one whole year!

happy anniversary to us!   ray and i will be celebrating our actual anniversary by going to the OC fair tomorrow where we will eat roasted corn, funnel cake and maybe chocolate covered bacon?  i can't believe it has been a year, it seems like only a few months ago.  mom and pat sent a card and sharon and dad arranged for flowers to be sent from our florist - what a nice reminder of the beautiful day!

here's to the beginning of year number two!

memory card reader found!

disclaimer:  in no way are these photos actually representative of how cool our house and kitchen will actually be when finished.   (those of you who have never been here before, be sure to click on the orange text above for more photos!)

two weeks ago, ray, the cats and i moved into a hotel for three days so that matthias (from MTF flooring) could rip out our carpet, the tile underneath (and the asbestos - yikes!), put down a moisture barrier and install our beautiful new white bamboo floor.  okay, technically it is called tan shan mist or something but it looks white to us!   the hotel was interesting - the cats really enjoyed the fact that they could crawl inside the mattresses and hide from me. especially the day that i was bringing them home.   

since the move home from the hotel on the 1st of may, despite ray working his butt off every day and well into the night sometimes, we've had a few things hold up our progress - a part for our new electrical box happened to be on special order, our plumber was on another job and wouldn't be able to make it over right away and our pendant lights are still in transit but...after four months we finally cooked dinner!! 

babies, babies, babies...

i love the super easy baby blanket it certainly is just that - super easy!  i've made three over the past couple of months for cousins and friends and am looking for the next lucky baby so i can make another!  

for cole

for tosh

for ???? - matt and erin's baby, due in may

we passed!

framing - check.  

electrical - check.  

plumbing - check.  

over the last three weeks, ray (and dave and ron and the plumber) have been hard at work to get to this point.  now that we passed inspections- we will have walls within a couple of days, cabinets within a few weeks and a real kitchen is on the horizon!! 

who needs a kitchen sink?

before

after

operation kitchen has begun. for real now. i'm actually a little scared to go through the kitchen to the garage. too many nails, random left over 2 x 4s and crazy tools laying around. the small amount of dishes that are dirtied are washed in the bathroom sink. that is not so easy to do so we've resorted to using some paper plates and bowls.

we continue to find strange things throughout the kitchen as we tear down to rebuild. i'm sort of surprised that the house was standing with some of the jerry rigged craftsmanship, electrical work and plumbing. good thing we have a good wrecking and rebuliding crew - ray and dave!

hopefully rob will join in soon when he has time.