Our Saturday Open House

We had a very busy weekend and smack dab in the middle was our Open House.

We gave invitations to all of our closest neighbors, Sam's classmates, some coworkers and our family and friends to come and help us celebrate our new home and have an end of the summer get together.

Surprisingly, I gave my photography duties to several children in attendance. I wanted to spend the time getting to know people in our neighborhood and having a good time.

I just took a look at what they produced and I'm happily surprised. All of the photos are unedited and in no particular order.

Now that the party's over and we don't need the refreshments anymore, is there anyone that would like 7 2-liter bottles of random pop (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, root beer, Pepsi) and 36 can of Diet 7-Up, 10 cans of Mountain Dew and 2 12 packs of Diet Pepsi and regular Pepsi?

Have a great week everyone!

Friday Night Soak Fest, Then the Train

Thank goodness we had extra clothes, because Sam decided that he wanted to get wet; REALLY WET.

The Park

I was hoping to meet some other photographer moms at the park last Saturday, but everyone bailed. Samuel and I had fun anyway.

Belated Anniversary Dinner

Our wedding anniversary was on July 29th, but last night was the first night that we had a chance to celebrate it, just the two of us.

Samuel spent the night with my ILs, so we took the opportunity to go out to a very nice dinner downtown at The Oceanaire Seafood Room.

Brian ordered a Michelob Ultra and I took the liberty of ordering a glass of the wonderful Santa Margherita Pinot Grisio. It's the same wine that he purchased for our wedding night and we have drunk on (or near) every anniversary since then.

I'm not a big fan of oysters, but since this was a high quality place, Brian deferred to the server's recommendation about which two types of oysters he should order. He ended up eating Shigoky and Kusshi styles (both from Washington). He said they were very good, but you won't catch me eating any. Yuck!

Brian ordered the "Black and Bleu" Hawaiian Swordfish and I ordered the Alaskan King Salmon. Both were extraordinary and we shared a side dish of Sour cream mashed Yukon Gold potatoes.

My Salmon

We then went to our local Redbox location and rented-

It was funnier than I thought it would be, and I got to see a Johnny Depp cameo.

Painting the House Exterior

After my disastrous running of the Georgetown-Idaho Spring Half Marathon (I don't want to talk about it), I headed home and that left time for Brian to go to Sherwin Williams and pick up 15 gallons of exterior paint for our exterior house colors (main color and trim).

I can't believe how excited and proud Brian is by his paint gun.

  

I can't seem to get the colors to come out right on the page, but we are going from beige to a more tan color for the main house color.

The trim will be a more of a white color, but Brian is doing the main color first. Our approved accent color is blue, so we are going to have a blue front door and back door. Maybe we can paint the doors of our shed blue, too.

He and his dad think that they are going to be able to complete the full painting of the exterior in a few weekends.

I will definitely post full before and after photos of this project (and probably some in between as well).

New Back Splash

After our new cabinets were installed, the back splash in our kitchen looked horrible. I gave Brian the authority to pick out our new back splash, so he picked medium to dark blue, subway style glass tiles.

Yesterday Morning:

Last Night:

I just love that this was completed in one day. It looks wonderful!!

We have a few small jobs finish before we can call the kitchen "complete."

1. Change out the outlets and plates.
2. Paint the pantry door a coordinating color.
3. Install under cabinet lighting.

I'll post about those items soon (I hope). I guess it depends on the speed in which my husband and his father can paint the exterior of our house.

Adams County Fair

While Brian was putting test colors on the exterior of our house (before the big painting job starts), Sam and I headed to the Adams County Fair.

This was the only animal that he actually touched. Right after I took this picture, a bunch of animals converged on our location and Sam didn't take it very well.

Strawberry Limeade. Yummy!

My big, tall boy.

A monster truck that's a fire engine.
Sam was in heaven.

10 Minute Pantry Organization

Since we got our new kitchen cabinets, with a lazy Susan, I have neglected cleaning out and organizing the pantry. I decided to take 10 minutes to go through and organize the middle 3 shelves that we encounter in a typical week.

It's also on my 101 Things in 1,001 Days Project list to organize the pantry quarterly.

Before:

After:

It's a big improvement, but there is definitely more that can be done to make it look better.
Here are some cool ideas that I've found.