Bathroom is done!!!!!

Forgot to post the final-final-final pictures.  Thanksgiving was the first day we could use the shower, and boy was I thankful!!!!

Cody and Erin

WW: Score!

Office Shed!

Yesterday construction began on Brian's new office shed. Yipeee!!!! After 3 years of working out of our "spare" bedroom, he's finally getting his own private, quiet(er) space to work. He is excited. We are excited.

  And in only one day they got the whole thing up!!! Roof shingled, windows installed, and everything. It still needs interior finishing - insulation, dry wall, electricity. But it's in!

Erin earns her keep

All the parenting books suggest kids learn to help out at an early age - set the table, fold towels, make their beds.


...

how about painting the hallway?

Robin Gets In The Spirit

The Tree is Up!

It smells sooooo good. The kids spent all morning decorating, the cats spent all afternoon investigating. I must remember to keep it watered this year as it's a full month before Christmas!

Hall Closet Project Done

The hall closet was out of control.  We've restored a bit of sanity there.  Sorry, the pictures were really hard to take since the closet is smack dab in the middle of a dark entryway.  But hopefully you get the idea.

The idea is everyone has one two-prong hook, to hold one jacket, one coat.  Everyone has two "cubbies", one with a bin for shoes, one cubby to put your bag, scarf, whatever.  Backpacks go on the floor when the child comes home from school.  And that's it.  

The upper shelf is currently pretty bare, but I imagine it'll contain "ready-to-go" items like the summer swim bag. We'll see how well we can keep it up, but for now every one seems to be much, much, MUCH better about not leaving shoes/jackets/bags everywhere (and I'm totally guilty of this too).  

Playing is Exhausting

Robin and Erin have had non-stop cousin fun the last few days.  And man, having this much fun is tiring. 

Thanksgiving 2012

This Thanksgiving, all of Brian's siblings and offspring descended on Grandma and Grandpa's house.  So. Much. Fun.

WW: The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

What Is It????

We hung out for a few hours on the Monterey Beach. Lovely beach weather for any time of the year, much less November. The tide was rolling out, and each wave deposited these little jellyish things.

 

Any clue what they are? The seagulls were fascinated with them, as were we. I scoped up one in a
bucket with some seawater to see if it would do anything.

  It didn't move so either it was dead or vegetable in matter. Any ideas?

Mini Vacation: Monterey

Since we have all of Thanksgiving week off, we took a little family trip to Monterey for a few days.

We hit the aquarium as soon as we got there, before even getting to the hotel.  What an amazing place!



 Then the girls relaxed while B creamed me at gin.

Bathroom - Nearly done

So close to having the Bathroom done!  It's hard to tell, but the wall color is more of a blue-gray rather than just gray.  The tilework was meticulous, exact and looks fantastic!  Just a little more touch up, and we're set.  Oh, and the shower glass, which will be installed on Tuesday, and a little touch-up here and there.  But other than that it's pretty much in the bag! 

Robin Starts Her Christmas List

And the the kid goes big.

Erin's picking up Mama's habits

Erin did her first crossword puzzle tonight.  

The world in the eyes of Robin

Robin got ahold of my iPhone and had a good time taking some pictures.  About 120 in less than 5 minutes.  Some of the good ones:

Entry closet project

Thanks to Pinterest, I've realized every nook of my home could be *just that more* neat, organized, functional and beautiful.  Martha is being given a run for her money.

So after inspiration from here, here, and here, we've started to attack the entryway closet.

Some "before" pictures:

Before removing the shutter doors:

After removing everything from the closet:

 kind of love the blank slate. Kinda hate the 100000 jackets and shoes now piled in the living room.  But hopefully we'll come up with some easy, creative ways to make it functional.

Homebrew update

So, I thought today would be the day to rack (bottle). I even de-labled and cleaned/sanitized all the bottles. The kittiez were amused:

  But after more reading, I figured the brew could do with a transfer to a second fermentation vessel and sit for a few more weeks. Instead of bottling, I transferred the brew into a clean carboy to finish a second ferment. 

The ABV so far is about 6.5 - 6.8% (the recipe says it should be about 7%, so most of the fermentable sugars have already been consumed), and it does taste a bit... well ... raw.  So a few more weeks to settle out before carbonation sounds fine.

I'm going to regret this in ten years

During the last game in the World Series, Dr. A and I had some non-alcoholic beer.  At one point I thought it would be funny to get a picture of the kids drinking it.  It turned out to be adorable and troubling at the same time.

Mount Diablo Dadventure™

Two Saturdays ago the girls and I went to explore Mount Diablo.

From the top:


Spelunking:


Views east:


Playground:

Davis Dadventure™

Last weekend the girls I and got out of town on the train and headed to Davis for a night.  Great town.

Many thanks to Dr. A for financing the operation.

If you see a photo below that looks like the kids are having melted leftover ice cream for breakfast, well, that's what it is.

Waiting for the train


On the aforementioned train


It's a redwood forest in the central valley, of course
 

Rock climbers under I-80


Hamming it up by the pool


KFC, baby!


Ice cream treat


Goodbye!