Sonia Approves

Well, the cat's out of the bag. Fiance and I are getting married. The invitations have been sent, it is now oh-fish-al.

The invitation. Geez. After approximately 62 hours, 150 envelopes and 200 sticky-booger-thingies we are finished with those dang invites. They are currently in some poor mail man's mail bag (they're quite heavy, you see) making their way around the country to the neatly (if I don't say so meeself) hand written addresses posted on the aaaalllllmoooostt too small envelopes.

The invitation process was a lot like the STD process.

Step 1: Research:

Notice I said "simple" a few times? HA!

Step 2: Adobe - create versions 1-324,242

The most difficult part of the invitation process was figuring out how to say who was inviting who. I didn't even consider the fact that it was my dear 'ol pa who was doing the inviting since the wedding is on him. Luckily a friend pointed out the err of my ways while looking at an early draft and we got that little problem fixed right up.

Step 3: Settle on final versions and promise myself to stop thinking of new ideas

Step 4: Send em off to print. **Don't ask any question lest you come up with a new idea just before you drop off the files

Step 5: pick up box of beautifully shrink wrapped invitation pieces. Gaze at your handy work with nostalgia for the long nights spent with Mac and Wacom.

Step 6: Search for envelopes that are big enough. Try online. Try two stores. Get a speeding ticket. Try a third store. Then a fourth store. Drive home with envelopes in tow and spirit in slight distress.

Step 7:  I really don't want to talk about this one.

Ok fine.

I'll talk about it.

Calligraphy. Write 50 addresses. Throw away fifty envelopes. Write 24 addresses. Throw away 24 envelopes. Write 15 addresses. Throw away 15 envelopes.

Repeat step 6.

Barf.

Step 8: Watch approximately 4 Discovery Channel's North America episodes while assembling invitations. Beg fiance for assistance. Watch as fiance sticks return address label to 12 envelopes and then quickly becomes exhausted. Complete assembly on one's own.

Step 9: Get rid of the bastards. Drop em in the mail box and walk away. Just walk away.

As you can probably see, then invitation process got a little.... shall we say, trying? But alas, it was all worth it because Grandma Sonia approves:

Please note English is not Grandma Sonia's first language. 

Back to the Grind.

You didn’t think we’d stay a way from yard work for long, now did you? Of course not. Not with fiancé running the show. A couple of weekends ago (I’ve really got to up my blog-keeping game) we had a big yard project to tackle – Operation: STUMP REMOVAL.

Yep, that’s right. Stump Removal. The angelic homeowners who occupied 16202 before the pack and I moved in cut down 6 massive cedar trees. “Why?” you ask.. “WHY?!” to which I’d reply, “Heck if I know.” 

 Alas, we had six giant stumps lining our back fence, preventing the planting of new, healthy, neighbor-view-blocking trees and taunting Jaydee. They had to be removed and luckily for us there’s a machine that’s made to do just that.

The machine. It was a beast.

Ok, I know this doesn't look very scary... but on the business end, this bad boy was equipped with teeth that promised to destroy anything it came in contact with. It was real mean. I always trust the pooches for character judgment and I'll tell ya what, Bruce wasn't a fan from the get-go.

Getting the Stump Grinder (shall we call her "S.G."?) in the backyard was the hardest part. After multiple attempts at backyard entry from various points around 16202, Jaydee finally decided that the best bet was to take S.G. up the skinny little walkway to the right of the garage. 

Unfortunately for Brewski, Jaydee found out that S.G.'s outer tires were removable and without the extra four inches on either side, S.G. did, in fact, fit up the walkway.

Poor Bruce. 

Jaydee and Toby [slowly] managed to get S.G. up the slope, into the back yard, positioned over stump #1 and ready to to start chewing. 

When we were finally ready to start grinding, we were all just about dead from anticipation. Jaydee fired S.G. up and slowly lowered the mean teeth over the stump #1. 

Because of the excitement, Toby, Bruce, Trent and I were all standing quite close to S.G. We quickly learned that was a mistake. We were forced to retreat back towards the house to remove the cedar chips from our teeth and watch from afar.

Like most projects with new, exciting, industrial equipment, stump grinding was real fun for about 10 minutes. Then it got boring. So we tried to mix it up.

I stump grinded.

Then Toby took a stab at it.

After that, Trent gave it a go.

Juuuuust kidding. Trent's a dog - he can't stump grind. It's the lack of thumbs.

As is the case with most yard projects, I failed to understand the commitment I was making when I signed up to help fiance with this project. I didn't realize that for every stump we ground, we'd wind up with about 824,324,932 lbs of stump dust that had to be shoveled into a wheel barrow, wheeled somewhere, and then shoveled out.

Finally after about 5 hours of S.G. hard at work and lots and lots of shoveling we were stumpless x 6.

 

S.G. was done. It was time for the 'ol girl to make her slow descent across the yard, down the skinny path, across the driveway, up the ramp and back into the trailer. Her exit was slow and anticlimatic (much like her entrance)...

Where did we put all that stump dust, you may wonder?

At Bruce's house.

Taking Decorating Skillz for Granite

It's detail time. Jaydee and I thought picking out the pretty things was gonna be a breeze. We thought, "We can do whateeeevvvveeerrrr we want. We've both got great taste! This will be cake!". We were wrong. I turns out we both have really terrible taste and neither of us care a whole lot for this "matching" trend we've been hearing so much about.

We walked into the rock shop and started looking for counters. My eyes were immediately drawn to this gem.  

OOOOOOHHHH, I thought. This looks like the jungle! I took a second to imagine my bathroom as a jungle then hefted the slab of granite over to fiance to ask his opinion. He loved it. Then we said stuff like, "Yeeeahhh it seems really, like, adventurous. Yeah, kind of like a dinosaur..."
"YES. It's like a dinosaur. It'll be so zen and outdoorsy. Like being outsides while we're inside."
"Perfect."

We were feeling really proud of our quick decision so we continued through the store with a new pep in our step picking out tiles and shower accents that we thought would look just stellar with the granite we had picked out. Here's what we came up with:

Fortunately for 16202, I have a life coach named Sister, and I decided to share some pictures with her before we committed.  She said, "I thought that was a picture of a tree.... A little busy." What she really meant to say was, "Dani. This is hideous. You can't just pick jungle pictures to plaster all over a bathroom.... especially if you also want rocks in your bath tub. The answer is no. Try again and this time, try not to be such a goon."

Phew close call. A quick Google search on "rainforest granite in the bathroom" after sister's warnings yielded troubling results:

Oops. My bad. We sadly replaced all of the unique bathroom pieces we had collected and started again. This time with tempered spirit. Finally, after some very tense moments (including one when Jaydee's foot itched so terribly bad from frustration that he had to, literally,  drop everything he was holding, sit on the ground, remove his shoe and scratch his foot (This really happened.)). Alas, we arrived at what we thought was good compromise between jungle bathroom and boring hotel bathroom.

Once again, we were pretty sure we nailed it. Luckily, the woman at the rock shop wasn't afraid to speak her mind. "Gold? You're going to go with gold counter-tops?" Another quick Google search:

Eek. No Gold. This time Jaydee got real smart and asked the nice lady "What color would you pick?" Genius. She suggested something a little less... shall we say... rich. We settled on a nice white-grayish number with the exciting word "fossil" in the name.

And so, my friends, there you have it. Ze batroom: 

De Walls are Gone

My favorite thing about this whole renovation thing is that I have no clue what's going on. I just live at 16202 and things happen. It's great. Who doesn't love surprises? I came home to a couple of good ones today...

Surprise #1: ugly blankets on the floor

Surprise #2:Ugly blankets on the floor lead to wall missing at the end of the hall way

 Surprise #3: Many walls are missing!

 

 

The gun and craft room is now in the process of becoming a smaller gun and craft room and the hall closet is a goner. We are a couple steps closer to a bedroom with a door and an attached bathroom. Yeehaw! Here's where we're headed... 

Pretty big surprises, huh? Well we're not done yet. 

Surprise #4: Jaydee decided to launch an impromptu, backyard excavation project!

Why you ask? Well, because this offensive black box was too far out into the yard. So, he started to dig it out to move it then, naturally, he got curious. What do these pipes REALLY look like under here? Are they grey the WHOLE way? Sooo he decided to just go on ahead and dig up whole the gosh dern thing.

This guy doesn't do things half way. Fortunately, Jaydee had help with this last minute project. Trent oversaw the entire thing.

These last couple surprises blew mind. Who could expect this?...

Surprise #5: BEAN SPROUT!

  

Surprise #6: TEENSY TINY TOMATO SPROUT!!

  
Surprise #7: THYME SPROUTS!

 Surprise #8: BASIL SPROUTS!

 Surprise #9: GREEN ONION SPROUTS!

 

Geez Louise!