Christmas in Coloma

It rained this past weekend, and we spent most of the time cutting the oak branches into smaller, more movable size branches. We wonder when we will walk around here without noticing all of the "project's" that need done. Our plan is to work on the inside of the house during the winter, then in spring start working on the yard. Or, umm, acreage. Yeah, that can't be a quick job (think tractor).

I dreamt about Sabalo last night. They had repainted all the walls and expanded a hallway (poorly) and put in cherry cabinets. Crazy that I even worry about what is happening at that house. They got to just move in and start living. We've been here going on 4 weeks and we still park outside.

After being cooped up in the house for several days we decided to take the kids to the old gold rush town of Coloma for the Christmas festivities on Sunday. The rain cleared around lunch, I dressed the kids in scrapbookable outfits and off we went to poke around. I *love* that the kids got to see Santa and Mrs Claus without having to stand in line at Sunrise Mall.

We ate lunch, then after blowing our budget on lunch Greg and Maren went in search of an ATM.

Declan, Teagan and I wandered around looking at the adorable little town. This was the bakery.

Here the kids are stamping their letters to Santa. They wrote their own letters. Ironically they both wrote the same thing, that they had been good this year. Neither of them asked for anything in their letters. I, on the other hand, asked for a tractor. The Pony Express picked the letters up. We met back up with Pony Express at the house where Santa was.

This is the little house that Santa and Mrs. Claus were in. It used to be the Coloma Post Office. The kids gave their letters to Santa themselves. That must be a riot reading what kids write.

Maren wouldn't have anything to do with Santa. Couldn't even be bribed with a candy cane. I had to hold her for a quick shot.

I think I'll do an update of progress on the house post next. I'll take pictures of how it looks now versus when I last posted pictures. This way we can see all of the things we HAVE done!

This is what we woke up to this morning! We were really excited until we saw many, many broken branches on the oak trees to the right on the walkway. In fact, while we were outside, we could hear the branches cracking under the weight of the snow. Then, to make things just a little bit more exciting, we had no water... we figured the pipes must have froze. Turns out that a branch fell on the pump, breaking a pipe. $346 later, we have water once again ($6 in parts).... Ahhh, the finer things in life.

This is the backyard from the master bathroom.
This is from the bay window in the master. Just happened to catch a few deer in this picture.

I moved the van so a branch didn't fall on it. This was the view from the driveway back towards the house.

Goodbye, Sabalo Way!

Declan's class had a Thanksgiving Presentation. He is in the back row, next to impossible to find. Bless his heart, he was so nervous!

Here is the Pilgrim, on his way to the stage.

I don't honestly remember how many attempts I made at getting a picture of all 3 kids with the 'For Sale' sign. This is just one of many, many things that I can't remember. October and November were a complete blur.

This is one of the dozen or so loads we made with our little utility trailer. I'm following Greg in the zippy Passat. The girls are squeezed in the backseat with Christmas wreaths between them.
The buyers of our house kept bumping their closing date closer and closer. In the end, we were completely out by the 16th of November. That was the day the carpet was being installed at the new house. We moved most everything into the garage at the new house and hired movers to help move the big/heavy things. We had them put it all in the dining room, since it has hardwood.

We slept in the pop-up at camp driveway while we worked on getting the house ready to move into. Mainly getting the heat working. This proved to be yet another exciting

Okay, my scrapbook gal's.... this is ALL of my scrapbook supplies (with the exception of furniture). I told my Mom this load could NOT go in the ditch. Turns out it took me all day to load the trailer then it was too late to take the load to the new house. My scrapbook supplies spent the night on the trailer in our driveway. I barely slept a wink LOL!

Okay, I'm going to post this and will be working on my next post....

Stand by.... looking for the USB cord....

I will be updating soon. Just looking for the USB for the cameras......

End of October photos...

This post is going to be random... I have about 11 minutes before I have to get the kids from school. I've been meaning to post some of these for awhile, so here goes:

Our 3 sweeties swinging in the yard. Don't let those sweet faces fool you, they can drive an otherwise sane person to drink 2 glasses of wine! Don't ask me how I know this.

We had 1 big storm a few weeks back. The girls wanted to go out with the umbrella and play in the rain. They had a blast!

We decorated Halloween cookies and ate them. Well, I let Maren eat mine since she licked all the frosting off it.

Halloween costumes: Declan - Optimus Prime, minus all of the accessories that give the indication that the costume is Optimus Prime.

Teagan - Cinderella. Complete with blinking glass slippers that gave her blisters. I asked her if the shoes were going to be okay for Trick-or-Treating and she told "yes Mommy, I just can't walk in them...."

Maren - Minnie Maren Mouse. Perfect for this child. Except she wouldn't wear her ears. She did wear her sparkly pink converse though!

Must run for now, will try to post some more after I pick up the wild ones!

Cha cha changes....

This is what you see when you enter our property. I took this picture from the gate. To the left is the garage, then the driveway circles around and the barn is to the left (Maxivan is parked in front of the barn).

I took this picture back in the summer, when we first started this process. It is from the top of the steps down to the house. You can see the white lamp post just in front of Greg's car in the picture above.

This is how it looks now, this picture taken from the front of the house, back up towards the driveway. You can see the white lamp post the previous picture was taken from. Follow me? =)

I took out all those solar lights. They didn't get any direct sunlight to charge them. There must be 36 of them.

This is from the back deck towards the chicken coop.

Before:After:
They uncovered some treasures in all of that tall grass. I raked up 7 or 8 large piles of the downed grass. CRAZY amount of work for this city girl. My hands still hurt.

Greg wanted to paint the garage and epoxy the floor before we move in. So this past weekend, we sprayed the garage. 15 gallons of Kilz and 5 gallons of Semi Gloss. I swept up about 10 lbs of paint 'dust' off the floor. Greg also replaced the fluorescent lights with energy efficient CFL's. With the garage painted white and new lights, it looks like a brand new place!

Here are some of the before shots.

The only critters we've encountered are lizards and frogs. Apparently tarantulas are the most active right now, so the 1 that Greg removed must have been the only one dumb enough to show it's face in the day. The kids say hi to it every time we drive around the bend where Greg moved it to.

Sunday I spent the entire afternoon cleaning the upstairs hall bath. There is a reason I do not clean other people's houses for a living. I had the heebie jeebs so I just poured bleach on the floor, put on my rubber gloves and dove in. I think I will repaint the aqua to a prettier version of aqua and call it a day in there.

I'll post more pic's if I come across any other good before/afters.

*3* Offers on our house!

Greg and I just signed a full price offer this morning!! Please keep fingers crossed that there are no hang-ups. This seems to have gone so smoothly, I'm waiting for something to come up.... =)