More photos...

Here are some photos of the hallway/2nd bathroom:

More photos of the new house...

Here are some pictures of the office:

Here are some pictures of the other bedrooms (one guest/other music):

Photos of the house...

Here are some photos of the house:

Master Bedroom/Bathroom

Kitchen/Dining Area

Nearly finished landscaping for the new house...

Well, here are some pictures of the nearly complete landscaping for the new house. I still need to put down the mulch as well as plant a Kwanzan or Yoshino flowering cherry tree next year.

Enjoy!

Photos of the Backyard:

Photos of the front yard:

The Great White Shark

At Monterey Bay Aquarium....

Christmas Party 2006

Carrie and I had a wonderful time hosting our annual Christmas party, Saturday, December 9th. We had over 65 people show up over the course of the party. We were blessed to have people from church, work (Lilly and old school), family, old friends from Virginia and even Carrie's Aunt Barbara from Minnesota.

Mozart, our poor cat who is afraid of strangers, chose the wrong room to hide in because the majority of the kids who came chose that room to jump up and down on the futon which the cat was hiding underneath. Since then, he has miraculously decided that strangers are OK! :)

Of course, Harrison was in heaven with all of the attention!

We felt tremendously blest to have a home to entertain friends and family!

Blessing to everyone this season as we remember the TRUE meaning of Christmas!

Joshua and Carrie

Day trip to Monterey Bay and Carmel

Aunt Barbara arrived yesterday morning, and we had a nice relaxing day. In the evening, she helped with dinner so we had a spinich souffle, chicken, and lemon pudding cakes. Yum! Today, since Joshua and I both had the day off, the three of us drove over to Monterey Bay and Carmel.






Our trip was wonderful! We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is literally on the bay, and we saw sea otters, blackfooted penguins, a great white shark, a sun fish which is 500 pounds and just a year old, and a lot of other fish!
The building itself is unique since it is a refurbished building from Cannery Row. I had forgotten how neat the building is. Joshua and I were at the aquarium the day we got engaged, so it holds special memories for me. We all loved the exhibits.

Then, we drove to the Highlands Inn in Carmel for a late lunch. One of Joshua's coworkers suggested it for the view of the ocean, and it was breathtaking! The hotel is built on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We sat up in the lounge (a room full of windows) and ate our lunch as we gazed onto the ocean. It was raining at this point, but the rain added to the view. Amazing! We'll definitely go back to Carmel and spend more time. Again, we were in Carmel the day we got engaged, and it was a beautiful town. I now know why a certain friend of ours visits her uncle and aunt in Carmel all the time!

Tonight, once we got home, Joshua made fudge for our party tomorrow. We have over 60 people planning on stopping by! It's going to be crazy!

Time flies...

Yes, we are still alive, and yes, I still want to blog. However, our schedules haven't allowed us much leisure time. We had a wonderful time in Virginia, saw my family and several of our friends, and now we're busily preparing the house for my cool Aunt Barbara to come visit this Thursday and for our traditional Christmas party this Saturday! On top of that, I played catch up at work last week, so we're not quite back to a normal routine. But, it will be great to have Aunt Barbara as our first house guest in our new home, and we're looking forward to having a house full of people on Saturday!

Update

Well, it is obvious that I haven't had time to blog for a while. Both of us are staying very busy. It's hard to believe October is almost over.

Joshua is loving his new job! He is driving all over parts of Northern California visiting doctors, and he is very thankful for his position. Joshua enjoys the interaction with the doctors and office staff, and occasionally with the animals at the doctor's office as well! One office had three dogs and 10-11 birds! He's learned a lot about diabetes (his area) and loves representing his company.

We're still in the process of settling in. After dinner is done and lunches are prepared for the next day, we don't have a lot of time in the evening to work on our home, but we have made progress. Joshua has added plants and trees to our lot, and it looks great! The inside is coming along slowly, and hopefully this weekend, we'll be able to upack and organize a lot.

By the way, we did book our tickets for visiting Virginia at Thanksgiving! Yeah!

New home...still settling in.

Joshua and I moved over Labor day weekend into our new home! We have so much space, and it is beautiful. The house is truly a blessing from the Lord. Now, I'm working on adjusting to my new commute and unpacking. The unpacking is going quite slowly. Part of the slowness is due to the fact that almost all of our boxes are in the garage. So, it makes finding specific boxes difficult. But, it will get done in time. Also, since Joshua and I have decided that we have too much stuff, we're planning on going through them together. However, he is away right now at training in Indianapolis (he's planning on seeing Kevin and Amy on Sunday). So, a lot of the unpacking is on hold.

The other reason the unpacking is going slower is that I now have a commute. When we lived in Folsom, my job was 10 minutes from our apartment. Now, my drive is about 50 minutes! But, I am thankful for our house, so the commute is worth it.

I'm hoping I can get a lot done with the house before Joshua returns. We'll see...

Sculpting, creating....landscaping :)

Over the last two weeks, I was able to design and implement with the assistance of the Stoever kids - Lindsay, Zach, Jordan, and Tyler - the redesign and freshening up of Pastor Greg and his family's front yard. I appreciate their willingness to let me kind of run things while at the same time, create landscaping mini-me's of the Stoever mixed quartet.

Here are some pictures of the finished product: