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!

Recipe of the Month - Shredded Taco Chicken

Looks like I've been doing a terrible job at my monthly recipe postings. Anyway, here's one I've been wanting to post for a while. Enjoy!

Super Easy Shredded Taco Chicken

You need:
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast (fresh or frozen)
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons taco seasoning
- 1 crock pot

You do:
1) Put chicken in crock pot. I use frozen chicken all the time, and it turns out great.
2) Combine broth and taco seasoning and pour over chicken.
3) Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.
4) Remove cover and using two forks, shred chicken in the crock pot.
5) Stir shredded chicken with the remaining juices and replace lid. Let sit in warm crock pot until ready to use.

This chicken is perfect in enchiladas. You can also add chopped white onion, green peppers or chilis to add some extra flavor. Also great over nachos. It's so easy and requires minimal prep time.

My favorite baby

I have three other nieces on Mike's side of the family, so I can't really say that Kelly is my favorite niece. But she certainly is my favorite baby! Look at how big she smiles for the camera every time! What an adorable little girl. She's like a ball of sunshine, and I can't wait to see her again!

Summer is here!

Ok fine, so I really stink at blogging. Apologies to everyone out there who's been dying for news on the Shipley happenings (all 2 of you?). But hey, better late than never. Have I already said that in a previous posting?

Anyway, so I was sick for the last couple weeks in April. It was awful, but thankfully I am 100% back to normal now. Still working at my temp job, which I love. I'm trying to convince them to keep me, but we'll see. Mike's doing well at his job, and we're getting dental insurance now! That's how you know you've really made it in this world. :)

Tonight we're supposed to having an Indiana Jones party at our place (just watching the movies, nothing weird), but it's been so hot I'm not sure everyone will want to stay too long. Darn this old house and its lack of air conditioning! Anyway, tomorrow we'll be seeing Scott and Nancy and Kelly up at my parents' place (which thankfully has AC)! I am super excited about this, since I don't get to see Kelly nearly enough. I can't believe she's almost 8 months old!! I think it's really time I had my own baby.

So as I said, it's been super hot here (today should be in the 90's!). So yesterday we got out the kiddie pool that Tannen loves so much. It's always great fun to watch him play in it. Mike set up the hose so Tannen could bite and dig at the water. We really need to take him to the beach or a lake and let him really swim.

Tannen could do this for hours, really.

We got them this pool last summer, and I guess they were a little smaller then. Now it just looks sad to see a full-grown dog have to play in this tiny pool. :)

Marty doesn't like the water as much, but he does try to get in the pool every once in a while. But Tannen won't have it, and bites his legs until his brother retreats.