As you can see, the tree is up and so far, Katie isn’t really phased by it. We weren’t as lucky with the elf hat (I think she is still holding a grudge over that.)

Our Christmas tree tradition happened as always: cutting the tree with Jon & Mel and putting the holiday squirrel is near the trunk by a pinecone. Jon & Mel’s tree and squirrel won’t be up this year because they just purchased their first home (hooray!) and we are really excited for them. Our cards are in the mail (mostly) and the place is decorated as well as we were willing. We’ve gotten out and done most of our holiday shopping, but boy, is it no fun! Traffic, noisy and rude people, presents to wrap- it’s a lot of stuff that makes me think maybe shopping online is the best way to go.

The best part about the holidays is getting to see lots of family and friends, and we’ve been traveling up north a bit lately. There was Thanskgiving, then the Julson family had a Christmas reunion a few weekends ago. It was really nice to see everyone, some of who I hadn’t seen since our wedding. The Myhre side won’t be gathering like they have in the past but there will still be a few people at our Christmas Eve dinner. It seems to get a little harder ever year to get everyone together. Boone and I will be at Sesvold’s Christmas Day like always, and we hope to see some of our up-north friends while we are home Friday and Saturday. Then my lovely little sister turns the big 2-1 after New Year’s, so we’ll all be there to help her celebrate/keep an eye on her.

Back to work and condo stuff- oh, I’m president of the board and website manager now so that means a little more work (and a lot more hatred of 6-10 inch snow falls). Happy holidays!

Our home improvement saga continues. Our latest accomplishment was adding a new glass tile backsplash to our kitchen. Ever since we built/installed those gorgous concrete countertops this fall, our kitchen has felt very unfinished. The half painted Heinz ketchup red drywall backsplash was not tripping our trigger.

We chose a really nice 1″ gold-tan glass tile (and a few charcol gray) topped off with gray grout to match the countertops. The project itself was pretty easy to do and turned out great. However, it was a major mess involving schmearing about 1900 square inches of individual grout lines.

GROUT is just one of those unpleasant words like “Schlitz,” “Blatz,” and “Winter.” And, as inrony would have it, grouting your kitchen is about a 2 beer project.

Check out a few before and after pictures: (The grout is still a little wet)

Before:

After:

Boone and I have had some really nice fall weekends recently. We traveled up north a few weekend ago to hangout with our families, and it was really pretty out. The maple trees around our association have also been just brilliant- I wish I had gotten a picture in their prime. We went to the Eplegaarden and picked up some apples and pumpkins, and walked around the orchard a little bit. Last weekend we went to a fun Halloween/house warming party (I dressed up as a certain VP candidate and Boone was my Maverick. I was a little worried people would think I was a supporter, but I think the Fargo-like accent, the Barbie crown, and pink sash got my point across) and next weekend we are headed to State Street for some more Halloween fun and music.

I was also Boone birthday this past weekend and my birthday next weekend. It feels a little odd to be turning 28 (Boone says 27 isn’t a big deal for him), looking back to all that I’ve done and planning for ALL the stuff ahead. I’m a big planner but somethings you just can’t plan for. But Boone says those thoughts are just too deep for one’s birthday, so I’ll just have to focus on having fun with our awesome friends and a nice bottle of wine. Maybe a manicure too.

It has been quite some time since I posted anything here. Both of us have been really busy lately, busy and rather boring. Our big excitement last weekend was cleaning our condo. …and I mean CLEANING our condo. We cleaned top down left right left right a b a b a start and then some. We even gave our hardwood floors, that we love so much, the cleaning trifecta of sweep, swiffer, and wax.

Perhaps it was the (are-you-good-golly-serious) Badger’s loss on Saturday, but we found ourselves motivated and extra productive. We even added the garage to our cleaning hit list, as we still had concrete powder everywhere from our concrete countertop project a month ago. The place looked as if we had brought in a CSI team to dust for prints. (…none were found). Thankfully, we got all the dust off and out and are once again able to comfortably park two cars with workspace.

Who knows what exciting series of events this weekend will bring, GoodWill donation run, laundry room make-over, Bed Bath & Beyond. I don’t know if there will be enough time.

Actually, our place is really nice now and we are thrilled to finally have it spotless. If you are lucky enough to have “Fall” open those windows, take a walk, pick some apples, carve a pumpkin, kick-back with a cup of hot cider, and have a great week!

Even though we already went to Hawaii this year, Boone got sent to California for work and I had a free plane ticket, so we decide to make it a vacation. Boone’s coworker Todd and his wife Kathleen also came along, and we had a really great time.

We spend a day in San Francisco- taking the trolly, walking the wharf, visiting Height and Ashbury, and soaking it all in. It was a really great town to visit! We had the best Irish coffee ever, got to see the bookstore where the beatnik movements started, walked through China town, and had some good dinners. It is such a nice town- like the Madison of California.

The next day we drove up the coast, made a quick stop in Sonoma, and got ready for the next day- Napa. We drove through the beautiful Napa valley and toured several wineries. The buildings were fantastic (just like you’d expect them to be) and the wine was wonderful. The people were really nice, not snobby like you’d think, and answered all our questions about how the grapes are grown and how the wine is made.

On the way back to the airport, we hiked through a national park and show a red wood- just one. The forests were further north, but the one tree was amazing.

It was a really great vacation, and Todd and Kathleen were so much fun to travel with. There are some picture in the link on the right (and 6 bottles of wine on our wine shelves) to remind us of the great time we had.

Aloha and mahalo for reading! We made the long trip to Maui in early July to enjoy the wedding of our good friends Jon & Mel (hooray!). It was a beautiful wedding indeed. The vacation had some good parts and some bad parts, but over all we had a good time.

Good parts:

Bad parts:

Oh well- a bad day in Maui is still a day in Maui, There is a page on the right with some pictures from the trip. Enjoy and aloha!

Also, congrats to Boone’s cousin Erin and her new husband Johannas, and our friends Scott and Kristin. We attended their weddings right after we got back from Maui, so the celebrations continued well into July.

So Boone and I haven’t really posted a whole lot lately, which probably tells you that we are busy. So, here is a wrap up post for the month of June:

-We went camping with Andrew and John at Lake Eau Claire and good times were had by all!
-We celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary with a fairly quiet evening involving dinner and wedding cake (still tasted good after a whole year in the freezer!).
-We were really lucky and missed out on most of the flooding in southern WI. Some of our neighbors had wet basements and flooded yards, but we were luckly enough to stay dry.
-We took our good friends up to Osseo for Lake Martha Days. I think they had fun and it was good to spend some in our hometown with family and old friends. Driving home through the Dells after the flooding made for some interesting times but we made it.
-We held bachelor and bachelorette parties for our good friends Jon & Mel, and also hosted a wedding luau for them (they are getting married in HI in July). Everyone survived with minor losses (glasses, wallet, dinner) and it was a good time.
-Boone made the trip way up north for Scott’s bachelor party, involving some good old camping and golfing.

Phew! And it doesn’t slow down! For July, we are high into wedding season. We’ll be in Hawaii for a week, getting Jon and Mel hitched, then we go up to Minneapolis for Boone’s cousin Erin’s wedding, then we go to Osseo and Eau Claire for Scott and Kristen’s wedding. Between last summer and this year, people keep telling me I should be a wedding planner or write a book about weddings. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea at this point.

For anyone who has been to our place, you have probably noticed the poor condition of the downstairs base boards. If you have not noticed or have not yet visited us, shame on you for not visiting. It is really quite lovely. …Anywho, I digress.

The old base boards needed far too much refinishing, as the varnish was starting to yellow, chip, and come off. The oak looked good from a far, but was far from good.

This weekend one of my best friends, and licensed La Crosse contractor, Andrew Goehner came down to help us rip out and replace our old base boards.

With our vibrant wall colors and wonderful hard-wood floors we chose a nice white molding to frame the highlights and draw your eyes to the floor. Also, instead of using the traditional quarter-round footer-molding we used a matching colonial door stop molding. This complicated things slightly, since door-stop (sold only in unprimed short sections) is not intended to be used as floor molding but as you can see in the photos below, it turned out absolutely great!

If you are located in the Madison or La Crosse area and need construction projects done, look up Andrew Goehner. He does exceptional work! Thanks much!

Even though we went home last weekend to see the fam for mother’s day, my brother and sister came down this past weekend to take in the musical Spamalot. For those non-Monty Python fans, it’s musical based on the movie “Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail. Boone and I already saw it in the cities with our good friends Caleb and Amanda, but I knew my brother and sister would get a kick out of it, so we got them tickets. It was fun to hang out with them and afterwards, we had a grillout at our place with some friends.

It was a great weekend, especially since the SPAM stayed on the stage and off our grill!

This past weekend was the Crazylegs event here in town. Boone and a few of his co-workers, along with our buddy Matt, ran the 8K race and Mom, Dave, and I walked the 2K route. It was cold and windy, but the movement and crowds kept us warm (over 17,000 people ran). It was really fun to walk into Camp Randall and to hear the bands play, and the free beer and fruit was nice after the walk. Matt had a pretty good running time (he is a career runner though) and Boone got to run with his office mates. We also got to spend the weekend with Mom & Dave, and Aunt Nancy & Tom.