The Runaway

Today we spent the day working on the house...by this time, nobody should be surprised this is how we spent our Saturday afternoon! Chelsea was in the garage painting base trim while Cody was cutting and installing trim upstairs. About an hour or two into our work, Cody suddenly asked "Where is the dog?". She was no where to be found in the house or in the backyard so Cody and Chelsea began to search the neighborhood for their missing pooch. Chelsea was confident that Roxy was either at the neighbor dogs house or at the park we often take her to (well, the park she walks us to!). When we realized she wasn't at either location, we both began to worry. We split up and drove around the neighborhood in attempt to cover more ground. Chelsea slowly drove down 15th street calling Roxy's name, with her windows down, looking to the left and right desperately looking for the runaway dog when a lady in a car driving the opposite direction yelled out her window "are you looking for a dog?". Chelsea yelled "YES!!!!!!!! Where is she?!" as she slammed her foot on the break and threw the car in reverse. The lady pulled over to the side of the road and Roxy piled out of the back seat of her car and ran straight to Chelsea! The woman explained to that her and her daughter where getting into their car when Roxy came wondering up to them to say hello. They noticed she wasn't wearing a name tag (yes, we are bad bad parents for that!). They weren't sure what to do with her or where she came from so they went door-to-door looking for Roxy's home. When nobody claimed her, they took her to the nearest vet to find out if she had a microchip. NEGATIVE. So, their search continued. When they saw Chelsea suspiciously driving down the street obviously looking for something, they figured this was the end to their search...and it was. Chelsea thanked the lady and her daughter and took Roxy home. It was pretty clear that Roxy's little adventure shook her up because for the rest of the day she wouldn't leave Cody's sight...Yup, she's a Daddy's girl! We still don't know exactly how she escaped but we are both happy to have her safely home. And guess what we are going to do first thing tomorrow? That's right, buy her a new name tag!

Floors Update

After countless hours on his knees Cody finished our floors! It took about 3 1/2 days for him to lay the laminate flooring but it took him about 1 week to recover from it!! His sore back, knees and swollen hands were part of the price he had to pay for our beautiful floors. Here are a few pictures of him hard at work.

Living room:

Kitchen:



Once the floors were done, we had the carpet on the stairs installed. Some people question why we chose to do carpet on the steps but the answer is pretty simple: our 100 lb beast that comes trashing down the stairs would break a hip if they were as slick as wood! We are very happy with how it turned out.





Overall things are going great but the work is not over. We still have the base trim to do. Once that is done, we will post some final photos.

Unforeseen Conditions

Well, Cody spent a weekend ripping up the carpet to find a little surprise underneath. It turns out the kitchen and both bathrooms have an extra layer of plywood. So, the best solution to make to floors level was the bring the rest of the house up to the same level. As you can imagine, Cody wasn't thrilled about the extra work and expense involved with this little set back. So, we went to Home Depot and purchased 30 sheets of plywood and loaded them into the truck. They were too long, so we couldn't shut the tailgate. Cody placed a 2x4 underneath all the wood, hoping it would raise the back end of the wood just enough to keep us from losing it all on the drive home. Things were going fine until we had to make it up the big hill to our house. We got halfway up the hill when we lost it all. Thats right, not just a sheet or two but all 30 sheets fell out the back and slid down the hill like a deck of cards! Senconds later a guy pulled up behind us and offered to help us. Once they got it all loaded back into the truck, he followed us home with his flashers on while we drove backwards the rest of the way home! As we pulled into the driveway Cody said "and thats why we live in Oregon City". We would have been there all night if we wouldn't have had the help from that man. There is definantly a sense of community in this great little town we call home.

Loren drove up from Eugene on Saturday afternoon to help Cody lay the plywood:

Happy Birthday Kim!

Well, it's no secret that Kim Olson turned The Big 50 on March 21st. Courtney surprised her with a trip to New York City to celebrate. When the two of them returned home, the celebration continued with a trip to Silver Lake, Oregon.

Cody and Chelsea took Friday off of work and made the 5 hour drive to spend the weekend in the most remote area Chelsea has ever been! First Chelsea learned that there is no lake in Silver Lake...the so called "lake" has been dried up for years. The town consists of a mini mart, tavern, diner, gas station, a pet friendly motel (with a total of 5 rooms),a post office and absolutely no law enforcement. We spent the weekend at Crack in the Ground, exploring Derek's Cave, geocaching, hiking around Fort Rock, and eating the best meal ever at Cowboy Dinner Tree. After working on the house the past several weeks, it was a much needed getaway for Cody. It was a fun, relaxing weekend full of adventure.

PICTURES...
Our fist geocaching experience on Friday ended up being a bust but we tried again on Saturday. Right about the time we were about to give up again and go 0/2, Kim starts yelling "I found it, I found it!!!!" There it was, hidden under one of the hundreds of trees in the open field:


Roxy thrashing through Crack in the Ground:

Roxy getting a little help from Dad and Grandpa:

Loren, Cody and Chelsea (and Roxy too):

We finally wore the dogs out:

There are two items on the Cowboy Dinner Tree menu: Steak and Chicken. Loren and Cody ordered the steak (a 27 oz steak that is!) and Kim and Chelsea ordered the chicken (a WHOLE chicken!). It was such a delicious dinner, nobody left hungry:

Home Projects

We have been busy working on the house. We recently just finished painting the inside of the house. We picked some pretty bold colors but we absolutely love all the color in our house. No more white walls and no more blue race car room!! Cody installed a stair skirtboard, wired in and installed a ceiling fan in the master bedroom, and now is in the process of ripping out all the carpet to get ready for new laminate flooring. We also ordered new appliances for the kitchen but Sears has had some issues delivering them to us! Chelsea is going a little crazy with having the house torn apart but keeps telling herself it will all be worth it in the end!

Cody's love message with paint primer. It was finally time to paint over the blue race car room:

Skirtboard:

Removing carpet in the living room:

The living room from another angle after all the carpet was removed:

Goodbye carpet:

Our First Geocaching Experience

For Christmas this year, Santa brought Cody a handheld GPS. This weekend we put the GPS to good use and tried out a little geocaching. Roxy came along and we made it a family event. It was only about a mile hike in before we found the hidden geocache but we hiked through snow, ice, water, and mud along a sheer cliff. Although Roxy had a small altercation with a couple of not-so-friendly Chocolate Labs that nearly sent her over the cliff edge, we all made it out safely and had a great time. It's something we look forward to doing together more often.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas marks the second year in our new home. This year was a little different from last year though because we were actually able to get into the Christmas spirit and decorate the house. Cody and his buddy Kramer spent an afternoon hanging lights outside the house and Chelsea decorated the inside with the few decorations she had purchased last year during the after Christmas sale. Together we hung lights and ornaments on the tree we picked out and cut down at the Bryant Family Farm.


Once the house was decorated and Christmas was near, we headed south to Eugene to visit both families. We spent Christmas Eve with Cody's extended family. We ate an excellent meal, opened a few gifts and then us "kids" snuck out of the house and headed to the nearest tavern in town. Since we were out in Veneta, our options were limited and we ended up at Crazy Al's. We always seem to have a great time when we get together with the Blooms!



We spent a couple hours Christmas morning at Cody's parents house and a couple hours at Chelsea's parents house then got both families together under one roof for Christmas dinner. What a great way to spend the day.