Latest Fun/Project Updates

Missouri in July is darn HOT! Some days it is so humid, it takes your breath away. But we don't let it stop us from having fun. This last weekend was no exception.

What started out as a small excursion to the Cass County Fair with Chris, Barbie, and their kids turned out to be an impromptu BBQ party at our place. Our friend Mark, Chris' mom Jane, our friend Tof and his two boys, Aiden and Miles joined us as well. Though it was hot, we made the most of the day, enjoying the food, fun, and conversation.

The kids brought their fishin' poles to see what they could catch in our pond. Here they are heading out to fish.

Aiden waits patiently for a bite...


Grandma Jane gives Zachary the family fishing secrets (hint: it's bacon!)...

Looks like the bacon worked!

The kids had a great time fishing. Since our pond is full of hungry perch and catfish, you never have to wait long for a bite. After an hour or so, everyone headed back in to avoid heat stroke. The kids immediately crashed for a nap. The original plan was to go to the fair, but I think the fishing was the highlight of the day. By the time we got around to going to the fair, it was late and everyone was beat, so we didn't stay long. Regardless, it turned out to be a really fun day. I love when things turn out like that!

Sunday, we got back to work on our projects. Gabe helped me lay the rest of the tile in the bathroom. He cut the tile, and I laid it.
After which I decided to crash in front of the TV for the rest of the day. Apparently, Brody and Linus had the same idea!

Gabe finished the mailbox. It looks awesome! Nice for a first job, eh?

Once the mortar on the tile had a chance to cure, it was time to grout. So I finished that up Wednesday night. I am so glad this is almost done! The grout has to cure for three days, then I can seal it and start to put everything back together. I am really excited to see the final results and really glad its almost done.
Do-it-yourself projects are not very friendly to the old body anymore. Had to visit my trusty chiropractor this evening to get put back in line. I don't think I will be doing any more tiling any time soon. Whew, time for bed.

Rocky Mountain High (belated 4th of July fun)

In between all our remodeling, we did take some time out for fun. For the 4th of July weekend, Gabe went down to SW Missouri to see his family while I flew home to Denver. I hadn't been to Denver since Christmas and I was pretty homesick for family and friends. Plus, I LOVE Colorado in the summer.

I was lazy and didn't lug my big camera on the trip and now I am regretting it.

The weekend in Denver was awesome. It is always good to be home, see my family, sleep with the windows open...etc. My dad and stepmom have a great house to relax in. But as usual, it was a very busy trip. It is so hard to be able to see everyone in a short amount of time. I tend to have to go with a specific plan. Everyone is pretty good about the give and take. This trip, the goal was to spend some quality time with my girlfriends and also with my nephews, Alex, Austin and Richie. It had been entirely too long since I saw either.

I had a great time with my nephews on Friday. We had an early lunch, went to my brother's (Phil) to play some Rock Band, went to see Hancock, squeezed in some family time with a small BBQ at Dad's house then took the boys to see the fireworks. It was very busy, but an awesome day.

Saturday was my girl time day. I hadn't been to the mountains since we moved to Missouri, so I went with my BFFs Kristi and Collie up to Silverthorne (about an hour west of Denver) to shop at the outlet stores and have lunch at the Dam Brewery in Dillon. We had a total blast. I can't say how much I miss my girlfriends! Plus, being in the mountains again was wonderful. Its hard to be without them. Here we are posing for a pic on Kristi's blackberry. Just as we thought, time flew by and the day with the girls ended too soon. Saturday night I had dinner with Mom, Phil, Gretchen, and my aunt Maxie at our favorite sushi spot, Wasabi's then crashed at mom's place.

It was so great to be able to spend a little time at home. Its amazing how fast time flies and how much time goes by in-between visits. As always, I never get to see everyone I would like to, but there is only so much time. I wish there was a way to combine both places into one. But for now, I just do what I can, when I can.

Weekend Warriors

Ah, the joys of home ownership. Why do we buy a house we love, then immediately want to change it? Who knows. But this last weekend, we were working our hineys off.

Currently, we have two projects going. 1) Update the guest bathroom; 2) building a brick mailbox. The first has been planned for some time. The second was unexpected. Our normal mailbox finally made the hall of fame in "Mailbox Baseball". It barely opens enough to get the mail in and out. Time for a new one.

We started these projects the weekend before 4th of July. Being the time optimists that we are, we were confident we could get most of it done by the 4th. Yea, right. These projects never go as planned.

So this last weekend, Gabe worked on the mailbox while I continued with the bathroom. I took pics when I could along the way.

Here is the planned color scheme for the bathroom:

The plan for the bathroom was to replace the current tile, repaint, and strip and re-finish the vanity. Simple right? Sure, no problem!

Day One (two weekends ago):

Gabe pours foundation for the brick mailbox

Then he comes in to help me with the bathroom.

Here is the before pic for posterity purposes. Yea, it looks nice here, but trust me the blue was hideous. We had numerous gaping holes in the walls and the tile was in terrile shape. And ugly. And hard to clean. My justifications can go on and on...

Removing tile - this took all day:

End of day one:

It would be another week before we got back to work. It would take me 4 days to sand, strip and stain the bathroom vanity.

Finally, Saturday, I was able to start painting. 2 coats of primer, a coat of paint and some really sore arms later, its done. Note to self: vaulted ceilings are a B*$%& to paint. This is the only room in the entire house that has vaulted ceilings. Go figure.

New color. Better than the hideous blue. This pic doesn't really depict the color very well. Its not really this yellow.

While I was dealing with those shenanigans, Gabe was busy building the new mailbox. His dad Rick helps out.

Like a pro!
Needless to say we were pretty pooped from the weekend.

Now its Tuesday, and I just finished laying the first part of the tile. All I have left now are the cut pieces.

If my back holds out I hope to have this ready to grout by the weekend. But then again, nothing ever goes as planned. I am trying to remember now what possessed me to change the tile?????

oh yea......[sigh]....Time for bed.

Guilty Pleasures

In the midst of the never-ending remodel of our guest bathroom, I felt the urge to take a break. I really want to sit down on the couch with a cold drink and watch a movie, but I am resisting the temptation. Instead, I began thinking about guilty pleasures and decided to blog about the topic and share ours.

I have an immense amount of guilty pleasures. Food, of course. Diet Coke, movies, talk radio, laziness...etc. Gabe's probably include Dr. Pepper, World of Warcraft (video game), chocolate chip cookies. But recntly, both of us have developed 2 of the ultimate guilty pleasures that have become obsessions of late.

First, Rock Band. My brother Philip introduced us to this amazingly fun game. Thanks a lot, Phil. We are now officially obsessed. Complete with guitar, bass, drums and a microphone, Rock Band allows you to feel like you are literally in a Rock Band. The game comes with a plethora of different songs to choose from. Boston to Metallica..etc. From easy to really advanced. We have to pry eachother away from this game. Gabe usually sings or plays guitar. I am always the drummer (of course! ) We could seriously play for 24 hours straight if given the chance! Now when we hear songs on the radio, we think about how great it would be to play it on Rock Band.

Here is a clip. While Philip and Gretchen were here visiting, we spent several hours at Chris's house playing.

Our second guilty pleasure/obsession has been Battlestar Galactica. I am not talking about the 80's show. This one is the new version on the Sci Fi channel and it ROCKS! I never had the desire to see it, but Gabe rented the mini-series one day from Netflix and I watched it with him. We have not stopped since! The last three months has been nothing but Battlestar Galactica. We went through three seasons in a matter of weeks. Every night, we would watch 2 episodes. We would get so excited, we would rush to make dinner, just to make sure we had enough time to watch. We even picked up certain phases from the show and incorporated them into our everyday vocabulary. It sickening! I used the be the one to make fun of the Trekies and the Star Wars freaks. Well, now I am one of them. Along with my husband. If a Battlestar Galactica convention came to town, I think we would go!

Season 4 is currently on TV, so we have to wait until it comes out on DVD to continue. It is truly torture. Without Battlestar, we have been somewhat lost. TV just isn't as fun these days. Which I guess is good in a way. Leaves us the time now to do other stuff.

Speaking of, I better get back to the bathroom work. [sigh] Stay tuned to more on this. In the meantime, here is a sneak peek:

California Dreamin'

We had an absolute blast in Cali! We went there to attend the wedding of Gabe's college friend and decided to make an anniversary trip out of it and stay a few extra days in San Francisco. I had spent a very brief time in San Fran several years ago and have always wanted to go back. Our hotel location couldn't have been more perfect since it was about an hour drive to the wedding down south, and only an hour to Napa up north. Plus we were able to spend some time at the Fisherman's Wharf and tour the ellusive Alcatraz.
With that, I will turn it over to the pictoral narrative...


Day One: Wedding location just north of Santa Clara...a really cool, unique place to have a wedding.



All dressed up and ready to go!


A steam train takes us up to the ceremony location deep in the redwood forest.


Gabe's Vanderbilt buddies. From the left: Alison, Greg, Kara and son Joshua. Great people. We had a great time with them.


The 45 minute ride up was spectacular! I couldn't stop taking photos even though the photos don't do the trees any justice. They are huge and beautiful!
The ceremony took place in a small wooded grove.


Mr. and Mrs. Tran: Julie and Duc. Since Duc is vietnamese, they wore traditional wedding clothes and had gorgeous music.


The ride back was just as spectacular as the ride up.
Once back at the reception area, we found out that Julie had fallen ill and wasn't able to make the reception so we were sad not to be able to send her off with good wishes. Nevertheless, we had a great time at the reception, left early and drove the Pacific Coast Highway back up San Fran.




Day 2: NAPA! YEA! I didn't realize wine country could be so darn fun! We drove up Sunday afternoon and stopped at three wineries. We learned that depending on where you are in wine country depicts what types of wine you can find. Since we were in Napa Valley where the climate is hot and dry, the wineries there mostly make reds. Had we known this, we would have ventured to Sonoma where there are more white wines. However, we still had a complete blast. We had to take a break and stop at Dean and Deluca for some bread and cheese since we got just a tad too toasted! :)



Have to cross a bridge to get to Napa. This is the Bay Bridge. I was just a tad nervous on this one. I would hate to be here during an earthquake!

Nice view of Napa from the Rutherford Hill Winery

Last stop was the best! Mumm Napa. I am a sucker for sparkling wine and this was an awesome winery that specializes in sparkling wine. YUM! MUMM!

Great tasting room. It is a lot like a small bistro. After three glasses of bubbly I am H-A-P-P-Y! I loved it so much that I joined their wine club. We get a shipment of sparkling wine every two months. I just got my first shipment yesterday and am trying really hard not to drink it all at once!View of the Mumm vineyard.

These grapes were not quite ripe enough or I wouldn't be able to resist trying one! Not a bad pic for a tipsy Alli.
Day 3: Alcatraz!

Ever since my first visit to San Fran, I have always wanted to see Alcatraz. The recommendation is to take the night tour because its really creepy and cool, but they are very popular and is sold out well ahead of time, so we had to settle for the afternoon tour. Gabe and I stopped at Fisherman's Wharf for a fantastic lunch of clam chowder in a freshly baked sourdough bread bowl. yummmm! Then got on the ferry to The Rock.
Seeing this view for the first time takes your breath away. Its very surreal and creepy. The tour includes a self guided audio tour that is narrated by an old warden and a few of the former inmates. You really feel like you are there with them. The whole tour was great. We were not disappointed.

We couldn't leave with out the "Al Capone photo opp". But, there were so many people trying the same thing, the best we could do was this angle. With the wide open cell door, it loses the effect a bit, don't you think??? haha.

After returning to the wharf , we met up with Gabe's Vandy friends and had dinner at a funky garlic restaurant called The Stinking Rose in the heart of San Fran. The food left something to be desired, but the atmosphere was very "San Francisco".

The entire trip was great and created loads of great memories. We always have a lot of fun together. What was even better was knowing that when we got back on Tuesday we still had the whole week left! Wednesday we recuperated from the jet lag and spent time with Gabe's parents. Thursday, we went to Lake of the Ozarks to meet up with our friends Greg and Shawna. I was finally able to meet their son, Gavin, who is arguably the cutest baby on the planet! Here's to you Kunz family!

Once home from the lake, we spent the rest of the week with my brother, Philip, and his girlfriend Gretchen. It is always great to see them and spend some quality time. Unlike the last two times they came out, the weather finally cooperated and we were able to spend at lot of time outside, playing golf, frisbee, horseshoes, and enjoying the property and scenery. Of course, we also made time to get in some good video gaming with Chris and Barbie. It was quite hard to go back to work Monday, but I guess that why they say Life's a Beach! :)