Cabinets

I'm so happy with my new white cabinets! There are definitely a few things that looked different to me on the plans than they do in reality (like my drawers are huge!), but I'm getting used to it and really enjoying seeing the kitchen come back together. I'm also loving my black granite farmhouse sink in its new home.

Plumbing and Electrical

Plumbing and electrical are all in place now! Walls are going back up this week and soon counters and granite will be in place.

Reframing the Wall

Here is a view into the living room and a view into the kitchen of our newly framed wall. We planned to put the beam in for support but after taking the wall down it was determined that it wasn't necessary to have one. We still liked the look though so stuck with our original plan. After the counters are installed we will add a wooden counter to be a bar on this wall with bar stools on the living room side.

Kitchen demo

It only took a few hours to demo the kitchen! We're already loving the wall we decided to take down!

Apple Harvest

Apples! This is the first year that I have really done something with our own apples. I think a big part of that is that is that this is the first year our trees have really produced a big harvest. For the last month we've been eating them and I'll throw them in our green juice in the morning but it was time to take care of them before they were too ripe on the tree!

Titus and I spent the morning picking and sorting the apples into three categories: chickens, applesauce, and good to eat. The chickens got the not so nice apples. I spent the afternoon working on the sort of good apples to cut out the bad parts and make applesauce. And the rest of the good apples went into our extra fridge to be eaten over the next month. Chris helped me prune all the trees last winter so it's great fun to literally see the fruits of our labor.

Kitchen Before

Dad, this blogpost is dedicated to you since you regularly check here for updates. :)

We're moving forward on our kitchen remodel next week. A lot of it was torn up already last year when we were working on other improvements to our home. I slowly lost cabinets, my sink window, and added big gaping holes in places. It's still been functional for the last year but I certainly didn't expect it to take this long to get back to it and I am ready to actually have a complete kitchen again. So here are the before (or during shots--I'll have to see if I can find any true before shots from when we moved in). I'll try and update the progress over the next month. 

Kauai Vacation

This last week we went to the beautiful island of Kauai. Hawaii's most northern island. It was my first time to Hawaii and it was everything I hoped it would be. Warm, beautiful, with fresh fruit and friendly locals.

We spent the week with my in-laws celebrating a big birthday for my father-in-law. We all stayed in one big house together next to the ocean on Kauai's north shore.

Being that it was January, the ocean was on the rowdy side on the beach we were staying on. It took Titus a few days to warm up to the sand and the water, but soon he was happily walking away on the beach, filling pails with sand, and shoveling more on top of mama. Granny kept him happy with fresh buckets of water from the waves. He wasn't so keen on being in the waves but he would allow mama and dada to take him in with them.

A highlight for me was going on a 4 mile hike with my sister and brother-in-law. The views were incredible and the hike took us to a remote beach near a rocky bedded stream. I had hoped to do several hikes on the trip, but this one was the only one I made it on and definitely was a good one to choose.

We all felt rally spoiled while we were there and it was easy to forget that it was January back home with temps between 75-80 every day.

Now we are back home trying to stay warm by a fire and slowly falling back into the routine of normal life. But first I thought my blog deserved some attention. So to those of you who still subscribe, hello! Hope you enjoy our vacation photo dump below. And here's to more blogging in 2015!