Dusk and Popsicles

For records sake, pictures of one of our new nightly rituals. Popsicles after dinner in the front yard. Pretty much everynight I say to Jay, "Life seems sweet right now." It really does.

McGill Camping Trip

At the beginning of July, we took a short camping trip to McGill Campground for just two nights. We went up Friday night after work, turned around after forgetting the propane (this is the second time this has happened -- C'mon Propane Boy!) and got there a little after 9pm. After circling the campground several times, we selected our spot and set up camp. Waking up Saturday morning to the forest was just the ticket to make the trip backtracking for our fuel worth it. We spent the morning having coffee and watching Casey play in the dirt. 
And that was the basic agenda of the rest of the weekend. Expect we substituted coffee with a variety of meals and treats throughout the day. And Casey played in the dirt. Sometime on Saturday, our friends Hannah and Isaac showed up. And they joined in our non-agenda. Thanks guys for being our freebird friends who come for one night and are so relaxed. 

Here are some pictures to prove it:

Our Campsite

The cubby ankles kill me!

The best pic of Rosie from the weekend. Her sillouette through the tent.

For anyone local, here is my review of McGill Campground:

McGill Campground is located about 1 hour and 15 minutes outside of town near Pine Mountain Club. It is a walkup only compround with vault toilets and no water. You must bring your own water. We brought 5 gals of dishwashing water and 2.5 gals of drinking water for a two night trips. I wish we would have had more dishwashing water. I recommend this campground for it's proximity to Bakersfield. It is at a high enough elevation to where you can enjoy temperatures about 20 degrees cooler than in town. We saw one hiking trailhead and a couple of mountain biking trailheads. This is the campground to come to if you want to sit back and relax. My one complaint is that the campground host was a little too friendly; he was continually stopping by on his scooter and interrupting our needed relaxation. Even the over-friendly-want-to-be-campground-host Jayson got a little annoyed. Overall, a nice place to relax.

The June Haps

Here is a quick June recap in iPhone photos:

1. Casey looking adorable at work. Helping mama to copy the checks. Thanks baby!!

2. We celebrated our 5 year anniversary. Tried out Urrichios for the first time. We liked the food but not the atmosphere. Maybe won't go back there too often. But as usual, still had a super fun night with my hunky guy. Can't believe it has been five years. I feel like a different person than I was five years ago. Past Ally, you were such a silly little thing. Thankfully, loving each other as these new older people is better than I imagined. And more fun. Fun night of love. 

3. All the babies together! So cute and adorable! (Baby Nolan not pictured)

4.  Couldn't resist these two buddies and that cute baby butt.

5. Baby Eleanor Rose was born! 6/11/2015 weighing in at 5 pounds. She is a tiny little sweet thing.

6. The girls came! Amanda got married down South and all the girls came to stay for a couple of nights in Bakersfield before we headed down together. We had lots of fun hanging out, eating, and relaxing (and talking-- lots of talking). 

We went to Downtown Bakersfield to get coffees and walk around. We tried not to talk about the weather and how things are constructed too much, but it did come up a time or two. 

The two sentimentals got us to go on a walking tour of Biola to see the old stomping grounds before heading to the wedding. We grabbed a VERY quick bite, changed at Macys and made it to the wedding without that much time to spare (Jayson thought we were leaving WAY too early and mocked us -- not true). We got to see old Biola friends which was a lot of fun. Amanda was a beautiful bride! And it was such a fun wedding. The bride and groom exchanged spoken word type vows that were so original and beautiful. Great food, drinks, and dancing. 

And in trying to relive our glory days, we drove home after the wedding and stayed up way too late every night we were together and acted like college students. But I will be the first one to admit, I was beat after that weekend and felt older. I mean, a girl's gotta sleep... Am I right?

Love these people and the memories we make together.

7. Because there needs to be a collage of that sort of thing.

13 Months

Casey,
13 Months has been a wild ride. 
You started walking at about 13 and a half months. 
You started saying some more words. Ball. Up. Yes. And you are also getting more frustrated. You know what you want but you can't tell us. So you throw these whiny fits that just won't do. We are trying to communicate with you, we promise!
You eat everything. Constantly. Whenever you see anyone with food, you walk up to them and try to steal from them. You are quite the scavenger. You don't have any molars yet, but you think you can eat everything.(You still only have 6 teeth, one more looks like it is growing in on the bottom)
You sleep like a little baby again. You want to take a morning nap. And an afternoon nap. We just don't know what is going on. We are just along for the ride. 
You hold everything up to your ear like a phone. It is hilarious.

You have so much personality we almost can't stand it. 

You LOVE the pool. You kick your legs and screech when we go swimming. 

I think you are starting to have a strong fondness for Lyra. It took you awhile, but now that you are mobile, you guys play together. It really is the cutest things.

Taking you to work has become a bit more stressful for me and we are trying to figure out what is best for all of us. I am just so thankful for all of these months we have had together. You are my little buddy and I can't even really express how much I love you. 
And it just keeps getting better.

Floating Shelves

 Let's talk about my kitchen. This is it on a good day. Cluttered. No counter space. And a weird shape. But we can't do anything about the shape. No major renovations for us. Not right now anyway. 
I kept thinking, there has got to be a way to make this place cuter. 

One day last week, when Casey was taking a nap, I broke out a can of chalkboard paint that we have had for months and painted a wall. 

 And it added some fun to the kitchen. But I wanted more. I texted Jay and asked him if he would build some floating shelves in that alcove to the right. That little counter on the right is so small and packed with stuff. We need shelves bad. And the man looked up ideas (and even got a Pinterest where he has one board called DIY where he has two pins) and researched and planned and when he got home from work on Saturday, he went to work on the shelves.

While he was building, I painted the alcove. More chalkboard! And now that the upper portion of the plate rail is chalkboard, I need to paint the lower portion white. Add it to the list. [I need to make a sign that says 'Add it to the list' because we say it every day about this dang house] 

This is what the frame of the shelves looked like.  Then he put plywood on the top, bottom, and front of the shelf. We used a stain called 'Ash' and 2 coats of Satin Poly before using the nail gun to install the top, bottom, & sides.

Here is it! The before and after! 

Very happy with our final result! All of this stuff was floating around the kitchen or dinning room and now it has a place. You don't know how happy this makes me. 

And just for the record, this project took about 8 hours (that is counting drying time for stain and poly), 3 trips to Home Depot, 1 sassy Home Depot worker, 1 screaming baby when Jay used loud power tools, and two shutters from Jayson when he used the table saw for the first time after his incident. Good work StubbyFinger Jay. I am so impressed by you.

Cousin Time

I started watching Lyra a couple times a month to help out Shel and Eric and the cousins together are just too much cute. I love having them together to play. And I know they will be great friends. Here is just a SMALL sample of the pictures I have of them together.

Dining Lighting

Here it is! Our dining lighting! 

 Just kidding. This is just the base of the old light fixture. We have those terrible little boob lights all over the house. We have replaced two of them with ceiling fans in the bedrooms and the next one to go was the dining room. We wanted something simple but that added more light than the one bulb in the previous fixture.

 Here it is! A simple 6 bulb chandy. 

The Doors

Things are coming along. At least with one project.

The doors!

 When we moved in, we knew we needed to replace this set of french doors that lead out to the side patio. They didn't lock. There wasn't a good seal. Some glass was cracked. And let's face it, they were 90 years old. We like the style of doors because it fit the character of the home. We were interested in replacing them with wood 10 lite doors, but let's remember we are on a tight budget. 

 We also needed to replace the back door that leads into the backyard from the laundry room. This door was super janky. Lame kitty door. Didn't seal. Ugly window. No character.

A while back, I posted about our door inspiration for these two upgrades. I met a door contractor at a local door place (G.H. Slack and Son for anyone local) and got to see door options. I was adamant that I wanted wood doors so that it would match the character of our little charmer. (Wood was the way to go because they can be trimmed to fit the jam as where composite cannot.) And I also thought I really wanted 10 lite doors for the french doors. But after learned that if we got single lite doors with dual panes, we would say about $450, we went with the single panes. I was a little unsure of how the style would go well, but I am glad that we saved the money and went with the cheaper option. They are a bit more modern and easy to clean. We also opted to prime and paint the doors ourselves to save a bit more money.

Side patio door being painted.

For the back door, we got a six lite for a bit of character. I LOVE it. Especially because we went with the more modern doors in the dining room. Love the charm.

 Here it is primed, ready to be painted!

We decided to go with the "scrape the paint off the glass with the razorblade" approach. We may or may not have done that step yet.

 Here are the side doors after being painted. We went with a very dark gray. Almost black. I am so happy we didn't just stick with white... It adds something special to them.

And the back door! 

And of course, Before & Afters are a must:

I should really know this by now, BUT with every single project, I am reminded of how impatient I am. These doors have been quite the process. We are so busy and finding time to put a layer of paint on them has been difficult. And it has been difficult to paint in this blazing heat. Thanks to Jay for getting up before the sun to do one coat at a time. The man really doesn't stop. So pleased with the final outcome!