Holiday Cheer!

We added a few lights to our collection this year and our house definitely lights up the neighborhood! (Literally!) It's prettier in person, but this picture shows a pretty good idea of what it looks like. You can't see them well in this picture, but lining the the walkway are some large "light bulbs" (like christmas bulbs). They are pretty fun!

The snow of course adds a nice touch to the picture...thought we had more the next day but didn't want to go take another picture! :)

To my family....how does it rate??

Enough already!

So just in case anyone was wondering....nose hairs definitely freeze when it is below zero degrees! And when you have a runny nose form a cold anyway...it just freezes worse. It's a very strange feeling!



Here's a little something to help you feel a little warmer! Mmm...looks nice and toasty!

Oh Tannenbaum!

Christmas is here! Our lovely Christmas tree from Oregon made it to Pullman in good shape and is looking and smelling beautiful! It ended up being the perfect height for our living room too! :) I posted three different pictures because I couldn't decide which showed the light and tree the best.

We used red and gold ribbon again this year instead of garland and I think it adds a lot to the tree!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christ-moose!

My father in law and mother in law went to Alaska this summer on a cruise and got me a little chistmas surprise. I didn't have a nativity scene and since my nickname is moose, this one seemed fitting! :) The whole set is made of moose and it is very cute! Where else could you find this then Alaska?!

These are the "camels"...

Here is the "baby Jesus"...isn't it cute!? a little blurry, sorry!

And here is the whole set. The lighting wasn't very good when I took this picture, but you get the general idea! :)

Now Eric is working on building a better table to set it up on! Thanks Jerry and Vickie!

Pictures of the baby!

I had an ultrasound done today to make sure everything was looking good and in the right place and we got some pictures! So I thought I'd share them with everyone since it actually looks like a baby this time...rather than a tadpole! :)

The first one here is a face view...looks kinda funny..more like a teddy bear. The second one next to it is a profile view. The tech who did the ultrasound said the thing that looks like it's coming from the face is actually a hand...just looks funny here. :)

This is the alien picture...kinda creepy looking, but you can see the face pretty well.

This is another profile view of the baby...and I'm not sure how we're looking at the last one..?
It was pretty cool to be able to see all the little body parts...we saw a really good shot of the feet and hands that was neat. Still too early to tell the sex though. It was moving around a lot though so seemed like an active little guy (or girl)! Thanks for all of your prayers! We really appreciate them!

Crafty Christmasy Day

I had an idea the other day that was kind of a mixture of things I had seen. My mom used to have something similar to this, but slightly different. Also, when I was at Bed Bath and Beyond the other day I saw a candle holder made of glass that was made in this same shape, just not of wood. I decided instead of buying it, that Eric could help me make one instead! We searched for a while for the perfect piece of wood, but finally found one that passed inspection! :)

This weekend when Eric's parents were visiting Eric and his dad cut out holes in the wood for me and Vickie. (They made one too). Today we went to Michaels, which is a dangerous store this time of year, and found some fake berries and greenery to decorate it with. This is the end product! The pictures are complements of Eric who had to get the lighting right for it to turn out very well. :)




I used a hot glue gun to get everything on the log...of course I burned my hand in the process...so hopefully it will all stay put! The candles are yummy cinnamon votives from Yankee!! Mmmm...and don't worry Jodi, I put it away until I decorate for Christmas! :) It was pretty simple and cheap to make and looks very festive I think! Yeah for Christmas crafts!

A cozy fall dinner...Mmm...

Eric and I tried a new recipe for dinner tonight and it was SO GOOD! I've never been a huge minestrone soup person, but this totally changed my mind. :) It was the perfect dinner for a cold and windy fall evening...and was really quite simple and fast to make. (Less than an hour)

I made some homemade biscuits while the soup was cooking and even whipped up some citrus butter to spread on them. Mmm...Mmm...Good!

We got the recipe for the soup from a website called MediterAsian.com and you can click here for the recipe if you would like! I would highly recommend it! Happy eating!!

Here we go...Rome #2....finally!

We stayed at a B&B in Rome and got breakfast every morning at a little "bar." We had our choice of delicious pastries and a cappucino, complete with a perfect heart poured into it. Mmm, it was good!

On our second day in Rome we walked a LOT! First we walked to the Trevi Fountain. No, this is not it...:) I believe this is the Fountain of Triton, made by Bernini in 1642. We didn't know what it was at the time, but thought it looked cool so we took a picture! Now that I know what it is, it's a bit more impressive! :)

We arrived at the Trevi Fountain after a very HOT walk. I think the temperature that day was around 104...

It was much bigger than I expected actually! Very impressive in all of the details too! This is a picture of Eric and I throwing a coin into the fountain. Supposedly if you throw a coin in over your shoulder, you will someday return to Rome. Hopefully it won't be quite so hot next time! :) The water felt amazing though! I just wish we could have jumped in!

Here is a picture of the whole thing. There were TONS of people there, so it was hard to get a good picture, but this one wasn't bad. :) It was packed and we had to push our way through to the front, but it was very neat to see!

A short walk through the skinny streets of Rome and we came upon the Pantheon! It was pretty impressive! It was originally built in 27 B.C. by Marcus Agrippa, but burned down later and was rebuilt by emperor Hadrian around 118 AD. It was dedicated to Marcus Agrippa though and his name is still on the front. It was the first "dome" of it's time and has a hole (27 feet across) in the ceiling of the dome. It was really cool to see the sunlight coming through it.

Here is a picture of the inside of the pantheon. It became a Christian monument at some point in history, and is to this day.

After lunch (at a great little place we read about in Rick Steve's book and got free strawberry wine!) We walked across town to cross over the Tiber River to the neighborhood of Trastevere. This is us on the bridge to the island in the middle of the river. The river was pretty murky looking, but still water all the same!

Once we crossed into Trastevere we walked around for a while and came across this church. We didn't know what it was at first, but found out that it was the Santa Maria which is thought to be one of the oldest churches in Rome, though no one is sure of the date. It was very elegant on the inside! The funny part was, when we first got there we were so hot we just walked into the covered portico and sat without going in for about 30 minutes because we didn't know what it was! After we went in though we were pleasantly surprised!

In the covered portico where we sat, the walls were covered with pieces taken from all over ancient rome. Some of the pieces were clearly christian (there were a lot of Chi-ro (sp) symbols and fish) However there were a lot of very non-christian symbols too. Pretty cool!

Once we finally went inside, we ended up wandering around for about an hour because it was so impressive! The whole ceiling was gold! We have tons of pictures of the inside, but I just picked this one for the sake of space. :) When i finish my photobook you can see more!:)

After a rest inside Santa Maria, we decided to walk up to the top of a large hill in trastevere (I can't remember the name of the lookout, but it's pretty well known). On our way up (and finally out of the crowds!) we came across this huge fountain! There were only like 4 other people there too! It was very refreshing to put our feet in! I haven't been able to figure our what fountain it is, but it was very cool!

Isn't Rome supposed to be romantic?? :) What can I say, it was Christina's idea!

This was the view from the fountain overlooking Rome. The big building there is the roman Capitol building. It's pretty huge too, but we didn't stop to see it. Just saw it on our bus ride home that evening. Pretty amazing view though!

I don't know what this building is, but it was right next to the fountain and was pretty, so we took a picture. :)

We continued our walk to the very top of the hill and got an awesome view of St. Peter's Cathedral and the Vatican! The view from the fountain of the whole city was better than from here because there were too many trees, but this was pretty neat!

After this, we walked down the hill to the city again and found a place for dinner. Christina and I shared a tiramisu for dessert and it was SO GOOD! Definitely the best I've ever had! MMmmm!

End of day two!

Another project completed!

Well, our goal this weekend was to finish the fireplace (which if you look a couple blogs down, you'll see what it used to look like) and clean the kitchen up! It was a disaster zone as you can see by these first two pictures!

It had gotten to the point where we hadn't even done the dishes or tried to clean the kitchen, because it was just too bad! Anyway, it took us pretty much the whole day, but in the end it was MUCH improved!

Here is the kitchen with the freshly painted wood stove back in place. We decided to paint it brown for a bit of a change and I think it turned out quite nicely! The tile floor is still coming up in places, but you can't see it in these pictures so it still looks nice. :)

Here is a close up of all the brickwork that Eric did. He did a great job, especially considering he had never done brick before! We put a small mantel up on top as well just for fun so that I could put things on it...you know, another flat surface to get dusty! :)

It was a long day on saturday, but I think it looks MUCH better than it did two days ago. And now I'm willing to spend time in there cooking again. :)

The Coliseum and Roman Forum - Day 1 in Rome!

On our first day in Rome we walked the 15 minutes it took us to get to the Coliseum and Roman Forum. On our way there we stopped in the park right outside the Coliseum for a picnic lunch (tuna sandwiches!). We sat in front of these ruins...no idea what they are, but it was beautiful!

Walking through the park to the Coliseum! I was really excited to see it! This was one of the things I was looking forward to seeing the most. It was pretty impressive and amazing to be standing in a place of so much history! It doesn't look as "pretty" as before since all of the marble from it was taken off to make other buildings in Rome. A lot of the marble was used for St. Peters Basilica at the Vatican.


This was just a really cool picture Eric took of the Coliseum. It is one of my favorites!

This was on the inside of the Coliseum. There was something written on it in Latin so I don't know exactly what it was about, but I do know it was put there to commemorate that many Christians died there. Anyway, it was just neat to see it there.

This is taken from the inside of the Coliseum looking out towards the Roman Forum and Imperial Palaces area. This is the Arch of Titus in the background. It was very impressive and had so much detail!

This is the inside of the Coliseum. The platform straight ahead is a recreation of where the floor is supposed to be. Above it is the seating area where the Emperors sat. You can see all the different "cells" or whatever they're called, below where the people/animals were held until the games began.

Just a picture of Eric and I at the Coliseum. :)

This was inside the Imperial Palace/Roman Forum area. This was inside one of the ruins. It was an illegal picture because we weren't supposed to be in the alcove (blocked off) but we did it anyway...carefully! :) Christina is the other girl in the picture who was travelling with us.

This is looking out over the Roman Forum. Behind the Temple of Divus Romulus. If I remember right (mom, dad??) this was later converted to a christian church or something? Or was that the temple of Antoninus and Faustina which is next to it?

We found this really cool overgrown fountain as we were wandering around the palace grounds. It was really pretty and provided a bit of cooler air which was a nice feeling in the 100 degree weather!

Looking out over the Roman Forum again. This is the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina.


This is inside the imperial palace grounds again. I believe in the Domus Augustana (built by Domitian). This is Eric's favorite picture from Rome he says. :)

This is the stadium, also part of Domitian's Palace. The palace area what HUGE! We could have spent hours and hours walking around it, but we were hot, tired and hungry! It was all so amazing to see, especially considering how old it all is and the history that took place here! So cool!

I will do day two in Rome later!

What a weekend!

Jerry and Vickie (Eric's parents) came up this weekend to help us with a final "summer" project before school starts. We ripped up the peel and stick vinyl flooring and put in tile! This is the floor stripper that we used...it was really heavy!

Eric and Jerry laid most of the tile while Vickie and I re-painted the fireplace (pics of that later). It was quite a long day!

Here is the finished project...sort of. There is no grout yet in this pictutre, but you get the general idea! After grouting and drying, we have unfortunately found quite a few that have not stuck or something. Grr...

So, it looks pretty good overall, but we have a few problem tiles to re-grout and mortar. FUN!

Today (labor day) we decided to take the day off and go hiking! We met some friends of Scott and Alyssa (my brother and sister in law) who just moved to Idaho, and went to Heyburn State Park by Lake Cd'A. It was a bit cool and rained some, but overall was a fun trip!

We even found two geo caches on the hike. Eric and Harper are comparing GPS's here...kinda funny! :)

Overall, it was a good weekend and we got a lot done!