Outside, All The Time

It seems like we've been outside constantly.

We met up with Tom and Emily at Maple Leaf Park before going back to their place for dinner. 

Slip n' Slide at Rambo and Axel's house, followed by grilling and s'mores.

Oli's climbing skills surprised us, he went right up after Aiden at the neighborhood playground.

Splashing in the fountains at Redmond Town Center.

They played in the sandbox without parental interference, just happily played together. I spied from the kitchen. It was lovely.

Aiden used gems to skip nap time and go to Grasslawn park with me. He did a lot of climbing. Then sat down in the middle of the park and admitted to being very tired.

Flowers and a jar of ants...

Messy babies have to eat their ice cream in the driveway.

Eating dinner on the new deck, so that when the boys are done after 2 minutes we can continue with our dinner in peace while they play on the swing.

We made pinecone bird feeders to hang on the trees outside. This project was inspired by the perfect pinecones we found outside city hall when we went to get our passports (and I forgot the checkbook so Andrew ran home while we played around outside, thanks Andrew). 

Kellye & Aaren Come to Play

Kellye and Aaron made their way to Seattle for a visit!

We went up the Columbia Tower,

 

had beer at Fremont Brewery,

took selfies at Gas Works Park,

and played board games at Mox Boarding House. Not to mention all the board games we played at the house too. It was great to be able to play with more than 2 of us.

Kellye and I ran around the Market and downtown while Aaron headed to a Mariners game (and made so many new friends).

 

We also hiked Rattlesnake Ledge, where Aaron checked in on the Cubs (to Kellye's disappointment), and then stopped at Snoqualmie Falls on our way home.

Museum of Flight

Tom and Emily swept Aiden and Oliver away for the day. They went to the Museum of Flight and out for dinner while Andrew and I enjoyed the house to ourselves and went out to dinner alone. They are so awesome and Aiden felt to special!

New Year, New Fireplace

We began ripping out our current fireplace right after the New Year. It took us roughly a month to complete.

It was wood burning and we never used it. We were planning to get a gas insert. But after doing all the demo work, we had the pros come measure for the insert. Once they were able to look into the walls, we learned that the fireplace wasn't structural. We could remove the whole thing and get an entirely new fireplace. The perk to this is we could get a larger fireplace (for the same amount of money). I also pulled of part off the mantle that was running along the back wall, so I took this excuse to repaint the whole room (too ambitious? maybe).

We had gas run to the where the new fireplace would be and I built drawers for underneath the hearth. 

We added framing for the built-in entertainment unit that would replace the wood storage box.

The installer put in the new fireplace and hooked up the gas. Since they were doing framing for the fireplace, we also had them add the cement board for tiling (it's one our least favorite things to do). 

I built drawer fronts. Andrew worked on wiring for the entertainment system.

We waited to decide on a hearth until after the fireplace was installed. We wanted to have perfectly accurate measurements and know exactly how much space we'd have under the silver framing. Conveniently Andrew and I both had Martin Luther King Jr. Day off, but daycare was open. We used that entire day to go from stone yard to stone yard hoping to find remnants that might work for our space. We saw very little we liked, even when we did find remnants long enough. However, the very last place we visited happened to have one full sheet of marble that they were selling at remnant price because it was the last of a lot. Plus they could install within 2 weeks, unlike most the other places.

I painted and installed the drawer fronts before the hearth was installed.

The hearth arrived! They struggled to get it in our front door and up the stairs, but eventually made it. One installer spent a lot of time measuring, going up and down, and shaking his head at the staircase before bringing the piece inside.

Next, we needed to decide on tile. I probably brought home 8 options, and we narrowed it down to each of our favorites. Andrew's pick was the right option (horizontal) and I preferred the left. I agreed to pick the right option if we laid it vertically.

Andrew and I build in the box and shelves. The shelves can slide in and out, and there's a 4 inch gap in the back for running wires. Andrew's done a lot of behind the scenes work here to discreetly connect speakers, receiver, projector, internet, and all the gaming systems. 

Ana came over to take the boys out for the afternoon and we tiled in about 4 hours. 

I was able to grout the next day while everyone was at work/daycare.

The final piece was adding doors to the entertainment stuff.

Voila!

Here's the before photo.