Father's Day Camping Trip to Antelope Lake

For Father's Day we decided to do an impromptu camping trip. Luckily living in Lassen County, there are a lot of close options. There was in Humboldt as well, but it's much dryer here. We went to Antelope Lake, one of the many campgrounds there, with a lake side site.

Our humble abode. It was so special to wake up the three of us in our little tent and Lucy gave daddy his cards.

Mommy and baby.Camping always makes me dehydrated. Drinking alcohol doesn't necessarily help, but I had to drink the Mike's in order to use the bottle to fill it with water to drink. Lucy LOVES bottles and it's almost a silly obsession. She couldn't have it of course when it had Mike's in it, so I let her have it with water. And yes, we are THOSE kind of parents who thought it was SO funny and took a picture of it. We are those parents.

Lucy is the kind of kid you can give a task and she does not get distracted and it her nature to NEED to complete the task. We told her to collect sticks for daddy's fire and she was happy collecting bark and pine cones for the majority of the afternoon.Our baby girl was exhausted. I love to take in these precious sleeping moments. I can't explain why other than this is one intimate moment that we as parents will not always get to see. When she's older and married I will get to see her and hear her laugh and watch her put on her shoes (correctly hopefully by the time she's married), but I will not always get to watch her sleep, so soundly, snuggling with "Scout," catching flies.

Good trip with a few stressful moments, none worth mentioning here, because the trip was so delightful and worth the "casualties."

New Windows

Just Lucy

Trouble sleeping

I've been laid off for 2 weeks now. I am really loving it, but for whatever reason, I'm having trouble sleeping. I do believe these two items are related, however, I'm not sure why. Now that I'm at home, I have a ton of stuff running through my head. I'm sure it could be argued that I'm not getting mentally exhausted enough at home like it was at work... sure. But I'm physically working a lot more... I used to just sit at my desk for 8 hours. I remember getting up for lunch (the second or third time I'd stand in the day) and I would have to stretch because my hips were so sore from sitting. My hips have been great at home! So physically I'm more tired, but as soon as my head hits the pillow, the list starts running of what I need to do tomorrow. *sigh* Hence me up at 10pm blogging.
Well, lucky you, this should be a good few posts, catching you up on the last couple months.

New Job

Well, I've been job searching for a few weeks and and have had a few interviews with no positive feed back... YET. None negative either, but just none positive.

While waiting to find out "what's next" I decided to start my own business selling Pampered Chef. I've always enjoyed going to parties or "shows" featuring products like Avon, Mary Kay, Tupperware... and even tried to sell mark. in college with no success. But I've matured in a lot of ways and have run my own business as a Realtor(R) so I feel now that I have the skills to succeed at selling Pampered Chef.

I've REALLY wanted to start my own business packaging gift baskets for escrow closing gifts, holidays, and the like, but did NOT want to be self-employed. There is so much that goes along with that that I'm just not prepared for and don't WANT to be prepared for. However, with PC I am a sub-contractor and will be 1099-ed at the end of each year. Which is fine--all I have to worry about is keeping track of my taxes... I can deal.

I have a lot of business ideas and I can't wait to get started. My "stuff" should be here next week sometime and then I'm off to "book" "shows." So without being said, if you or someone you know would be interested in hosting a party, I would love to do a show for them! I've already tried to hit up a few of my friends. More than anything, please help me start my new business-- even if you can only think of 2 people who would come to a show, I still want the practice and I want to spend time with people in this business.

Oh, and keep posted for my website. If you're not into a show, you can always order our fabulous products through my catalog or my website. Thanks!

Home Improvements

We've been working one day at a time on our house, getting things updated and replaced.

Mother's day weekend we planted lawn seed (after the prior weekend of tilling and prepping the ground). This what our grass looks like now! It's looking great and is coming in fast!

Here are a few of the things we've done up to this point:

• New lights in the kitchen/dining
• Windows are ordered and sitting in the driveway ready to be installed
• New grass/garden areas
• New 50 gallon water heater
• All new BLACK kitchen appliances

Here are our plans for the next month or so (more importantly, the kitchen is this weekend):

• Strip and re-stain the kitchen cabinets
• Take down wall cabinets, cut, reinstall, and move fridge
• Strip the vinyl floors with ammonia
• Install new kitchen faucet
• Install new kitchen counters (purchased last weekend at Home Depot; yes, I drove from there to Susanville with them hanging out of my trunk)
• Change out all cabinet hardware
• Install pull-out cabinet drawers
• Paint the kitchen (not this weekend)
• Pull off the paneling in our bedroom and paint (basically re-decorate with our new comforter set)
• Change lighting in playroom.
• Drapes in bedrooms (sigh)
• Have a House Warming Party!!

Feels overwhelming and exciting, but it's a relatively short list that we can tackle in a relatively short amount of time. I'll post more photos once things are accomplished.

Catherine's Graduation from Chico State

My little baby sister graduated from CSU Chico Sunday, May 23 as a candidate for a bachelor's degree in Art with an emphasis in photography. She has been working her tail off to graduate "on time" for the past weeks, months, and in all reality, past 4 years. The whole fam-damily gathered to watch the ceremony and then we went to Catherine and Joe's apartment for a great party. The ceremony itself was cold--it started at 9:00am after a Saturday of rain, but once we got to Cady's I actually got sunburned on my shoulders! It was so nice to see all the family and celebrate Catherine's accomplishment. I'm so proud of her!!

She's on the big screen!

She's the tall drink of water with the lei coming down the ramp.

I tried to get a shot here of them throwing their hats. Not so much.

Graduate wifey and proud hubby.