Sunday, November 22, 2009

Gobble Gobble

Very fun cookies to make and decorate. Happy Turkey Day!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Power Trench

I drove out to our property yesterday to take a few pictures of the trench our contractor dug for the power. This is a picture of the cement vault and the trench running to our power box. In the background, my car is just inside where our gate will be located.


This is the cement vault.

From the vault, the trench goes under our neighbors fence and across his back yard to the nearest power pole. It would have been much more expensive if he had not let us cut across his land.

Once the trench is inspected, the power will be ordered.
I also went to the post office yesterday to find out how we get a mailbox. There are so many more things to do when you start from land as opposed to buying an existing house. It is very interesting and sometimes frustrating, but I sure have learned a lot.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Taking a Nap Together

When I went looking for Toby and Tillie this morning, I found them in my room taking a nap together on the bed. They looked so cute that I went and got the camera. Perhaps Toby is sticking his tongue out at me for waking them up!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Cute Turkeys

We have been very busy lately finalizing the plans for our new house. Last week we finished selecting the flooring, countertops and back splashes. The product options available is staggering, which makes it hard to select what you want and even harder to picture the products all together and installed.
Our contractor begins digging the ditch for the power on Wednesday. The cable company will also be putting their cable into the same ditch, which is great for us because it keeps the cost down. In the next week we should be receiving a quote for bringing natural gas onto the property.
Susan took these cute little turkeys to work today. We found the idea in a Pillsbury cookbook. Next weekend we are decorating sugar cookies for Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Yakima Chamber Orchestra

On Sunday afternoon Susan and I went to the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) concert at The Seasons Performance Hall. The guest musician was Oscar Esqueda, a Marimbist. The marimba, shown below, is a wooden percussion instrument. Mallets are used to strike the keys. Before Sunday I had not had the pleasure of listening to someone play the marimba, and Oscar was fabulous. For several minutes at a time he would hold 4 mallets, two in each hand and the multiple notes resonating from the instrument was just beautiful. He received a well-earned standing ovation from the crowd. I am so glad that he came to Yakima and that we decided to get tickets!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Happy Halloween 2009

We had so much fun last night! Over 200 kids came to our house this year. This is the best picture I could get of all 3 graves in our graveyard. We were sitting outside, like we did last year, except this time there wasn't a burn ban, so we had the fire pit going. With the fire, haunting music playing and a couple of White Russians we were set for the evening. It was so funny watching kids walking up the sidewalk and then just stopping when they got closer to the house.

The two outside graves had beating hearts and the hands coming out of the ground really did look spooky. Cousin Huet has a crow sitting on his grave, but unfortunately the crow is so black that he didn't show up in the picture.
Check out the eyes on the spider. They were bright red and sparkled until it got too dark. Our chairs were just on the other side of this tree and some of the kids, or their parents, would turn around after getting their candy and walk right into one of the two spiders hanging from the tree.

We got a lot of comments on the decorations, the fire pit and the wonderful smell of the fire on a cold evening. Some of the parents took pictures or videos of the yard. I have to admit, it is a little sad that we won't have trick-or-treater's at our new place, but this was great fun while it lasted.