Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

After 2 trips to the Zoo, we decided to become members. It is the BEST zoo - even if it takes about 40 minutes to get there - and the membership has almost paid for itself already! These pictures are from several different trips

More House Pictures

Finally, I am getting around to updating our blog...sorry it has been so long! Here are a bunch of pictures of our house.Maren's room
Kitchen, from living room
living room, from kitchen (the kitchen and living rooms are odd shapes, so it's hard to get good pictures...)
Joel's room
My closet!
Front door and hall, from upstairs
Master bedroom
Dining room (right next to the kitchen)
Craft closet - we bought this dining room table at Ikea and Greg added the shelves. I LOVE it.
I am so excited to have this space where I can leave projects out and it won't get in the way!
My work desk. This is the same room as the scrap desk. There is also another hutch in here with our "home" computer on it. It's cozy, but very functional. Once again, we spend a lot of time in this room!!

Moving In

Thanks to Ruth we have a couple of pictures from move-in day...thanks Ruth!

This is one of the side-yards...it goes all the way around the back of the house (like a "U"), and it's about this wide all the way around too! Ok, maybe a little wider in the back. This is what's in the other end of the "U"...a cute little play house that has little bunk beds!!They came and tore out the rotting, broken "porch" so now you just step up into the little house.

I'm sure our neighbors were glad to see this thing pull up! It may not look like much, but it's a great car, and best of all, it was FREE!


Yes, our bed required a separate trailor and a trip to Olympia...that's a story for another time.

Do you see that lovely appliance on the right? Yes, it is a dishwasher!! Our first one! I think I ran it 4 times the first day. It's great.

Ruth had fun getting beds set up... :)


The fish traveled in style...they acutally lived in this for almost a week! But even the corals survived and everyone is happy back in their tank now.

Part of the moving crew - Next to Greg is Ted, then Todd & Tab (boy do we feel like the odd couple - not starting with "T"...kind of like when Greg lived in a house with 3 Matts!)

This is the back deck. Thank you Connie for the touch of color in the planter! (You can't really tell, but they are holding hands in this picture. So cute. Ruth may have prompted them to do that.) :)

I will post more pictures of the house once we get it looking all Better Homes & Gardens...may be a while. :)

Somewhere between Boise and Puyallup

Driving Day
We're excited to go to our new house!
I started out following Greg, but it stressed me out too much, so the kids & I went ahead. We stopped so many times, that even though he was going a lot slower than us, we only beat him by 20 minutes!

Thanks to movies and food, there wasn't a lot of this... The kids did so good...they were way more patient and content than I was. :)

Maren slept for a bit (maybe 1 1/2 hours)

Joel "rested his eyes" for a while...

and then looked out the window with his binoculars

Almost there! We timed it really bad with Seattle traffic, so it took us probably an hour to get there from this point (we also had to stop 2, or was it 3 times? to go potty in the last stretch).
After 11 hours in the car, we made it!! We stayed that night with Todd & Tab and their girls Madeline & Julia. The kids got all their energy out by running around the backyard for a couple of hours. Then we had dinner, and little mini ice cream cones for dessert. A great end to a hard day!