Cleaning up

I almost forgot...We cleaned up the guest room/office to make room for my parents while they're here and I forgot just how big that room is! On a downside, the dining room is a cluttered mess

Busy weekend

I would like to start my showing you how much eclair loves sitting with her daddy and how he lets her NO MATTER WHAT...case in point a game of Halo on Xbox and eclair perched atop his lap...and for good measure an up close shot of our first born...

We're trying to get the house and the projects ready for my parents arrival so all of our renovations go as smooth and quick as possible. we had a lengthy to do list this weekend and we cleaned the house top to bottom, painted the new mantle and trim for the bathrooms, mowed and edged the yard, planted a new lemon tree, trimed up the herb garden and last but not least totally removed the hot tub from the back yard....YEAH! it was a pain because it's quite heavy and there are only 2 of us, one of those 2 is me and I just can't lift that much and we have a NARROW exit to the street where it needed to go...here are some pics of our progress...oh yeah, and I unhooked the 220v power supply from the hot tub myself! GO ME

First, our freshly mowed and edged lawn...the front of the house needs something and I'm not sure what, window boxes maybe?

Our new lemon tree (on the right, the left is the pear we planted last year...yes it's alive)

A lovely reminder of our hot tub taking up 3/4 of the small back yard

and where it now awaits the garbage man's pick up

The wonderful back yard now! We can actually get some furniture out here now. Before placement was so ackward and we hardly used the hot tub so when it stopped working a few weeks back we decided it HAD to go...We've been looking at new yard sets, this was a hand me down from Cindy

Some people don't listen.

As I've been with this practice longer I've started having repeat patients...I still refuse to 'give out my card' which means the hospital can contact me NO MATTER whether I'm on call or not. I have one patient in particular who keeps telling me she'll refuse to push if it's not me...I've tried telling her that isn't the way this office works and she just ignores me...LADY, I'm not going to wake up from my beauty sleep if I'm on on call, I have a life. I feel like planning a vacation just so I have an excuse. UHHHHHH
On a better note, Dominic is in line to be promoted at his office, the one only a mile from our place, as soon as his current boss leaves for Nevada. Problem is her house is a short sale which means this could be a while...Come on lady we really need that company car!

the remodel bug!

It seems like everyone has been bitten with the remodel bug, us included. This weekend we went to the Zank's and helped them kick off their kitchen remodel. Taking down the cabinets seperating the kitchen and dining area really opens up the space and lets so much more light into the kitchen...check it out!

From inside the kitchen

Looking into the kitchen from the dining roomAfter! The guys just sat there drinking beers while us women took care of everything...:)

new 'view' from the other side


This weekend was busy for us too, we bought the toilets and vanity tops for the bathrooms so we know everything is a go when my parents get here. We can't wait for their arrival so we can get the house cleaned back up again...and we get to see Hailee again

Lodi is dangerous

When we first moved to Cali we used to go up to Lodi, a wine appellation in central California known for their zinfandels, we love this area because it's so much smaller than Napa and Sonoma and really helps us to learn about the wine and tasting...for example today we met mr. berghold the owner of a gorgeous winery,

he actually did our tasting. On other occassions we've been taken back to the barrel room for impromptu barrel tastings and taken through vineyards for off the vine grape tastings! However, since we purchased our house we've taken very few trips (it's only a 45 min drive) because we tend to drastically increase our collection, case in point the picture below....

This is just todays purchases, some of these are meant to be aged for several months to several years so they're not all "available" at our whim.

You can see several bottles of Jewel wine. We're club members there and just love their wine. It's reasonably priced and tastes great, we always have a fun time at the tastings and even did a blending party last summer (this is much more difficult than we were intending but dominic and I would both encourage everyone to try it out) Guess not having much to do around the house and knowing we have a good sized refund check can be BAD influences!!!!

the floors, and countertops

I had a request for the surfaces all together...here they are mom! The tile is for the bathrooms, the wood is what we're getting in the house in the next 6m (thanks uncle sam) and the long piece running across is the countertops in the bathroomand in the spirit of easter...my new EARS! please ignore the tag, i've since taken care of that

Feeling accomplished

I have today off and Dominic had the afternoon off yesterday so we got the bathroom painted and the weekend hasn't even really started yet! we went with the lighter color which was a great choice since it feels darker with the whole bathroom painted. Now I just have to get that vanity stripped and painted white