Year of the House Update

We're more than half way through 2015.  Our 10 year house anniversary is coming up in 3 months, so I thought I'd see what we've finished so far.  In January, our list seemed pretty big, but little by little, we're getting there!

We've finished:
The gutters were cleaned and the house was power washed.
The three dead and dying trees were taken out.
We planted three new trees - Vanderwolf Blue Pine.  They started about 5 feet tall, and are already about 6 feet tall.
Landscape rock was added to two beds.
We put 7 cubic yards of mulch in the backyard.
Dead branches have been trimmed.
We bought a new sofa and chair for the living room, and a new rug for upstairs.
Our most recent improvement was having the shutters painted - still blue, but fresh and clean and not faded - and painting the front door.

 After the shutters were taken off

 Fresh clean shutters put back up

 Freshly painted front door - Eddie Bauer Mercer Blue

In 2015, we'd still like to:
Have the floors refinished.  We've had an estimate, and just need to figure out where to relocate ourselves and two animals for the 5 days that we'd have to be out of the house
Replace the counter, sink, and faucet in the half bath downstairs.

Next year, we'd like to:
Replace the floors, sinks, counters, and faucets in both upstairs baths.
Convert the claw foot tub to a shower

College Roommate Reunion

This weekend I was able to get together with my college roommates.  Christina and I were roommates all four years, and Jen and Lorie joined us for the last two years, although we were friends with them before that.  

 It's been about 15 years since all four of us have been together, and we had the best time.  We brought photo albums from college and had so much fun looking at the pictures and laughing.

 I'm sure there were other people in the deli, but for three and a half hours, the world shrank down to our table.

 Here we are way back when...I think this would have been December 1996.  I had a fantastic college experience, thanks in large part to these lovely ladies.  I hope it's not another 15 years until we can get together again!

Starvy Creek Bluegrass Festival

We had a fun 4th of July weekend, despite the weather's attempts to thwart it.  I've wanted to go to the Starvy Creek Bluegrass Festival for a couple of years - after seeing a bumper sticker and hearing it advertised on the radio.  I don't really know anything about bluegrass, but I like the sound.  We've had a lot of rain this July, but we braved the weather and headed out. 

 We saw six or seven different bluegrass bands, as they changed about every thirty minutes.  That was perfect for my short attention span! ;)

 Eventually the sun came out a bit, and it really was a nice day.  Not too hot, but plenty muddy.

 Many people camp, sometimes setting up a couple weeks in advance.  We loved this Shasta camper and it's matching tow vehicle.  It was a great afternoon at Starvy Creek!  I hope to go to the next festival in September.

 The 4th of July was a beautiful day.  Finally dry, but not yet hot.  The boys played with their toy cars - oh, excuse me, I meant, the grown men worked on their scale models - in Todd's backyard.

 I just moved from my own hammock in our backyard to Todd's hammock in his yard.  It was tough, but I managed. ;)

We celebrated the 4th with friends, food, and fireworks at Brad and Stacie's house.  The 4th is one of my favorite holidays, and I like to stretch out the celebration as long as possible, so we had friends over on Sunday for grilled burgers.  It started raining again Sunday evening, and didn't stop for what felt like a week.  Just glad we had some good weather between storms to get out and play!