Houston, we have a patio door!

Yeehaw! A door! Light again! I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight we ran over to Lowe's and grabbed a new handle to match the others in the house.
I LOVE, LOVE it! It's SUCH an improvement from the nasty old, uninsulated slider that was was there last week.
Thanks K&L for coming up to help today... again! We're extremely indebted to you guys!!!

Monday, monday ~

I think I've mentioned before, but since I'm too lazy to go back through blog posts and check, I'll mention it again! :) My sweet husband recently switched to working 4-days per week, 10 hours per day, so he can have a 3-day weekend, every weekend. Sounds great, right? Really though, this translates to working really hard at his day job for four days, and then working really hard on our house during his "3-day weekend". Here's evidence of his "third" weekend day this week.
He tore the siding and sheathing off the remainder of the bottom portion -
(another angle)
(aaaaand, another)
Do you notice anything different in this photo???? The new windows AND FRENCH DOOR were delivered!!!! (Mind you, they were delivered at 3pm on Monday, with 4-ish hours of daylight left.)
He re-sheathed the rest of the bottom 1/2...
...finished the house-wrap, tore out all the old windows on the bottom part of this side of the house and installed the new ones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's superman.
However, the photo below is quite decieving - it was in NO way daylight when all the work was finished... Rather, it was around 9pm & my poor husband hadn't even had dinner!!
Yay for new windows!!!
So much for three day weekends, huh?

All in a days work!

This post is a little out-of-order as the work captured here was done BEFORE the last post on Liesl's birthday, but none-the-less, I'm trying to catch up! :)
Last Saturday my dear husband worked his toosh off tearing off the siding and old sheathing, tearing out the windows, mounting new sheathing, putting the old windows back in place and tearing out the old sliding glass door. This was all in anticipation of our new windows (the final set!) for this side of the house and new french door being delivered on Monday. We were keeping our fingers crossed that Lowe's would make good on their delivery promise!
Old door - gone!
Re-sheathed -
Nasty rotten hole - which we suspected would be there since when we had our two feet of snow last winter water seeped inside through a one inch gap between the sliding door and it's track. Bah. Anyhow - what would a remodel project be without a bit of rot?? :) This actually seems really minor compared to some of the other challenges we've faced!
Our new, beautiful patio access. :) Isn't it great!? I never realized how much light that door let in until the light was blocked off!!
Peter finished ALL of that on Saturday (the 21st), and on Sunday we had 23 people over for Liesl's birthday! T'was a BUSY, but productive weekend!

My besties birthday!

My dear, dear friend Liesl had a birthday, so of course we had to celebrate! Of course, I didn't take any photos of the festivities (!!!) but the cake making was certainly well documented. :) I baked my very first lemon curd cake for the occasion ~ Here's the step-by-step process:
First, I baked two lemon cakes. Next time I will 1.5x the batch as I prefer a thicker cake...
Then I made the curd - it consisted of egg yolks, lemon juice, cornstarch, butter & sugar. Very healthy. :) After boiling it for three minutes it had to chill for three hours. This little siesta was quite beneficial for getting some laundry done! :)
Once the curd chilled, I sliced the two cakes (which subsequently also had plenty of time to cool as well!) in half. Viola! Now I had four cakes! A tip I read that I'm VERY glad I followed was to pipe frosting around the outside of the cake to hold the curd in. Brilliant!
Once the first layer was topped with lemon curd, I placed the second layer gently on top...
...frosted the second piece with a thin layer of lemon butter-cream frosting...
...then placed the third layer on top of the frosted layer, piped frosting around the edge again and filled with remaining curd.
I placed the fourth (and final) cake layer on top and frosted with a thin "crumb layer" of frosting, then refrigerated to allow the frosting to harden.
Once hardened, I frosted the final "pretty layer" of lemon butter-cream.
Happy birthday dear Liesl!!! Thank you for your wonderful friendship.
Recipe here. (Oh - it WAS good, I'd make it again!)

Weekend visitors ~

Last weekend Layne & Justin (from this wedding) and Julie came out to DC! Some of Justin and Julie's relatives were getting hitched and we were lucky enough to have L&J and J stay with us.
Sunday afternoon their family kindly included us in their touring of downtown. We started at Iwo Jima...
...Walked down by Arlington Cemetary ~


Crossed over the bridge to the Lincoln Memorial ~
... Looped around the WWII Memorial and walked back to Iwo Jima. We had our fair share of walking that day!
:)
Brian and Linda
Layne & Justin
Brad & Suzanne
Monday Peter joined them again downtown for some more touring...
Capitol Building ~
Brad & Suzanne, Layne & Justin and Julie
True, no?!
Artsy lamp post in the front of the Library of Congress... I want this one framed!
They also got tickets to go up to the top of the Washington Monument - I'm so jealous! Here's some neat photos Peter took up there~
Looking toward the Lincoln Memorial
Looking toward the White House
Looking up the National Mall at the Capitol
Close-up of the Capitol
Are you ready to come visit yet?! :)

Things I've been thankful for...

Three things that I'm thankful for:
1. $5 roses from Sam's Club that fully bloomed for over a week!
2. 1/2 bushel of peaches from a local farm stand which resulted in two cobblers, peach cake, peach smoothies & many fresh breakfasts!
3. The third side of the house sided and finished! Only one more to go!!! The windows and french door for the back side are being delivered... tomorrow!

Baby G

A few weeks ago we got to meet Baby G, Natalie's newest little one! Here's a few cute photos from our visit ~

I love this one!

Updated interior photos ~

The following photo was supposed to go with the Fredericksburg post, but I forgot to include it and am too lazy to go back and update. :) So here's a beautiful flower from Fredericksburg to brighten your day... in an otherwise completely unrelated blog post.
We're having company this week and next and it was high time this house had a thorough cleaning! I thought I'd take some photos since I haven't blogged much about the interior in awhile. :)
This bathroom is done, done, done - except for the window trim and base molding. I'm quite happy with the way it has turned out! It's a small, cheery space with lots of pizazz.

My favorite!
Kitchen decorations ~
Another view...
...and we have a dining room again!! Soon the windows will be replaced, the mantel and brick painted, the A/C registers spray painted white and the back wall will be finished off in green. Base molding and window trim will most likely be the last thing to be installed.
One of my favorite spaces in the kitchen. :)
...Another angle...
The view from the living room down to the dining room.
...and the opposite view...
These photos make me realize how much MORE needs to be done still... but at least it's a HUGE improvement from where we started!
Time for some shut eye! Hope your week is off to a lovely start!