If You Take Down A Wall..........

Remodels are a lot like that children's book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie". 

Once you remove the walls, you'll have to raise the floor.

If you're going to raise the floor, you'll have to take the flooring off. 

& if you're raising the floor & taking the flooring off it only makes sense to raise the door also. 

& once you remove the flooring you have to clean it up so...... 

You can frame the floor in. 

Once you frame the floor & start laying the sub floor down........ 

You realize it's time to raise the slider. 

Since you have to raise the slider you figure you might as well add the nicer upcycled Anderson slider you rescued from a remodel job up at the lake. That means cutting a bigger hole in the wall & framing it in.

After you've cut the bigger hole it's time to add the slider. 

Now that you've raised the floor it's time to........... 

Pull the flooring up. 

So you can put it all.... 

Back..... 

Down again. 

And that's what happens when you take down some walls.

There is so much more that will be happening with this room but for now we are focusing on the room addition. I love having a more open space & the kids do too. It's nice to have the floor all at one level. No more tripping down an awkward step! More updates of the remodel to follow :)

Gold Lake

Life has been so busy lately. Sometimes it's hard to take the time I need to enjoy my family. Don't get me wrong, I spend a ton of time with the kids on a daily basis. It's just I find myself preoccupied with the day to day tasks that I sometimes wonder, how much of my time am I really giving to the people that matter most?

So when Dean suggested we head to California & spend an afternoon at Gold Lake I was excited. We'd like to do more activities like this with the kids. So we packed up a lunch, I juiced (more on my 30 day juice fast in an upcoming post) a Mean Green for later, then we packed up the car & headed out on our family adventure.

Nothing says lazy afternoon at the lake like a picnic lunch.

The water was surprisingly warm. When I say warm I'm being kind of sarcastic. The kids could handle it but I couldn't hang, lol!

What a view! Oh wait, that's my cute husband, haahaa!

Dean brought the fishing gear & Aris had a heyday with all the little plastic worms.

If she'd had her way I would have photographed her with that worm all afternoon. She's such a little goofball.

Dean getting a little fishing in.

What's this? I honestly have no idea other than the fact that Aris, Zoe & I were attacked by the nastiest bugs on this planet. Nope these weren't mosquitoes. They were these black gnat looking bugs. The only reason I even knew we had been bitten is the drops of blood. You couldn't feel them bite. They didn't even itch until the day after. Let me tell you, they were crawling in the girls hair & all over their necks. I had to dunk poor Zoe under the water to get them all off. She got the worst out of all of us. If anyone knows what these bugs are I'd love to know. I'm still creeped out by the whole thing & pretty much convinced that they are alien bugs from another universe. I have knots on my neck from where I was bitten. Hopefully I don't have bugs nesting in my neck that will pop out one night during dinner, you know, like in the movie Alien? Anywho....they were rally gross.

::Update::
I just had a friend inform me these are black flies that bit us. Horrible little things. Next time we'll bring the off.

After the bug incident we packed up the kids & drove up the road to Fraizer Falls. We didn't know what to expect because neither of us had ever been there before. It was 14 miles up the road but totally worth the detour. Once you reach the small parking lot it's a 1/2 mile hike to the falls. Perfect for little legs.

I find it fascinating that we can drive an hour & a half away & see totally different scenery. I love living out west. The path to the falls was full of so much beauty.

The back of the falls from a little bridge.

The other side of the bridge.

We hit the top right before the sun was starting to set. It was so hard to capture with my camera lens how truly high up we were or how beautiful the falls were.

There were so many different kinds of rock formations mixed in with the trees. 

Do you see Dean? He hiked to the edge of the top of the fall with Zoe. Next time I'll be doing the same. Maybe then I can get a better shot of it.

The girls came home with pockets full of rocks from the trail.

We let the girls do a little rock climbing.

We made it back to our car just as the sun was setting. It was such a perfect ending to a perfect family adventure.

19th Finish

I thought I'd let you have a little peek at my sketch process. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get a sketch just right the first time. Other times I can sketch for a couple hours or over the course of a few days before I get things just right. This was such a fun little project to work on. My sweet friend Susan asked if I would illustrate a coloring book page for her sister Karens' wedding reception. They first saw the idea ::here:: Adorable no? They wanted to keep it simple & have space at the bottom so guests could write them wishes or hopes for their new life together. They will be putting them all together into a folder so the couple can look back on them throughout the years. Such a fun idea!

Here is the final product!

 I thought this would be the last of the wedding commissions for me but it isn't. The other day a friend saw the birdcage tags I made for my cousins wedding & she wants me to make some tags for her sisters wedding!!! So excited. I might even be adding these new items into my poor forgotten Etsy shop, lol! Maybe I'll even get around to photographing all the stacks of things I need to put into my vintage Etsy store. Sigh, so much to do!!!!

I am almost done with my 20th finish & hope to share it with you tomorrow or the next day. I'm also very excited to share the upcoming 3 finishes that I'll be working on for a dear friend of mine. It involves tons of cute vintage goodness. 

19 Down, 33 To go!

1 Year Young

I picked up this cute little cake at Walmart. It was the last "destroy" cake they had. At least it wasn't all pink and girlie. Besides, I like Thomas.

We had another small family party with our dear friends the Mooney family joining us for dinner & cake. They adore little Omri & are always so sweet with my girls. It only seemed fitting to have them over for the special event. It was a beautiful evening with a nice cool breeze. You couldn't have asked for a nicer more perfect night to have a picnic out on the back porch.

Omri wasn't too sure about the cake at first. I don't blame him! We spend the whole first year as parents working so hard to feed our little ones healthy things. Then on their first birthday we're like, here, have this giant mass of sugar! Haahaa!

I think he approves :) 

That's right little man, dig in. 

Now what do I do? 

Oh that's right, I throw it to the ground! It brought up images of the Saturday Night Live video, you know, Throw it to the Ground? Happy Birthday to the ground, lol! You'll have to watch it. It's one of our favorite things to quote around here. 

Dylan rescues the cake. 

Okay ma! The birthday boy is totally done. Time to clean me up so I don't look like a blue Muppet.

Happy Birthday My Man Moblio! I just adore you! It's so fun to have another guy in the house. I love your tender little snuggles & adore your rough & tumbleness. I think it's so fun to watch you scoot toys across the floor (everything is scooted just like a car, lol) & listen to all your many sound effects. You are still a watcher of things. I marvel when your eyes light up watching kids play at the skate park or the girls riding their bikes. I know very soon you'll be joining in on those activities. For now you are still my little guy. I adore you & can't wait to see what this next year brings. 

Happy Birthday Oblio!