Thanksgiving 2008

Matt and I were very fortunate this year to host Thanksgiving at our house. We would normally be in SLC with Matt's family this year for Turkey Day but we were just out in July so we got to stay home. Reid and Grammy were working on the rolls before Thanksgiving, Reid loves to help in the kitchen.

Here are Aunt Sue and my mom hanging out and catching up.

The kids table! From left to right it is Tristan, Isabelle, Reid, Matty and Ben. Isabelle and Matty are my cousin Megan's kids.

The adult table. Again from left to right it is our friend David, my mom, my cousins Rusty and Megan, Uncle Chuck, Aunt Sue, my dad and Matt.

And me in place of Matt in this picture.Can you guess why we took this picture? All the boys....well almost all the boys Ben is missing, relaxing on the couch while us girls are cleaning up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Painting the inside of the house project

Now that I've finished staining the porch I've started working on painting the inside of the house. Here Reid is helping me....well she says she is being silly in this picture but she was helping me. Reid and Ben loved getting up on the fireplace to "help" me paint.

Lake House Renovations

We are so excited about all the wonderful changes to the lake house. We replaced the slider and a couple doors last year. We updated the fire alarms and some other minor projects as well. And when I say we, we paid a friend of ours to do all the work. This year we secured up both decks and added hand rails on the stairs. We added 3 windows to the living room lake side and cut a hole in the wall between the kitchen and living room. The picture directly below is from the room in the house with the dining room table and wood stove.

This picture is taken from the kitchen. The fridge and cabinets used to be here, they are in the office/old dining room now.

Here's the living room towards where the cabinets used to be. We now use the far corner for an office nook.

I love seeing the new windows on this side of the house! It used to just be the door, we added the single window to the right and the double window to the left.

Halloween 2008

Here are our pumpkins, Ben's, Reid's, Mommy's and Daddy's. Here are the kids in their costumes before we go Trick or Treating. The kids were very excited but it ended up being very cold and we didn't last as long as we normally do. We attended the parade this year which was fun. Ben was a real trooper, he was fine. Reid was not happy and very cold all night, too bad since Halloween is her favorite holiday. Tristan was ok most of the night.

Great Island 5K 2008

It was beautiful weather for the Great Island 5K this year and so nice the kids and Matt were able to come. Here I am on the home stretch, feeling very tired.

Reid loved playing in the sand while I was racing.

Ben after his race, a short fun run, which he did great at the beginning but cried when everyone started cheering!Tristan finishing his 2 loop kid fun run. He was exhausted and crashed out after he crossed the finish line. He did great, he came in 4th or 5th! Here's our group picture of the runners, Matt is taking the picture.

Garage 2008

We finally agreed it was time to build our detached garage with Matt's office upstairs. Here's a couple of pictures of the area with trees before they are cut.

And here are a few shots after the trees are removed. It was shocking to us for a few days, it looks so different!

And all the trees and stumps were removed and the foundation started. Ben loved having the excavator on our property. He was too scared to go for a ride in it with our neighbor. Here are the walls.

Here's the big trench for the water, power, etc coming from the house. I was trying to help line up a pipe to the inside of our house and I fell in! You can see me in this picture, it was after I got cleaned up from the fall and I'm heading out to have some beers before the Pats game.