Important things

I thought I'd take you on a tour around our house to show some of our most special things. Our house is filled with things that were given to us by our family members and friends. We own very few items that we've actually purchased ourselves. We're really fortunate that way.

My mom has given me a few of these Willow Tree figurines, but this one is my favorite. She gave it to me when one of our family cats passed away. She also gave me the drawing of the cat. And the lamp is from Jake's mom. Along with the nightstand everything is sitting on. I found them when I helped clean out their barn.

One of my aunts gave this to me and Jake as a wedding gift. I'm excited to pass it on to my children one day.

This pitcher is from the resort that Jake's grandparent's owned back in the day.

My sister in law painted this and gave it to me for Christmas to match all of our pear things.

This piano is Jake's great grandmother's. The painting on the top was done by his grandma Hoberg and the lamp on the right was in the room the night his Papa Charlie was born.

I have so many more things I could show, but I think I'll save them for another time. Hope you enjoyed!

Jake's New Hobby:

Gardening!

A couple of weeks ago Jake began building a garden in the backyard. I wish I had pictures of what he started with, but I don't. Just imagine a huge pile of dirt in the middle of the yard. I'm so proud of how hard he worked. It looks like we hired someone to do it! And don't worry, the landlords were totally fine with us tearing up the backyard. They told us when we moved in that we could do a garden. He finished everything up yesterday and now all we have to do is buy some things and plant them. We're waiting until it gets a little warmer though. We plan on making it a salsa garden so we'll have tomatoes, lots of spicy peppers, onions and possibly cilantro. My mouth waters when I think about it. I'll be sure to provide updates as the growing progresses. Here's what we have so far:

Easter Eggs

Last night we dyed Easter eggs with the family. It got to be a pretty competitive event with Jake trying to make the most creative egg. He definitely came up with some good ones. We discovered that instead of using the little tablets that the kits come with, it's much better to use food coloring. The colors come out so much brighter. Unfortunately we did not figure this out until almost the end of the coloring session, but we'll know better for next year. I also discovered that stickers don't stick to eggs unless they are dry. What? That's common sense? Oh...

My Next Races (maybe)

I use the word "maybe" because I haven't actually signed up for any of these, but I plan to next week (after pay day). I'm hoping that the first one isn't sold out because it's in May and that's right around the corner! The other two aren't until October so hopefully those will be fine. I was reading about the Healdsburg run and it has great reviews so I'm really excited about that one. It's also the priciest though and pretty steep for only a 1/2 marathon. I'm really excited that I don't have to travel too far for any of them. The Napa one is a bit of a distance, but it doesn't start until 8:30 so we'll have plenty of time to make it. The Windsor and Healdsburg races are about an hour away so that's manageable too.

I've never done a trail run before (unless you count all those high school cross country meets) so I might only do the 10k (6 miles) instead of the 10 miler. We'll see.

When I was telling Jake about all of them he asked if I was going to do any more full marathons and I thought about it for about 2 seconds and realized I don't feel like putting that much effort into anything right now. Maybe one day, but not any time soon. I get tired just thinking about it. I also told him that I imagine a marathon to be like childbirth. Not that I've ever given birth, but I imagine that you'd have to forget about how painful it is (at least a little bit) in order to want to do it again. And I still haven't forgotten how painful the marathon was so I'm just not ready.

Click on any of the pictures from above to links to the websites for each race :)

What I've Been Reading

I purchased this book a long time ago, read about 1/4th of it, started it again a while later and read another 1/4th and then just picked it up again and read the 2nd half in one day. I guess there were some slow parts, but overall it was a pretty good book. It's about a mother and daughter that take a road trip to Las Vegas while stopping along the way to try to find the twin of the daughter. She suffers from schizophrenia and ran away after going off of her medication. The mother and daughter check homeless shelters along the way in an attempt to find her. The mother also uses this time to reveal all the secrets of her life to her daughter.

For a better summary go here:
Lady Luck's Map of Vegas

I purchased both of the following books at the library in Point Arena for .50 each! Both were worth more than I paid for them.

This was not what I thought it was going to be. For some unknown reason I imagined it would be about a girl that overcomes something big, like a learning disorder or something. I really don't know what I expected, but it was actually a compilation of hilarious anecdotes from a guy that had a speech impediment when he was younger. It basically chronicles his life as a gay man that has a series of random jobs and then moves to France with his boyfriend. The guy should be a stand up comedian though because the book is just that funny.

For a better summary of this book go here:

Me Talk Pretty One Day

This one was about a young girl that was raped in high school, goes through a deep depression, and then runs away to join the circus. It doesn't sound like a super happy story, but it's very well written and entertaining. It also has a good ending that makes up for the darkness of the book.

For a better summary of this book go here:
Wonder When You'll Miss Me

Olive Festival And Other Stuff

On Sunday we went to the first ever Kelseyville Olive Festival. You can't really tell by the pictures, but there was a huge turnout! Luckily it was so close that we could walk because otherwise I don't know where we would have parked. There were several booths set up to taste olive oil, wine, food, and other things. There was also a huge BBQ area and an olive seed spitting contest. Go here to read more about the olive oil making process and other stuff about the festival. Oddly enough, there weren't any actual olives for sale at this thing. Like I said, they had a lot of olive oil and they even had olive trees for sale, but no actual olives. Weird.

I picked this up for my mom. She's a baker so I'm sure she can use another apron. The cat doesn't understand why I'm taking a picture of an apron.

These are the goodies we picked up for ourselves. Two bottles of olive oil, some focaccia bread, and some FREE jalapeno jelly.

After the festival we decided to go to Highland Springs lake. It's a mini lake that's kind of hidden away. You can't take motorized boats on it so the whole place is really peaceful and quiet. Before we went to the lake though we stopped by K-mart to pick up a Frisbee and one of those toys that comes with 2 round Velcro disks and a fuzzy tennis ball. You're supposed to catch the fuzzy ball on the disk. Anyone remember these? It's way easier than playing catch with a ball and glove.


Jake played the whole time with this little flower in his hair. He's special like that.

And then he had a Frisbee baby.


Here's an action shot of me throwing the Frisbee. Turns out that I'm not the best Frisbee player. We still had fun though.

It was a wonderful Sunday and totally made up for the fact that I was working at the furniture store all day on Saturday.

One year ago...

Jake asked me to marry him.

You can read the story here.

And then almost exactly 6 months to the day, we tied the knot. The 6 month separation is great for 2 reasons (1.) We can celebrate the two events spaced evenly throughout the year. Who doesn't love having something big to celebrate every 6 months? (2.) My engagement ring has to be inspected every 6 months in order for the warranty to not expire and these two dates make it easy for me to remember. From all the wedding shows I watch and all the sites I read online, 6 months seems to be a short amount of time to plan a wedding, but I honestly don't remember ever feeling rushed. It was all just so much fun and I really want one of my friends to get married so I can plan another one.

It's hard to believe we've only been married 6 months though. It feels like 6 years (but in a good way). And not that I want my life to pass me by, but I am anxious for the next 6 months to go by so that we can celebrate our first year as husband and wife. My sister in law works at Hallmark and she says she has the perfect card picked out for me to give Jake :)

More Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives

When we went to Santa Rosa last weekend we were able to check off two more Triple D restaurants. We had lunch at La Texanita. It was delicious. We both had the carne asada plate and loved every bite of it. Also, the chips and salsa came with this amazing jalapeno cream dip that was soooo good. I definitely recommend this place.

For dinner we went to Willie Birds. I've never seen the episode where this place was featured, but it was on the list on the Food Network website so I figured we might as well try it. All they serve is turkey. They serve it pretty much every way imaginable though. I had a sandwich with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce and Jake had an oriental salad with grilled turkey. We were pleased with both items. It's definitely not the most "happening" place to hang out though. We were the youngest patrons by about 40 years.

P.S. I'm so grateful to have a husband that will take pictures of restaurants for me. I'm too embarrassed to do it.

Salvation Army finds:

Last Saturday we made a trip down to Santa Rosa to run a bunch of errands, but we stopped by the Salvation Army on the way down and found so many wonderful things!

I've been wanting a little table for the door and I found this. It's not really what I had in mind, but it works. Now I just need something fabulous to go on top of it. I've already tried every accessory in my home.


I had also been looking for a bookcase for the living room. I got this for only $4, spent all of Sunday afternoon painting it, and then realized that it looked ridiculous in the living room. It looks great in the craft room though and holds a lot of stuff! I moved one of the existing bookcases in the craft room to the living room for the time being.


Another honey pot! It's missing the little stick thing that goes in it, but who can pass up a honey pot that's this cute and only like $2?? I can't.


It's officially too warm to wear these things now, but I definitely couldn't pass them up. They were only $4.25 a piece and in great condition. The 2 green sweaters are from J Crew, the striped one is Aeropostale, and the flower one is from Talbots. I just tried on the two green ones and don't love the way they fit. I have a long torso and these are a little too short. Maybe if I lose weight they'll fit better. I like food a lot though so maybe I'll just sell them in the garage sale.


This was the most exciting find of the day for Jake. He feels like a real pilot when he wears it. He almost didn't get it because it was a whole $44, but then he found out it was 50% off and was the most excited he's ever been in his life. He's going flying this weekend for the first time in 6 months and I know he wishes it was cold enough to wear this. Please be on the lookout for some flying goggles and one of the Red Barron hats for him so he can complete the look. Oh, and a scarf. Wait, never mind that, he can knit himself a scarf.

This was definitely the most successful trip we've had to the Salvation Army. I think I might need to go back in a couple of weeks and look for some spring/summer clothes.

Long lost twin?

Mom, dad....am I related to her?

AFP

Seriously. I think this is my clone. Actually she's a little chubbier than I was and is probably a few years older because we would have been in the mid 90's by the time I was this age and the pony tail probably would have been more centered by that time. And we never had a piano, but I still think this could be me.

Atomic Pinball

My mom sent me the pinball machine that I mentioned in a previous post. We've been having a lot of fun challenging each other to see who can get the highest score. I'm sad to announce that Jake is much better than I am :( We both love playing it, but the cat hates the noise. She hasn't really complained the last few days though so I think that she's gone a bit deaf.

The Latest Honey Pot

This is the one I found in Fort Bragg a couple of weeks ago. I was looking online the other day and found a picture of the same one with little wire legs. No biggie though, it's still cute.

Speaking of honey, we found this raw honey in Point Arena and I'm loving it. I've noticed though that if I use too much of the actual honeycomb then it's a bit bitter. I like to use it on english muffins or toast.

Conversation of the Week:

It's not actually a conversation, but more of an incident. Yesterday I helped with the 2nd graders at the after school program, and I have to say, they were CRAZY. I've honestly never seen children act this ridiculous. I even questioned why I was even doing this in the first place, but the several hugs I received when I first arrived for the day make it worth it. I have to tell you about this one girl though.

First, she painted her face during craft time. Of course she had to be wearing a faux fur lined hooded coat on her head while painting her face. Obviously the paint got all over her coat. And the paint was red so it looked like an animal activist had gotten ahold of her. Ugh. Someone else cleaned her up. I think I was too shocked to do anything at that point.

Then, later in the afternoon, I'm sitting across from her and I notice she's chewing on something. Then I notice it's a crayon. Seriously. I made her go spit it out. Then she ate another one.

I clearly remember a lot of things from 2nd grade. I remember my friends, my teacher, learning sign language, and a bunch of other details, but I definitely don't remember anyone ever being ridiculous enough to paint their face or eat crayons.

So Proud

So I guess Jake had some pretty good training ;) You should hire him to put sprinklers in your home or business. One day Jake is going to make a really cool sprinkler system for the backyard for us (i mean our kids) to run through that will also include the coolest slip n slide known to man. All the neighbor kids are going to be so jealous! Don't worry mom, we won't put the slip n slide near a fence or tree.

More Things I NEED from Anthropologie:

Rug

Anthropologie

Conversation of the Week:

I survived my first week of volunteering at the after school program! Monday was a lot of fun, but Wednesday was kind of rough due to one of the workers being out sick. Classes were combined AND it was raining out (no outside time for them to run off all their energy) so it was a little crazy. Here's my pick for the best conversation of the week. I think I'll try to do this each week because I'm sure the kiddos will provide me with plenty of writing material.

5th grade boy: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: No, I have a husband though.
5th grade boy: What?! How old are you?
Me: 25
5th grade boy: I thought you were in high school!

5th grade boy=my new favorite person
I also like the kid that drew me a picture of Charlie Brown.

Weekend Adventure: Day 3

On Saturday, while at lunch in Mendocino, we were flipping through some "things to do in the Mendocino area" type magazines and we came across an ad for a redwood tree that you can drive through. This has been a dream of Jake's for some time now so we decided that we'd take on another little adventure on Sunday. We traveled up the coast a little ways from Fort Bragg and then headed inland towards Humboldt county. Our first stop was THE drive-thru tree. We could hardly contain our excitement.

Sorry about the blurriness. Obviously I was too excited to take a decent picture.






Jake went through again so I could take his picture.

We headed north again after the drive thru tree and were in route for the Avenue of Giants.

We came across this weird attraction called Confusion Hill that Jake was scared of so we took pictures and left. They had a couple of things that you could pay to do, but it wasn't really that appealing.

We then moved along to find the coolest house ever! It's made out of one log!

We then stumbled across the Chimney Tree. It was hollow on the inside, but was really dark so the pictures didn't turn out great.

Then the real beauty began as we got deep into the forest. So many beautiful trees.

We kept driving and driving and then we came across another drive thru tree!

And then we drove some more. The next pictures are from the place were we decided we wouldn't go any further. Our last mission was to find the founders tree. It took some searching, but we finally "found" it. Jake was really excited about this too.

The end! It was a great weekend and I can't believe we were only gone 2.5 days. I hope we can take some more trips like this in the near future.