Announcement... She's a Girl!

Abigail Bella Snell arrived 14 days early, much to Laura's delight. She was born Saturday, May 24th at 4:27 pm after less than 8 hours of labor. In this photo she's been in our world for about two hours. She weighed in at 6 lbs, 4 oz and she's 18" tall.

3 more weeks

Some friends have been asking about Laura - so here are updated photos. She's doing really well. She has one more week of work and then starts maternity leave. The baby is due June 3rd. Oops! Wrong date - it's supposed to be June 9th!! Sorry.

This week we had a group meeting with her mid-wife here in our home.

Laura's friend, Alison, is Ben's back-up on delivery day.

It won't be too much longer now!

Master Bath Remodel

Larry has tackled our Master Bath Remodel. He moved so quickly I didn't get any before photos. That's okay though because it was nothing special.

Let me see if I can set the stage. Just off the master bath there was a small room. In this small room was a mirror with a counter in front of it - meant to be a make-up area but really was just wasted space. Along the side was a closet - big enough for one person. Off this room was the bathroom - very basic: vanity, tub/shower combo and toilet. There you have it. Like I said, nothing special. And... by the way - our washer/dryer is in the basement. That's important to know as you'll see in a minute.

Enter, the first photo... An empty room - gutted to the studs. This is the doorway into our bedroom. I'm standing where the tub had been.

Now, I'm looking where I had been standing. See the area to the left where the studs have been removed? On the other side of that wall is our dining room. Soon this will be a big hole.

Now (a few days later), I'm standing in the dining room looking into the bathroom. As you can see, Larry is putting in the one piece shower... a big 3' by 4' shower! Eventually, the vanity will go to his right.

Now, the scene gets more complicated. Larry has built a wall, not in the opening like it appears here but a few feet inside of the wall. This is where our washer/dryer is going to be! (If you're thinking it's weird to have a washer/dryer in the dining room, you're right. But, it's a small house with very little options. It works for us!)

He has been working on the plumbing and electrical the last couple days.

Friday - May 16th

Some progress has been made. The plumbing and electrical are done and sheetrock is up. Larry's been taping the joints and my photos are already out of date!

Here's the corner with the window (if you want to compare to above).

And the opposite corner where the vanity will go. You can see the shower is in already.

And finally, the washer/dryer area. That hole in the wall will be made a bit bigger and it will become a pass through cabinet so I can fold towels at the dryer, put them on the shelf and then they can be accessed from the bathroom. Clever, yes?

Our BIG Maple Tree

Okay - so we've lived her for nearly a year and a half. But... we still have so much to learn about our neck of the woods. See woods below...

This big tree is on the NW corner of our lot. We were told it's a Maple Tree. As you can see, it's huge! It would probably take 3 or 4 people, holding hands, to wrap their arms around it's truck.

It's leaves look like Maple leaves - at least I am easily convinced they do. But do you see the flowers up there?

But do Maples bloom? I don't think so. Imagine my surprise when, while working outside the other day I noticed the tree is covered in tulip like flowers!

Pretty, yes? Come to find out, this is a Tulip Poplar. I had learned about them in the gardening classes I took in March. They're native to the Eastern US. They grow to 90' tall. In fact, they gave away a few saplings but I knew I didn't have room for one on my little chunk of land because I already had a huge Maple - ha! The jokes on me. This one has probably been on this land for a very long time.

Myrtle Beach

This week, we went to Myrtle Beach for a short vacation. Yes, we just took a trip to Salinas, but we had to book this vacation or lose it. Don't ask me to explain.

We took the long way to Myrtle Beach, choosing to go through the Great Smokey Mountains. Much to our disappointment, Spring hasn't yet arrived in the Smokeys. Most of the trees were still bare and the flowering trees weren't yet in bloom, save for just a few I didn't recognize.

Larry wanted me to see downtown Greenville and I'm glad he did. There is a creek flowing through it complete with waterfalls. The city has built a beautiful public park around the falls. Sioux Falls has water falls in town too but they don't beat this!

Here is a very interesting curved bridge with all the supports on only one side.
Unfortunately, for those of you interested in architecture, we didn't get photos of the whole thing including the two support beams with cables. Actually, you can see one of the two beams just to the right of center below the bridge in the upper photo. The photo belows shows the Reedy River Falls and the city park.

I'd love to keep showing you photos of Greenville but this trip is still about Myrtle Beach.

If you love the beach then you would probably love Myrtle Beach because it's great as far as beaches go. We discovered that we're not really beach people. The rest of the city was primarily resorts, miniature golf, and restaurants. Oh yeah - and lots of the gaudy souvenir shops you also see in Florida. It wasn't our favorite place but we're glad we went once.

A commercial area called "Broadway at the Beach" was recommended to us. It turns out to be rather like an Outlet mall surrounding a man-made lake. The best part about it was the catfish. For 25 cents you could dispense fish food from a gumball machine and feed the fish. They knew it too because they hung out beneath each and every machine with their mouths wide open, hoping you'd throw food in! The ducks liked it too and it was a frenzy of fins and feathers when food was thrown into the water. It was a riot... really! Take this photo below and multiply it by 50 and you'll have an idea what it was like. They were swimming on top of each other and the ducks (not shown) were on top of them!

Finally, the last thing we did was go to a show called the "Carolina Opry" which was really a variety show. There was lots of singing interspersed with comedy and occasionally these amazing tap dancers. I wish I could make the photo bigger for you but it came from the internet and this is the best I could do.

Bocce Court

It's hard to remember when the mountains of "rock dust" were delivered but Larry and I have been steadily chipping away at if since. We started out with 3 mountain ranges. In this photos we're down to only two mountain ranges.


Shovel by shovelful, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow we moved the mountains from side to side.

Finally, on Saturday afternoon we had it distributed well enough to rent the machine that compacts it. Looking good!

This afternoon we played a little test game and it's pretty good. there are a few high and low spots but nothing some raking and smoothing won't eventually smooth out. Now... back to landscaping!

Progress Report

Laura and Ben have less than two months before Baby Snell is born! The time (as least for Larry and me) is going by so fast. Here is a recent photo of Laura. In just a couple months you won't be seeing photos of Laura or Ben much any more... because Baby Snell will be in the eye of the lens.
Oh wait! That's not right. Something is wrong with this photo, don't you think?

There. That's better!

Trip to Salinas

This post is being back-dated because I'm behind in posting. We went to Salinas for a quick visit. We planned this kind of on the spur of the moment but with good reasons. We thought it better for both of us to go to Salinas to see both my parents rather than just me going to AZ for the family reunion and only see my Dad. We did it now because we could both fly for free (one free pass and on companion ticket) whereas later on only one of us could fly for free.

We had a great time in our short stay. We went to Gizdich Ranch for pie, went to Fisherman's Wharf and went to Mom and Dad's church. They let me help a little with landscaping on Monday. I would have liked to have done much more but there was only so much we could do. Here are some photos to document the trip.

Isn't she cute?

Jaelyn came to visit today, along with her parents and Grandparents. Isn't she just a cutie? She only 2 and a half months old. So, do you want to know who the parents and Grandparents are?

It's the Montanks! Parents: Seth and Stacy, Grandparents: Carl and Karen. We had a nice visit with them too.

Old Friends, New Neighbors

This story has been months in the making but seemed to happen fast anyway. Several months ago, Judy, who is a friend from our youth, emailed to ask my opinion about the best place to live. She thought that we might have an opinion since we've done so much traveling. You can probably imagine my response. I tried to be fair to the whole US but I really just had to brag about Chattanooga. After that email I didn't hear from her for months and months.

Then, a couple weeks ago she emailed to say her sister, Jan, was coming here with her husband and their Mom to check out the area. They arrived last Sunday and came over for dinner. It was sure fun to reconnect and meet John for the first time.

They have spent the week here, checking out our neck of the woods. As planned, we met again for dinner last night. As it turns out they hate this area... NOT! After taking a good look around, they have decided to move here! They have rented a place already! They're going back to Grand Junction to wrap up business, pack and move! They expect to be back within two months.

Judy will be coming for a visit soon too and she's already convinced she is moving here too. What fun!

This is kind of funny to me because it was Judy and her sister Jill who were instrumental in Larry and me moving to Santa Rosa 30 years ago. Now, we're instrumental in them moving here.

Now... who else wants to come!!

Here we are at Olive Garden. Ben was working and couldn't join us. (Ironically, he was somewhere in this building because he works at Olive Garden when not busy with real estate.)

Amber & Daniel's wedding

Amber (Laura's good friend from Las Vegas who now lives in TN) and Daniel got married on Saturday. Laura was the Matron of Honor and we were honored to be invited guests. Amber & Daniel are a great couple and we're very happy for them. We're all glad that we live less than 2 hours from each other.

For those of you who have been waiting to see updated photos of Laura, here you go...

Front view...

and...

a side view!

Snowflakes

There was an email from Dad this morning asking if we had snow and I told him "not a single flake". It was after that it started to snow this morning. Now look!

I put my newly purchased cast iron skillet outside to catch snowflakes and sure enough, I found one! Isn't that cool! (Pardon the pun.) My neighbors probably think I'm nuts, catching snowflakes in a pan and taking pictures of them. I just had this desire to see for myself the intricacies of an actual snowflake. It's God's creative hand awesome?

While I had my camera in hand I caught sight of a Nuthatch on the birdfeeder.

Yes, they mostly feed head down. Silly birds.

Road to the Horse Event

Over the week-end I had the pleasure of attending the Road to the Horse event. It was fascinating to watch four expert trainers start with 3 year old colts who had very little handling (I guess you could call them wild) and within two days compete in riding, freestyle and an obstacle course competition. It made me believe that I could train a colt too (a childhood dream of mine). Not in two days of course but it would be fun to try!

I found some great photos of the day online!! (Mine were fuzzy since it was indoors.) Here's the winner, Chris Cox, standing on his horse. Amazing, yes? Remember, this was an untrained and unworked horse the day before.

Here are the other contestants - all pros.

Mike Kevil

Tommy Garland

Ken McNabb

Peanut's Progress Report

It's been some time since Ben & Laura announced that a baby was on the way. It's about time I posted a progress report don't you think? There are only 3 1/2 months to go! Okay, Okay - so you can't tell that much. Is this better?

A productive week-end

The weather was cooperative and we were in the mood to dig. Rather than start on the Bocce Court we decided safety was more important and it was time to build some steps to the rental house. Up to now, it's been a slope from the driveway to the concrete pad at the doorway. In wet weather or in the dark it is especially risky. With our pregnant daughter still living in the rental I was especially concerned with the safety thing.

So... here's a before photo (the best I could come up with). As you will see this is before the siding was done.

And, an after photo (not that this is a finished project yet).

Here, Larry is removing the forms for the concrete pour. Handrails will be added soon.

It's Winter so the grass is brown (just opposite of all ya'll in CA). Oops, you're also getting just a glimpse of the rock border around one of the planting beds that I'm working on. More of that later - when it's looking more finish (maybe months later!). There is much landscaping to be done.

Here are a few photos of the work in progress.

While I'm at it, I don't think I ever posted photos of the fun birds at the feeder. Enjoy.

The Cardinal is my favorite. We get quite a few.

Here are a Downy Woodpecker and a Nuthatch.

A woody himself - a Red-Headed Woodpecker.

When I get some good photos of the Tufted Titmouse and Chickadees I'll show those to you too.