Wreath Surprise

Remember the winter wreath I created for my front door a few months back?

It's about time to replace it with something a little more springy.  Recently, I noticed that nature was already moving in that direction.  I saw that the wreath had acquired a lot of roughage...leaves, twigs, and the like...especially near the top....hmmmm...

I checked it out and found a bird's nest with three eggs in it!  How sweet!

As adorable as that is, both the nest and the wreath need to go.  The wreath is getting replaced for the spring and a bird cannot claim my front door as home.  I don't think my friends would appreciate getting assailed by an angry momma bird whenever they come over.  Hopefully, the bird relocates to the tree in front of my house so I can watch all the action of baby birds from my window.

Two Down

It's been a little mellow around here in the Hammer house lately.  The dogs have been sick with some difficult GI issues since Thursday night.  They've been to the vet twice, had IV fluids administered to them on both visits, and they have been put on a special diet and antibiotics.  We still don't know the cause of their distress yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they are finally on the mend.  

Learning to Love the Lawn

One of the reasons we chose our house was for the big, beautiful lawn.  We noticed a little while ago, that our big yard was starting to look a little disheveled and needed a good cut.  Noa was planning to cut it before he left, but the weather gave us rain for weeks straight.  Today was beautiful...sunny, around 60 degrees, and perfect for some lawn care.

I have only mowed a lawn once (in high school) and it was not a great experience.  Let's just say my domestic skills were better suited elsewhere.  So, I have no idea how to work a lawnmower.  Last night I stayed up reading the manuals and watching YouTube videos on how to mow a lawn.  That may sound a bit crazy, but I really wanted to know what I was doing.  I didn't want to chop off my toes by mistake.

Here is the front yard before.

And, here's the "before" backyard with our new lawnmower....we call it the "Recyclops" (that's an Office reference) since the box says "Recycler" on it.

I only needed help once (from a neighbor) to restart it (apparently it helps to start it off the grass and on the pavement).  I mowed the front lawn first and had to empty the bag every other pass through around the yard.  That got old fast, so when I moved to the back yard, I switched the bag out for the side piece to just spit the clippings out.  After talking with another neighbor, I was told to try using a mulcher blade.  Anyone ever do this?

Anyway, I think it came out pretty good for being a newbie.  I also fertilized the lawn afterwards.  I still need to get a weed whacker so that I can touch up the trim and I'll need to attack the pervasive moss all over the lawn, but for now, I'm pleased with the result.

Girls Weekend

In honor of Jess' recent birthday, some of the girls from Colorado came out to Washington to celebrate.  We had the best time spending the mornings lingering over coffee, chatting in the car, shopping in boutiques, visiting the city, and enjoying the beautiful weather.  It was a nice distraction from Noa's departure (deployment) and ended much too soon.  

Here are the FoCoCo (Fort Collins, CO) girls: Jess, Jen, and Brandi

We hung out at Poulsbohemian Coffee, which I had not yet been to.  This place has the best views.  This was one of many coffee chats....we had a lot of coffee over the course of their visit.

We braved the crowds at Pike Place Market.  It's not the best group photo, but when you ask some random man to take the shot, you can't have high expectations.

We were so excited to find a cute modern furnishings/boutique in the Capital Hill neighborhood of Seattle.  If we hadn't hiked many, many, many blocks to a specific coffee shop that I had to show the girls, we never would have found it!

My only regret is getting so few pictures during the visit.  Next time, I'll need to keep my camera at the ready.  Thanks for the visit girls!

The Drive

The best part about driving to and from my house is seeing the sheep frolic in one of the neighbor's yards.  It looks like they may own one gray ram and two white ewes.  Recently, we noticed they had lambs join their sheep family.  They are just too cute and I couldn't help but stop and take a picture one day on my way home.

The Making of a Desk

*Special Note: It seems wrong to blog about something so frivolous as a desk during this difficult time for the country of Japan.  My heart breaks for the thousands of people affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami.  I find myself glued to the news and only a random distraction keeps me from wallowing in sadness over the devastation.  So, I guess this entry is a random distraction.  Still, it's hard to go on with regular life, knowing that so many are suffering.  Our prayers are with the victims.

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In our Okinawa home, our place had three bedrooms.  Our new house also has three bedrooms, but instead of turning one of them into a home office (like we did in Oki), we decided to relegate the home office to our large bedroom.  When we first moved in, we picked a corner of the room and for awhile, our "office" looked like this:

Eventually, we got our storage shipment from Florida, which contained our old desk.  We didn't plan on using it, since it no longer met our needs for storage and frankly, it's a beast of a desk and just too big for that space.  I was thinking we could at least use parts of it for a placeholder until we found a new desk, but when the old desk arrived, it was falling apart and covered in black mold from years in storage.  You can see some of the poor condition in this photo:

So, the hunt for a new desk was on.  This was a problem from the start.  We wanted a desk with LOTS of storage, but didn't want it to look like a big executive desk that you'd find in a corporate office.  When we couldn't find one that met our criteria, we decided to create one of our own.  But, it would be impossible to build, since neither of us has furniture-building skills or the necessary tools.  Then through some on-line inspiration, we realized we could put together the different desk elements we wanted to make a customized office space.  Perfect!

We ordered the base pieces from Ballard Designs.  They offer many different options for office cabinets in three different finishes.  We selected four different styles in white.  Once they arrived, we excitedly cleared the area and put them in place.

Next we had to figure out the top part. After checking out Home Depot and Lowe's, we were concerned that we jumped the gun too soon.  Most of the sheets of wood offered at each store were pretty thin and rough looking....not something we wanted for our bedroom office.  Ordering a custom piece would be very pricey.

One day, while shopping in Ikea, we found a solution: a kitchen countertop.  Ikea sells various wooden countertops in different types of wood and finishes.  We loved how sturdy and thick the countertop was and that we could get it cut down to our specific measurements.

Before putting the top in place, I needed to sand it down and stain it to match our nightstands.  It was a fun project to break in my new random orbit sander.  It's my new favorite tool.  I named it "Walt."

Finally, after applying a few coats of stain and poly, it was ready!  Before placing it on the cabinets, we put some foam shelf liner down to prevent any scratching.  Also, the counter is pretty heavy, so I don't think we'll need to mount it to the cabinets or the wall.

Eventually, I'll accessorize and get a better chair.  But, the bedroom office is taking shape and I think it will work perfectly for us right now and in the years to come.

California Road Trip

 Noa is due to deploy (on a humanitarian mission with the US Navy) in a couple of weeks.  With that in mind, we decided to take a quick road trip to see friends and family down in California.  We've never taken an extended road trip together and we thought this would be a good way to explore some of the Pacific Northwest.

We left on a Wednesday afternoon, and headed straight for Portland, OR, which is only a little over 3 hours away from where we currently live.  We stayed at the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland.  The Benson had a kind of "old time elegant" feel to it and is located near lots of downtown hot spots. We walked to dinner at Andina, a Peruvian restaurant in the Pearl District that was recommended by a friend.  This place made the BEST COCKTAIL EVER.  Seriously.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Sacsayhuman:

 (yeah, we couldn't pronounce it either)

Here is the description of this AMAZING drink from the menu: habanero pepper vodka shaken with pureed passion fruit and cane sugar, served up with a sugar rim and a cilantro leaf garnish

I know, habanero pepper vodka sounds disgusting, but take my word for it....it worked.  The drink tasted sweet at first, with the passion fruit flavor, and then just as you went to lick your lips of the sugar from the rim, a spicy sensation hit the back of your mouth.  It was an awesome cocktail.  If you ever find yourself in Portland, don't walk, run to try it.

Back to the trip....Noa knows my penchant for bookstores and suggested that we stop into Powell's Bookstore, the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world.  Although this place takes up over a block of downtown Portland, it didn't feel massive and obtrusive when inside.  It feels very down-to-earth and the folks inside were super helpful and friendly.  We grabbed a couple of books on CD for the road and explored a small fraction of the store.

The next day, we headed to one of the best coffee joints that downtown Portland has to offer: Stumptown.  Stumptown first opened in Portland and now has locations in Seattle (gotta find this one) and New York.  The coffees and pastries were an excellent way to start the morning, plus the place had an artsy-vintage vibe going, which made the experience oh so fun.

After breakfast, we grabbed our bags, and hit the road.  After many hours and miles of driving, listening to a couple of books on CD, nearly running out of gas in the middle of nowhere-ville (we barely made it to a gas station...I was pretty certain I'd be out pushing the car the rest of the way) and numerous sheep/lamb sightings (cute, cute, cute!), we reached Sunnyvale, CA that evening.  Our friends, the Hills, are living there for a year due to a job opportunity.  They kindly hosted us in their apartment.

After a refreshing night's sleep, we all headed out to San Francisco.  We enjoyed a picnic lunch in one of the downtown parks, where their son, Owen, enjoyed running around and playing.  We also walked along the piers, where I remembered to snap a picture.  Cute family, right?

You gotta love Owen's pirate crown (his mom, Melissa, made it).  He wore it all day in the city. 

 We ended up climbing up many, many steps to go see the city from the top of Coit Tower.  The walk to the tower was gorgeous...the gardens growing along the steps were so beautiful and fragrant.  I, unfortunately, didn't take many pictures, but you get the idea.

We made it!  Here's Coit Tower.

From the parking lot, there was still a pretty descent view of the city.  Here's Lombard street and the Golden Gate bridge.

At the top of Coit Tower the views of the city were even better.  My pictures don't do San Fran justice.

Alcatraz and the harbor:

Downtown San Francisco:

You'd think that the boys loved this part of the day.  Here we were in the tower, seeing the sights of the city and spending time together....

...but I think they were more entertained by the "boat races" they created in one of the local park streams on the way home.  They took leaves and put them in the stream to see whose leaf would get to the end first.  This went on for awhile, while Melissa and I chatted and relaxed.  

I didn't take nearly enough pictures on this trip.  You see, we celebrated Jack's (Noa's dad) birthday at a fun little place called Trader Vic's, which supposedly made the original Mai Tai.  I, of course, had to try it.  The drink was okay (tasted like a regular ol' Mai Tai), but the fried bananas for dessert were delightful!  Unfortunately in all the excitement of the celebration, I forgot to get photos.  Bummer.

We spent the second half of our trip with Herman, Traci, and their daughter Emilia.  How the camera stayed in my bag most of our time with them is beyond me, but thankfully I got a few shots of Emilia.  She's quite the performer when you put on some tunes.

Wish I could sport a fedora as well as Mills.

Meanwhile, Dexter, the cat, observed from his perch on the chaise.  He was not amused by my attempts to photograph him.

We ate really well on this trip.  Between eating out at some new (to us) restaurants and Herman's cooking, we dined in style.  Millie especially loved the pasta dinner.

Even Dexter enjoyed some of this tasty meal.  Oh Noa, you've got a friend for life now!

Our time to leave came way too soon, as most trips do.  We decided to take a different route home in order to explore the California redwoods.  We drove on a road called "Avenue of the Giants" in northern California. This road weaves intricately through the giant sequoias living there.  They were enormous and breathtaking.  

See that hole on the bottom left side of the picture below?  That's the same one in the photo above where Noa is standing.

Here's a good perspective when you look at the trees with our car.  We looked like little elves among these massive trees. 

We walked into the forest a little and found the largest tree around.  We named him "Big Red."

Look at him by Noa.  Wow, that is one big tree.

I had to get in a photo with Big Red too.  By the way, that's all one tree, not two that are close to each other.

The enormous redwoods were simply amazing and the colors of the saturated forests were so rich.  It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring stop.

We also stopped along northern California's pacific coast.  Cold, but again, beautiful.

A Team Juloa self portrait:

We made it home last night.  Our trip lasted 7 days and we traveled a total of 1896.9 miles.  

I'd say we would definitely do it again.  

Thanks again to our wonderful hosts and friends, the Hills and the Yaus.  And continued birthday wishes to Noa's dad, Jack.  We loved seeing you all!

Dog of the Day

I try to remember to bring my phone with me when I work at the humane society (2 - 3 times a week).  When I actually remember, I usually snap a quick pic of a dog I've interacted with in some way.  I bring these photos home and show Noa the "dog of the day."  I like that he sees the dogs that I'm jabbering on about after a day of work.

Here is Harley Bug, today's Dog of the Day.  He's currently up for adoption.

The Dog of the Day photos are not the best photos because I'm using an iPhone and the dog is usually excited or behind a kennel door.  But, it still gives a little glimpse of some of these great dogs I get to see and interact with.

Here is a little guy, I think his name is Jinx, who was surrendered a couple of weeks ago.

Puppies!  Puppies!  Puppies!  I can't resist their cuteness.

Okay, sometimes, the photo becomes "cat of the day."  This Maine Coon had me in stitches.  He was all about getting attention.

But, mostly, it's all about the dogs.  Say hello to Ginger!  She was a stray who was adopted a few months ago.