Why even have a blog?

Wow, I am a lot more terrible at this blogging thing than I expected. Who would have guessed?

To make up for my lack of news, how about some nice Christmas decor photos! We put up real Christmas lights for the first time, and I was up on the roof a few days in a row getting it right. I have a new appreciation for the house lighting scene in "Christmas Vacation" now, as it took a few tries for us to get it all lit without shutting the house's whole electrical system down.





This a sled and reindeer handmade by Mike's grandpa (many years before he passed away). It was handed down to us from Mike's mom this year.











And check out this gorgeous sunset as we were finishing up our lights! I guess we can't compete with what God can do. :)

It's that time of year again...

We didn't get them new costumes this year, but I think they're getting used to the capes. Tannen actually wore his without too much complaining the whole night! Unfortunately, we didn't nearly as many kids trick-or-treating this year, so the dogs weren't at all interested in being door greeters. They just laid around in their outfits all night. Not very impressive superheroes.

Disneyland is magical

As mentioned in a previous posting, Mike and I took a road trip in August with a couple of good friends, Simeon & Alli. Yes, the four of us stuffed all our luggage into Mike's Toyota Echo and all piled in for a 17-hour drive down and back. And we are all still friends!! We got to spend 5 wonderful days in southern California, 2 of those at Disneyland, 1 at Six Flags, and 2 just hanging around their old stomping ground (they both lived down there in college and knew the area very well). It was a great trip! Here are some highlights:

Mike, Kate, Alli, and Simeon at Six Flags Magic Mountain. It was sooo HOT!!

About to take off on an old wooden roller coaster at Six Flags. Much fun followed.

Mike hanging on for dear life on a swing ride at California Adventure. We all enjoyed teasing him. :)

Mike, myself and Alli waiting to board the scary elevator on Tower of Terror. Needless to say, I didn't really want to go on it, but pouted my through the fear.

Check us out in the front row on the left. I screamed and stomped and held on to Mike for dear life the entire ride. But Simeon and Alli had a great time laughing and pointing at my reaction once the ride was over. :)

One of our first rides of the day was Splash Mountain at Disneyland, and we got SOAKED!

Here's Simeon and Mike looking a bit awkward on Grizzly Rapids at California Adventure.

Alli and Kate looking tough.

Our good friend, Jesse, was able to meet up with us at one of our Disneyland/Cali Adventure days!

On one of our off days, we walked around Hollywood for a bit. This is us looking confused in front of the famous Chinese Theatre.

Mmmmmm..... In 'n Out burgers are the best!

We picked up a hitch-hiker on the way home, who ended up having some personal boundary issues.

September doesn't exist

So I guess in Shipster blogworld, September didn't even register. Oops, sorry September! For us, this month was just a lot of working, cleaning, working, getting estimates for windows, having a garage sale, working, and watching some awesome new TV shows! That doesn't look nearly as good written down as it was to live, let me tell you. :)

Next week, Mike and I are celebrating our 3-year anniversary on October 8th. Wow, 3 years already?? It feels like it's gone by so fast, and yet also feels longer than that at the same time. I feel like we're already an old married couple in a lot of ways. Especially when we argue over what he said and what I thought he said. I guess the honeymoon stage is over. Just kidding, Mikey. :)

I guess since September wasn't all that exciting for us, I'll just leave you with a very funny clip. And since Mike isn't around to use his super powers to convert it to a video I can post right here, you'll just have to make due with a link to YouTube. Enjoy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5tmnBeNv18

(Caution: those who do not think Flight of the Conchords are hilarious probably should not click on the above link... you have been warned)

When the Shipleys were parents for a week

Wow, what a crazy summer this has been. After Eric's wedding, Mike and I went back to work, then celebrated my birthday (I finally have a nice bed frame now!), then had my uncle and cousin stay with us and do some tree work, then had Mike's niece and nephew with us for a week, then went on a road trip to Disneyland for a week. What madness!

We got home last weekend, and it's been nice to just sit back and catch up on sleep and TV. I've got lots of pictures to share of our wonderful time at Disneyland, but for now I need to post some of Nick and Madison, who we had a blast with the first week of August. I have a much greater respect for parents now, too. :)



Here are the kiddos shortly after falling off the swing in our front yard. Aren't they precious? :)














If you look closely, you can see Madi in one of the top branches. She loved climbing our tree and was out there every moment she could. It was great, and I even managed to get up there a few times with her.














One of the days, I took them ice skating in Portland, and they loved it! I wish I would have allocated more time for it, because neither of them wanted to leave.
















Me and Madi at the ice rink.














Another shot of them on our swing.

















Mike and I took them to the Clark County fair on a bright and shiny Sunday, and we all had a great time!












Here you can see the kids chasing Marty at the Vancouver dog park.













Silly Uncle Mike playing xBox with Nick. They loved playing Halo 3 together.
















During one of our trips to the dollar store, Mike and Madi got creative.

The Best Wedding Photo Ever Taken

Erica just sent us this photo this morning, and we can't stop laughing about it. Isn't Mike's expression just priceless? :)

Wedding Recovery

Last week was a crazy week in South Carolina getting ready for my brother's wedding on July 19th. But we're home now, and in one piece! It was a beautiful wedding on a hot, muggy day (thankfully, it was all indoors), and now Eric and Erica should be in Jamaica on their honeymoon.

I didn't take any of my own pictures (because I'm a doofus). But Nancy generously sent me a few pics of the rehearsal dinner and wedding day that she took, so here's what I've got so far:


A girl and her brothers -- Scott, me, and Eric at the rehearsal dinner (which was a tropical theme).










Mike and me outside the church where the reception was held. I'm looking pretty chunky here, but I promise I'm not pregnant!










Me and my niece, Kelly, who is 10 months old. She could be my baby, and I wish she was! Mike was making her smile all week, and it was so fun to be around her so much.

July with the Shipleys

Our busy summer is moving along quite nicely, and next week we leave for a week in South Carolina. Oh, and we might go to my brother's wedding while we're out there. :) I'm pretty excited about it!

Back on the home front, Mike and I both have changes in our careers ahead. Today, I started a new job with the City's IT department. It will be a permanent part-time position as admin assistant, so wish me luck with that! I'm just glad I held out long enough to get something permanent, 20 hours a week, and still with the City! And so far, everyone in IT has been just as nice as HR. Always good to make friends with HR first, I say. :)

As for Mike, he is transitioning from working for a Johnstone franchise store to working directly for the Johnstone corporate office, which is also something he's been holding out for. He will most likely start his new position (with better pay and much better benefits!!) after we get back from our vacation. Yeah Mike! Patience has really been paying off for us lately.

We have also been getting more involved with our church's junior/high school youth group, although we are taking it very slow. We got burned pretty badly at our last church in Florida after trying to get involved, so we're testing the waters now after being at our current church for almost 1 1/2 years. We've been trying to get to know the kids better, and I was a chaperone on one overnighter during youth camp. Mike is going to teach a lesson this Wednesday during youth group. Thankfully, we are becoming very good friends with the current youth leaders, so we don't feel alone!

All this added with the gorgeous weather, and what more could a girl ask for? :)

My project of the week

Last Monday I woke up, went out to the kitchen, looked at the gross yellow walls and decided I'd had enough! No longer would I be subjecting myself to someone else's bad taste in paint color. And I don't care if we haven't started remodeling, I am painting over these awful, dirty mustard walls!

And what's most surprising is... I actually did it! It's not often in my life that I decide to do something and actually follow through, so this is a very proud moment for me. :) You can pat me on the back next time you see me.

Here's a picture I took right after we bought the place, but before we moved in. This picture doesn't do the walls justice, because in reality they were smudged in various places with a gross, black dirt/grime/who-knows-what.

The yellow paint also extended behind the countertop on the left to a large dining room area (which I use as my office and dog jail). So although what you see here might make it look like a simple job, it actually took about 3 days of cleaning, painting, and touch ups before all the yellow was covered up.

And here's the outcome -- a much nicer, more mellow, calming blue (which I matched to our dishes). I realize all my stuff on the counters probably makes the kitchen look more dirty than when it was yellow, but trust me, in person this is a much better look. Yay me!

Hello Summer!

Mike and I are knee-deep right now in a couple of projects - me in painting the kitchen (no more mustard yellow, hooray!), and Mike with refinishing the front of the shed. So although I don't have time to fill you in on our exciting trip to the dog park last weekend, or our first adventure with getting the dogs groomed, just thought you'd like to know that we are busy, happy, and looking forward to a great summer! (with many blogs, hopefully :p)

Seabrook

We were able to spend a few days this weekend with my family at Seabrook, a newer vacation town on the coast just north of Ocean Shores. It was great! My brother, Eric, brought his fiance, Erica, (yes, that's right) from South Carolina so we could all get to know her better before their big day July 19th. It was a fabulous time, and I highly recommend Seabrook to anyone looking to vacation on the Washington coast.

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery power within the first hour of being there, so I didn't get many pictures. Hopefully, my wonderful sister-in-law, Nancy, and her wonderful camera will be able to lend me some. :)

Here's cute Kelly in her gangsta hat (which I think was my dad's), getting ready for a ride to the beach!

All around the neighborhood of houses were these old, yellow bikes, which you could pick up and ride anytime. It was pretty fun the first day, when the weather was nice enough to actually ride them!

Here's a pic of some of the gorgeous houses in the neighborhood (with Eric and Erica walking on the street). They are all new houses, but built to look old-fashioned. It's very pretty!

And here's a pic of us... the Shipsters. Hopefully I can post more pics of us with Eric, Erica, Scott and Nancy soon!

Life's little pick-me-ups

Last week, I had to deal with an incredibly annoying and time-consuming problem with the property taxes on our new house (in which the previous owner's mortgage company really messed things up... again!). This wasn't the first paperwork problem to pop up with this house, and sometimes all these issues made me regret ever buying this house. Add all these administrative issues to the long list of improvements that this house needs, and it can really make me start to feel hopeless.

But thankfully, God puts little pick-me-ups in our lives when the minor details start to frustrate us. For me, this was the arrival of some gorgeous roses in front of our house. I was told these were in fact rose bushes a few months ago, but at the time I was so bitter towards the condition of our place, I was sure they were dead and would just have to be ripped out. But God is good and gave me roses, and they make me smile every time I walk up to the front door.

This is the rose bush growing right outside our front door.

And here are the pink roses growing outside our guest bedroom window. I just hope I don't accidentally kill them off, like I do with every other plant I've tried to care for!

Remodeling

Last month we worked really hard on getting some much needed updates done to the house before Mike's brother and sister-in-law came to visit. With all the excitement, I forgot to post some before and after pics!

Bathroom
The bathroom still needs to be decorated, but we are trying for a sunken treasure theme. Eventually we will deck it out with treasure maps on the walls, some fake gold coins, and maybe some spooky lighting. The possibilities are endless!



When we moved in, the walls were an awful green and the countertops matched in awfulness.

















We painted the walls blue, put up a sailboat border, painted the bottom brown with sponging, and replaced the hardware on the drawers. Then we had someone install new countertops and sinks for us.














Here's a closeup shot of the sink before the udpating (but after we painted).













And here it is after, complete with a few accessories we found at Goodwill. Much better, yes?











I wish I would have taken a picture of the old light fixture above the sink. I suspect it was installed when the house was built in 1976.

But anyway, here's what Mike installed in place of the old junky light fixture. I think it complements our theme nicely.








Here's a shot of the opposite wall.













Doors
The old, gross brown doors in this house were really driving me crazy. We painted all the trim white as soon as we moved in, so we've been ready for some new doors for a long time. Thankfully, the guy who did our carpet and bathroom fixtures also put in new doors for us for a great deal.




Here's the best place to illustrate our door problem - the hallway. All I can say is yuck.















Now this picture includes the new carpet, new light fixtures (that Mike installed), and our new doors. Pretty!