A Celebration

I came home from spinning class this morning excited to wish my now 6 year old girl a Happy Birthday. We got a call soon after telling us that my grandfather, my father's father, passed away in his sleep last night. He was 97. He joins his wife who passed away in 2001.

I have been thinking about some of my memories of my grandpa. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of my grandpa is his laugh. I can see and hear it my mind. It was a quick loud robust laugh that would fade as he ran out of air laughing. There were the summers eating cherries off their tree in the backyard, the time when I was about 13 that my older sister and I got to stay with my grandparents for a week (we stayed up late playing a card game when we were supposed to be sleeping). Grandpa joined the single men at my wedding reception and tried to catch the garter which was fun for everyone to watch. My grandfather served in WWII. He was a part of 7 invasions including D-Day. My cousin Shirley and I video taped an interview we did of him the summer before I got married. We asked him about his war experiences. He was emotional as he talked about them, about visiting the concentration camps and seeing the cruelty of the Nazis, of coming home on the ship and how almost every man wept, tears running down their cheeks as they saw the Statue of Liberty.

What I had not seen was the rest of the video that my cousin finished taping at a later date. On there was a message to me- right before my wedding. My grandfather told me he loved me and that he hoped I would be as happy as he and Naomi, my grandmother, were. And that he hoped we would have 6 or 7 kids.

My cousin asked toward the end of the video what he would say to Grandma when he saw her next (she had already passed away at the time of taping). He said when he saw her next he would say "Naomi, I'm so glad to see you." I am sure she was happy to see him too!

Birthday Boy turns 2

Can you feel all the love going on? Our neighbor/close friends came over for a small cake and ice cream party Monday evening for Wesley's second birthday.
Luke was out of his mind with excitement to eat that cake and open presents. Until he learned only the birthday boy gets the presents. I don't think irrate is too strong of a word to describe his reaction to that.

Wesley was very happy about the whole event until we dimmed the lights to light the candles and sing happy birthday. (A quick side note: I remember my fourth birthday. Sam and I were celebrating it together as usual. We were in the dinning room with the back door to our backs- this was before the addition. My parents dimmed the lights so that it was just the glow of the candles. Some other people were there. I was seated next to Sam and suddenly everyone was looking at us and began singing really LOUDLY. I now know it was Happy Birthday but at the time, I wanted to cry and crawl under the table. That is my first and earliest memory. Way to repeat it).
All better!
The cake:
The girls got him an adorable little tool set complete with hard hat, safety glasses and tool belt. It was a hit (and Luke was screaming with jealousy)!

"Before" and a looooong time in coming "After"

Happy New Year! I thought this day would never come. And now the moment you have all been waiting for...

Before:

After:
Before:

After:Before:

After:
Before (yes, that is floor tile on top of Formica- puse green Formica that was rotting inside and made the kitchen smell like rotten potatoes):
After (with instant hot water on the left):Before:


After:(We built the wall out next to the oven cabinet. The beam that took the place of the load bearing wall sits on that new little wall). I love having a place for all my paper products now... napkins, tin foil, paper plates and plastic ware etc. Need a new box of ziplock baggies? Right here above the double oven.

Before:
After:
I know some of these shots do not seem to match up. We didn't do that great of job standing in the exact same spot for the "after" shot. Are we done? No, not quite yet. We are right now in the process of putting up the back splash. Hopefully it won't take another six months to post those shots.

At the risk of it looking unorganized and messy (in real life it doesn't look like this; I have made some changes and of course we open one cupboard door at a time) here are a few shots of the fun features of our kitchen.

The refrigerator is our original (= free) but the pantry cabinet next to it was one of the added cabinets. I am still tweaking the how and what I am going to store there.

The drawers below the induction cooktop are wonderful. Middle drawer has the cooking/stove items and the bottom drawer has most of the baking items. To the left of the cook top is the three tiered pull out spice rack. To the right is the vertical cabinet for the cookie sheets and such.
We have a pull-out drawer type cabinet for garbage and recycling. It is awesome to pull it out just enough to wipe of the counter junk right into the garbage (and/or sink when appropriate- love that). A cabinet for the Bosch. It tucks away when not in use...
... and pops up into a locked position when ready. It stays plugged in all of the time using an outlet inside the cabinet. It is nice to have a home for this since we use it so often it used to just stay on top of the counter.
All of the doors and cabinets have a slow stop close so they don't bang shut. The drawers pull out to full extension and of course the lower cabinets have pull out shelves.And Jason threw the following pictures on here because... I don't know. These are some of the tools I know how to use now I guess. Pat- I am cutting the blocks for my nativity in this shot.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. We just returned from a great vacation to Zion's National Park and Salt Lake City, Utah. Here are 5*2 of the 7 siblings New Year's Eve at my oldest sister Erin's home. (Thanks Krista, I'm usually snapping the photo, not in it). We were super excited to meet our new little nephew Oscar.
Le and Marlene (Joy's parents) rented a great cabin a few miles from the East entrance to Zion's.

Hot tubs are the way to go in the middle of winter.
Happy 2010!

(more to come...)