of stuff, looking at measurments and the brain and all the bones......... She didn't explain anything to us so I was kinda upset about that, so we just sat in silence watching the screen. She said that the baby was measuring small and asked if Sept. 1st was my true due date. As far as I've been told it is. This lady wasn't up to speed on life I'm sure. After she left the room a different lady came in and looked at some things and then left again. We were then left in this room alone for some time before a nurse came in to take my blood pressure. After then we went to another room and sat down and waited for the couselor to be available. FINALLY we got called into Vicki's office to hear about the test results.

As far as they can tell in the blood work, I am not a carrier of anything on my family. But, my blood test came back abnormal. My hormone levels were really high on some things and low on others. So the 3 bads..... We have a 1 in 100 chance of having a baby with Down Syndrome, we have a 3% chance of having a baby with cystic fibrosis (which doesn't make any sence because you have to be a carrier for that and someone in your family has to have it, well no one on either of our sides have it...) and then the 3rd one has to do with my placenta not being able to give the baby enough nutrients. The things they looked and and how they came up with the conclusions they did are: my blood work coming back with abnormal hormone levels, the baby measuring smaller then it should be, and the bones in the top of the arms and the top of the legs are measuring small, and the blood that moves from the baby through the umbilical cord wasn't how it was supposed to be moving (I guess). So all in all I was annoyed at the whole thing, and Devin was scared about the whole thing, and they want to do more tests. They want to do an Amnio. WTF, no way. They are SO not going to stick a Giant needle through my stomach, into my uterus while puncturing my amniotic sack just to get a little bit more info (that will probably come back Inconclusive anyways, screw that). PLus there is a chance that the baby can miscarry at that point because they punctured the amniotic sack. There is no way that I want to take a chance like that for something that probably isn't happening to the baby. SO we opted out of having an amnio and I will have another ultra sound next week to measure the baby again to see if anything has changed. If the baby is growing small then, they will just keep an eye on it for the rest of the pregnancy. I would rather enjoy the next 4.5 months and not being tested every week. We Finally left that office at 5:15pm when we got there at 2pm. It was the most aweful appt. that we have ever been to.

Now that you have read all this, the real point to this post was to show you that in the last few days, I swear this thing has pushed my tummy out more and more each day. And it's to the point where I am now actually showing and not being just "fat''. So here is this weeks.

This was this morning about to walk out the door. My tummy is smaller in the morning than it is at night right before bed time.

This was taken last night right before bed.

And again last night right before bed, when I look down it feels and looks bigger then it does from the side. But this picture was for fun!!

Oh and I'm sure you are wondering what the sex is since I posted that earlier.... She didn't give us a picture of it (but gave up 6 pictures of the face), Well my friends, we are having a little baby Girlie and I couldn't be more excited about it! Devin is happy, but would have been happy either way!!!

A doggie play date!

2009-03-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

(last year Maui didn't want to swim, she didn't want to go into the water)

So we decided to try to take Maui swimming again for the season. Last year she really didn't like it much and didn't want to go into the water. This year we decided she's supposed to be a water dog and dagnabit she's going to do it! So we walked to the pond down by our house on Friday night to give it a try. She was excited to get down to the wooded area because everytime we get there we take her collar off and she gets to go run around alone. We made it over to the pond area and we threw a stick into the pond and WOW there she goes, she jumped right into the pond to go get that stick. She did it OVER and OVER and OVER again until we said no more. She was shivering because she was cold so it was time to go home. She was also HORRIBLE on her leash that day so we decided to get one of those choke collars so if she pulled, she hurt herself. We went to Petsmart and bought one and used it on Saturday and Sunday and it was PERFECT. She now walks a whole lot better and doesn't rip our arms out of our sockets!!! YEAH!

We called our friend Jacob to invite him and Mojo (his yellow lab, Maui's little boyfriend) to go to the pond with us to see if Mojo would follow Maui into the pond. Mojo isn't a swimmer yet and we were hoping that if Maui did, then Mojo would, and HE DID!!!!! We would throw the ducks out and Maui would jump out to get them and Mojo would follow right behind and then swim back with her side by side or trying to mount her in the water and she was swimming.

They were so cute together and quite the pair. They did this over and over and over again until Maui was shaking and they were getting pretty tired. We then walked home and said g'bye to our friends.

So we started talking Sunday morning about getting Maui one of those doggie neoprean vests that keep sogs warm and actually have a little bit of floatation in them so we she gets tired swimming (retreiving all the birds that daddy's going to shoot for her this winter) the vest will help her keep going and keep her warm. We made the drive down to Cabela's in Lacey and picked one up for her. We got home and tried it on her and it was too long so we made some cuts here and there and got it so it fit her well. She didn't like it getting put on her and taken off so many times but she delt with it and finally got it perfect! After it was done we took her back to her swimming hole to try it out! With no hesitation she was off again!!!! And not to mention she looks AMAZINGLY cute in it!

She just looks all grown up and pretty! I'm so proud of her for being such a good dog for us and doing so well swimming. YES, we now have a swimming dog!!! We are STOKED!

Full body Exam.....

2009-03-24T16:02:00.001-07:00

So I went to the OB today to get the lovely full body exam. I am now 17 weeks along. She went to put the sonogram thing on my belly to listen for the heart rate, and she couldn't find it. It was about 10 minutes of trying to find it with no luck. She then put more gue on my belly it an attempt to try again. So she tried a little lower this time on my belly and found it after a while. The heart beat is still strong at 150bpm and she said that the baby was sitting WAY lower then it was supposed to be, which makes HER think that it's a boy. )-: ahhh dang. I'm not taking anything from her till I see a little thing in a picture..... But the heart rate is strong and that's a good thing, makes me feel a little better about it still being there and still being healthy!!! I was having some doubts that it was still there, or that is was still growing well, or that it was even still alive, (I know, pre-mother jitters, but we all think this way at least once when we are pregnant) but it was nice to hear that and the baby is still there!!!

Other then that I'm doing ok, I've officially (for a week now) have gained ONE pound. I'm eating well and I pretty much don't eat any crap foods. I eat alot of fruit, veggies, and cheese. I'm still kinda turned off to the whole meat thing like Steaks and chicken, pork, stuff like that, so I'm trying to get protein in other ways. I haven't really had any bizarre cravings lately, but I will say that a rootbeer float is sounding more magnificant that life itself. And this has been going on for about 1 week now, and now that I got the ok from the Doc that I can have soft serve ice cream... I see rootbeer floats in the VERY near future for me!!!! Anyways, the pants are tight and I'm using the rubberband trick and it works well, along with the one good maternity pants that I have. I have to wear longer shirts now to cover the top of my pants and this little belly that's forming. Here's a picture, it's now a week old, but here it is anyways....

Baby is starting to show through this thing a little. Some days I feel a whole lot bigger and some days I feel small. I'm not sleeping well these days. In fact 2 nights ago the peeing in the middle of the night started. I got up 4 times the previous night, and last night it was only once. I now sleep in a "cacoon" where I have a body pillow on each side of me and I try to "cuddle" with those all night so try to stay off my back. It's tough sometimes being pregnant but the end result is always worth it!!!

More to come next week when we meet with the genetic counselor for the update on that stuff.

Genetic Couseling

2009-02-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

So we went to the Genetric counselor today to get some testing done. There are some issues in my family that my Dr. was concered about, so she requested us to get some stuff done. The appt. consisted of getting to the office at 8:15am this morning while having to drink 8oz. of water on the way to the Appt. We got called back and went into the Ultra Sound room. They wanted to check the back of the baby's neck on the skin to make sure there was just the right amount of fluid under the skin (we all have this is you pinch the back of your neck, it's a little pocket that has water in it). Sometimes when a baby has Down Syndrome they have too much water in there, or not enough water in there. So she put the thing on my belly it was active time for little fetus. The thing was bouncing around moving it's arms, legs and just moving. It was soo cute, I couldn't have even imagined seeing something like that from a little baby that is 2 1/2'' long. IT was amazing, Awesome to be exact! Anyways, so the lady got some awesome photos for us. Then she went to try to measure the neck. )-: Well baby at that point had a different plan. It decided to lay back and suck it's thumb. WHAT, come on little twerp... So the lady told me to drink more water, walk around the room and try to get the baby active again. Well she came back in and put the thing back on my belly and the baby decided to turn upside down. Little stinker again. So she told me to drink MORE water and then she came back in, well the baby just wanted to suck it's thumb and lay on my uterus wall. She did the best she could with what the baby was doing, but all in all from the tip of it's nose to the skin behind the neck, the baby looks very healthy and in a low chance of having Down Syndrome. They did draw my blood for comparing some other things but time will tell on those. We are excited that we got to see the little one again and make sure it's growing well and healthy. The heart beat was 161 today, still strong, and it looks like all the fingers and toes are there. Developing very well. So here are the 4 photos that we got to take home from the office today!

Mamma's last Ride...

2009-02-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

A Tribute to my little Red BeautySIGH..... me sad )-: Last night I sad goodbye to my little fast red friend. We have been trying to sell my bike since last summer from after Devin's accident on his bike. We really had no luck at all before. So we lowered the price on Craigs List to $6K and we got a call on Monday. This guy lives in Bothell and decided he liked the bike and asked how low we'd go. Well we told him $5800 and that's it. Monday night he called and said he was going to pick it up on Wednesday night and we would beleive it when we saw him and money. So when I got home from work last night Devin was about to take it out for the last ride to get it warmed up for the guy, so I asked if I could go along. Well he hymmed and hawwed and then decided that he needed to fill up the tires. The guy was going to be there in 5 minutes and he's taking his sweet time filling up the tires (Felt like forever since I just wanted to go for a ride with him). Well the guy got there before he was done, and I was doomed to not get on the bike that one last time. The guy looked it over and looked at me (he knew it was mine) and asked me if I wanted to take it for one last ride! WHOA WHOOOOO, YES (now, I know I'm pregnant, but I haven't been on my bike since last summer, and I needed closure) so I hopped on it and took it around the block and it felt amazing, I almost didn't want to sell it at that point. I wanted to say "sorry guy, I changed my mind". But I know that the money would help us out later more then a bike sitting in the garage would. So I said goodbye to my beauty ♥ )-; SIGH***

Devin's b-day

2009-02-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

So Happy Birthday Devin, YESTERDAY. He tunred a wonderful 25. I wanted to get him an ice cream cake, (mostly because I love them) but he said he wanted a plane white cake with chocolate frosting. Well that's a little boring for me to just make a flat sheet cake with some frosting.... So I thought I would get a little creative..... (I don't bake, I can cook with the best of them, but baking isn't so good for me, it always turns out a little off, well this time was no different. I baked the 2 cakes and I got one turned upside down and out of the pan, and when I went to take the big one out of the pan, half of it came out as the bottom half stayed in the pan. Oh stupid. UGH) Back to my creative side, my gramma used to make us these birthday theme cakes, like butterfly's, bunny's, cars, etc. So I wanted to make something great! I then Googled Children's birthday cakes. I found a Monster Truck one that looked for the most part pretty easy. So I went down to the store and bought all the goodies. I made the cake part on Monday night and then I left work early on Tuesday.

Tuesday. Devin had a CRAPPY day at work so he was in the biggest funk in the work. So sad considering it was his b-day. I got home about an hour before he did and worked on his cake. I started with the frosting and UGH, the frosting didn't want to stick to the cake since the cake was crumbly. So I had to use my fingers to get it to stick to the cake, and then I cut out extra cake to use for "ramps" and had to cover them in frosting. After that I had to make my "track" out of twizzlers that I pulled apart. I then took the oreo crust pie and crumbled that up and put that on there for the "dirt". Then I added the cars and the monster trucks. I stood back, and all I could do was LAUGH, and LAUGH. I was pretty impressed with what I created. So all in all it turned out well and the cake tasted just fine from what I heard. So here are some pictures for the night!

Fullfilling Weekend

2009-02-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

So we had a pretty busy weekend. It started Friday night, we met Lance and Kristene at Azteca for dinner and then we went to Kent Station at saw the movie Taken. Great movie by the way, a little sad but still good. We sat in the 2nd row back in the theater since we were a little late, it was a little hard to see the entire screen, moving your head back and forth, but still a good movie. Saturday morning we got up at 8:30 (because Maui was whinning) and I started painting the nursery again and moving some things around. I got it done, and we even picked up out Lazy Boy chair from Walmart.

We decided to do Crown Molding on the top, and chair railing. We painted the top half a tan/brown color and the bottom is white for now. My plan for the bottom half is for a boy- White, brown and Blue stripes, for a girl- White, brown and Pink stripes. So when Mid April comes, I will be able to finish the paint. But for now you get to see it half done with the big cozy rocking/recliner chair! It's amazing by the way, I already tried to take a nap in it on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday evening we got to go out to dinner with our friends Jon and Mellissa. We have on occasion helped them with remodeling there Giant house, and as a thank you they took us to the melting pot for dinner. Devin and I had never been, so we were excited to go!!!

Here they are enjoying the meal together.

And then us having a good time too. The meal was different then I expected, I thought the whole thing was going to be cheese, but in fact it was different, and it was some VERY good food!!! Thank you to both of them for a special night out!!!

Sunday... I decided that I wanted to get some of my garden cleaned up from all the plants that have died from all the lack of sun and snow that we had. Got me going and it even got Devin motivated as well. I got it all cleaned out and weeded, and I got devin to mow for me, and together we got that yard looking spectacular again. YEah for us!!! We got a call from Dev's Parents and they invited us up for Salmon dinner. We hadn't been there in such a while so we wanted to go up there. We had a great meal and a great time, and even watched some of the grammy's before we took off to go home to bed. It was a busy weekend, but all in all we feel pretty accomplished!!!

Baby Trowbridge...

2009-02-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

So we had our first Ultra sound yesterday and met with the OB and nurse. The baby is growing very well and is looking very healthy, it's measuring at 9 weeks and 3 days, but that might change at the next one. They still didn't give me a defenitive due date yet, they said it's either Sept. 1st or the 6th, we should know more by mid april when we find out the sex and when it's measured again. We also got to hear the heart beat, (when she turned it on and we could hear it, it was soo sweet of Devin, he looked at me and grabbed my arm and got this huge smile on his face, I love how he is soo excited!!!!) It is an extremely strong heart beat at 185/min. They said it's very important to keep it strong like that! My uterus is also looking good, and all in all it was a great appt.

We went over all the family history and wow, I can't beleive how much stuff was writen down on MY side. Devin had not one thing that was writen down. I thought that us Holmes/Sheldons were pretty healthy considering how many of us there are. Well the OB has reccomended that I get some testing done, another Ultra sound at 14-16 weeks to check the skin on the back of the neck (I guess if it's too thin or too thick it's a bad thing), and take my blood to compare it to the other blood I took earlier and check the amounts of everything in it. A little scary but I don't forsee there being any problems with this baby. I think it's more being cautious then anything. So here is the little baby that is growing inside my uterus.... (that's still weird to think about)

The head is on the right side (it's almost the size of it's whole body) with the body being on the left. Ohhh how exciting!!!

Feeling like Crap....

2009-02-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

So on Saturday night I started feeling bad. Not pregnancy bad, but feel like my throat was closing up, my nose was hurting and my eyeballs wanted to pop out of my head looking for a soft place to lay on. Sunday I woke up still not feeling well, but Devin was motivated to work on house stuff and I didn't want to just sit there on the couch and look lazy, so I started painting the baby room. I got all the corners and tops and middle areas done. We got the crown molding up and the chair railing up as well. So I am about 1/3 of the way done with it. It's probably best that my nose couldn't smell because I 'm sure the paint wasn't good for me, but I got a lot done. Well Sunday night I still wasn't feeling well and got into bed at 9. Got to bed about 10 and slept kinda off and on all night. uggghhhh, I woke up this morning still not feeling well so I slept in a little bit and finally got to work at 11am. I bought some tylenol on the way and I can say that they tell you to take tylenol when your pregnant, because it doesn't do CRAP for you. Still feel the same as before I picked up the box. STUPID. Well I hope it passes soon. I'd like to be able to smell again!

Vent time...

2009-01-28T14:53:00.000-08:00

Baby Appointment vent time....... I'v spent the last day working my self up about this appointment thinking that they would give me an ultra sound, hear the heart beat, something. NOPE. We got to the midwives office, filled out paperwork sat down, waited 15 minutes and then met with this REALLY nice lady who took my weight and made me sign more forms. She then handed me a packet of info and sent me down to blood work. I got my blood taken, and then Devin and I were on our way. THAT WAS IT. No meeting the midwives, no ultra sound, no colesterol tests or blood pressure tests. NOTHING. I'm kind bummed about the whole thing. She said that they don't do ultrasounds till 20 weeks, so I now have to wait 11 more weeks to hear a heart beat and see a little figure. I still feel unpregnant since I have no verification except a pee stick. Oh well, it's definitely going to be a long 11 weeks. grrrr

Baby Update...

2009-01-27T11:48:00.000-08:00

Your pregnancy: 9 weeks

How your baby's growing:Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth. The embryonic "tail" is completely gone. Your baby's organs, muscles, and nerves are kicking into gear. The external sex organs are there but won't be distinguishable as male or female for another few weeks. Her eyes are fully formed, but her eyelids are fused shut and won't open until 27 weeks. She has tiny earlobes, and her mouth, nose, and nostrils are more distinct. The placenta is developed enough now to take over most of the critical job of producing hormones. Now that your baby's basic physiology is in place, she's poised for rapid weight gain.

Me, I may be feeling slightly icky, a little bit of sickness, and some strong cravings. The best thing that sounded good to me on Sunday was a sandwhich, a sandwhich with mayo, mustard, cheddar cheese and baby dill pickles!!! And it was DELISH!!! I am having hot chocolate in the mornings now because it eases my tummy a little, and gold fish crackers are my friend now too! Tomorrow is our first appt. I will have to blog about that when it happens!

More Hunting

2009-01-19T15:41:00.000-08:00

So we went out again on Saturday to go Duck hunting. Well the weather wasn't in our favor this time. It was FOGGY and was cold. We got out there, you could barely see the field, and "hiked" our way into the little water area that was left. We then sat there, and Sat there, and Sat there...... I even fell asleep at pne point because I was Exhausted and it was 6:30am. We left our house at 5:30 and drove to Duvall to meet Uncle Gary, Spud and Jeremy (some of my uncles friends). When we arrived it was still dark, and WAY foggy. Here is Devin and Jeremy standing by the car getting ready to go.
It was so foggy that in the picture it looked like it was snowing.Here is Devin sitting on the tree waiting for the ducks to fly by. It was still dark out there, and still foggy.

I like this picture better with no flash, it shows it better and it doens't look like it's snowing. It's so peaceful out there in the early morning hours. Just you, the birds and the little animals. You didn't even do too much talking at that point.

So it was cold, like I said, and I got this WAY COOL hat for christmas (from myself). It's real rabbit fur and it's OHHH so warm. I wore it even though I look like a dork, but I wasn't complaining that me head was cold. In fact, Uncle Gary has one too, so it must run in the family, and he wore his as well!!!

All in all, it was a good time, however, not one of those guys shot a duck, in fact..... I think they saw 2 ducks the whole time we were there, and they were flying Way too high to be able to even shoot at. The season ends next Sunday, so the gives us one more day. This Saturday. I think I may send Devin on with out me this time, I have a pretty busy Saturday, baby shower, and office party, and when I go hunting with them I'm DONE for the day, I can't do anything after that.

To clarify...

2009-01-19T15:38:00.000-08:00

About the not wanting people to hold baby thing.... It was really just one person. I know that there are people out there that have just that one person that they arn't a fan of..... Drew, please feel free to exchange babies with me at any time. I will gladly hold yours if you hold mine. All my friends and family that I talk to regularly, you are on the good list too! Dont' be afraid, you will all be able to hold the baby, and if I don't want you to, OHHHH you will know it! Just thought that I'd get that out there!

Without further ADO.....

2009-01-15T09:25:00.001-08:00

So I thought it might actually finally be time to make this posting.

So we have been talking about having a baby sometime. I was ready, and Devin wasn't which was fine. I'm a patient person and then one day he gave me the "ok I'm ready." Completely shocked me. I had no idea that was coming. So we talked about it that night, worked out some logistics and decided maybe we could start trying and see what happends. Well that was on December 4th. On Christmas Eve we found out that we are Pregnant. Talk about Fertile Myrtle. So our first appt. is on the 28th of this month and we are so excited. I am 7 weeks along and I'm already starting to feel a little "fat". I'm not sick at all (I've have about 3 days where I was a little iffy with the food, and stuck to mostly water for the day), I feel very tired all the time, and my boobs are crazy soar/sensitive. Other then that just normal me, with more food intake and a lot of apples.

So this is us when we found out that night...Devin told me not to look at the stick and then he wanted to be there to look at it together. So I did the test and left the bathroom. I then went and patiently waited on the couch in the living room. When the 3 minutes were up we started our walk down the hallway into the bathroom. I was so nervous that I made Devin look. I stood in the hallway and watched him. He went in, looked down at the stick, sheepishly looked up at me and got a GINORMOUS grin. Yelled "We're going to have a baby" and then ran at me, picked me up and put me against the wall with a huge fatty kiss. Needless to say I have no worries about Devin not wanting this little baby.

So then we told Maui, and she said.....She didn't say much.

So it took us not long at all to want to tell the world. However, we wanted tell my mom in the person. We had to wait till she came into town to be able to tell her So meanwhile, we took a picture of my belly with a bow on it and wrapped it in a present. I so wish that I could post on here the video of her reaction. It was PRICELESS!!! Anyways, here's the picture...It definitely is the best Christmas Present that we could have ever gotten. We are very excited, and I'm extremely nervous as well. So, baby Trowbridge is in the making!!!

Randomly..... Baby thought

2009-01-10T20:51:00.000-08:00

So I was just sitting here thinking about this little future baby and a thought popped into my head. There are just some people in your life that you REALLY never want to have them hold your baby. We were talking about this earlier today with my brother and sister in law, and my sister Kristene and Mam. And REALLY there are just some people that you NEVER want your baby in their arms. How can you avoid that when you know you will be around them at some point in time. Do you make it clear to them? Do you grab them back from them if they get passed to that person? How do you make it so that person never hold them? I know that every one at least one time as had this thought. I would like to know how you people deal with this, or at least some stories that you have had that you can tell me to help me along in the future. UGH...

A Hunting We Will Go......

2009-01-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

So Devin and I got to take our first trip out to go hunting with my Dad's Twin my Uncle Gary. We went out on Saturday morning, we got to Gary's house at 6:30 and we were driving out to the field by 7:15. This place that we got to go to is in Duvall on a private farm. It the Ruperts farm. When we got there, we parked on the side of the road and we had to "hike" down to the field and we had to wear our waders. The water was up to our knees at certain points. It's basically just a flooded field on this farm. We were wading through this water and at half way through there were some ducks that came down and sat in the water a few yards away from us. Of course the guys wern't ready with there shotguns so they didn't get the shot and then the ducks flew away. So we got the Dec's (decoys) out and all set up and waited. There was a little island that had a tree and some tree limbs that we sat undwe with the Camo so they couldn't see us. It took a while for the ducks to come around, but Devin got the first shot and he NAILED it on the first shot. That duck just fell right into the water. He went and got it and had to "wring" it's neck to kill it, that will break it's neck if it wasn't dead already. Well, then we were all excited about that and nothing happend for about another hour. Devin then decided that he got a little bored and started to adventure out to the other fields. So Gary and I sat there and waited and of course there were 8 birds that flew in while he was gone. Gary shot and got one on his first shot. Well, Gary has a hard time walking with some pain and problems that are going on in his back, so I told him that I would wade out there and get it for him. So I get out there and the darn thing is still flopping around. Gary then tells me that I need to Wring it's neck. WHAT??? YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT??? Wring it's neck? He wants me to break it's neck with my hands. WOW, so I did and it was a little scary, but I'm not a wussy girl. The problem was, it didn't stop moving. It kept flopping it's wings around. So I brought the duck back to Gary and he tried to wring it's neck and the darn thing wouldn't stop moving for him either. So we put it down on the snow bank and let it just stop moving on it's own. Well after that excitement they all flew away and Devin crawled back. There wasn't much going on after that. We stayed for about another hour and nothing really happend so we called it a day. We packed up the 2 ducks and all the Dec's and headed out. Gary decided to give us the duck he killed so we got to take home 2. In this picture, you almost can't see the ducks because of the Camo, but I am holding the male Malard duck in my left hand, and the female Malard in my right hand.

We didn't take Maui with us just because I don't think she would be good yet at just sitting there waiting, but Devin would like to take her this weekend when they go.

All in all it was a fun experience and we can't wait to go again. I know they are going this Saturday even though I will be in Iowa visiting Dean and chelle, and KaraBear!!! I know they will have a good time and hopefully they will be able to kill there bag limit which is 7 per person. Even our friend Jacob is going out this weekend with them. Come on baby, make me proud!!!

Christmas Time...

2008-12-29T13:19:00.000-08:00

So we had a most Excellent Christmas. Time with family is the best time there is, and just seeing people's reaction when they open that perfect gift from you. We feel so blessed this Christmas Season, except on christmas eve and our little convertable broke down in Tukwilla while Devin and Lance were finishing there Christmas shopping. They were in the middle of an intersection and they had to have a cop push them out. Then they "limped" it back here to my work. It turned out to be the alternator. So Devin bought one, put it in the front seat and parked it in our warehouse. On Friday morning we drove down to work to install the new part. Got all ready to tackle the project, and Devin forgot the keys. WOW, so we had to drive all the way back home to get the key and all the way back down to work. There were a few complications, but he got it done in about 2 hours. Yeah, back up and running with 2 full cars again!

We got to eat Christmas Eve dinner with my Brother -in- laws family and then we spent the night at home. We woke up and did our Christmas presents with eachother and just took it slow. I OF COURSE had the worst sleep night ever. I'm almost as bad as a child on Christmas Eve night. I swear I woke up every hour, just soo excited for Devin to see his stocking and just start the day! I was one very tired little girl, and I didn't even get a nap that day.

After that we went to My sister Kristene's house for breakfast casserole, (made with bread, eggs, cream of mushroom soup, sausauge, and mushrooms) and to open a few more gifts. Breakfast of course was the BEST Christmas breakfast ever. We have been having it since we were kids. That's one of my favorite traditions.

We then went home and showered and got ready to go to the Parents house. We did our gift exchange there and had a very delicious dinner prepared by Ma and Pa, and it was a huge Prime Rib Roast. The best meat out there. MMMMM MMMMM MMMMM. It was also nice to have Lance and Kristene and the kids there with us. It's such a treat to be able to have any of my siblings at a family gathering! It makes it a little less akward for me anyways.

So we ended the evening leaving Devin's parents house and me driving and getting us stuck in the snow next to a brick wall. One wrong move and mom's car would have been scratched. Well Devin and Pops and Greg pushed me out to safety!! Drove home safe and called it a night! Here are a few pics, very few pics from Christmas, I kinda forgot to take pictures.....

Here is our "family" Christmas photo from Christmas day! The Dog and the 2 cats, now that was a tricky picture to take!Here are the ginormous stockings that we got last year, and boy did we fill them, mine isn't as full because "santa" couldn't make it all the way with the harsh weather that we've been having, they should still be comming shortly!Here is Maui sitting so cute by the tree. I just love this picture!

Here's me and my little baby Maui. I just love her, and I hold her all the time. Don't be fooled she may look like she doesn't want to be there, but just seconds earlier the picture was a little different. She was licking my face like there was not enough peanut butter on there to please her enough!

Well that's about it for the holiday pictures, however, we received a little bit of extra money from Devin's parents and Grandmother, so we decided to do something with it instead of saving it. We put in hard wood floors in our bedroom and the guest room. We can't be happier. It took us about 3 hours per room and we did it in 2 nights. So here they are, let me know that we made the right choice....

Here is the new Guest Bedroom, I could not for the life of me find an old picture of it, but it had tan carpet with stains on it, and for those of you who have seen it or have stayed in it, you can be the judge of that!
Ok, so this is the old room, it had nasty green carpet in there that smelled and had stains on it. Our room basically looks tiny and I hate the green carpet. ewww
So this is the new one with the new floors.I think the room looks and feels a lot bigger and the light reflects off the floor now to make it feel brighter! You can't really tell the color too much, but it's called cherry. It's darker then an Oak, but lighter then a dark cherry. It's beautiful!

snow days and cold weather

2008-12-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

So this Season here in washington we have had unusual weather for this area. for the past Week we have been seeing snow around here. of course not very much but some snow, and then things turned south.... We then got freezing temperatures ALL week which kept the snow around here on the ground. Well then... the snow started back up on Wednesday. Thursday Devin and I couldn't make it in to work, Friday i had to have a co-worker pick me up because it was a frozen solid street out there. so Satuday comes around and the snow starts up again at 2pm. It snowed, and snowed, and snowed till sometime during the night. Here are some photos from last night when Devin and I went out with the dog.

this is last night during that round of snow. We cleared off my car yesterday afternoon when we took it out to get pellets. Wow that was a treat. We made it out of the driveway ok and made it to Tacoma ok, and even made it home well, it wasn't untill we tried to back down the driveway that the back wheels hit the snow and started sliding sideways and down. SIGH..... It stopped 1 foot away from the garage when the front wheel hit the only dry spot on the driveway. that was a teeth clencher.

She was LOVING to burry her head into the snow and just play around in it. She was having the time of her life out there!!! well then we got a call from Lance and he said they were going for family drive time. So they drove there way over to our house. i made hot apple cider, and Addie colored.

We had a good time, and then they left to go fight the snow on the way home. We woke up this morning just amazed to find how much snow was out there. We got up and went for a walk with the dog down to the small cemetary park. We got home and sure enough it started snowing again. It hasn't stop since and it's 5:30pm. We are in another winter watch for 4-8 more inches overnight, plus with the freezing temperatures, the high was 29. We are looking at possibly not being aboe to get to work in the morning. Snow day again. devin and I are getting a little stir crazy. We were bored today and didn't know what to do. So we cleaned and organized some things, and then while i took a nap, Devin made Pumpkin bread!!! MMMM, it was nice to wake up to that lovely smell coming from the kitchen. Well here are a few pictures from our day today, and hopefully we will get some updated photos tonight just to show how much we have gotten again!

It's been a crazy week and it's been fun and they say that we may even have a white Christmas. that's WAY rare around here but we are excited to see what happens.

I've been tagged by MiChelle

2008-12-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, I give, I'll do it and not because Michelle has given me what I want, I still haven't gotten what I want from her (an updated belly picture), but I'll do it because it will make me think hard at work because I'm in fact bored as crap.

Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog/note with 15 weird, random things, facts, habits, goals, or anything about yourself. At the end, post a picture, and choose 5 people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them to be tagged.

1. When Dean and I were young we didn't appreciate eachother, in fact we fought a lot and I threw keys at his back, he thinks he doens't remember this, but I KNOW it happened.

2. My Cat Myzzie sleeps with me almost every night. Not just sleeps with me, but she wiggles her way under the covers forward, turns around starts walking back up toward my pillow, Stops at my pillow, cuddles close against my body and lays her head on my pillow next to me. AND, I love it! She has the softest fur I have ever felt, and it's so nice.

3. Sometimes I will think about something random and I will turn to tell Devinand say " I just Love you"

4. I have the worst baby feever in the history of the world.

5. I have a freckle on my little toe, and on the inside Right ring finger where the sun never sees it.

6. I REALLY want my hunting license so I can shoot my first Deer. It's a dream of mine.

7. I would love to buy a 2004 740IL BMW, however they are still expensive and I will have to wait about 10 more years till I can afford one.

8. I have 3 tattoos, and I wish that I only had 2, I REALLY want to remove the one on my inside ankle.

9. I think about my Dad everyday. When he was alive, I didn't think about him except for once a month. Now I wish EVERYDAY, that I could just talk to him again and tell him about my sucesses so he can be proud of me.

10. My car is getting 12.5 MPG right now, and I'm pissed about it.

11. My left eye has astigmatism and I have to wear glasses when I drive and when I go to the movies. They said that it's a few point away from being legally blind in my left eye, and now I feel like an old woman.

12. Mom was in town and stayed with me. She let my kitten outside on accident (who was in heat at the time) so now we may have kittens coming, and she bought chocolate..... The Dog ate it and we had to take her to the Emergency Vet to get to throw it all up. And the best part, Devin and I stayed calm the whole time and we hold nothing against mom for any of it.

13. I LOVE my little brother Chase, (not that I don't love them all, but I feel like I have to take care of him). I have a nickname for him, and I call him my little Papoose.

14. I want to Live on Mercer Island, WA when I go up. Not to be a snob there but I want to have the best schools for my little babies, and Mercer Island has those schools there.

15. I HATE hair on my soap. If Devin takes a shower before me and leaves his chest hair on the soap, I get mad and irritated. I kindly don't say anything and just wash it off, but secretly I HATE IT.

OK, so I just like this picture, it didn't specify any picture required, so I'm picking this one. It was the summer of 2007 in Des Moines when I lived with my brother-in-laws mother Valerie.

Ok so I'm picking for my 5 people..... Melanie, Annalissa, Kelsey, Christina, and Dean, so get happy read this blog and I expect to see something fun writen on yours in at least a week! I hope you all had fun reading my little quirks....

Premature Buying.....

2008-12-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

So.... thanks to my friend Chrsitina (who is pregnant) I have the worst baby feever in the world. And thanks to her aswell, she emailed me a coupon for Carter's (baby clothes). So she was telling me that Carter's was having a sale at midnight Thanksgiving. Everything in the store was 50% off, and if you got there at midnight it was another 10% off. PLUS.... if you spent $50, you got an aditional 25% off. So if you add that up, that's 85% OFF. Holy COW!!! Well me being me, and enough said, I talked with my sister Kristene and we decided that we were going to go out to the North Bend outlet mall to take advantage of the midnight shopping.

Devin and I arrived at there house at 10:30 and Kristene and I were off my 11:30. We made it there at 12 and there really wasn't any lines anywhere, only inside the COACH store (but that's to be expected). So we were in Carter's for about 45Min. Man, oh Man, I was in heaven!!! I started on the little boy side, and walked around all of it, and then walked around to the little girl area, went through ALL of thoes, and looked at a few pieces that were nutral.

So, needless to say after that 45Min of baby clothes shopping, I was Hooked. I grabbed this and I grabbed that, some of this, some of that! Well I ended up with a few clothes. I spent about $115 after my 85% off. Sigh...... Now all I need is a cute little baby to put in them. )-: Thanks for me, I have a little niece on the way and a friend that is about to have a little boy. So there are a few babies around for me to enjoy till the time is right! So let me show you my buys!This picture does NOT do it justice on how encredible cute these clothes are!!

This is one of my favorites. The bottom of the pants have little ruffles, and there are pockets on the front that are in a heart shape and then on the bum, there are my little hearts! It's so precious!

More, more, more!!! Oh how exciting! The guest room closet is now 1/4 full of baby clothes, and I would not like it any other way! I know...... I'm a freak.

How to build an AR....

2008-11-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

AR meaning Assault Rifle...... We had our friends Ben and Christina over last night for dinner. Ben used to be in the Marines and went to war and came back and then became a Deputy for the King County Sheriff's Office. Needless to say, he's into guns. When we went over to there house last Monday night for dinner, Devin was excited to be able to see his collection. Ben has a GINORMOUS gun safe at his house and we've seen a picture. The Picture doesn't do it justice. He would sometimes take a little stool and sit it in there and sit in side and play with his "toys". Devin walked away in Awwe and wants to make his collection big, like Bens. Well Ben has a few AR's and actually had one that he hadn't put together yet. Last night when they came over, he brought all the parts in a box and Devin made a Vice/workbench. They worked on the AR after dinner as much as they could, but couldn't finish because one of the parts were too long and they couldn't cut it with anything that we had at the house. oh well, I'm pretty sure that Ben got it finished last night when he got home since he was so gung-ho about getting it done. Anywho, here are a few pics of the "men" working on this thing!!
Boys and there Toys!!!

Huntin' Me

2008-11-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

Ok, so we went out 2 nights ago and bought me my CAMO gear. SOOO exciting!!! Got home and tried it all on with the shotgun and the dog. It was fun!!! So we got up early this morning made our coffee got our so un-healthy McDonalds breakfast and hit the roaad. The hunting test was in shelton which is 1hour and 30 minutes away. The class started at 10am which isn't that early but we left the house by 8am. we got there and there was an automatic test when you walk inm the door. It's a 15 question test and if you miss more then 3, you fail the class and that's it. Well let me back up here for a sceond and tell my side of the story.....

So Devin and I decided to take the online hunter safety class/test. The test is $15 and it's 75 questions long. You have to get a 80% correct to get the online hunter certificate. So I took the test "with Devin's help" and we got 97%, so we cheated a little, but don't tell. anyways, so ALL week long I took the practice test 2 times a day everyday just so i made sure that I knew all the material for the class. so I was getting 97-99% every time I took that test BY MY SELF. I was feeling VERY confident in my ability of gun safety and gerneral knowledge of hunting. I was flying high.....

So back to this morning.... We walk in the door ready to take this test, well there were too many people in the class so instead of taking that test right away the instructor decided to talk to us about all the guns and tell his little stories, IN WHICH I listened to very intently because the instructor is never wrong about anything. So after the guns we took the test and I FAIL... the stupid questions on the test were questions that I NEVER saw on the online tests. Weird, plus there were 3 questions that I missed just because i listened to his stories and I thought they were right from what he said, GGGRRRRR. I got 6 wrong out of 15. DANG, I was feeling very discouraged. Kinda hoping that Devin might fail so I wouldn't look so bad and we would go home together. Nope, devin passed and now what? So I told him that I would either wait in the car 6 hours or I would come back for him later on. Well he decided that he didn't want to do that class with out me so we left. Now we have a few options. We can get a deferral license for $20 and we can go hunting with someone that has had there WA hunting license for the last 3 years. Then next March we can take the whole class and get our own licenses. I'm very discouragedd but at least we might be able to still go duck hunting this year. Uncle Gary has already started looking for places to go with us. We might go out to Chelan to met them out there this next weekend to go Quail hunting. Should be fun! anyways, with out further ado my hunting gear......

2 Year Mark...

2008-11-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

So Devin rolls over at 12:01 this morning because the alarm on his phone goes off, and says "Happy 2 year anniversary hunny". I said "WHAT?" We had our first date 2 years ago today. I can't beleive that it's only been 2 years. It feels like we have been together for a lifetime, which I think is a good thing! So 2 years ago today, we met for early dinner in Des Moines to my favorite sushi place, Sushi Saki. We had a really great time. We ordered some pieces that were large and the only way to eat them was to shove them into your mouth and cover your mouth with your hand. Well he thought it was pretty funny so he took video of it on his phone. You would think that I would be embarrased about it at the time, but I was laughing and it just felt so right. After that we went to the movies, and he had to talk to me into "James Bond". I'm not a fan of the Bond movies, in fact sometimes I think they are dumb, but I thought I would try something new. So we went and it is the new Bond guy and I actually really liked the movie. So tonight we were going to go do our ritual (go eat sushi and then go to the NEW Bond movie), but I'm going to the church with Annalisa and help the ladies quilt. They are trying to get 10 quilts done tonight to donate to the DI by Thanksgiving. So I'm giving up my date night to go do this, and then tomorrow night we are going to go to our Date night.

I was looking through some photos from when we first started dating and I thought that I would share them:

This is officially the first pitcure that we ever taken of us. Probably about 3 weeks after we started dating. I never realized how much shorter I was then him until I saw this picture. Then I decided that I loved having a tall man. I get to still wear 4inch heals and he's still way taller then me. I think that's my favorite thing about him, is his tallness!This was taken in my room at Valeries house (my brother in law's mommy). He was trying to act so tough for the camera. It looks like "umm, why you taking a picture of me, this is so dumb"

This was taken in the Starbucks in DownTown Bellevue when we first started dating. I got him that sweat shirt for our first christmas, I caught him off guard. (-:

This is a day in January when we bought his bike. We bought it and he had never even been on a bike before. But since I had one he thought he should need one too. I ended up riding it home from RMC to store it in the garage until I could teach him how to ride. It was a cold day and the bike was too big for me.

This was taken at a work event the first time that we had to get all dressed up. We had thought it was a good idea to "frost" Devin's hair, and it looks like it actually came out orange. Yeah... that's all I can say about that picture.

So over the last 2 years life has changed quite a bit. We have not only gotten married, we bought a house, we remodeled our house, we bought a cat together and then lost a cat together, got another kitten, added a puppy to our family, and have lost a parent. Life so far as thrown us curve balls but indeed we can still knock those balls out of the park. Still going Strong after 2 small years!!! I love you Hubby!

The Hunters

2008-11-16T20:03:00.001-08:00

So, we have decided that of course we want som new change again. A new hobby to keep us busy again. So we have decided to take up hunting. We have been training our little black lab Maui to retreve ducks. So we bought her 2 ducks and have been training her to bring them back, set them at our feet, and then sit next to us. We have only done this inide, but so far so good (all except the marks of paint and the wood missing off the walls in the hallway). So, we went down to Cabelas for the first time today to look at guns. they had the only guns in stock that we were looking at. we have called around and have gone to differnt stores and they just didn't have the 28'' barrel that devin was looking for. So to Cabelas we went. It was about a 45 min. drive to Lacey without traffic. We walked in the front door and BAM...... we didn't walk any further, why?....... Because there was the clearance CAMO clothes. YEAH, we got Devin a camo outfit for only $50. And it even matches. After looking through those for a while, we then decided to go upstairs to check out the guns. We took a number and waited in line for our turn. We saw our 2 guns, and they didn't have Devin's gun in a wood finish, so we got him a black one. we then bought a camo finish that he put on his gun tonight. so all in all it was a good trip down to Cabelas. 2 Shotguns, some amo, Devin's camo outfit and a duck for Maui.

This is Maui with the new Duck that we got her today. It has more of a soft finish on it so she can grab it in her mouth.
Here is Devin in his new Camo outfit with his new Camo gun, which by the way if you want to know, it's a Remington 12 Gauge 870 Express, 28inch.

Here is Devin with his future hunting dog Maui. As you can see she already likes that duck, we had to take it away from her so she wouldn't learn to chew on it.These are the waders that we want to get Devin. They just look so cute!!! It will probably be another buy on another day.

Ohhhh... so the gun that we got me is a Remington (wood finish) 20 Gauge 870 Express 26inch barrel. Devin already took his online course the other day, and I'm supposed to do mine tonight. then this Saturday we have to go down to Shelton and take the Hunter safety course, then we can hunt anything. This season is duck since everything else is pretty much over. After we get our licenses, we will then get together with our friend jacob and find a place to go. He has a yellow lab puppy named Mojo and he wants to train him to hunt too. So between the 3 of us and the 2 puppies it should be a REALLY good time!!! Anywho, so wish me luck on my test and our testing this weekend, it should be a really good time!!!!

The 4th of the 4th, for the Fun

2008-11-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

So I figure that other people are posting it, so I will go along with the fun!!! This is my 4th picture in my 4th picture file folder.
This picture was taken at Banks Lake in Coulee City, WA, right over by the Grand Coulee Dam. We go every year at the end of August for a family camping trip. This is Valerie in the picture which is my brother in laws Mom. This was a shot of when we were setting up Camp for the week!!!

Grown up Puppy Maui

2008-11-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

So I've been getting requests that I update pictures of little Maui, who isn't so little anymore. No more talk, just pictures! Sleeping, life is roughPuppy Graduation day. This is the best picture we could get, she didn't want to keep that hat on her head, without some help of course.

This is her spot in the car. She LOVES to ride on her own seat. She just sits so pretty! We started feeding her this new food, and it has made her coat so shinny. She almost looks silver in the sun.She sleeps in some of the weirdest positions sometimes. But we still just LOVE her!All peaceful Sleeping in our room.

This is a new crate that we got her. She outgrew the other little one. Devin decided that we needed the biggest one possible. This crate is made for Grate Danes. But she's spoiled for sure.

Loving on Papa

Here she is cuddling with uncle Dean and Auntie Chelle. She just loved playing with them when they were in town!

Well, there you have it Folks, some updated pics that should make you happy!

R.I.P. Jerry Sheldon (Dad)

2008-11-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

ok, so it's been a while since I have blogged, and it's because we have been really busy. My dad passed away on October 24th at 11pm. This is my story;
On Friday late afternoon I got a call from my dad, and once again of course I was rolling my eyes. More drama, more crying from him and it was just another day of trying to calm him down and tell him that everyone would be ok and that I was there for him. I got him calmed down and promised that I would see him in the morning so that we could clean his apartment so we could start looking for a new one on the first floor. Something that would make it a little easier for him to get around. I left a little early on Friday from work because I was upset, my aunt at told him something that made me really upset. She told him that I thought he was a burden, and I NEVER have said that to anyone. that's why he was so upset and crying. More drama...

Reluctantly Devin and I got up on Saturday morning, packed up all the cleaning supplies and put them in the car and drove down to his Apt. We got there, walked up stairs, knocked on the door, nothing, called his cell and we could hear it ringing, nothing, we were there for about 15 minutes of doing this and then decied we were pissed that we wasted a saturday morning getting up and going down there. We were going to try again later that night. So about 6pm we went back down there with the intent of yelling at him because we had a date. Again, no answer (he would always answer his door, maybe not his cell, but always the door). We went down stairs and tried to knock on the Managers door. He's never there so we talked with the assistant manager, he said there was no key to let us into the apt. The manager was the only on with a key and he didn't want to drive all the way down there just so we could check on someone. We were Pissed. We Thought, what were we going to do now? Well we left it alone that night and tried not to think about it and decided that we were going to knock the door down on Sunday morning.

We got up, and did a few things, and went down there at 12:30. Knocked and knocked again, and no answer, talked to a few neighbors and they said that hadn't heard or seen him since Friday night. So Devin had brought his screw drivers so we could try to unscrew the door knob, and no go. He tried to shove the door open with his shoulder, but then if we broke the door, we would have to replace it. So I called his brothers to see if they had a key and they didn't, so I asked my uncle gary what to do. He suggested call 911 and they could get the door open. So we did and about 30 minutes later officer Burger came out. He talked with all the neighbors and tried to get a phone number for the manager to bring a key, all the numbers that everyone had for him were wrong, so the last thing to do was to kick that door in.The Sergeant got there right on time to walk up there stairs and witness it.
IT took a few tries for him to get the door open, but the officer broke the deadbolt off and got it open. They asked up to stay outside while they "cleared" the place. They came back out and said, "Well he is here in the back, but unfortunately he is no longer with us". WOW, didn't expect that, I was actually just going to yell at him for not answering the door and his phone. Once they took there pictures for evidence, they said that we could go in and look if we wanted. Well me being so gung-ho and a visual person I had to see. So we walked into the Apartment and into his bedroom and right there on the bathroom floor was my dad tightly curled in the fetal position. Looking just like a little baby entering into this world. His hands and neck and ears and face were all purple and he looked so peaceful laying there. I just kept thinking that he was going to start breathing and that everything was going to be fine.
We went and sat outside so the officer could take more photos and go through everything just incase there was something there that dad was hiding. The Medical Examiners came by and did there thing, and tried to gather as much info as they could. They said that he looked like he was in no pain when he died and that it looks like he just laid down and fell asleep. They put the time of death at 11-pm on Friday night, so even if we got the door open on Saturday morning, we couldn't have done anything. At this time, they are thinking that it is not Self inflected, and it was natural. I'm pissed, we were just at the hospital the weekend before and they found nothing. Dad and I had talked about his death and memorial service and what he wanted done with his body plenty of times just in case something did happen. I didn't sleep much the fisrt night, all the dreams I had involved his apartment and seeing him like that. I will probably be a wreck for a little while, but just stick with me and I will get through it. I knew that I would have to be the one that would take care of all the financials now since Dad's number 1 fan here has been stuck with this the whole time, taking care of him, running him around..... I'm pretty sure nothing will change with that, but Dean was here to help. We found a cremating home, got that done in time for his memorial that was on Saturday!
We also had till last Friday to get his APT cleaned out since he's only paid up through October. That was a task all in it's self. That man had so many clothes. He worked at Brittania for 18 some years, and got his clothes fron there for almost free.
So the cause of death was a major heart attack that killed him instantly. There was nothing that we could have done to help him even if we were there.
On Sunday, we got to go up to the mountains to a location that was very close to where Grandpa Sheldon's ashes were spread. Grandma's ashes hadn't been done yet so she came up with us too. We went up to Snoqualmie where the river is, and about 2 miles up from Snoqualmie Falls is the place that we picked to spread them. We had all the brothers and sisters that were still left join us along with some of Dad's cousins. First Uncle Pat took Grandma out and did hers and then Dean, Lizzy and I went out. We took our shoes off rolled up our pants and started wading into the river. I was first out and I slipped and caught myslef just as my bum and sleve got wet. Dean started laughing at me, and sure enough not but 2 seconds later he slipped and soaked his pants all the way up to his bum. He even dropped Dad's Urn into the water, luckily it was sealed tightly and it didn't get wet inside. We all stood there and poured it out together and also took turns doing it. I must say that was the BEST feeling I got all week. It was such a hard week planning and moving and taking care of everything, along with dealing with family. It was a great ending to a hard week. After that, we had a family dinner and a slideshow of all the pictures taken over the weekend. So please, keep him in yours prayers that he will walk again with the angels and that he is ok!

So... I cut it off

2008-10-02T16:27:00.000-07:00

HELLO people, I CUT IT OFF. I desperatly needed a change with my current hair. I have always been Long and straight with no style at all. I was getting really bored with my current look and had to do something different. So I decided to cut alot of it off. Here's it before, all boring likeIt was so dry and damaged and a ton of split ends since I'm the only one that has cut my hair in like 6 years. And now it's WAY better. I have also been the only one to foil my hair to keep costs down. The other night before I got my hair cut I was going into the bathroom to foil it and Devin asked me if I wanted help (he knows I hate to do it, it's such a pain) and I said sure. I showed him what to do and taught him how to do it, and he caught on like a PRO. We got it all done and then I went in the next day to get it cut. So I guess we may have made it a little more blonde then it was because everyone I saw (besides Kristene and Lance who knew I was getting it done, and 2 of my close friends) were like "oh my gosh you sure went blonde didn't you". I'm just thinking "HELLO PEOPLE, there are like 4-7 inches off my hair, and you don't even notice that? GRRRR, but I'm REALLY happy with my hair. I've had it for 4 days now and I wouldn't go back to how it was. It's healthier and bouncier and has more volume then it did before. Thank you to Geno, the Hair Guru, he seriously was like a Japanese cheff just slicing and dicing away at my hair, and he did a fantastic job! So here is the new me with Style!

A Swimming Puppy Dog

2008-10-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

So we took our little puppy to Steel Lake Park in federal way to see if we could get her to go swimming. Funny thing is, it was 57 degrees outside and raining and Devin and I had our bathing suites on. Oh yeah, we are crazy "parents". The stupid things we do for our "babies". Anywho, so Devin and I walked out into the water up to our knees and started called out to Maui who was standing on the shore. Once both of us were calling and claping, she HAD to be out there with us. She was a little hesitant at first, but got out there and started swimming. She was a natural, with her webbed paws, she swims strong.
It's the cutest thing ever because when she is swimming, she also is whinning and crying ( I guess her mom Star does the same thing when she swims), But she swam back and forth between Devin and I until she got tired and then went back to the shore and sat and waited for us.
Right before we left Devin had to wash the sand off of her because she was sitting it in.

We Seriously can't wait till summer when we can both go swimming with her!!

Happy Anniversary

2008-09-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was Devin and I's Anniversary. He surprised me in the morning for sure. He got up and left for work at normal time at 7. At 7:30am I was woken up from Mylee jumping onto the window seal because there was a car in the driveway. I was a little freaked out, because no one should be there. Then I heard the front door open. Devin came into the bed room with roses and champagne and told me that we got both of us the day off. YEAH another day off with Devin. He had to work all Weekend so I didn't get much time with him. Perfect day to take off though, anniversary, the weather was record breaking HOT (85, which is hot for Seattle for this time of year). We got up and we went on a little hike at Dash Point St. Park with our little Puppy. We hiked to the top and had a picnic lunch of peanut and butter sandwiches. Then we hiked back down and went out to the water. Maui was very curious about the seaguls and the seaweed. But she refused to get into the water.

So after our fun day in the sun we went and picked up our "wedding cupcakes" since our topper got eaten at the reception. I ordered 5 red velvet cupcakes (which is what our cake was) and made them into our topper!

And then we got all fancy and went out to dinner at our favorite Sushi place in DesMoines where we had out first date, Sushisaki. The have recently changed owner and they got a new su-chef and the food wasn't the same, a little dissapointment but all in all it was still good. We then went down to the DesMoines water front where Devin had proposed and we spent some time down there.

So All in All it was a great day, and the best thing ever, is that it's not over yet. We still get to go out next Saturday where Devin got us booked for Hot Air Balloon rides during the sunrise. I can't wait to go. He's afraid of hights so it should be a BLAST!!! We ended the evening at home in sweats drinking champagne!

So I'm a big slacker.....

2008-09-22T15:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, so I was just looking at how long it has been since I blogged. Well alot has happened since then. First off, we hit our 1 year mark in our house! It's official it's been 1 year of being a home owner! My favorite thing: I LOVE my kitchen the best. It's my favorite thing in the house. I love cooking in it, or just standing in it, or sitting at the bar. Doesn't matter, I LOVE IT. Devin and I redid the whole thing last November alone with our 4 hands and it's GREAT!

Second, Devin and I actually got to take a vacation. We got to go camping. We went to Bank's Lake which is over in Eastern Mountain by the Grand Coulee Dam. We went out there with My sister Kristene, her hubby Lance, there 3 kids, Lance's Brother Troy and there Mam Valerie. Highlights of that trip was the dust storm that got everything dirty, the constant wind (ok, thoes where sarcastic) the real highlights were Addies b-day, Lance Devin and I wakeboarding, and knee boarding. Some Pics:

Some of the Family sitting around at night

Nay Nay and me on the boat in the morning

Lance on the Knee Board tearing it up! the went

Devin on the Wakeboard showing off his "skills". He's actually really good! I enjoyed watching him!

Me on the wakeboard just trying to stay up. I did better on that then I did on the knee board.

Ok, so after we got back from camping we went out that night to get our new addition, our little puppy Maui. So here are a few pics when we got her.

This is her the morning after we got her when we were playing with her on our bed..

This is her Sleeping on her bed after playing for so long, look how small she is.

This is her again sleeping, AGAIN. She loves/loved to sleep, she was about 10 lbs. when we brought her home.

We got her at 7 weeks old and started training her right away. He started Puppy classes and she has been to 3 of them now. She's doing very well with Sit, Drop, Stay and leave it. We have a few problems with "come", she gets very distracted easily. The potty training is going well. We had only 3 poop accidents and a lot more potty ones. I think she's starting to get the potty thing though. When she needs to go out she kinda whines at the door. But that's not every time. It's better now though! So here are a few Updated pics on how big she's gotten.

She sleeps in the weirdest positions sometimes.

She's learning how to sit, trying to coax her with treats in my lap

This is her playing with Coozie which is our neighbor Melody's puppy who is just a little bit bigger then she is! It was very cute though.

This is her actaully sitting very well. She does it almost flawlessly. It's awesome. And since she is such a good puppy, she gets to sit in the front seat next to me on the way to work. That's right, she gets to go to work with me everyday. I never asked if I could bring her, but I did and she does so well. She sleeps most of the day, and plays and eats and whines when she needs to go out, and other then that, she is awesome! People like to come up to her and play with her at break times. IT's good for her!

This one is for you Kelsey

2008-08-23T22:38:00.001-07:00

So, this is the quilt in the background that I won at the holmes Family reunion. It was made by my cousin Kelsey, all hand made. She spent a lot of time and energy on it and I thought it was the cutest thing i have ever seen. So i had to have it, and now that I have it, I have it hanging on the couch in my living room, where, KELSEY...... it goes PERFECT with all the colors in my living room. the browns and tans and greens are all that are in that room. so now it's the center piece in the middle of the room. so thank you for making such a brilliant quilt. I truly do love it!!!

On another note, you may notice in this picture that I am wearing glasses. I have NEVER worn glasses before, not a day in my life. I finally realized that it was time to go in and see an eye doctor. It started about 2 months ago, I was seeing that it was getting a little harder to see the signs at night, and I just blamed it on devin and putting the HID lights in the cars. I didn't want to admit that I may have a problem. So I pushed it off and pushed it off. I finally gave in after my little brother chase went in to get his eyes checked. He had been complaining about his left eye being a little blurry, and thats the eye that I was complaining about too. So, his outcome.... he got glasses, a 20/40 in the left eye and a 20/25 in the right eye. oh man.... that means that the enevitable is going to happen, i am going to have to get some.

So I go into Costco at my appt. do the little before appt. tests and then wait. When it was my turn I went in and sat in the chair. After talking to the Dr. she was saying that she did see something off with my left eye. I then sat back in the chair and she asked me to cover one eye. so i covered my good eye and was looking with the left (bad) eye. she then put something up on the wall and said, "ok, what do you see". My response (after I sat there for a good 30 seconds, not quiet sure what to say) "Are thoes suppose to be numbers or letters?" I was then DOOMED from there on out. She could see that i definitely had a problem. So she did all her tests and it came down to it. I need glasses, not only do I need glasses, she said that I am only a few points away from being legally blind in my left eye. WOW, I didn't realize it was that bad. so the out come of my eyes, IM THE EXACT SAME AS CHASE. 20/40 in the left eye and 20/25 in the right eye, with astigmatism in the left eye. Stupid, stupid eyes. So I have a pair on order with costco and I went to Lens Crafters to get the pair for now. i can tell a huge difference, it's like night and day. I love how easily I can see things now. so i guess all in all it turned out to be a good thing, But now i feel like a nerd. (-;

My baby Pups growing up

2008-08-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

So, on Tuesday we got to go out again to see our little Maui. We get her now in 1 1/2 more weeks and we couldn't be more excited. She is really growing up nicely. We brought her bed out there and had her lay on it to get her sent on it for the cats to get used to. We then had Star, her mom lay on it so that when we bring her home, she will still have the sent of her mom on it and maybe she wont be as lonely. It might work, who knows. But I'll tell you what, She LOVED that bed. I'm sure that she felt like quite the princess on it. Her mom Star was also trying to teacher her a little bit about the tennis ball. She had it in her mouth and was nudging Maui's face with it like "ok this is what you do". We are pretty excited about training her and making her one of the family. So here are a few more pics for my, I mean your viewing pleasure!

Some more future baby pup pics.

2008-08-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

Ok Folks, we got to go see our little baby pup again on Wednesday. She is growing up quite a bit and fast too. They are soo fun now, they have teeth, and very sharp claws, and oh so lovable personalities. We got tons of kisses from our face to between the toes. Oh I just love her. Anyways, while we were there Devin got to play ball with the mom "Star". she is so well behaved and is tempered well. We can't wait to start training Maui to be just like her mom. Here are the pics.
She is just the Sweetest thing ever, and we can't wait to get her on Sunday August 31st!!! YEAH!!

Our Newest Addition to the Family

2008-07-31T11:14:00.000-07:00

So we decided since it isn't the right time for us to have a baby, that we are going to do something crazy and just get a puppy. I know it's crazy and it's going to be a lot of hard work, but at least with a puppy, we will still have my income comming in. YES!!!

So we went and saw these adorable little creatures last night at my Uncle and Aunts house out in Duvall. 8 little puppies came from The mom (Yellow lab) and the dad (Chocolat lab). There are 5 girlies and 3 little boys. And , they are ALL black. One has a tiny spot of white on the chest, but that's it. All dark as night. It's kind of hard to tell them apart, I think I may have held 3 different ones thinking it was the same one, but who knows, at least they were all so cute. They just opened there eyes a few days ago and they are still having a hard time walking, they are so akward. Oh, and they have no teeth yet so when they suck on your finger it just tickles. We got to enjoy everyones company for a few hours while we played with the pups. Ohhh I can't wait, we will get to take our lovable little girl home in just about 4-5 weeks. Right around labor day is when she said. Ohhhh we are so excited.

So I'm attaching some photos for your viewing pleasure! I know she's hard to see, she looks like a big blob of black fur.

She just layed there in my lap like a good little puppy and slept away, I played with her ears, her tummy, her head and her little feet, and she just let me.

This was her first time outside so we could try to get a better picture of her, but she FREAKED out, she was sooo scared, and then I felt bad. )-:

So, since they are all the same color and everything and hard to tell apart, we tied a pink and red ribbon around her neck, so we knew which one was our favorite, so far!

Good end to bad luck

2008-07-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

So we had quite the run over the last week and a half. First, on my way home from work a few friday's ago, I broke all the fan blades on the white car and had it towed home. He ordered the parts and them came and Devin installed them. Well it didn't fix that probelm. We had just sold the red car the day before the white on broke. So the white car needs a new radiator and Devin ordered it and it's supposed to come tomorrow. Well we are down to the bikes now and that's it for transportation. We decided to go get some Subway for lunch last week and we rode together on his bike there. We get there and he has a flat tire. So we have to "tow" it in a truck to RMC to get new tires. So that trip right there was a small fee of $500 to get fixed. While we were at RMC dropping his bike off, one of my co-workers backed into my bike and we need a new couling for it which Devin and I are not paying for. Back luck goes on...... We get devin's bike back the next day and he's riding home on his new tires. Well with new Motorcycle tires, they are very slick and so you take precaution for the first 500 miles on them, Devin was taking all the precaution he could and the STUPID lady in front of him Slammed on her brakes. So, Devin then slammed on his and his brakes locked up and he swong around a slightly hit her car with the bike. We now owe her a new bumper and a new tale light. Now people don't worry, DEVIN IS FINE!!! No bumps, no bruises, just a bruised Ego. Well on that note, that is the end of our bad luck spree. We needed another car then. We searched Craigs list and found a beautiful BMW 740IL. We went and looked at it and fell in love. So we bought a car on Saturday and now we have more then just the bikes! Yeah! After all our bad luck, we are slightly more happy. See us?!

A sad sight to see.....

2008-07-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

So, I'm driving home from work on Friday night about 8:30pm. I leave the work complex and I felt and heard me drive over something like hard plastic. So I pulled over to make sure I didn't blow a tire or brake my wheel well on my car. Nothing, everything is fine. So I get back on the road. I 'm crusing in the carpool lane about 2 exit's from my house, when I notice my temperature gauge in the car start slowly creeping up, and up, and up. So I tured on the heat on full blast to try to get it to come down (even though it was 80 degrees out). Nothing, not even hot air was coming out. So I kind of start panicking. I got over toward the shoulder and by the time I got there, the red light had turned on. I called Devin right before I got off the freeway and he had told me to turn it off. So when I got to a stop, I turned it off, popped the lid and stayed in my car. He finally got there and lifted the lid and saw that my fan had no more blades on it. ALL of them were gone, and there was coolant all over the ground under my car. We tried to drive it a little farther closer to home, but we couldn't get more then a mile. We pulled over in a complex and called a tow truck. He got there about 45min. later and loaded it up. We got home right about 10pm. So here is the sad sight to see. )-:

She's gone

2008-07-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

So our kitty Miya (she's the one that is grey) that we adopted from the pound dissapeared on Sunday June 29th. We were outside working in the yard for half the day and all 3 kitties were out there with us. We got hot so we played on the trampoline and sprinkler. When we were done, we got dressed and left to go to a BBQ. When we got back Miya still wasn't home. She hasn't come back since. We are soo sad because we just adored her. she really was a GREAT cat. So loving, and puurred all the time. So we miss her. )-:

Trambobopine Fun!!!

2008-07-01T16:52:00.001-07:00

Devin and worked very hard this weekend weeding in the back yard of our house. WE spent 6 hours Saturday and 3 hours Sunday on it, then it was HHOOOTTT so decided to have a little trampoline fun! As kids we alsways put the sprinkler under it then jumped, so we did!!
It totally felt like we were kids again!!

Sky Lights....

2008-07-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

So a few weekends ago Devin and Daddy Trowbridge cut holes in the kitchen and the roof. Devin thought it would be a great idea if we could get some natural light into our kitchen since it's dark on the back side of the house. I was frightened...... But I agreed as long as Daddy Trowbridge was there to over see and help. (they did this at there house years ago together, so I knew if there were 2 of them it should go smoothly). So he came down on his Saturday when the weather was going to be ok for the day, and started the cutting process. Me being nervous, I tried to keep busy outside doing yard work. I came in every once in a while to take some pics and make sure they wern't going to screw it up or let it leak. And this is how it went!!!

So here is Pop's getting prepared to climb the tree to get to the roof. Kitchen before the skylights, as you can see it's pretty dark in there with no lights on.

Here is the first hole going from the kitchen to the roof. It was a little freaky since you could see into the attic, and it's nasty in there.

Here is Devin half in the kitchen, half on the roof.

A better picture from the kitchen looking up when they framed it in. thoes kids are so smart!!!!

OK!!!! The finished product! It lets in SOOO much light that you don't even need to turn the lights on in the morning! I am so happy with the end result and I shouldn't have doubted them at all on there skill. The neighbor even hired Devin to do his even before he offered his services!! Way to go guys, and thanks for the hard work! It really turned out well!!

Wow, what a weekend

2008-06-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

So, it was in fact a busy busy weekend. So here it all goes, I'll tell you all about it! Starting with Friday morning: We attending Luke Conrad's Funeral at 11am in Bellevue. Luke was one of Devin's best friends from High School. He suddenly passed on June 5th in his sleep from "natural" causes. The medical examer said that it's a medical mystery. It's very sad and he will be remembered. It was a beautiful memorial and very sad.

So we went back to work and then that night and then Devin went home and washed the vehicles and our friend Annalisa brought us over dinner, She is so kind, we love her! We enjoyed our dinner on the back porch, cleaned the house and went to bed.

Saturday morning we woke up and had our coffee and waited for Grandma and Grandpa Holmes to come visit us! The arrived and we have a pleasant visit with them for about an hour. They had to get on there way to visit the other family in the area. So after that we got to ride to Edmonds (which Traffic was Aweful and it took us 1 hour and 40 minutes to get there) to celebrate Grandmother Pottmeyer's birthday! She is visiting from South Carolina and we have had the pleasure to see here 2 times while she has been here. She is such a wonderful person and I just love talking to her! she's got a big 'ol house out there and a lot of property to go with it and a swimming pool. We are hoping that we can get out there to visit her sometime soon as she lives alone. It would be great fun. So... after the BBQ in Edmonds we raced home, got into the car and drive down to the store for a BBQ of our own. Our neighbors across the street moved to Kansas this morning and we wanted to have a little going away dinner for them with some of the other neighbors. So we got it done and it was a really good time. We will miss Brooks and Katie and there kids, they were such nice people and they were the fisrt ones to welcome us to the neighborhood. We wish them a safe journey out there.

Then Sunday morning, we got up, had our coffee again, and started the day with working in the yard. I put my bathing suit top on and some shorts and got all the lawn mowed and the flowers trimmed and weeds pulled. We also had Don our other neighbor over to meaure the motor stuff to see how much we have to boor out to get the engine back in working order. We got showed and clothed and made our way down to my dad's place to see him. We visited with him for 1/2 hour and made our way to Lance's. (Devin's parents were out of town watching Gregory graduate from college, so we didn't get to see them) We had dinner at Lance's that night, and then Kristene sliced her thumb open trying to open the umbrella, and had to go to the ER. So we all cleaned up, got the kids in bed and made our way home.

All in all it was a productive weekend and we got to visit with a ton of family. And, we got some sun! So I didn't get any pictures of the weekend, and I'm kicking myself for not, but Devin did get some pictures last night on the trampoline, (which by the way, he's band from).

Gregory graduation in California with mama pottmeyer and pops trowbridge

Randoms..

2008-06-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

Ok so this is going to be all over the place, I have a lot of little things to talk about and I dont' want to write a lot about each of them so here's the first one..... I have some the THE CUTEST kitties Ever!!! I mean look at little Mylee, she is getting so big and getting her coloring filling in and she is just the sweetest thing ever. Then there is Miya.... She has started climbing some trees. She's very advernturous but she always comes back when she is called!

I mean look, she is soo adorable!!!

Ok enough on that subject just because they are so cute! So we bought another addition to the house and the backyard. A TRAMBOBOLINE!!!! ok just a trampoline, but we had one growing up and when I say we, I mean me. I got one when I was like 7 or 8 and my best friend Mandy was a gymnast and she taught me how to do a ton of stuff on it. I never got hurt on it and I was pretty lucky. Minus the fact that I broke Chases arm on it when he was I think like 3, I've never gotten hurt!!! (-: Anywho, so we bought on and Devin and I jump on it everyday together! He tries to "bounce" me and I get out of it. He's so tall and lanky that some times he looks a little goofy, in fact I have a picture of his face while he was jumping, so post goofyness here:

And it even looks like Devin has some tricks under his sleeve.

Yeah, so we love it and we spend the time together everynight on it for at least 30 min. It's a good work out too! It only sucks when we stop jumping and lay down for a few minutes, then the mosquitos come out and try to attack us. I got bit a couple nights ago and they are monster size and ich bad. AHHHH... Anywho, so I think that I am done blogging now but I will leave you with a picture that my sister Amber took of us down while we were down at the beach in OR.

and here is one more that my sister Kristene took of us while we were at the mariners game back in April!

Manzanita, OR

2008-05-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

So we went away for Memorial Day weekend to Manzanita, OR to Kristene's Dad's house by the beach. He lives about 1 block from the beach and takes about 4 minutes to walk there from the house. They are also next door to a pretty decent pizza place. So it took us about 5 1/2hrs. to get there on Friday night because the traffic was soo bad. We got there and get settled and went to bed around 1am. We then got up around 8 thanks to Kadin (who wakes up when the sun shines). Devin and I rolled out of bed and took the kids for hot chocolate and doughnuts (Amber and Kristene were still sleeping, and Lance, Ted and Patty went golfing at 7:30). We picked thoes up and went to the Beach to eat our food. It was a pretty foggy day. As the day went on, it got foggier. Here are some pictures from the foggy day:

At one point, Addie and Patty went down to the beach to get seashells and they had vanished. All you could see when she walked back was a soaking wet Addie who fell into the water because she couldn't see the wave. So she had to wear Kristene's poofy vest. Addie only brought 1 sweatshirt and that got wet.

Lance and Devin bought a frisbee and couldn't stop playing with it, that and the football. They had soar arms and shoulders. But they sure did have a good time.

So the next day we drove to Tillamook and the boys and Patty went golfing and us other girls went to a small city and went to antique shops and did the Tillamook tour. I felt really sick the entire ride there and the time we spent there, so I didn't get any pictures of it, but we did try our best to have a good time. All the kids got there fresh ice cream and they were pretty happy about that. That night we had a fire on the beach because the weather got so nice. So here are some pictures from that night:

So the last day that we were there on Monday was a short one, Devin and I were out of there about 12:15 to start the journey home. Kadin got to rent one of thoes bikes that you steer with your hands/body. He got his pant leg stuck in the chain buit once we freed him, he was off again (a nice way to loose the energy before he got into the car). So here are some pics from the last day:

So this house that we stayed at is called the Wood house. The walls the ceilings, the cupboard, EVERYthing is wood (well almost everything, there is some carpet). It was a really fun time, and because it was so fun, I have to post some more pictures of the good times, please enjoy:

The weight Challenge

2008-05-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, since January Lance and I have been doing weight watchers. I was SHOCKED when I got on the scale back in January to weigh in for the first time. I couldn't beleive how much I had let my self go. You never think about it when you are doing it, and then when you stop and you look back, you realize that what you were eating and doing really packs on the pounds faster than you think. So we turned over a new "leaf" and started the shedding process, so here is a before picture of me when I was 171. WOW......

And this is me last week at 155. I have droped some more weight since this picture. But I have been trying REALLY hard on this and trying to stay active. It is NOT easy, but I thought I would give an update, especially to you Shelf (you know who you are).

~Mothers Day Bashes~

2008-05-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

So we had a great time for Mothers Day. Devin and I hosted Brunch at my house, (which we didn't start eating till 2:30 when Troy finally showed up). We hosted so that non of the mothers had to cook or clean, so between Lance, Devin, Tom and me, we knocked out all the food. And I must say that it was DELISH. We had Acini De Pepe Salad, fresh fruit, cinnimon rolls, breakfast casserole, and 2 crab quiche's. We rocked the food, MMM MMMM it was Good!!! We opened up the french doors and put the tables outside along with the food. It was actaully decent right then, the sun was out and the birds chirping. The kids got to use the rope swing in the backyard!! So here are some pics to sum up the day!

We then went over to Dev's parents for dinner. They Always so a crafty project every mothers day, so this year, she picked out making animals out of socks and gloves. So us gals got started, and we made a Zebra (which aunti Susan came wearing her rainbow socks that got sacrificed for the Zebra), a blue jay bird, a dog, a half of a bunny, and I made an elephant. It took a lot of time to make them, and they were all done by hand stiching them, but it really was quite fun. Devin made his special Apple Pie and it was Phenominal. Mmmm goood hunny! He's a picture of my little elephant that I made from Daddy Trowbridge's old dress socks! He's soo cute, I want to make a ton more!

The Appraiser...

2008-05-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

So.... We had a thought. When Devin bought his motorcycle that interest rate that he got was 16%. By the time is all Said and Done, we will be paying double what he bought the bike for. WOW, that's really bad. So we figured that we have done all this work on the house, that maybe we will have enough equity to get a home equity line of credit, which would have a pretty low rate.

We busted our tails to get all the work done, all the little projects finished up, and finish the little touches left in every room. The Appraiser chicka came out on Monday and took pictures, looked at the site and compared our home to the others in the neighborhood. We were supposed to get the appraisal back on Wednesday...

We got it back. It didn't come back as high as we wanted. But it came back high enough that we needed. The bike is now going to go onto that line, and that will automatically save us $5500 in interest charges. Yeah for that. We have made $38,K on the house since we bought it in August of 2007. Keep in mind though that we did spend about $20K for all the supplies to do everything we wanted. So Devin and my part time job over the last 7 months was worth 18K. Not too bad I guess, and that's with the market down now.

It kinda felt like a slap in the face, like our work wasnt' good enough, but you can't get mad at the market for how it is. We got the minimum that we needed for the bike anyways, and the most Positive thing about the whole appraisal, I got Devin to finish up all the little things from last November and our house is SPOTLESS. A good start to the week especailly when we will be having a house full of guests this whole weekend. Well there are my thoughts, you should be thankful that I didn't write them yesterday when I got the news. )-:

Let the good times roll

2008-05-02T14:53:00.001-07:00

So these are the good times if you have forgotten:Doing projects on the house and trying to fit everything in my litte beemer has kind of taken a toll on us. We are limited to what we can put in there, and if we get things that can't fit, well we would have to find someone to borrow a bigger vehicle from. NO MORE... We are going to Lowe's almost every other day day to get stuff to finish the multiple projects we have going on.... So We bought a TRUCK!!!!! It's a little Toyota truck that both of us had on our "list" since we were young teens. So now it's crossed off our list and no more trying to CRAM big things into a little baby car. So here it is, it's nothing extrememly special or pretty, but it definitely gets around!!!

Updated mud room pics

2008-04-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

We worked REALLY hard this weekend trying to get more of the room done. We have made progress and still have a little bit to do. We need to paint the ceiling and then paint the walls the colors that we want. We then need to cut down the cabinet top to fill the lower cabinets and attach it to the walls. Other then that, we will pretty much we done with that project and then off to the next. So here are some more currents as of this morning...

Wacko Fams...

2008-04-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

This happens to be the best man speech where our cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling the whole time!

So, I was going through some photos and I found this one and it just made me Crack up! It reminds me how much I love my family. And then I found some others that I thought I would share. They were taken on our wedding day when everything was perfect! Having everyone there meant so much to me especially thoes from Far away! So cheers to you who could make it and cheers to the weather for holding back the rain till after the ceremony was over!

The colors in this photo is SO pretty and just go all together perfectly! I love it.During the Best Man speech where my new brother in law Greg Stole all our hearts with that 4 page speech. Everyone was laughing the WHOLE time! I'll have to post the speech later on!And this is the photo that I love. Even on a serious day, the goofy crowd still comes out!!!

MUD room, uh huh, ok!!!! Alright!

2008-04-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

Ok so this is a veiw of the old area where the washer and dryer are supposed to go

This is a veiw of the whole garage from the front and and this new room is going all the way at the back.
This is the veiw looking out from the kitchen into the garage
Same veiw from looking into the garage from the kitchen

Another veiw before he put the wall and the door up

Here is a veiw looking into the garage with the wall and the door on!

More measuring and look it's fully insulated!!!

Ok so we now have 90% of the ceiling done and the lights hard wired into the ceiling. It is soo close to being able to me mud and taped and then I get to put my artistic touch on it with Paint!!!

So as you can the project is coming along great, slowly but shirley we may have a finished room in 3 weeks at most. We work on it when we can, but we also start a ton of projects along the way with everything else. We are soo excited about this!!! Let me know what you think!

Happy Birthday Me!

2008-04-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

So today is my birthday, turning a big-o 24yrs. old. Not feeling very good, kinda sick still. So we are going to celebrate tonight with the fam and then again with the other part of the fam this weekend! Hopefully slowly but shirly this gross thing in me will decide to leave so I can live a NORMAL life. Anyways, happy birthday me!

Just because they are cute...

2008-04-03T10:59:00.001-07:00

So it's been a while since I posted some baby kitty pics and she is adorable doing babykitty adorable things... so here they are:

Curiousity

Sleeping like a baby on my pillow under the covers
Sharing a plate of Daddy Geoffs famous Salmon

Her new favorite spot to sit. Under the laptop between Devin's legs, I think it's because it's such a warm spot under that laptop.

Oh for the love of a TRUCK.....

2008-04-03T10:38:00.001-07:00

So we started doing some new house repairs and new projects all around.....

So we had Family friend Troy go down to Lowe's with us to pick up a bunch of stuff to start making a "mud room/laundry room" and he brought the truck. So we got 16 peices of dry wall, a BILLION peices of wood, a TON of insulation, a new window and the best of all, A NEW FRONT DOOR!!!! I'm especially excited about the front door because our house is so dark and the new door has windows in it and it brightens up the living room now! So we packed everything into Troy's truck except the insulation and the window, because Dev thought it would fit in the beemer. Well the truck was full, the back seat was full and we had the stupid window OVER our heads the entire way home. I think we were to lazy to walk back over to the truck to throw the window in there. It really was an interesting trip home. as you can see.Turned out very well! It's nice and bright!

Spring Time brought us SNOW not more flowers

2008-03-27T11:06:00.001-07:00

It was interesting enough that I thought the cold weather had passed and now spring time was bringing us flowers and sun shine!!! Well get me wrong... because as I drove up the hill from the Auburn Valley up onto the Auburn hill it started snowing (very Wet snow, but snow). I thought to myslef, this will pass here shortly and the world will go on. Well it snowed and snowed and snowed. by the time we went to bed, it was still snowing. How exciting, and how sad I am that the garden that I planted is now dying from the heavy snow sitting on top of the flowers. )-: Sad times.
When Devin woke up this morning for work (thanks to the cat that kept hitting us in the face all morning with her paw, ohh Miya) it was snowing again this morning. Didn't stop him from going to work like the hard core worker that he is. I however slept in as the "winter weather" is getting the best of me and I'm feeling really bad these days. It's all from the neck up, but that takes you out. My eyes hurt, my ears hurt, my nose is stuffy and runny, my jaws hurt (feels like someone punched me in the jaw on both sides, maybe it was Miya in the middle of the night) My head hurts and I feel all foggy like.

I had to capture these pictures because I have no idea when it will snow again in March, however they do say that we are supposed to get snow again tonight, and tomorrow night and possibly Saturday morning. I'll take more pictures when I see it. We will just have to stock up on the Netflix and cuddle up together more to stay warm. Since it got a little warmer we have been keeping the inside temperature of our house at a balmy 60. It doesn't feel so warm anymore. Layer up!

The cats... some of our kids.....

2008-03-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

Ok so we have some of the weirdest cats ever it seems anyways. Since we don't have kids yet, the cats are at the top of our entertainment list....Miya for one, LOVES the shower. She will jump into the tub when we are in the shower, or sit on the edge of the bathtub and just watch the entire time. She will then get into the shower after we are done, and just sit in there. She will randomly jump into laps and she will be wet from that bathtub. WEIRDO.....

So, then there's Myzzie, she is equally bizarro. She will sleep in any place (including the bathroom sink), lay in any direction and she drinks ONLY out of the bathroom faucets. Heres 2 pics of her.. This is the laundry basket night. She somehow crawled into the basket and under the clothes and went to sleep.

This is HER drinking fountain. Any time that we walk into the bathroom, she is right behind us and into the sink before we can even turn around. I love these gals, and in fact.... We are getting One more of them. Devin's co-worker has a cat, and she had little babies on Valentines day, well they are just about ready to leave home and straight into the loving home of us!!! So here's a new pic of the newest addition to our home very shortly (Friday in fact)

She is soo small and so cute, she is almost 5 weeks, and we are soo excited to get the little one! We don't have a name yet, so anyone with suggestions to go along with our M theme, just let me know!

Devin's new project....

2008-03-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

So we decided that with our tax refund, a little $353 and if we were to sell our current tv, we would break even for of those 42'' tv that we could hang above our fire place. Well we did it! We sold our 50'' tv with a stand for $750. It was an awesome tv that I bought when I "got out on my own". It was a big purchase but totally worth it. We decided it just took up too much room in the living room since we have a smaller house. So here is the new tv....

Devin, also being the Awesome handy man he is, decided that since we don'thave the self below the tv anymore, he bulit us some well.. bulit in shelves, which you see on the left of the tv. It totllay works. He will run all the cables up the wall behind the tv in the attic and down behind the shelves just so no wires will be seen. I just love how neat and handy he is. And he whipped that out in less time then it took me to do my little garden.

A New Garden

2008-03-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

I LOVE my new little garden. It doesn't look like much, but DANG it too forever. First process, go to Lowe's look for ONE specific plant.... They don't have it and I walk away with all these other flowers. Oooppss. So we get home and then, where do I put this all? I found the area, and then started arranging..... and arranging... then I had to dig out all the grass that was there. I am soooo tired by now, I think I may die. Lance drops by and finishes the grass for me in like 2 seconds. I then start the planting process, which too like a half a year more. I finally finished the planting of the flowers. Sooo pretty, although I didn't realize how bare it would look when I got everything into the gound. I was a little dissapointed, but quickly got over it. So then I had to move all that grass that I took out. I got out that big shovel again and started moving it all to the side of the house. I swear my back was about to break during this process. When I finally got it all moved, I cleaned up my mess and I went inside. I didn't get the other part of my garden planted which will be by the door, but this whole extravaganza took a total of 6 hours from begginning to end.

And look how small it is... )-: Hopefully everything will grow in and it will look fully later! But Dang it, I am soo proud of this little garden!

The Bike's are out again

2008-03-06T14:31:00.001-08:00

Devin on his bike...

Me on mine (I still need to get a picture of me riding)

Well, we got the bike's back out. It was starting to finally get nice around here for a few days. So we got excited, the bikes came out and.................... Dev got me a new jacket for my upcoming birthday. I REALLY didn't like my leather jacket that I had. It was too tight and I couldn't get warm with it because I couldn't layer up under neath it. That and it sat pretty high on my lower back so when I rode the wind got pushed up my back...... GRRRRR, so we tested jackets on and I found my new love.... Spendy but I opened the closet and there is was just hanging there, Screaming for me to put it on. Well I did, and I couldn't be happier. IT was a warm (j/k) 33 degrees when I left the house this morning for work. Luckily I gad my new jacket on and my waterproof/windproof pants. I also put my pink scarff on and I stayed so warm all the way to work. My only complaint.. I don't have those heated grips on MY bike, so my the tips of my fingers got really cold. Well, I better go turn my heater on at work so I can warm up before I leave to go home!

Ohhh, what a Beautiful Day

2008-02-29T11:03:00.000-08:00

Ohhhh it was a beautiful day here in Western Washington. It didn't start out so nice, in fact I drove to work in the rain. Work was tough yesterday and it really got the best of me, in fact I blew up at the warehouse workers and gave my self a headache. I couldn't wait to get outta there. Well, while the sun was shinning and the sun roof open (with the heat blowing full blast at my feet) and my music blaring, I decided to call Dev and make him meet me outside. I got home, honked the horn and took off in the car. We drove to Redondo Beach in Des Moines/Federal Way and went for a walk on the board walk. It is 1/2 mile long, and then you have to turn around and walk back. We walked the full mile while the sun was going down. It was a bit breezy but the sun set was so worth it. This picture doesn't do it justice. By the time we got with our walk, I changed my attitude and I was happy again. Maybe I just needed some well deserved fresh air and some Vitamin D. I soaked it in and we went home where we had an awesome night together...

We even played with baby Miya!

Been a Bit

2008-02-27T15:57:00.001-08:00

OK so it's been just a bit so I thought I would add something. These are my babies. My new baby Miya brought home URI (upper Respitory Infection) from the pound, also known as Kennal Cough for dogs. They sneeze and cough. It is sooo sad. So Miya brought it home and now my baby Myzzie is sick.They still arn't getting along all the way, but we are getting closer. I had to hold them there for that picture.

So I took off last Thursday night with my seester Kristene and her mom in law and we flew to Arizona to see our mam!!! We stayed there till Monday night, and our activities consisted of shopping, visiting family (gramma and grampa Holmes, Cousin Melanie, and cousin Kyle) More Shopping, and going to the Swap Meet. We shopped at our Favorite store called Last Chance. It's Nordstroms, but all the rejects from the Nordstroms store. I got a pair of UGGS that retail for $228.00, I got them for $69.99. Can't beat that deal if you need a pair of quality UGGS. We went to that store 2 times in our few days there. The first day we all went and spent 7 hours there. WOW, it was WAY fun. The second time we went it was a wuick trip that was only 5 hours. They had sweaters there that were $5.98 and then an additional 60% off. That's like Free, you can't beat it! Anywho, I didn't get very many pictures of the trip, in fact I only got like 10 pictures and they were all of ONE sunset. I got stuck at the airport flying standby. Kristene and Valerie got on the flight and there just wasn't enough room for me. So I took a ton of photos of the sunset. If you have ever been to Arizona, you know that they have the most prettiest sunsets Ever. Well I captured it, and this pic was my favorite one!

This is while I was waiting in the airport at the gate for 3 hours for the next flight! I sure did get a lot of reading done and in fact, I am almost done with my book that I just started on the way down there! I dont get a chance to read often, but I sure do love it when I can.

It was great to see and stay with mam again. It's always nice getting to go visit her. She has some fruit trees and she left 2 oranges on the trees so I could pick them from the trees for breakfast. Same thing with the Grandparents house, they have a TON of oranges on there trees, it was a tasty nice treat! Thanks Mam for the great trip!

Birthday Baby

2008-02-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

So on Sunday it was Devin's birthday. He is now 24!!! His comments: "it feels the same" We went out on Saturday night with the family to the Cheese Cake Factory for dinner to celebrate his birthday and my brother-in-law's mom's birthday. He had a 2 and 1/2 hour wait to be seated for a party of 9. WOW. We went over to the mall and walked around and walked, and walked, and walked. finally we went back to the place and only had to wait another 20 min. We finally sat down and looked over the menu. 250 menu options to choose from. Another WOW. Where do we start? We started with some AMAZING crab cakes and bread. Devin ended up choosing one of the biggest burgers they had on the menu. The "Tons o Fun" burger.

It had 2 paties, 2 things of cheese, 3 buns and a ton of other stuff piled high. It was so big that you couldn't even see the toothpick in the middle of it. Well sad to say, he ate the WHOLE dang thing. WOW again. I got the Luau salad with crispy wontons between the 3 layers. It was very delicious. My mom always gets it when we go and I always snack off hers, so I finally got my own! It was BOMB!

Devin dressing to get ready for dinner, same outfit both nights!

This is us on the way to Dev's parentals house for dinner on Sunday night for his special birthday dinner. We had some amazing Filet Mignon. His dad is quite the cook in the kitchen. He made a sauce to go over the steak that was gorgonzala cheese, red pepers, shitake mushrooms and some herbs. It was DELISH!!! We also have some salad and some steamed asparagus in lemon juice. MMMMM MMMM tasty.

This is us going out on Valentines day night to Sushi. I liked the picture so I'm posting it anyways!

And the Verdict is.... My Hubby still Loves me

2008-02-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

So YESTERDAY.... the day before Valentines day, I get roses, completely unexpected and I am lovin it! Sometimes he can be so spontaneous, yeah for a cool husband! Ok, well it was cheaper to have them arrive a day early, but that's what makes me love him even more because he is Saving us money!!! Go hunny! So today they are opening even more and they look even better.
I got up this morning at regular time. Took a shower, washed my hair got dressed and dryed my hair. All in enough time to get down to Fred Meyer to pick up a coffee filter for the basket I made him. Sure girls love flowers, but my man LOVES his coffee and he hasn't been able to get it at work everyday. Chelsey comes in and saves the day! In my wonderful and cute basket were the following: rose pedals from the wedding (that he tossed all over his own desk), and bag of his favorite KENYA coffee from Starbucks, a new filter for his old coffee maker, and a new Starbucks pike place market coffee mug. This should now get him through his daily morning meetings with the best of ease.

We are going out to eat Sushi tonight, (I'd make a special meal but I cook and make special meals EVERY night). We both LOVE sushi so why spend a nice dinner anywhere else? We wouldn't! So I hope everyone has a special day whatever you do, and Happy Valentines day to you all! <3

Devin has a NEW love..

2008-02-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

So Devin has grown to love cats, (coming from a dog family), but my cat Myzzie isn't the biggest fan on him. She will always sleep with me and let me pet her, and Dev is just a little jealous. So we have been talking about getting a "baby" for HIM but we are not yet ready for that human baby. We have been going back and forth about getting a kitten or a puppy, and we also agree again that we are not ready for a puppy either. So the search is on for that one special kitty for Dev. We have been searching craigslist and stuff and have just come up short. We really want a kitten so that it can grow up with my cat, and it will grow up loving Dev. Well after about 2 weeks of searching, we went to the pound to see what they have. NO KITTENS. )-: Sad times there by the way. THIS one particular cat came up to the gate and started rubbing her head all over, and then the paws went to town doing her little kneeding thing. She was Irresistible and we had to touch her. Well the only way you can touch a pet is if you fill out all that stupid paper work. Then it feels like you almost have to buy a pet or they have your name in the system as like a killer of animals. Well we filled it out anyways, and got to go in a room with the kitty. From the moment she was put in our arms, it was a constant purrr and kneed. She was the sweetest thing ever.

Not to mention too that she LOVED, I mean LOVED Devin. She was rubbing her head all over him, she just didn't want to be put down.

This is the most cuddly and loving cat that I have ever seen. WE TOTALLY had to take her home. She is only a little over a year old and she still looks as small as a kitten. She will sit on your lap for as long as you sit there. And not once have we entered the room and not heard her purrring. She is a lover.

And look how happy the new pops is to have a love of his own. He has already become completly responsible for her and holds her all the time and she loves him just as much! IT just makes me feel that much more confident in his father abilities when that time comes for us to have our own babies!

And the Race is on.....

2008-02-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

The Boys about to race for the 2nd time. Devin was the only one who got yelled at that round. Bumping too hard hunny. Watch out. The race was on between Craig, Devin and Troy. Well, who won you ask? Craig Took first, Dev wound up second and as Troy skidded around that last corner, took the last place between the 3 boys, I mean Men.

Here is Craig, getting ready to go for race one and me getting ready to race, might I mention in my Uggs and my sweater. Serious Reacer right there! I did have my bike helmet with me though. It was FREEZING in that place, the smart ones brought gloves, Devin and I, not so smart. Our hands were BRIGHT red after only 10 min. I got the penalty flag on that race, going to fast around the corners and I spun out. "slow down" he yelled, ya ya ya ya, whatever.

There is Dev, getting ready to lap me later on that race..... GRRR I hate being such a girl sometimes, I'm not used to "Karting" like the boys are. At least I got out there!! We really had a good time getting together with Craig and Troy. We don't get to see much of Craig these days and we miss that. We don't get out much from working on the house either and in fact before we went, I was painting somemore!!!

The Kitchen work....

2008-01-31T11:43:00.000-08:00

This is the old kitchen, it was akward and really unusal to work in.

By the stove there was no counter. All your prep work had to be done either behind you or ON the stove. I hated cooking when we moved in there. Plus it was the same cabinets that were put in when it was bulit in 1967. The Stove was old and there was not a window on it, or even a timer. It was AWEFUL. It also had this weird ab-normal pungent smell in there. I tried Febreeze all the time, it would never go away. Well we found the smell when we ripped it all apart. It was under the sink area and there were tons of rat beds with mold and food. WOW!

This is the New updated kitchen!!! We LOVE it! We did all the work ourselves. It took us right about 1 month to tear apart, put back together and do some little details. There are still a few details that we are still working on, like the moldings, and the crown on the top of the cabinets. There is now a ton of usable working spaces in this kitchen. I find myself thinking all day at work what I want to make that night when I get home. We just have to sit sometimes and just stare at everything that we have accomplished in there since August. WOW is all to be said. OHHHH and we are still together! That is an accomplishment in itself when you have that much pressure and strain on a new marriage. (-:

2008-01-31T11:34:00.000-08:00

To this......

We did all that work in a month before we moved into the house. We also did it while preparing for the wedding in the same month. Can you say STRESS City? WOW, we didn't have water for a while in the place and it was the only bathroom. It was very difficult, but Dev can do ANYTHING. He is so amazing. We still got married and we still love showing in our "spa" shower!

House Work

2008-01-31T11:22:00.000-08:00

OK, so since we bought our house in August, we have done quiet a big of work to it, so I am going to post some pics for everyone to see. First will be the bathroom.

It went from this........

Not quite sure.....

2008-01-30T15:33:00.000-08:00

So, my first blog and I'm not sure where to start with this whole thing.... So maybe I will post some pics and stuff and you all can talk to me!!!

We're married and it's GREAT!!!!