Our new driveway . . . and other landscape to come . . .

Our driveway will be sealed next week and we can drive on it then. Also, we'll put a new sprinkler system and sod plus other plants in the spring.

Santa Claus is coming to town . . .

Our annual trip to San Francisco via BART for breakfast with Santa at the Hyatt Hotel. We meet Great Grandma Estelle who treats us all! Austin and Brooke's Grandma Lynne, Auntie Pam and cousin Trent also join us each year.

Granite is in!!!! Almost finished . . . yes . . . with the KITCHEN!!!!!

Here's a sneak peek of our progress!!!

We have back splash to install, a built-in pantry in the right back corner of the kitchen, and baseboards below the cabinets. Then we'll call it a day . . . or a year, rather!!!
We are thrilled to be in the final stretch of our kitchen upgrade!

Happy Halloween!!

Austin was the Magical Wizard and Brooke, Cinderella! Another successful Halloween with treats galore!!!!!

Kitchen Remodel? Oh yeah, we're finally moving forward . . .

These are the cabinets we had built from a local cabinet maker to match the rest of our cabinets. This one we had "feet" attached to make it look like a piece of furniture.

This is one of the original cabinets, an upper cabinet, that will be installed on the wall above the cabinet with the feet.

These corner shelves will be attached to the upper cabinet, on the right side.

This is the microwave, oven and warming drawer appliances tower. To the left is a cabinet where our wine cooler will be "built in".

All the existing cabinets will be torn out in the next week or too and the new ones installed including the ones you see above.

Ragnar Relay 2011 San Francisco to Napa Valley Sept. 16-17

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What's Ragnar? A 24 hour relay race involving a team of 12 who take turns and run 3 different times to ultimately end up at the designated destination. We ran from San Francisco to Calistoga. It was quite the experience and a whole lot of fun! I, Cami, ran my first leg at around 9:30am 5.4 miles. My second leg was at 7:45pm 3.3 miles and my last leg was at 5am the following morning 5.4 miles. I was challenged but not defeated by any means. It was more of a personal test to see how I'd hold up. There are deffinately going to be more races in my future.

Austin's 10th Birthday Party

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Our Florida Vacation

We went back East to visit Grandma Gail for 16 days.  Spent a week at Daytona beach in a condo and also visited Universal Studios Island Adventure to experience The Wizardly World of Harry Potter.  The only way you could see the inside of the castle was to wait in line for the simulation ride.  The hour wait was worth every minute!

Ponce Inlet Lighthouse.  This is at the end of Daytona Beach.  It's a museum but still works as a lighthouse too.

A community effort to build this sandcastle.  It was a days work.

The Alantic Ocean was about 73 degrees.  That was nice since the air was 92 degrees plus 95 degree humidity!

At the top of the lighthouse.

Our condo for the week.

The butterbear was great.  You could order it frozen or cold.  We had the frozen version and the froth on top was like buterscotch cream.  It tasted like a frozen carmel slushy.  Seriously sweet!

The 205 steps we climbed to the top of the lighthouse.  Kind of scary but the views were amazing!

Hagrid's Hut.  You walk by it while waiting to ride the Hippogriff rollercoaster.     Aside the 90 degree weather every day, we stayed pretty cool and enjoyed our time with Grandma!

Summer! It's finally here . . .

First day swimming in our pool.  It's finally reached 84 degrees, warm enough for us folks!  It's hard to believe we are swimming because it's been so cool this year.  We were swimming last year by the end of May!  Finally, let the fun begin!

Ceiling has been lifted. . .

Our pendant lights are wired and hung over the breakfast bar!   The shades are a clear glass with seeded texture.   Our ceiling is drying and will need texture and paint to be complete!

The kitchen already feels larger!  It's getting exciting!

TOOTHLESS BEAUTY!

Brooke's self portrait with both front teeth gone!  She lost the second tooth yesterday, literally, so we plan to write a letter to the tooth fairy in hopes she'll still visit!

Recess Lights Installed . . . waiting for the sheet rock to go up!

 It's hard to really tell or take a picture of all the lights as they are recessed but this gives you a general idea!  And we are using the latest LED lights that actually give a nice warm glow like a regular light bulb (not the bright white light we are used to) and these lights will last around 22 years! 

The new pendant lights are ready to be installed too!  The are hanging over our breakfast bar.  I just put them up this way to make sure they are not hanging too low.  The shades will be a clear glass bell shape with little bubbles in it like blown glass.

THE FAKE CEILING IS GONE!

This is the ceiling completely gone before the new frame was installed!

Ricky and a guy he and Pat work with tore out the fake ceiling and then framed in the new one!  It was nicely done.  You can see the new frame boards through the plastic.
Now we are living with a huge plastic sheet hoping the electrician will come soon to install the recessed lights.
Then the sheet rock can been installed and taped, mudded, textured, primed and then finally painted!  So many steps for a new ceiling!  Who would ever guess as it looks simple, when completed.

Oh, and Ricky purchased our gas cooktop made by GE Profile with the downdraft, and a stainless steel single bowl sink.  The sink will be undermounted after the granite is installed.  When, you wonder?   So do I?

First of the old cabinets GONE!!!

Ricky removed the upper cabinets in the kitchen.  So, now my kitchen has extended into my dining room as my dining room table will serve as cabinets for the time being.  I even packed up dishes; etc. that I know we won't be using anytime soon.

Our Kitchen, the continued saga ...

All that insulation, the loose stuff (ugh!), is being shifted out of the kitchen ceiling area up in the attic space.  That way when we take the ceiling out and re-frame the ceiling level with the breakfastroom, we can then re-use the insulation.  That's Ricky above, in the attic, wearing a mask and getting to it!  Another reason for this is so when the ceiling gets taken down, we won't have a bunch of this stuff floating around in the air in our house or dropping into the kitchen area!

Next step, waiting for the framer who will help do our ceiling job!  Any week now  . . . . humm . . . .

Soccer for the first time

Brooke is enjoying her first experience playing soccer.  You can't tell that she really likes it!

Austin's tennis clinic

Austin has been taking a tennis clinic regularly and really enjoying it!  He's been playing for 2 year now.

Easter Sunday Sunrise Service, 2011

Woke the kids up at 5:30am Easter Sunday to do a 25 minute hike up some hills for our church service.  It was cold and rainy.  The kids were troopers and it was a wonderful experience!

Kitchen Progress ... Step One

We had the cabinet pros out here last Sunday with Ricky for the cabinet layout.  They took out the cabinets they can use for the kitchen, measured, and noted where they will go.  It took a good 2 1/2 hours. 
Waiting on the demo date!!!!

Running, running, gone!! Cami's trail race experience

I ran my first trail race this past Sat., the Diablo Trails Challenge.  I did the 10k, up hills in the mud, rain, and through knee deep streams.  It was awesome and challenging.  I fell twice, slipping from the heavy mud.  It felt like running in sand as I never got real good footing.  Hopping down the hills was fun and hard as I had torked my body in ways I never thought was possible to avoid falling.  My good friend joined me and now our goal is to run a 1/2 marathon next year.  Here's the link of the race to show how muddy it was!  www.brazenracing.com/diablo.html
I've always enjoyed running all my life, did a few short course triathlons in college, and then I had kids.  Now, ten years later, I've managed to run and maintain my interest and ability to now join in some fun races.
The weekend of Sept. 17, 2011, I will participate in the Ragnar Relay 24 hour race from SF to Napa Valley.
You can check out this race at http://www.ragnarrelay.com/.  I'm one of 6 women and there are 6 men on our team of 12.  We will each run three different legs of this race until 24 hours is up and we reached the finishline.  It's going to be on heck of an experience!  Let the training begin!!!!

Ceiling . . . be gone

I think one of the very first steps is to remove this fake ceiling you see above.  That's going to be a lot of labor and then building some support beams for new sheetrock.  Why do they ever put these in?  We will get more light once it's out.  Currently the lights in the ceiling are somewhat shadowed.  I'm ready!  Where's the hammer!