We have been speanding most of our time off from work making a very large planter. When we laid sod in our backyard we left a corner covered with visquine for a raised bed.

We had to remove a bunch of dirt to lay the foundation.

There was a lot of shoveling gravel. Very heavy! Then we laid the first course of bricks. Leveling them was very difficult and took a couple of days.

Stephen did a great job breaking the bricks to make all the corners.

Stand by for more!

Kitchen demo

We wanted to open up our kitchen a bit and add a bit more storage so we decided to get rid of the bar that was too skinny to eat at, so tall it made the kitchen seem smaller, and had no storage under it.







Now we have two levels of shelving and two drawers! We also have a much more open kitchen.
We also know why the heater in the bar never worked. However, we don't yet know why the power cable runs in the opposite direction from the electrical panel or where it goes. We'll have to wait for our actual kitchen remodel to figure that out I guess.

We just got home from an awesome vacation. We drove down to California and then back up.






We spent a lot of time in the car,












Stayed at many hotels,










Visited lots of wineries, drank lots of wine,











Enjoyed the view at many beaches,










Hung out with friends and family,











Watched some Olympics,












Sat inside a huge tree, drove through a huge tree,










Saw the bluest water we've ever seen,










walked through a very strange house,
(winchester mystery house)




and much much more!

More Pics of Gracie

Gracie is doing very well . When we got her she was 6.3 pounds, but she has grown to 11 pounds now, and our vet has had us up her food intake. She is still a handful, but is just the cutest little dog in the world. Especially when she's sleeping...
She loves to run around in her yard; she likes to be chased and to bite your pant legs (we're trying to correct that...)


Once again, sleeping is still her favorite. 2 naps a day minimum. I wish I could have that every day.


She's taken to burrowing beneath the covers when we let her sleep in the bed. I don't know how instinctual that is, or if it's just warmer under there.


I swore that when I had a dog she would never be allowed on the couch. That lasted for roughly 4.3 seconds. I believe we let her sleep on the couch starting on the first night. Oh well. How can you refuse that face?


This picture must be a little old, as the stuffed chicken she's holding has since met it's untimely demise. She now has a bunny to wreak physical violence upon.


Um... Did I mention she's cute?


Really enjoying our new family member. She's getting really good at potty training, and knows sit, stay, come, down, and is doing much better at leash training. She has learned to bark, though, and is now barking at people and dogs she sees outside, as well as the TV (Darn you Animal Planet in HD!)

Anyway, she's the best. She brings sunshine and joy wherever she goes, gets stopped all the time on walks by admirers, and even makes random passers-by smile as they walk by her. One woman asked us to take a picture with her and gracie, and we've even had someone pull over their car so they could get out and meet her and pet her. Just amazing.

We hope you can meet her soon.

The fence project

We got a dog so we had to build a fence.

We live next to a grassy / weedy area and we needed a buffer, so we built a three foot rock border around the fence post. Shoveling the 1 1/2 inch gravel was by far the hardest part of the project. Our backs hurt for days.



Then we installed the 2 by 4 rails. This is when we discovered that the company we hired to install the rails didn't do the best job. There was a pretty big difference in the measurements between posts.

Stephen worked out a formula for spacing the pickets so you can't tell that the measurements are a foot different in some cases (we also got to buy a really nice finish nailer... YES!).

We went for a shadow box look with dog ears at the top of the pickets.


Now we have a beautiful cedar fence for our sweet puppy to run around outside. And a little privacy from our neighbors as well. Our back yard is nowhere near done, but we're well on our way.

Our New Addition

We got a puppy!!!

Gracie is a very sweet 11 week old tri-color ticked 13 inch beagle.


Her favorite activities are chewing on rawhide, carrying around her stuffed chicken, and cuddling.


Did I mention going potty? She likes that too.

Gracie loves her buddy Lulu (a friend's dog) but Lulu is not so sure about anything with that much energy.


She is very smart. She knows her name, is pretty good at coming, and is well on her way to going potty on command. We still have a few accidents inside every once in a while, but she's doing very well.

It's not a very good video, but I figured what the heck.




We start puppy kindergarten Monday and I'll try to get a better video there.

Grahams vs. the Blackberries

We have blackberries in our backyard. A lot of them. When we bought our house, we knew that they were an eyesore, but we figured "get rid of the blackberries, and instant equity in the house!"

Get Rid Of The Blackberries seemed so easy at the time. Well, we know better now.

I still think that it was a good idea to get the house with the intention of turning a blackberry wasteland into a useable backyard, but it was a heck of a lot of work, and it will be a recurring theme over the next few years.

Step 1: The initial assault: After reading a hundred different websites about getting rid of blackberries, and talking to a hundred different people about their opinion, we had two hundred different possible techniques. We chose to forego spraying the leaves with herbicide once they started growing, in the hopes that we could stem the tide before summer. So we cut them down right away. We rented a 20 cubic yard dumpster, and filled it with Blackberry vines and a couple sagebrush trees that were lurking nearby, and fell likewise under our wrath. We left the vine stalks about 6 inches high, mostly because that was easiest, but also so that we could locate and destroy them more fully later.

Step 2: Dig up the Vines: At first we were just digging them up with the shovel, and that was okay, but it took quite a while per vine.

It was then that I found the optimal device for Blackberry vine removal: The Mattock. It is essentially a battleaxe for lawns. It has a pick on one side, and an axe-blade on the other side oriented like a hoe.


With a Mattock, one can hack at the ground with abandon. The earth breaks up much easier, and the blackberry vines come up equally easy. One gets a bit of dirt down the back of one's shirt occasionally - due to the raising of a dirt-encrusted axe blade over one's head - but that is of small consequence when you see the immense blackberry vines that one is able to wrest from the unforgiving earth.





Step 3: Smothering: The last step that we will be engaging in until next year, is to smother the ground. We found at Costco, a huge roll of landscaping fabric for 30 bucks. We bought two. We also called some tree services that advertised free wood chips, and got on their list. We then took a bag of landscaping lime, and spread it out liberally over the whole area. This is supposed to "sweeten" the soil - raise the Ph level so that the acidity of the soil is much less. The more you can get the soil out of the Acid range, the less hospitable to blackberries it will be.

Next, we spread the landscaping fabric over the whole area, and covered it with the wood chips that were delivered by the tree service. What this is supposed to do is to keep anything from growing under the fabric, kill off the remaining blackberries, and enrich the soil by decomposing, and thereby mulching, any plant material under there. The Fabric is better because it doesn't let sunlight through, but it lets water through. Hopefully, any nutrients from the wood chips will also get under there and next year, we will have soil ready to grow a nice lush lawn.

The blackberries will continue to be a problem, of course. They are persistent, but I think we've got them on the run. We'll continue to look out for them, will be able to identify any interlopers, and will destroy them forthwith.

Stay tuned for more as we have some great stuff coming up, like pictures of our finished bathroom, AND our contribution to the creation of a brand new wetlands area!