OurHouse

More on the fence...

Wood...

huh huh huh. wood.

This is after about 3 hours of building the fence.

DeWalt rocks...

Around 6 hours later...

Side fence, still haven't made the gate...

Building the fence...

Well, Janey and I have gotten tired of all the stray animals wandering through our yard; Both of the 4-legged and the 2-legged varieties.

So, Saturday we rented a "dingo" with a power auger attachment(it's like a bobcat except you stand on the back of it, instead of sitting inside it) and we started drilling holes in the ground. One of our neighbors helped as well as one of Janey's classmates (who also lives in the neighborhood).

The Dingo also has a standard loader bucket attachment that was usefull in leveling out the area that we plan to put a deck on.

Painting...

So, I came home Saturday morning after getting the Suby it's free oil change and I find Janey up in the plant ledge in our bedroom.

Look sexy for me...

Slightly darker than the original color, and the paint quality is worlds better.

So, is it home improvement, or is it excercise?

Patio (Kinda small though)

Well, we were thinking about creating a HUGE 16' square patio in our backyard. Then the reality of back filling behind a retaining wall that is more then 2' tall sunk in. Gonna be cheaper and easier and better looking to build a big 16' square deck and have a small patio to hold the BBQ... So, as the first step into that one, we build the 5'x10' patio.

This is at the halfway point... Well, halfway with the top surface. We still had to build up nearly 8 inches on the far side of this little pad.

Jane says, "I'm tired"

Let's go play with the neighbor's grandkid...

Extending the back course to find out how much fill we really needed.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

Done with BBQ and chairs and Hose Reel (Bale of hay was temporary...)

Of course we wouldn't leave out our supervisors (Next door neighbors on the other side...)

we've done it again!

spent money as though we had it...

but we really did need a second car we could both drive...

so we got Widget, our new Subaru WRX wagon, turbo-charged and everything...

very shiny, very fast, and still has that "new car" smell =) yum!

We're keeping PJ (my truck), but we will need to sell Snuggles (the Miata). Right now, Snuggles lives outside on the driveway, but at least the weather's been nice.

More new furniture and decorations...

While we were in california, we built a crate for 2 paintings that Richard had made. One was a Graduation present for Jane for her Master's Degree from Hayward.

The other one is a painting that we had purchased from him. Both paintings are very incredible and we feel honored that we are able to show them in our house.

We got this wall sculpture at a local "Modern Furniture" store. It's 6 pieces and you can hang it anyway you want. We liked this look. Also in that picture are the 2 DVD media cabinets that we got yesterday at CostPlus Importers. I had ot modify them to hold more DVD's than they were designed for. The wonder of designing a cabinet in the age of CD's then just changing the label to make them DVD friendly. They didn't even change the spacing of the shelves to make DVD storage anywhere close to correct. I got to do that. w00t.

Also this is probably my best christmas present. Karyna (My 8 year old niece) gave me this frog. It's cast metal and the top lifts off to reveal a place to put an incense cone. You light the cone and put the top back on and it looks like the frog is blowing smoke. Very very cool.

We also got this cool fountain from my parents. We put it in this platter as it creates quite a bit of condensate. Since we put it in the platter, the counter has stayed fairly dry. Right now it's our humidifier for the house. ;)

That is all for now...

Christmas Aftermath

Some of our decorations. For a while Mom was into doing little ceramic projects at a local shop. These are some of the seasonal decorations that she has made. I love all the little expressions on them.

This is our Wintertime centerpiece on our dining room table. Looks very festive. The hollyberry thing started out life as a garland.

This is our mantle. We got many many christmas cards this year. We got out a big chunk of Christmas cards to friends and relatives (By we, I mean Janey...), but next year we are going to start a bit earlier.

House decorations

Janey asked me to show the decorations that she put in the china cabinet and hutch for Halloweenmas. Also, think we got enough candy? next year, half that amount...

Halloweenmas

So, Halloween lasted all weekend for us. It was the 3 days of Halloween.

Janey and a couple of her classmates decided that a party on Saturday night would be fun.

Janey and I went as a cholo gangster and his girl.

On Monday we decorated our house with a couple of props. I enjoyed the reaction we got to our "dead body under the lawn mower". Several kids were afraid that it was real. One little kid didn't even want to come onto our driveway. It was all a little too real looking for him.