Playing catch-up!

Please forgive me for this mass-blog-update. I'm about to cram four events into one post, so it may be a bumpy ride.

Two weekends ago, Christian and I spent a day at the Delaware Water Gap. This was our second visit, and we thoroughly enjoyed becoming one with nature during our almost 9 mile hike.
Below is the pond that we spent hours walking towards. It's considered one of New Jersey's natural wonders. For some reason this pond is very acidic, and only two species of fish can survive in the water. Acidic water or not, it was still very picturesque.
Since I'm putting so many things into one blog entry please excuse my use of the collage to recap the hike and lack of commentary. (If you'd like to see the photos closer up, just click on the collage.)


On April 13th, our family got a little bigger. Christian's cousin Danielle welcomed to the world her first baby, Joseph. A healthy 8 pounds 8 ounces, and seriously has the cutest face I've ever seen on a baby boy! Way to go Danielle and Mike!!Speaking of babies. A girlfriend of mine, who's husband is good friends with my husband, is expecting her first baby in about five weeks. Her baby shower was this past weekend, and although I couldn't be there for reasons which you will learn shortly, I sent to the shower a name plate for her little man who will be named John. I really liked how this one turned out. The reason I could not attend the baby shower, Christian and I spent the weekend down in Asbury Park, NJ attending a chiropractic seminar. Asbury Park is right on the beach, and our hotel was mere feet from the boardwalk and crashing waves. I forgot to bring my camera, so the few photos I have of the place, I did not take, but if I had my camera I would have loved to attempt to capture what my eyes saw, and it would have looked something like this...Again, sorry for the jammed pack entry. I'll try to be better at posting more frequently. Hugs!

Just 5 minutes later...

I left the house less than 5 minutes later than I normally do this morning and my goodness, what a difference it made! I take the back roads to get to campus for class, and usually it only takes me about 15 minutes door to door. But this morning, Murphy's law was upon me. I was only four blocks away from my house when I came upon my first road block. A school bus.It made four stops on the way up the hill, so I patiently waited knowing that it would turn down a road in less than a mile. Once it made the left turn, I zoom down the road trying to make up for lost time. (No worries, I never go over the speed limit. It was 40 mph on this road.) At the bottom of the hill, I was stopped by a crossing guard. Once allowed to pass, what should pull out in front of me, but another school bus.So now I'm caravaning with a school bus and at least ten cars behind me, when we all get stopped by a commuter train.
Now I'm starting to get agitated because less than half a mile down the road we get stopped at the second set of rail road tracks as another train passes. So I'm close to school and I'm sure I'm in the clear by now, when I come around a bend and what do I see? A garbage truck taking up the entire lane, with three cars already behind it, as the "waste management engineers" run out grabbing trash cans, flinging them into the back of the truck, and then chucking them on the lawns from whence the came.
I let out a sigh, and just wait the less than 100 feet to the next light because I know they're going to go straight and I'm turning. The light of course is red!
I turn the corner, I can now see the buildings on campus ahead of me, I get nervous because I have to cross over my third and final set of rail road tracks and I just know I'll be stopped with an on coming train. To my surprise, I was able to make it across without a hitch. I turn onto campus, only to be stopped by, not one, but two public transportation buses that are taking up both lanes to allow students off and on. Finally the buses pull forward only to clear my line of sight to the parking deck that I am allowed to use, where I see a line of cars all waiting to pull in. (The photo below really is my parking deck) Luckily both gates were working this morning so the wait wasn't more than a minute or two. I drove up to the fifth floor, and ran across campus to my 8:30 class.

I was only 4 minutes late, but turns out that my professor had as rough a morning as I did because she was 5 minutes late and blamed it on traffic. I totally believing her! Whew!

Basement Potty Training

Spring has just begun, and Jersey is already in record rain fall for the season. Christian and I are lucky enough that we haven't had a major issue with flooding (Knock on wood) but yesterday I came home to a quiet house and heard a strange sound coming from the basement. An oddly relaxing and soothing sound of lightly trickling water. This is what I found in the basement. (Press the play button.)

Yes, that is our basement wall "peeing" all over the floor. *sigh* Needless to say we'll be plugging the hole once everything dries up down there. Oh well, one of the many perks of home ownership.

Homeward Bound!

Last week during my spring break from classes I flew home to Oregon to visit my family. While I was there I was able to cram in several fun events, visits with friends, and lots of beautiful scenic Oregonian views.

My best girlfriend, since the fourth grade, Lauren drove down from Portland for the weekend so we could play catch up. I adore her for making the trip. It's a six hour drive, and the day she drove down chains were required on the mountain passes. She's a brave cookie, always has been, and it was truly wonderful to see her!
Above is Lauren and her youngest brother Michael playing on the trampoline in their back yard. This is a new addition to the Penka house. I can only imagine the trouble, not to mention injuries that would have occurred had this been here while we were kids!

Below is my cousin Ryan, who's really more like a brother to me because we grew up basically in the same house together. In the photo with us are my super cute niece and nephew Chloe and Daniel. It's only been eight months since I last saw them, but my goodness have they become little grown ups already! Slow down!!!
I was lucky enough to be in town for Ryan's birthday. I can't even tell you when the last time I actually got to celebrate his birthday with him. I think we were still in high school to be honest. So it was super great to be there for our traditional Cooley style birthday party topped off with a carrot cake. Our favorite!
Growing up in a small town there really wasn't much in the way of entertainment. You either made your own fun, or on a dud-of-a-day you relied on the local movie theatre to entertain you for a few hours. Lauren and I lived at the theatre, or so it felt on some rainy days, so of course we had to relive our youth and catch a movie together at our old hang out spot.
We saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D. This was Lauren's first time watching a movie in 3D. I'm happy to say that I was there for such a momentous occasion.
Oh yeah, and Dad was there too. *wink*

While in Oregon I was able to sneak in a holiday with the family. St. Patties Day. Nana and I made corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. My sister drove down from central Oregon, a three hour drive, and spent the holiday with the family. The bonus with her visit was that the day before was her birthday, so score one more for perfect timing. I spent the entire day with her just hanging out, having sister-sister talk, and enjoying the time together.

Do you think we're proud to be Irish?
Nana, Dad and I drove to a near by town for one reason and one reason alone. Chocolate Malts!!! There is this tiny little shack of a burger joint in a "don't blink or you'll miss it" of a town that ever since I was a really little kid has been the reining champions when it comes to the best milkshakes and malts! It takes about 25 minutes in the car to get there, but once you're there, the drive is sooooo worth it!

Upper Klamath Lake with a view of Mount McLoughlin. Just outside of the city limits on our way to the Valley for the day.
Driving over the mountain pass is always an adventure, and during the middle of winter there are times when it's simply not possible due to the amount of snow. Oregon has special snowplows that not only push the snow in front of the plow but it also cuts into the side of the snow creating a wall of snow. It's the only way to really clear the path from all the snow.

Dad has found a new scenic spot that is his hidden little gem. I had never been there before, so on our way to the Valley we stopped for a beautiful little leg stretch.
Once in the Valley we stopped at a local creamery that makes it's own cheeses. We're talking TONS of cheese! I tried Oregonzola Cheese, Crater Lake Blue Cheese, and a cheese that was flavored with lavender. All yummy in my tummy! We also stopped at grocery store that has an amazing bulk section. I got to see Nana's hot-rod skills with the electric shopping carts. Let me tell you, she's fast on that thing! She drove it all the way to the car in the parking lot, so I got to try my hand at the handle bars as I drove it back into the store to plug it in.
I love my home state of Oregon, and it was so great spending such quality time with Nana, Dad , my sister and my cousin. It's a small family that I have, but we're not small on the love that we share!

February was cold! Brrr!!

We had several back to back snow storms this past month that really packed a wallop of a punch. Towns shut down for a day or two several weeks in a row, and Christian closed his office more than once, due to the snow. Here is a look at the two bigger snow storms and our first experience being home owners in a blizzard like event.

Christian (In the black jacket) is talking with our neighbor Paul who, although you can't really see it, has a "roof rake" and is pulling the snow off the top of his roof. Because Christian and I still have many things packed away in boxes we couldn't find his snow gloves so Paul let Christian barrow a pair of mittens, and his shovel so we could try and clear our 70 foot long driveway. I may look like I'm working, but honestly, Christian wouldn't let me lift a finger (Even though I love shoveling.) He didn't want me to re-injure my shoulder from my last surgery. Golly I love him!So while Christian was breaking his back shoveling, I was running around the house making snow tracks, pretending to be a cross country skier, and of course no fresh snow fall would be complete without a beautiful snow angel.Here's a photo of our back yard. It looked so pretty with all the fresh snow falling.This is part of our front yard. You can't even see the pathway or the steps up to our house. This was the first real snow fall of the year.About a week later we were hit with an even bigger storm. This one certainly was a doozy! It snowed for two days straight, and unlike the storm we had the week before where the snow was fluffy and soft, this was a very heavy, wet snow. (Perfect snowman snow.) So all our bushes and smaller trees were weighed down by the sheer amount of snow on their branches.Christian was not about to attempt to shovel our driveway by hand for a second time. We were lucky enough that his Dad picked up this snowblower and our contractor brought it up to our house and played with the motor to get it running the day before the big storm. Its not the most glamorous snowblower in the world, but heck, it worked like a charm!
The amount of snow you see is after Christian had already cleared the driveway the night before with the snow blower. So this was just what fell as we slept.By the time all was said and done we had about 18" of snow. It was fun to drink some hot chocolate and stay inside with my best buddy in the whole world, my hubs! But don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased that spring is right around the corner and soon I'll be blogging about all the pretty flowers popping up around my house!

(Press the play button to see my back yard)

The Master-Master Piece

Construction within the walls of our almost 200 year old home goes on daily, so when a project or room is complete I feel like I should have a ribbon cutting ceremony or grand opening party. Therefore consider this posting my grand opening party to our lovely master bedroom.

I know I haven't posted many photos of the projects as they are in progress but thats because I always had in my head that I would wait patiently for the finish line and then debut the rooms one by one to the eagerly waiting public. (I chuckle because I know many of you are soooo not waiting by your computers day in and day out just to see photos of our house.) So without further ado here is a walk down memory lane with our master bedroom.Here is the room before we began any work on it. You see wall paper, and a pretty beat up sad looking floor. My friend Cindy and I spent an afternoon pealing the wall paper only to find that the plaster walls would crumble with the glue leaving big chunks of the wall missing. So our contractors Konstantine and Andrew replaced the walls with sheet rock. See our spectacular light fixture literally hanging by it's wires from the ceiling. Yeah, I don't think that was up to code, but I won't tell if you won't. (*wink*)
The window to the left was boarded up because of broken glass, and if you look at the window on the right an entire pane of glass is missing and was repaired with taped up plastic. We replaced all the windows in the house with double pane, low-e glass. It made such a difference instantly. The house holds the heat better and is as quiet as can be inside now.
I've already posted about my floors upstairs, but here they are again, as they were being worked on. I think this was the second coat of varnish.
Paint went up on the walls and ceiling. Goodness me, that was an exciting day! Color really makes a room feel like part of your home.

The dangling light fixture was replaced with our nifty ceiling fan that just happens to match the color of the floor. (Do you think someone was planning ahead when she went shopping?!? hee hee)
All the molding pieces were put up, closet doors installed and drum roll please................ the room is complete!

Christian and I are very pleased with how it turned out. Now all we need to do is move our bedroom furniture from the family room downstairs that we've been living in for the past two months, to where it belongs, our beautiful Master Bedroom!