Dishwasher! (and I don't meen my wife)

One of the few things that we missed from our old apartment was the dishwasher.  The house didn't have one in fact it did not even have a spot for one, but I didn't let that stop me.  The following photos show the sequence of taking out a cabinet and installing the dishwasher.  We have used it just two times now and are very pleased.  The first load of dishes included a muffin tin, which is perhaps our least favorite thing to wash.  We were impressed that it came out completely clean.  We went with a dishwasher that is quiet (50 dB) so it won't be annoying when we sitting in the living room after dinner.

--Ryan

My favorite tool saves the day again (the sawsall)

Now just add plumbing and insert dishwasher!

First load of dishes

A Spider Year

The spider and web in front of our kitchen window

 

A spider outside our bedroom window, about to get the broom.

When I came back from Alaska in September I found spiders all over the outside of our house. There were four of them every morning between the two bushes right in front of our kitchen window, they were on the bushes next to our front door, they were outside all our windows, and they were on the car. One morning I opened the front door to leave and there were two hanging right in the middle of our walkway. I just closed the door and went out the garage, it was too early in the morning to deal with spiders! We don't have screens on our windows (the house didn't come with any and we just haven't gotten around to buying them yet) so I was reluctant to open the windows on warm days and let the spiders crawl right in. I even had a dream one night that the spiders were waiting right outside the front door waiting to come in. Amazingly we've only had one IN the house so far - perhaps evidence that our house is well-sealed? I grew up with A LOT of spiders because our house in Chiniak had rough-cut wood on the inside, no sheetrock. It is a relief not to be squishing or capturing spiders all the time. A bunch of other people have told us they have lots of spiders this year too. I guess it's just a good year to be a spider in the Northwest.


Ryan finally went on a rampage with the broom and I haven't seen as many of them since. I know my mom is going to cringe when she sees these photos, but the webs really were beautiful in the morning with the sun shining on them, especially after it had rained. I thought they were worthy of a few photos. That said, I hope we don't have another bad spider year for a long time!


-Molly

The Sunshine State

The Renaissance Vinoy Resort

Fort De Soto Beach: "America's #1 beach"

Downtown St Pete

Ryan and I are in St Petersburg, FL and I am finally getting to see 80 degrees this year! Ryan has a conference here and this is also where his grandmother lives, so I came along to visit. I am very happy to have some summer weather, even if it is October. I managed to miss the hot weather almost everywhere I went this year. I was in Seattle until June 20, but this was the coldest June ever recorded in Seattle. It was the first time on record that it didn't hit 80 degrees in June. I proceeded to spend a month on the Alaska Peninsula in what was an unusually cold July. On Kodiak I did luck out with 6 days of sunny weather for our dig, but the warmest it got was 64 degrees - not exactly hot. After I left Kodiak I spent 3 weeks in Fairbanks where it was unseasonably chilly. Amazingly it was 91 in Fairbanks just a week before I got there. My hopes were high for warm summer weather, but it didn't happen. As I was preparing to leave Fairbanks for Seattle, I kept checking the weather in Seattle. There were several 80 degree days just before I got home, but once I got there it cooled off to the 60's and now it's in the 50's. So, I am happy to at least be able to wear my shorts and sandals once this year!

Ryan's conference is in downtown St Pete at the Vinoy Resort - a totally swank hotel resort with a golf course. We've heard from a few different people that the hotel was run down and abandoned for a long time before it was bought and turned into the Vinoy Resort. It is amazing that a place that fancy used to have homeless people living in it. St Pete has a very nice downtown area with lots of green space. It's hard to imagine what it was like with an abandoned building right on the waterfront.

-Molly

Canning

Spicy pickled carrots and zuccini

Pickled chili peppers and bread and butter pickles

After being inspired by making spicy pickled carrots with my friend Ginny in Fairbanks this summer, I started canning at home. It's a fun, edible hobby and it's a great way to procrastinate about grad school. So far I've made my own spicy pickled carrots and zuccinis, pickled chili peppers, bread and butter pickles, dilly beans, and blueberry/crowberry jam. We opened the first of the carrots, chilis, and bread and butter pickles last night. They all turned out delicious! Ryan isn't normally a big pickle fan, but he does like spicy pickled things. We chopped the chili peppers up really small and used them on our pizza last night. They were perfect when chopped up. I ate one straight out of the jar just to see how they turned out and I think my mouth was burning for an hour!

I've been very happy that canning has turned out to not be nearly as daunting as I thought it would be. I got some great advice from my friend Ginny as well as a recommendation for the book "Put 'em up!" by Sherri Brooks Vinton. All the pickling recipes I've tried so far have come from that book. My mom is a master jam/jelly maker, as many of you know. I had to call her three times in one afternoon when I made my first batch of jam!

I wish I was making jam from berries I picked myself, but unfortunately this year I didn't have much of a chance. It was a poor salmonberry year in Kodiak and I left before the blueberries or cranberries were ripe. When Ryan and I were in Palmer briefly we did go up to Hatcher's Pass with his mom and we picked a few quarts of blueberries and crowberries from which I made jam last weekend. I was counting on picking huckleberries in Seattle, but that was almost a complete bust. It's a good thing I stocked up on store-bought strawberries and raspberries when they were on sale a few weeks ago, at least I will have something to make into jam!

Our Apple Tree

Small apples from our tree

10 lbs of apples!

When we bought our house last April we suspected that one of the trees in our backyard was an apple tree. Unfortunately it didn't have any fruit on it last summer, so we stopped paying much attention to it. This spring I was surprised to see white blossoms all over it. I just assumed that the year before we must have moved in after it bloomed. Right before I left for Alaska in June I happened to notice while I was mowing the lawn that there were tiny green apples all over the tree! Since I was gone all summer, I was very happy to see the nearly-ripe apples when I got home in September. You can't really grow fruit trees in Alaska, so it is very exciting for us to have our own apple tree. We also have an italian plum tree which was covered in plums last year. This year it didn't have any. The hot and dry weather last year must be good for the plums and the cool wet weather good for the apple tree.

Tonight we picked all the apples. Some of them were really small, but most of them were good. Ryan cut up about 3 lbs of them and we boiled them down with some honeycrisp apple cider from our local farmer's market to make applesauce. We are VERY happy with how it turned out and can't wait to eat some for desert tonight. I found some good tips for making applesauce from this blog: www.foodinjars.com and of course from my mom!
-Molly

Boating and House Projects

Chris and I on the north end of Lake Washington

The Sammamish River

Loading the boat at Magnusson Park

Once Around the Lake

We didn’t actually make it all the way around Lake Washington but we did have a nice trip up the north end of the lake and up the Sammamish River all the way to Bothell.  I had intended to borrow a skiff from work for some time now and figured I had better do it this weekend while the weather was still nice and Molly and I were both home.  While it was mostly cloudy it was reasonably warm and not threatening to rain.  We launched the 16ft skiff at Magnusson Park just a few miles from our house and toured along the shores gawking at the many nice lake-front houses.  Our friend Chris (and my co-worker) joined us and enjoyed driving the skiff as much as I did.  The 40 Hp motor was more than enough to send us skimming across the lake a good clip.  Not much for wildlife on a trip in Lake Washington but we did see a few harons and some jumping fish.  Hoping next time to head south and check out that end of the lake.  The rumor is Bill Gates lives somewhere on the lake down there.

Kitchen Color

Our most recent house project was to liven up the kitchen a little by adding chair molding and some blue paint to the lower section of two of the walls in the Kitchen.  As our dinning area is in the Kitchen this really helped break up the area and brighten it up. We are very happy with the color and the trim. The next kitchen project will be a dishwasher.
-Ryan

Dining area BEFORE (please ignore the banana place settings)

AFTER

Attempting to pick huckleberries

A huckleberry bush in Snoqualmie Pass

I love to pick berries and was very happy to find a great place for huckleberries in Snoqualmie Pass, only an hour from Seattle. Ryan and I picked here last September and the year before that. Despite a bit of snow and rain, we came home with lots of big, fat berries. Last year Ryan, my sister, and I picked 4 gallons in two trips. We had so many that we didn't even use them all. I've been looking forwarding to my annual huckleberry expedition all summer and decided I would make jam this year to be sure they would all get used.

My friend Natasha and I drove up to Snoqualmie Pass on Sunday, hiked uphill for a half and hour to get to my spot, and were very disappointed to only find a few puny berries. Since I had been there two years in a row and had great berries, it hadn't really occurred to me that they might not be that good every year. We spent about 30 min picking and this is what we came home with:

This year's harvest (note that this is a sandwich plate, not a dinner plate)

The trip wasn't a complete bust though, I got to have fresh berries on my cereal and the next morning and we got to go for a hike. It was raining, but at 57 degrees it was much warmer than two of the other times I've been up there picking in the rain/snow. The fall colors were nice too. Below are some photos of previous trips, it's hard to even believe that those are the same type of berries as the ones above! Here's to hoping next year is a good huckleberry year!

-Molly

Huckleberries from 2009

My sister, Kelly, picking huckleberries last year

A successful trip in the rain last year

Almost Fall in Upstate New York

Fresh Veggies from the farm next to Grandma's house

A Northern Spy Apple from Grandma's Orchard

Corn maze in Cazenovia

Critz Farm in Cazenovia

We just returned from visiting Ryan's grandmother and extended family in Morrisville, NY. We had beautiful almost-fall weather nearly the entire time we were there. We got the last bit of summer with a couple of 65-70 degree days even though it did dip down to the 30's at night. Ryan's grandmother buys corn from her neighbor and we were lucky enough to have very fresh sweet corn almost everyday we were there. We also enjoyed tomatoes from Grandma and Aunt Helen's gardens. Ryan's grandparents also had quite the apple orchard, and although his grandmother doesn't have the trees sprayed or pick the apples anymore, we found a couple of good ones. The ones we ate were Northern Spy apples. They were crisp, a little tart, but delicious and Ryan was happy that I got to eat an apple from their orchard.


One day we went over to Cazenovia and went to the fall festival at Critz Farm. The festival features a corn maze (I had never been in a corn field before, so it was kind of exciting for me!), cider press demonstrations, pumpkin picking, and a petting zoo. It was quite the treat to have fresh apple cider, something that's a little hard to come by in Alaska! Besides being a little embarrassed that we were the only people at the festival without kids, we had a great time getting lost in the corn maze and petting the lambs and goats. When we drove up to the booth to pay to get into the festival, the guy selling the tickets couldn't believe we didn't have kids with us. I suppose if you lived around there and didn't have kids, a corn maze and petting zoo wouldn't be very exciting. =)


More photos soon!


-Molly

Riding the Alaska Railroad

Broad Pass in the Alaska Range

Ryan in the dining car

The Susitna Valley

Arriving in Wasilla

When we lived in Fairbanks, Ryan and I always talked about riding the train down to Anchorage just for fun and for the chance to see some slightly different scenery than you see from the highway. Three years after moving away from Fairbanks we finally had the chance! Ryan flew up to Fairbanks last week and after my last day of work, we hopped on the train on Saturday morning and rode to Wasilla where Ryan's parents picked us up. For those of you in Alaska, you know we've been having some awesome late summer weather. It's been in the 60's and even 70's all over Alaska. The fall colors are also at their peak north of the Alaska Range. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day to ride the train.


The train ride was 10 hours, but 10 hours on a train is infinitely more enjoyable than 10 hours on an airplane! In the "Adventure" cars (also known as coach), everyone has assigned seats but there is also a second-story domed car with open seating. Anyone can go sit up there and enjoy the view, they just ask you not to stay more than 20-30 minutes so everyone can enjoy it. Lucky for us, the train wasn't too full and we spent quite a bit of our ride up there. The dining car was also really nice with high ceilings and we spent a bunch of time sitting in there too. Ryan spent almost two hours standing outside in between the cars enjoying the fresh air.


Some of the highlights of the ride include the Nenana River canyon between Healy and the entrance to Denali National Park, seeing Dall Sheep, the fall colors of the tundra in Broad Pass, and the (partial) view of Denali from a few spots near Talkeetna.

“I Like Projects”

When we bought our house I had more than one person tell me with a dreary voice that home ownership was a lot of work, to which I would reply something along the lines of “I like projects”. This is true, but more correctly I like working on home improvement projects that I come up with and plan in advance, as apposed to those which are thrust upon me: leaking roof, leaking toilet, leaking sink, ect… In fact I would even go as far as to say that I hate anything that leaks. Anyways, with all the time I have spent away from home this summer I was looking forward to a long holiday weekend at home. A chance to work a few projects I have had on the back burner. Of course the weekend actually started with one of those “thrust upon me” jobs fixing the brakes on the car, but that’s another story altogether.
We have done a lot to improve our house since buying it less than a year and half ago. For me the most fun has been converting the garage from a dark “not much more than an enclosed carport” into a nice workshop from which to base my projects out of. When we moved in the garage literally had one outlet and one light. Since then with the help of Molly, my Dad, and a few friends, I have wired, insulated, installed a window, sheet rocked, painted and basically done everything to make a living space a living space. I even brought in plumbing and added a utility sink. Cabinets and a counter top which are still under construction are the final touch. This weekend’s project in the shop was installing a lumber rack/storage space above the garage door. This allowed me to finally get extra lumber off the floor and organize my limited space a little better.

Garage with new lumber rack and also this weekend new shelf for parking my bike above Molly's bike

Old wiring of  two switches using one 3 strand wire

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Once that was done I was ready to move inside to the next project. At Molly’s request the bathroom needed more light. The obvious solution was to change the bath fan out for a combination fan and light. Sounds simple enough, right? Not really. This job involved crawling around in the attic, cutting sheet rock, duct work, and quite a bit of wiring. Working on the garage last year I learned a lot about wiring, but new wiring is always much easier that working with old wiring. I had to find a way to add an additional switch for the light without making a mess of the walls and without disturbing the existing wiring. I new I had it made once I was able to pull a new wire through the wall from the switch up into the attic and using the old wiring and then pull the old wiring back into place using the new wire, successfully emplace a new wire that could be used for the new switch and light. Until that point I really didn’t know if this whole project was going to pan out or not. Actually, I really didn’t know it if was going to pan out until I turning the electricity back on and almost to my disbelief everything worked just the way I had planed. And I guess that’s part of what motivates me, every good project is chance to learn something, a chance to challenge yourself and hopefully in the end create a better living space. So bring it on … “I LIKE Projects”

The Attic.  My second least favorite place after the crawlspace.

Success!  Three switches where there use to be just two.

The final project.  Got to love that wide angle lens.  Out bathroom looks huge!