Our Baby Chick Has Come Back To The Nest!

Last Friday we went to the university to move Rachel out of her dorm for the summer.  Her first year of college just flew by!  We're hoping the summer months won't go so quickly.  We will move her in to her new dorm room in September and then we have to move her out again in December since she will be spending second semester of next year studying in the south of France!  Goodbye, Pioneer Hall S286!

 

Lindsay Got A New Car!!

 Happy Mother's Day!

Yesterday Lindsay bought her first new car!  She bought a 2010 Honda Civic LX.  To say she loves her new car would be an understatement!  I think I'll just let the pictures tell the story! 

Quilts, Quilts, Quilts!

This is the quilt I started for Rachel when she was in 4th grade! I finally finished it. Lindsay is holding it up again for me.. sorry about the horrible lighting!

Here is the t-shirt quilt I made from Lindsay's Kappa Alpha Theta t-shirts. Lindsay is standing on the coffee table in the family room holding it up!

As some of you may remember, I purchased a sewing machine about 10 yrs. ago and signed up for a beginner's quilting class. I made a quilt in the class and then quilted it on my own, but I never finished it - all it needed was the binding sewn on. Anyway, fast forward to this past summer when Rachel decided she wanted me to make her a quilt for her dorm room, and finally, I finished a quilt! Lindsay had many t-shirts from her college sorority that she no longer wore, but didn't want to get rid of, so we decided to make her a t-shirt quilt. I made one other quilt right after the beginner's class that was supposed to be for Rachel's bed when she was about 9 or 10 yrs. old, but I never finished it either. So... I took the t-shirt quilt and the one I made for Rachel to be machine quilted, and I had the gal sew in the binding for my first quilt. I have now finished the t-shirt quilt, the one I started for Rachel years ago, and I am in the process of sewing the binding on my first one and then I will have finished the four quilts I have ever made!

Grandma and Taylor's Visit

Rachel, Taylor and Grandma in front of Rachel's residence hall, Pioneer Hall.

Taylor, Rachel and Grandma

Rachel and Grandma inside Rachel's dorm room. Sorry for the yellow color. I'm still working on those manual camera settings!

On Wednesday we went to the U of M campus to visit Rachel. Rachel is an admissions ambassador for the university, and she gives tours to prospective students and their families. We couldn't get her to give us the full tour and schpiel, but she took us on a mini tour.

I taught Taylor almost all of the songs from my piano repertoire - Heart and Soul and Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater! She loved playing the piano, and she practiced long and hard for our duet!

(Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Taylor and Lindsay. Taylor was Lindsay's shadow whenever Lindsay was home! They played games, curled up in Lindsay's bed to watch a movie, and gave me great photo ops which I failed to take advantage of!)

The (Almost) Finished Exterior and Kitchen Remodel

My friend and former neighbor Rachel, (not to be confused with my Rachel, although they are both named Rachel Marie... but I digress) asked me to update my blog with new pictures, and I realized that it has been a long time since I have done so. Anyway, I just finished taking a digital SLR photography class so I thought taking some photos of the remodel in manual with natural light would not only update my blog, but would give me some practice as well. The remodel I'm happy with - the pictures, well, I have some more work to do there! Anyway, the above photo is the exterior - I am shooting into the sun, but you get the idea. We plan to make the porch bigger and have columns with stone built around the bottom of them when the weather is warmer and the snow melts - which at this rate will be July!

Here is a shot of my island - we had the floors refinished and they are now natural instead of stained.

I love this stove. It just makes everything taste better. The white you see next to the vent hood is an area that still needs to be painted. We know it's there, but we keep forgetting about it. Now that I've blogged about it maybe we will remember!

The refrigerator is in the middle, and to the left is the microwave/convection oven. I haven't used the convection oven yet, but I will, and I will get back to you on that!

I shot the two photos of the kitchen at the top of this post a little later in the day than the rest of them, and you can really see what a difference the light makes!

This pantry is glorious. It's only a foot deep, so I can see everything in it.

We still have to have the trim work done. As you can see the new windows are all white, and the trim work around the door frames and the baseboard are still oak. Hopefully it won't be long until that project is underway!

We're Almost There!

The electrician has to come and put the lights on the outside of the house, and then the outside will be done! The tile guy will start the backsplash on Tuesday, and hopefully I will have a kitchen for Christmas. Tim will be replacing the trim around the openings to the foyer and the dining room with white trim, and all the baseboards will be white as well, so there is still some work to be done, but we see the end in sight! On the outside of the house we are planning to have columns built and stone put around them, and hopefully extend the porch out a bit, but we didn't like the contractor's plan for it, so we will be looking into that in the spring.

On Monday the granite will go in and the stove and island should be in place then too!

The refrigerator panel is coming on Monday, and the microwave will be built in to that space. The stove is still in the middle of the floor! The masking tape hanging from the light fixture is there because one of the cabinet guys kept hitting his head on it!

Here is a pantry where the desk used to be. The wood floor has to be fixed and the whole thing will be sanded and refinished in January - can't wait for that smell!

The kitchen is still a work in progress, but we are getting there!

Here's a close-up of the stone. The hole in the siding above the stone is where one of the outside lights go. We bought new lights for the exterior, but the electrician has not come to install them yet.

The stone is finally in!

The stone guys made a tent and used heaters in order to put the stone in during the cold weather.

Progress

Here is the front of the house when they were getting the scaffolding set up. They have started to put the siding up on the front now, but I will have to post a picture of that next time since I haven't taken one yet!

It's difficult to tell from this picture, but all of the cabinetry is out now. We have made all of our final decisions regarding stain color, cabinet hardware, etc. so now we just have to sit back and watch it all come to fruition.

Here is a picture of the east side of the house. We had the gables and the windows all trimmed in white. That's Lindsay's room with the windows open - fortunately she was teaching while they were painting!

The painters were here painting the insides of the new windows. It was in the low 20's outside and they had the windows open a crack. I can't wait to see our next heating bill!

Three sides of the house are now complete! The back and both sides are done, and they are now working on the front. It will look a little better when they get all their stuff out from under the deck!