Centennial Celebration

Here are some photos from our house's 100 year birthday celebration. It was a lot of fun to have everyone by to see how different it looks compared to only 6 months ago.

Ivo and Maxine stopped by on their way out to dinner. Thanks to the Costume Closet, Rina and I were able to dress more closely to the style of the day around the year our house was built. That place was a trip to explore.

This long lost stranger appeared at the door as an apparition and stayed for 10 minutes as he was en route to the airport to catch a flight back to Malaysia, where he now lives and works.
Toan!! Great to see you again.

The Haggerty clan from Montana caught a three day stage coach and made it down to Salt Lake in time for the celebrations.

Nell - ecstatic at the excuse to dress up (or down - as the case may be).

The Basement Project Continues. . .

Here is a series of photos to update everyone (especially those who could not make the centennial party, etc.) on our progress with the basement. The first photo in this series is from April 11th. Our basement has been completely dug out at this point to an overall depth of 8 feet beneath the existing joists. As you can see, the water heater was being supported by this contraption from those 100 year old joists. At least we still had hot water at this point. Not too long after this photo, the water heater was taken down and we've been living without any hot water since. At least we have still running water:)

Here's a photo of the basement right after the new sewer lateral was placed, inspected, and prepped for concrete floors.


Here's Ivo's right hand man, Mel, pouring the concrete.


It was a pretty quick process once they got started.


The floors dried over night and turned out great.


The next steps. . . stairway access and framing. Ivo's son, Lane, built our stairs and Dave Villella did all the framing. Dave has helped us create some nice built-in areas that will make use of all the space underneath our new stairs. What a great day when we finally had stairs to access the basement and could see our plans coming to life in 3 dimensional form.



This is the 2nd bathroom. The shower has been framed out and the toilet and sink will be on either side of the shower. The clawfoot tub from the upstairs bath will be placed in the other corner of this bathroom later on.


This is our laundry room with a new washer and dryer ready to be hooked up and used.


Next to come. . .drywall.

Spring Moab weekend

We spent this past weekend in Moab with Rob's brother, Tom, his girlfriend, Melissa, and Melissa's friend, Zack. While Rob, Tom and Zack were mountain biking on the Porcupine Rim Trail, the girls including Melissa, Lucy and myself went for a hike along the Negro Bill Trail. Lucy really loved going for multiple dips in the water along the trail to cool herself off.

We arrived Friday night to a constant light rain in the desert. The next afternoon, we saw a lot of cactus blooms like this one along the Negro Bill Trail.

Lucy takes a break from all the swimming and running through the water to sun herself.

Another beautiful cactus bloom.

Tom graciously invited us to stay with him at this semi-permanent tent that he and his friend, Gavin, built in Castle Valley. It made desert camping much more luxurious for us. If you zoom in, you can see Rob helping set up an Ikea kitchen that will be used in the tent from now on.

Reclaiming the floors.

After the walls were removed, we could see the original layout of the house and it was interesting to see how in 1908, it was custom to paint the perimeter of the Douglas fir floor and then have a rug covering the middle. We were pretty excited even at this stage to try to imagine what the floors would look like once refinished. Here are some before and after pictures of our 100 year old Douglas fir floors. Dining area "before:"


Dining area "after:"


Living room "before:"


Living room "after:"


Front hallway "before:"


Front hallway "after:"

House Update

This is a "before" picture of our painted brick house. As we have learned, brick is not meant to be painted as moisture can collect behind the paint and cause damage to the brick. So, we had the exterior paint removed by the professionals at Abstract.

Here is the transition phase when our house was covered by a large plastic tent as various chemicals were applied to remove years of paint.


Here is a current photo of the front of the house after the paint stripping. We think the original brick looks great. (If you look at the bottom of the photo you can see where we have a new basement window and a rock window well being installed.) Our next project will be the front porch. Alas, the list of things to do never seems to decrease.

On to the interior house project. . . These are a couple of "before" picture of the interior walls that separated the dining and living rooms from the small second bedroom.

This photo is during the transition phase when Rob and I did a lot of demolition to the drywall, carpet and subfloors.

Here is a photo taken the day after our carpenter/ finisher/ house remodeling guru, Dave Villella, finished securing an attic beam that replaced the interior load bearing walls. There is so much more space in the main living area now. It feels really open and will make it much nicer for entertaining in the future. We're really thankful that Dave is working with us as he has given us many helpful suggestions and done such great work.

San Francisco weekend

A friend I know from back in the day in Boston got married recently in Muir Beach, CA. Rina and I had planned a long weekend to attend the wedding reception and visit some other Cali friends, but unfortunately Rina's mother's husband, Chuck, died the prior week so she had to change her travel plans and return to Florida to be there for her mom. I flew solo for the weekend, staying in Mill Valley.
The morning of the wedding I ran a 30K trail run (Pirates Cove) that is part of the Pacific Coast Trail Run Series. It was spectacular! The course was on beautiful coastal trails in Marin on the headlands just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Chilly to start, but as you can see it didn't keep the die-hard surfers away. I would recommend any of these races if you can ever swing it.

Chilly enough for a ski cap just before the start. Gorgeous sunrise over the lagoon, though.

Rodeo Lagoon at sunrise. You can see the surfers with drysuits and helmets in the background. Last year the race ended by running across the sandy beach. Luckily that was changed this year.

This guy made everyone chili after the race. I wasn't really in the mood, but it seemed to go quickly.

Judy and Brian got married on Mt. Tam with close family present, then hosted a cozy reception at the rustic Muir Beach Community Center overlooking the beach. It was really well done. Great food, music, and people.

The view from the deck overlooking the beach.

The happy couple on their wedding day.

The following day I met up with Jason & Diane and we had breakfast in the city before going on an exploratory walk through the Presidio and by Baker Beach. Looking across the bay you can see the headlands where the race was held and near where the wedding reception was. We saw a dog on the beach whose tail had such a kink in it that it almost looked like someone had slammed it in a door and it kept the impression of the door jamb in it. Diane tactfully walked up to it and snapped a photo of it. Dog didn't seem to care.

Mill Creek Yurt Trip #2

Slow and steady up the trail with that big pack, girl.
Walking a little more cautiously after rolling over in some animal smell and being unable to right herself. She struggled for a minute until she realized the pack was too bulky, then just gave up and gave us a look as if to say "a little help here!"

Lucy, Rina, Jeremy, and Jodi make their way up to the yurt.

Lucy, Zelli, and Jeremy catching the sunset on Big Water Peak. Thanks to daylight savings, we managed to get in a short tour here after getting to the yurt and unpacking.

Zelli looking cute as ever


Lucy getting face shots on a bluebird spring day. I guess that hard work to get up the canyon was worth it.

Lucy, Rob, and Rina atop Big Water Peak on the second day. We toured over to Reynolds Peak as well before returning to the yurt. Only the shaded north facing slopes still held the soft snow and we found some sweet turns.
Zelli, Jeremy, and Jodi enjoying the view.

Touring through the aspens en route to Reynolds Peak

Two well exercised dogs taxiing for take-off.
Only 4.6 miles down to the car girls!

Turn your laptop on its side or crook your neck for this one. I couldn't figure out how to rotate the video. That pack doesn't seem to slow her down on the downhill. She looks to be having a good ol' time.