Addition: Disruption

 

Although we're past the worst of it, I didn't want to move too far forward without documenting the disarray our whole house was in during the construction.

We moved out all the contents of the playroom, mainly into the garage, and then squeezed in a new Murphy bed when we found a great deal in January.

The MG was out of commission for the duration, used as storage for the outdoor cushions.

Very full, hard to walk around.

All the backyard things were pushed to the south side of the yard.

With Violet's room flooding out, she moved into the living room. We ended up just leaving the bed out all the time rather than packing it up every morning. We just sat on the bed if we watched TV. The cats loved it!

So much dust - this is the kitchen counter, and dust came in from the cracks up above the plywood blocking the window.

Violet's room became a storage room for project stuff, like the big boxes of solar tubes. There was no room in the garage for them.

Violet's furniture ended up in the hallway and dining room.

And random stuff ended up in our bedroom, including the pile of Violet's clothes she was drawing from each morning when she got dressed. She preferred dressing in our room, from the pile, rather than dressing in the bathroom or her empty bedroom.

The PS5 and playroom TV went into Cora's room, so the girls spent a lot of time in there for the two months. The playroom desk went in her room, too, and fits so well we'll keep it there.

Thankfully, Stace and I are both more low-key about clutter, so we weren't stressed out during the construction the way some people would be. And, we both knew it would all be over soon enough - and it was!

Snow Patrol

Stace and I had a fun and exciting Tuesday night, heading down to see Snow Patrol at a classic Los Angeles concert venue. 

Though we enjoy their music, we haven't seen them often - the most memorable time was when we were newlyweds, and Snow Patrol was looking to break the States. 

They were playing at the venerable Amoeba Records in Hollywood, and because one of Stace's friends from back home had sent us a CD, we knew of them and went to watch. 

Tiny stage, not too many there, and a meet and greet after where they all signed Final Straw and Gary Lightbody asked Stace about how he liked living in California. 

 

Then they hit, REAL big, and got very expensive to watch. But, 20 years later, they were at the Art Deco Wiltern, and we met up with JT and Jim for our night out. 

The Wiltern is in Koreatown, and Stace and I got there early enough for dinner, so we hit up a Korean/Mexican fusion place that was delicious, and affordable. You know, the kind of place where your dinner bill is less than the parking at the theater...

They performed all the hits we love, and a few off their newer CDs, too. Stace has their latest two, though there's a few in the middle we don't have. 

Anyway, it was a brilliant night out!

Addition: Drywall, Windows, Stucco and Floors

 

Over the last few weeks, so much progress has been made on the house! Stace put in this new drywall to replace that which had gotten wet. Luis handled the mudding since he was doing the drywall where the old windows were.

Windows and doors in! We were briefly having an issue with the size of the windows on the right side. The architect drew them and they aren't an off-the-shelf size. Special orders take weeks. 

But Joe, our contractor, decided to become a window distributor for a brand he'd had good experiences with in past years, and they were able to get them made in about a week. We love them!

Drywall in!

Outside ready for first coat of stucco.

Second coat on.

Primer going in - at night! With lights on in the room!

And the final coat on.

Joe created windowsills to match what's in the rest of the house.

Big day - removing the plywood barriers between the room and the house!

And in come the floors, on the day we made our final payment and the day after the inspector signed everything off.

The construction part of the project was complete in eight weeks, WITH adding on a new roof and a week or so of rain delays. We're very pleased with how everything went!

Week in Review

After not seeing the girls for a couple of days, we treated them to Chick-Fil-A for dinner, and ate out together in the restaurant (rather than getting it to-go, as the girls often prefer). This was our second dinner out with them in a week - before our trip, we used some gift cards and had a "nice" meal out at Red Lobster, where they'd never been. 

 Cora's school had Open House, and I helped at the Parent Advisory Council table for a bit before we went to see her classes. Cora was actually busy with theatre rehearsal - Jarod decided to allow parents to come watch an open rehearsal during Open House. Seeing the beginning stages of a musical number getting choreographed was fun for us non-musical theatre people. It'll be good in a couple of months to see how it progresses.

Maybe silly, but I wanted to get a photo of Cora's government class, only because this is it! She'll be done with high school soon, and I won't be in any of her classes in the future.

On Friday, Melissa and Tiffany met me at Placerita and we hiked the Waterfall Trail. 

Cora has been sick, and missed a few days of school, including a planned rehearsal on Saturday morning.

Stace helped Christina with a little project Saturday, building a storage area in the charity's new resource center.

Over the weekend, we did some work around the house, like Violet mowing the lawn and us starting on the Murphy bed project in the addition - more on that in a separate post.

A Snowy Cabin Getaway

 Back in September when our anniversary trip to Lake Arrowhead was cut short because of a nearby fire, the cabin's owner offered to let us come back again, paying only the cleaning fee. At the time, I thought a winter snow getaway sounded fun. Plus, Violet last year had talked about wanting to take a similar trip.

I scheduled the weekend, and it worked out that it meant we were gone two weekends in a row. Cora again didn't want to come, and in the end, Violet wanted to stay home too. 

Stace and I were a little sad - we'll miss the days of every trip being a family trip - but we made the best of it. 

We were blessed with the most perfect timing, weather wise. A late winter storm hit, dumping snow and actually delaying our trip by a day, as it was still snowing heavily Friday evening. We instead drove up Saturday morning, and stayed through Monday - ideal! Missed the Friday evening traffic, and got to have more of a full vacation day to start the trip rather than the tailend of a late evening.

This was the gorgeous scene that greeted us when we got to the cabin! Even the trees were coated in white!

Plus, it wasn't really cold - in the upper 40s, low 50s, so we didn't have to bundle up much.

We went back to Lake Arrowhead Village, with Stace representing Dean's company.

We looked in the shops, got a coffee, enjoyed the Saturday.

The cabin owner recommended Lou and Eddie's pizza, and wow, definitely worth it! Really tasty fancy pizza and beer.

We'd forgotten tea and coffee, so stopped at the grocery store - you can see how much snow had fallen based on the plowed piles in the parking lot! (See the Jeep on the left side?)

We got back to the cabin and took an early evening walk in the very quiet neighborhood, soaking up the wintry views.

Then we enjoyed a couple of movies - the cabin has a large collection of DVDs.

On Sunday, after a nice breakfast at the cabin, we went into Big Bear. We took a nature walk and found clean snow to play in.

The nature center had this grizzly bear pelt/head! Apparently it was one of the last in the area (they've been extinct from California for decades) and was kept by a local family and then gifted to the nature center.

We saw a bit of living nature too - see the coyote?

We'd worked up an appetite, so we went back to the busy part of town and found a late lunch.

Stace wanted to head back to the ski resort we went to a few years ago with the girls, on their big skiing day. We walked around, and then went back to town to get a coffee before heading home.

Yep, it was warm enough to have our treat outside, despite the snow on the ground! The drive back to the cabin took a while, due to all the people heading down the mountain on a Sunday evening, but it was so pretty, we didn't mind. 

Another DVD in the cabin topped off our lovely weekend away.