Living in a Smoke Screen

The Station Fire burning in Angeles National Forest has really intrigued me... probably because smoke continues to pour over the mountain ranges that are just south of palmdale. Nathan doesn't remember ever having smoke fill the Antelope Valley like this. On Saturday, the glow of everything was orange... due to smoke and the sun blazing through the orange smoke. I had seen the sun like this 2 years ago when Santa Clarita seemed to be surrouned by fire. Last night, we actually saw the red/orange glow in the smoke from the fires. This was crazy because the fire was only as far north as Acton, but we could see it. The latest information on this is that the fire essentially doubled in size overnight going from about 45,000 acres to 90,000 and most recently topping off at nearly 106,000 acres. Nathan and I heard on the radio tonight on the way to church that it has gone as far east as Little Rock, which is just south and east of Palmdale. We are not in danger, but this fire is endangering so many people. I saw an update on this fire on Lisa's blog, where she also said that authorities have said that estimated full containment will not be achieved until September 15th. This is mind-boggling to me! She also had this timelapse video on her blog. What is going on with the smoke is so similar to what is going on here. But it was very interesting. Take a look...

Washington and a Wedding

Now since I had your attention with my last post, this post is for those of you who don't check facebook, mom :) We just returned from our summer vacation this past week. It was so great to get away for a little while and have fun and relax. It is just nice sometimes to take a break from the normal routine of life. Our ultimate destination was Washington for the wedding of Matthew Forbes and Stacey Cherry. We took our time getting up there visiting family and friends on the way. We left Monday to start our driving adventure,spent Thursday night in Seattle taking in all the sights, and Friday/Saturday were filled with wedding festivities. We met up with a few friends from Master's who were also headed to the wedding and had fun hanging out. It was a great time. Here are some pictures from our last vacation alone; and our last vacation with nothing but gas and food stops :)

A little vinegar anyone?

I thought I'd try to capture your attention with this post, and since last time I posted something in the same category I got a big response, I thought I would try again :) Yes, along came a spider that sat down beside her. Well, it didn't really sit down beside me, but here's the story. I was working in our church reception office yesterday when I saw this strange very large spider/bug looking thing. I calmly exited the room and waited for a few of the office staff to finish their conversation. Then I calmly said "so do any of you like spiders?" to which the office manager, Jo, replied "I'll kill it!" I showed them where it was and she said "Oh, that's a vinegaroon." I had heard of these spiders, but fortunately had yet to see one. Unfortunately, I had my first sighting. :( These spiders are like a cross betweena spider and a scorpion (because just plain ol' spiders aren't bad enough, they need to be crossed with another terrifying creature). From what I understand, though I don't know how accurate this is, if you are bit by one of these spiders, everything you eat for a period of days tastes like vinegar. This just seems all around horrible to me. Well, to ease your curiosity, here is the picture of what they look like. This wasn't the actual one I saw, just a picture I found on google. Enjoy???

How Long Can You Hold Your Breath

Another classic video sent to me by none other than Beverly Welch. It's hilarious. :)

Along Came a Spider and Sat Down Beside Her...

Last week was my first snake sighting. That took a while to get past. I've seen plenty of spiders in my lifetime... and plenty at our new house. Most have been daddy long legs (the only kind of spider I sorta can live with because they eat mosquitoes). The rest have all been measly garden spiders... until tonight.

We stopped back by our house to turn off our porch light... a wonderful sign of being done working there for the day. Low and behold, I spotted something that looked like a spider under our kitchen window. I thought... that's too big to be a spider. So I said to Nathan... "Is that a spider?" There wasn't much light but we decided it was and we'd get a better look with a flashlight. Once I got the flashlight outside, we brought this particular beast into the light and sure enough, a gigantic spider. And this was no garden spider mind you. The next most logical question regarding spiders in the desert was "is it a brown recluse or black widow?" Nathan said it looked like a wolf spider then reassured me that after an entire lifetime of living in the desert, this was definitely the biggest spider he had even seen with the exception of a tarantula. Comforting, right? It's good to know that after a full 25 years in the desert, your husband spots the biggest spider he's ever seen underneath your own kitchen window!! I really love our house and all, but i'm really starting to get concerned about living there....

First snakes, now gargantuas spiders... please let me never have to update you on what would be next... because I don't even want to know or encounter what would be next. Now I'm going to go shower and make that feeling of spiders crawling all over me go away :)

House Renovation Update #1

Here are some pictures from the process... some are blurry because my camera is dying, but we hope you enjoy! There is a full update at the end of all the pictures if you're interested :)

This gives you an idea of the mass amouts of wallpaper

...and border
This is to give you an idea of how atrocious it was,
and how hard it was to get off!

Since everything else in the house had a pink theme to it, why not have the walls be pepto-bismol pink too? I mean, thats what was under the border in this room! Oh my...

This is the room in all its glory with no more wallpaper,

and no more pink carpet!

tile-less kitchen

tile-less entry... wohoo! Good job honey!

New cherry hardwood laminate flooring

This is a better picture of the actual color of the hardwood.

So, the moment you have all been waiting for is finally here!!! Just kidding... I know you haven't all been waiting for it :) But here is the status of our house:

• Officially closed on May 14th (my good friend Lane's birthday). We got in and started working on Friday May 15th (my good friend Bridgey's birthday). We worked for a good solid 3 days on nothing but taking wall paper down. So much fun!! May I just advise anyone who looks at this blog to never put a shred of wall paper up in your home... don't ever do that to anyone else who might live there after you. It's just downright torture.
• Spent most of the following week painting and continuing to take down wallpaper.
• Thursday we had a few friends from church come and lend a hand... including our good friend Marj, who was our lifesaver and godsend when it came to getting the tile out of the front entryway. Nathan worked for a good 2 days on that tile and finally got it out thanks to Marj lending us some very helpful power tools. Thursday night, Nathan's dad came and ripped out all of our lovely mauve/pink/rose/ugly carpet and started on the padding underneath.
• By Friday, all of the carpeting was out, the tile in the kitchen was gone, the tile in the entry was working on being gone, our padding was all out, and we were preparing to lay down our new flooring on Saturday morning.
• Saturday we had a lot of helping hands thanks to our families. Some of Nathan's family came and helped out by painting, cleaning my gross blinds, and laying down flooring. All of my family came at some point on saturday, and they were put to work painting, taking down wall paper and various other tasks.
• Sunday--by sunday evening the flooring was completely installed in our hallway, kitchen, and large living space. Nathan worked on taking the linoleum out of the bathroom so flooring could be installed there too.
• Monday found us finishing up the rest of the flooring (it was completely finished on Monday!!!) as well as moving out of our apartment. We got everything moved into our house (all in the living/dining area) and my old college roommate emily helped me get our apartment all cleaned up. She was such a huge help!!!

So here we are in this week planning on doing some more work this week/weekend. Saturday morning we have carpet installed in our 3 bedrooms, along with the rest of the baseboards in the bedrooms. That will pretty much take care of it for our renovations. Then the fun begins trying to get everything unpacked and settled in. A few projects will remain, but over the summer should be completed. We need to get tile for the Master Bathroom, get quarter-round for all of our hardwood flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms, and relax and bask in a job well done :)... oh yeah and massages and pedicures and manicures to try and restore our bodies to a normal state.

It was my parking spot

One more :) Beverly sent this to me, and it was too funny not to share. The sad thing is there are probably really people like this out there :)