I'm NOT too busy to blog...

Hello Readers, if there are any of you still out there... Perhaps I should start with another re-cap or another welcome post! Alicia and I have been so busy lately, not that there's a ton of stuff going on though, just work and life. I honestly had to re-read our own blog to find out when my last entry was! ...That's bad.  I've seen people on my Facebook news feed committing to daily blog entries, a song-a-day, photo-a-day, and I always thought that'd be such a cool project. I don't know that I have enough motivation to pull something like that off so I'll stick to my... whenever-I-have-time commitment.

In recent weeks we started checking out a local church here in the valley called The Lamb's Fellowship.

They seem to have a pretty awesome mission going on.  Dynamic speakers, uplifting music, and soul nourishing-spiritually fulfilling sermons.  Unfortunately, Alicia and I work every other weekend so we're unable to attend every service. When we first went we thought that their Saturday night service started at 8:30 pm, but we must have heard wrong, it started at 6:00 pm. We both rushed after work church only to find out that we were the only two cars parked in the parking lot! Haha.

One of Alicia's coworkers hosted a summer time pool party for friends and families in the La Cresta neighborhood. This area is absolutely beautiful with breathtaking views of the valley and estate size homes and land.  We had a great time hanging out with everyone there, even took a dip in the pool as the kids squirted us with water guns.  I think one of my favorite parts was the food, they had a taco guy there! Muy Delicioso!  Alicia had one of our neighbor's bring a celebratory cake for the whole ED staff. It was quite impressive!

We also met up with some friends/ co-workers at Tom and Heather's house in Yucaipa for a "wine n' dine" evening.  Alicia and I brought these stuffed mushrooms featured in the Atkins Diet, they came out so good!  If I wasn't a nurse I'd be a chef for sure... We had a great evening catching up with old friends and making new ones. Guess we're going to be hosting the next one!  Our friend Meagan and her daughter carpooled with us and her daughter used the backseat DVD player. First time I ever used that thing, I think it'll come in handy one of these days when we have kids of our own.

Speaking of kids and babies and such... Jason, Patti, and Dylan are coming down for a visit this labor day weekend! We're so excited to have them over. This will be Dylan's first big trip to Southern/ Southeastern California.

What else? Well, we could always chat about the weather! Haha, well, speaking of, it has been very warm the past few days with temperatures reaching over 100 F daily. Today the valley actually actually had a few fires, one of which I think is still burning down close to the Riverside/ San Diego county line, hope it doesn't spread any more because there goes wine country...  What's nice though is that sometimes the hot weather brings us beautiful skies...

Alright readers, I've taken enough of your time. I'll post more as the days, err.., weeks go on. Hope you had a restful weekend and hoping you have a great week! At least Monday is out of the way, phew.

Home Improvement... Again

Being newly married and living a newly built house... I have a feeling that there are going to be quite a lot of posts relating to home improvement. Well, maybe it's not so much home improvement as it is making our home uniquely ours. You've seen our backyard, that's going to be quite a project! We even have a side yard that Alicia is eying on transforming into our own vegetable garden as well as some hanging plants to dress up the view from our dining room window.

Driving around our neighborhood we've noticed that the builders use to construct these homes fairly large, with each home featuring a "courtyard" like area for sitting and neighborhood watching.  Transforming our front door area is also a project that we're considering. I drew a sketch of what we hope to accomplish sometime in the future, maybe it will be one of those weekend warrior projects!

Also, here is an inspiration board that we've put together to tie all the elements we're looking to incorporate into the design.

But, since it's been so hot the last few days we decided to take our improvements inside. With a handy picture hanging kit a few tools - mission accomplished!

We've had these photos laying on our living room floor for quite some time now. Today, Sunday, they have found their new home on our stairwell wall.

Our friend, Mandy, visited a few weeks ago and she said that pictures on the wall make such a difference to a home! She was right!

Home Improvement

Work seems to be getting the best of us these days! Haha. This past week my parents came down for a few days to help us out with some projects that we've been wanting to complete around the house. Two things in particular, a gate for our side yard and assembling our new dog run.  Unfortunately, the time they spent with us was also some of the hottest temperatures that we've experienced all summer long! Heat wave for sure... We made sure to keep ourselves hydrated as well as take breaks during the peak hours to avoid heat stroke and other ailments from sun overdose.

The gate that my dad and I put together was no easy task. I'm almost positive on this one, I think our backyard dirt is composted of clay and cement. I have never dug into dirt so hard in my entire life! (I had actually started digging the holes about one month ago, a couple inches every day...) At one point I even considered renting a jack hammer! Haha. My dad, mom, and I made a trip to Lowes and got all our supplies - I'm sure the people at Lowes know my parents on a first name basis by now. My mom says that Lowes is where all the young suburbia families shop and Home Depot is... Well, it just is. The fence went up with little to no problems. I still have to add the trimmings (lock, handle, etc...) but for the most part it's all done! I'm just waiting for the stain to dry - it's still a little tacky to touch.  The top portion of the gate is going to be filled in with trellis to give it a more quaint feel for when our backyard is fully completed... Some day!

The other project that we wanted to get up was a dog run that Alicia and I had purchased a while back. The box alone weighed in at 200 lbs so it was definitely a two person job. The dog run took a little longer to put up than I thought - mainly because I had never worked with chain-link fence before.  It was funny, as soon as we got it all set up Rocco and Bently went in and started wrestling - MMA style.

We're so thankful that my parents were able to spend a few days with us!