A lovely weekend at the "Beach" Olalla, WA

Sunny. Blue skies. Sixty degrees. No wind.

Where do you think we were?

Wait, Washington. That's right. Ok, it wasn't actually the ocean beach but it was Puget Sound and that seemed pretty darn good to me.

We had planned a four day escape to my parents' home on the water near Gig Harbor, WA. And oh did we ever pick the right weekend. The real idea was that Matt would be able to get away from everything and study, study, study for the CPA exam that he is taking this Friday. I was expecting to feel a little bored/cooped up after a weekend in the house but was ready to sacrifice for my hubby.

You see? This is sacrifice.

We had a delicious lunch (can you say Whiskey Jack Bacon Burger and Tides Porter?) at Tides Tavern in Gig Harbor with my Grandparents. It was great to get to see them and catch up.

One of my favorite people Ashley was in town from Denver for super quick trip to her parents house which is also on that side of the water. We met up and spent a lovely afternoon in cute lil Poulsbo, WA. Its pretty much the quintessential small town and we spent an hour soaking up the sun at the park (I wasn't even wearing jacket!) and then moved on to a coffee shop. So good to see her face. Next time I'll see her: Peru!

Matt actually did study very hard. Good job.

But we took a few study breaks. Saturday was kayaking trip #1. My parents got this funny tandem kayak that also has pedals. (Read pedals, as in, with your feet, not paddles). The pedals are pretty cool and actually get you going pretty fast but I couldn't quite master the rudder so we probably looked like a couple of drunkards. But what's not to enjoy on a blue-sky, sunny day?

Pedals

Husky frolicking

Love

Sunday, kayaking trip #2 was much more successful. We took our own kayaks and headed across the passage to a park on Vashon Island.

Glassy water

We even went for a run. Yep, even me. Though I have myself some mean blisters so it may be a little bit before I can get out again.

Other than that we....ate yummy BBQ'd food, drank my parents beer (thanks mom & dad) and OH we watched some Olympics, which was great fun since we don't have TV at our own house.

Ferry

Olympics.

The mountains, not the Games. But we watched those too.

Hope everyone else enjoyed their sun-filled weekend as much as we did!

Another Look at the Weekend

Ok, ever since I did the last post, the title has irked me. Its true, it was not was not a 'romantic' Valentine's weekend. But I'm afraid it gives the wrong impression. It was actually a great weekend, and not just because I have two bathrooms to fill up with my girly bath gels and stuff. It was great because I got to spend time with my sweet, wonderful husband.

Matt, I love you. I am so blessed to have you as mine. I have so much fun with you.

I am blessed because when he says to me 'you are insane' I can reply with 'It's part of why you love me' and know that it is totally, completely true.

Thanks for loving me.

A Romantic Valentines Weekend....NOT

Since Matt has been working weekends and the company he is currently auditing is filing on Tuesday Matt's boss had told him not to make any big Valentines plans because he wasn't sure if they would be working or not. The good news is...Matt didn't have to work at all this weekend!!! (Thanks Brian!)The bad news is....he still had to study because he takes his next CPA exam in just under two weeks.

Don't let the title of the post deceive you. It was actually a nice weekend. We slept in about three hours later than normal on Saturday. Matt made me mochas two mornings in a row. We have eaten all our meals together. These are all anomalies during busy season, so I'm actually quite content. And anyways, this post is actually about our bathroom, not Valentine's Day!

After Ron finished sheet rocking the bathroom a few weeks ago I decided to take on the task of tiling the floor. We had picked out some beautiful black and white marble tiles, and it was time to get them in! Ron was kind enough to leave me in the care of his amazing tiling saw, and an assortment of other tiling tools. My boss Brian was kind enough to not hang up on me on a Saturday morning when I called him with a tiling layout question (he's done a lot of tiling, ok.). I spent two days cutting and laying the tile. Day 2 looks better than Day 1 I will admit. I'm sure Bathroom #2 will look better than Bathroom #1 if I ever get to that point. But all in all I am pretty happy with myself.

Last weekend I grouted and sealed the tile and picked up the door. Thursday Ron came an installed the vanity, toilet and door. A working bathroom!!!

This weekend was an exercise in learning how long the 'finishing touches' take to put in, and a contest to see how many times in one weekend a person could go to Home Depot. I think I hit 8 times. Luckily it's only about 1/4 of a mile away. When I walked in the 5th time today three different employees laughed at me.

We got a shower curtain. We got a curtain rod. I picked out three sets of towel rods and brought them home, and we debated. We put them in. Cleaned everything up. We picked out baseboards and molding. I cut the baseboards and molding (thanks for letting us borrow the chop saw Andy !) I put some pre-stain on the molding. We picked out a stain. Tomorrow I will really do the staining. And then, then ladies and gentlemen we will have a full fledged three bedroom, TWO bath house. We are so excited. And love the new bathroom. And we are contemplating a move downstairs once the rest is finished. haha!

My trusty steed the chop saw.

(Yes, I took wood shop in eighth grade, and that makes me qualified to do this stuff)

(I also took metal shop and learned to weld, just in case you were wondering)

Basebords and molding, chopped and pre-stained

I love this faucet.

I like the soap dispenser too.  :)

Miles & Travel

Many of you know that I/we love to travel. Along with that I (just me, I'm the only insane one) have made a hobby out of frequent flyer miles. It's what happens when your husband has a job that requires twice as many hours of work as yours does (at least this time of year). So I admit it, I have a slight obsession with frequent flyer miles. It's how we got to South America (those were $2000/each plane tickets!). It's how we're getting to Peru in May. Its fantastic!

I try to keep up with all the new offers that come out for a variety of airlines. As we plan more and more trips with our miles people start asking me how I do it so...I thought I would share some new things when they come out.

Now, if you really want to make a hobby out if it, you should keep up with FlyerTalk. It's pretty much the Mecca of miles enthusiasts. (And for those of you laughing at me right now they have 250k members, I am definitely on the least-crazy end of the spectrum).

But if you just think it's kinda cool to get some miles once in a while, read ahead:

There are tons of credit card offers out there that give you anywhere from 25k-35k miles for signing up. But signing up for tons of credit cards can significantly hurt your credit, so I try to stay away from those. Here's my current favorite non-credit card deal.

Chase will give you 25k miles if you sign up for their Continental Airlines checking account. The account is free as long as you have direct depoist going in (I send $5 of my paycheck there). The debit card has a $25 annual fee (don't let them convince you to get the more expensive one, you don't need it to get the miles). You get miles when you use the debit card, but mainly you just think about it as paying $25 to get 25k miles, which is an amazing deal.
Here's the coupon:   make sure you refresh the coupon before printing it, you need the unique offer code.

But it gets even better...

They will ALSO give you another 25k for opening up a business account with them. "But I don't have a business Mackenzie!". I just told them I sell stuff on Craigslist. Which is very true. Let me know if you want some help with this one....I promise it really is easy. Here's the coupon on that one.

If you still need some inspiration to get your butt out the door and head to Chase click here to see how few miles is takes to go some really cool places. Hawaii, the Caribbean, Central America, and Northern South America are all only 35k miles. Europe is only 55k.

DO IT!




More will follow in the coming days/weeks....

January - Bend, OR and Cascades, WA

Nothing too exciting going on in our lives lately, but here are a few highlights:
Matt spent another weekend in Bend with the Bro's.  They went snowshoeing, are some good food and...well, I'm not sure. Boy stuff. You would have to ask him. I think it also involed watching Hangover (the movie).

Matt, Greg, Andy and cousin Ryan

Snowshoeing

Tug

I went snowshoeing with Lance & Val. We went up to the Commonwealth Basin area right near Alpental. The day was pretty cloudy and the snow pretty icy, so it wasn't ideal conditions but it was nice to get outside in January. We started out across Commonwealth Basin, headed straight up the mountainside for a bit, came across a different trail, and found our way back. Here's some pics Val took.

I was trying really hard to make a snow angel. But it was so icy!

I had this past Monday off for MLK day and we had a Second Annual Girls Snowshoeing Day. This started last year cuz all our boys were working and we decided to carry on the tradition in 2010. This was also our second year in a row of beautiful, blue-sky, sunny, perfect conditions, so we expect that part to continue next year too! ha! We had a lovely time, though it had snowed a significant amount the night before and there wasn't anyone else out on the trail so we spent the vast majority of the time lost. I think they should take a tip from Patagonia and put markers on the trees of snowshoe trails. I mean, really, how are you supposed to know where you go?! We were doing Keechelus Ridge and since its a ridge not a mountain its a lot harder to identify where you are headed. Anyways, we got a significantly better workout than we would have if we went the correct way!

Val, Catherine,and Chelsea

steep

Beautiful

Mt. Rainier

We had breakfast with Andy + Jen (Matt's bro and his wife) this morning as a very late 'congratulations your having a baby!' breakfast. We are SO excited for them. Our first lil nephew. Awwww. Matt & I had some time to kill after than and before church and wandered around at the Ballard locks for a while.

The bathroom in the basement has sheetrock now. Wahoo. Me and possibly Matt are going to attempt tiling this week. If anyone has wisdom and wants to volunteer their services you are welcome anytime. ;)

My tiling guide. This is going to be bad...

Poor Matt worked 65 hours this past week. I give a big thumbs down to busy season. I'm baking his team Funfetti cookies right now as a consolation prize. If you have never looked on the side of a funfetti cake box for the cookies recipe you are missing out on a wonderful chunk of life. I highly recommend that you do so at the earliest possible moment.

We've had some lovely evening with friends too. But no pics, so it's really not that interesting.

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. :)

More basement

Sorry, I know some of you could care less about our basement.  But the other half of you seem really excited to see the pictures. So I'm going to go for it, and feel free to skip this one. :)

Bedroom

(its got a heater, and framed for a small window on the side

Bedroom

(closet framed in behind the saw, awesome framing around the heat duct)

Stairs framed in on both sides-closet coming!

storage-room-to-be

bathrooms' got lights and insulation now

Shower + heater

The deep, dark dungeon (aka, our basement)

Our lovely unfinished basement has been awaiting finishing in various stages since...well probably since the house was built. Someone in the 70s thought it would be a good idea to put in a bedroom with bright orange wood paneling. Someone else thought it would be a good idea to put in a golden throne toilet. Someone else thought they knew how to do wiring and put in some sweet can lights. Mostly we thought it would be a good idea to take that all out and do something right. Our upstairs is a comfortable, if not extremely spacious, 810sq ft and this would give us another 810sq ft of daylight basement, effectively doubling the size of our house.

The orange bedroom. Before we even bought the house.

(aka, that is not my bedspread)

We started with replacing some ductwork. Matt took it apart, and then realized Home Depot didn't have the stuff we needed to put it back together. Then he left for Arizona for two weeks while I contracted hypothermia. Actually it was September, and I was only kinda chilly. But I found the stuff at McClendon’s while he was gone. I love McClendons.

Then we punched a hole in the chimney to move some more ducts around. It was New Years day and we had to leave the heat off for 24 hours while the cement dried. That one actually was cold. Quite cold. Thanks Mom and Dad for the heated blanket.

New Years Day punching a hole in the chimney

Then Matt did some framing. Then he had to re-do some of it. Then he had to re-do more of it. Mostly its gone now, but that was good practice, right honey?

Then we invited some tough manly men over to help us tear out the infamous throne, jackhammer a large hole into our foundation, and jackhammer up a portion of our patio.

The original Golden Throne

Almost gone

Tough manly men

I played the part of the good wife by making 5 trips to Home Depot that day and  going to the store to buy these men some pizza and beer.

Then Matt and I dug a 6.5 ft deep hole on the side of our house so the plumber could replace the water main. Good thing I can curl up in little balls and fit in tight spaces to scrape out dirt. (This is about the only thing in the whole remodel that I have been good for).

And then along came an angel from heaven. By the name of Ron, who is our contractor who likes to argue with us, who we love. He has completely gutted and remodeled two of my parents houses over the years and done a fantastic job at a fantastic price. While Matt and I wanted to do most of the basement ourselves (read: didn't want to spend $$) putting in a bathroom was not something that was ever going to make it onto our heretofore non-existent list of expertise. Ron to the rescue.

New bathroom!

He did all the hard stuff for the bathroom like move the laundry and hot water heater, change the plumbing for most of the house, pour cement, and install the shower. Then he decided that before he could do the sheetrock he needed to wire the rest of the basement correctly because it would be hard to do after the sheetrock was in the bathroom. And you have to have framing to do wiring.

New bedroom

So he framed. And he wired. And he's gonna finish the bathroom. All for one fantastic price. Which is why we love him even though he doesn't always like our harebrained ideas about the way we want things. So here's a little photo tour of how it’s coming. Doesn't it actually look like something is happening?! Finally?!

...aaannd I just found this picture on his website. This is Ron.