Our new floors

For the last month our lives have been completely consumed with wood floors. We tore out all our existing flooring downstairs and replaced it with 700 square feet of 3/4-inch thick, 5-inch wide, tongue-and-groove, unfinished Brazilian Cherry wood. After weeks of discombobulation, I'm happy to report that things are starting to get back to normal around our house. Oh, and the floors look pretty great too.

Let the tear our process begin.

Bringing the wood in to "acclimate" to the humidity of the house.

Tearing out all the old and nasty carpet. We've wanted to do this since we first moved in. It felt really good to rip it out.

Abby helped pick up all the little staples that were left behind when we tore out the carpet.

Here's the staple I stepped on. I got a little blood on the floor. My foot was sore for a week.

Tearing out the Oak wood floors in the kitchen/dining room.

All the carpet and wood floors torn out.

The first rows of Brazilian Cherry go down.

All the Brazilian Cherry is installed but doesn't have the finish on it.

Now the finish has been put on.

I think the worst part about this whole process was having to park the cars outside for two weeks. That was rough. I suppose it's a small price to pay for such wonderful new floors. The floors look even better with all our furniture moved back in.

Harvest Party 2009

Sticking with tradition, Taylor and Mindy Swedberg graciously opened their home and hosted this year's Harvest Party. For the last several years we've gathered at a local farm to take hay rides, sling apples, drink cider, pet animals and pick pumpkins. We decided to skip that part this year and just meet up at the Swedbergs with our pumpkins already in hand. Mindy made a fine stew/chili/soup and we enjoyed the evening hanging out eating and carving pumpkins.

Here's how our pumpkins turned out this year. Do you have any guesses what ours are?


Everyone carving their pumpkins.


It was too cold and windy to take a group picture outside.


This is a scary picture of Peter. I think, (repeat) I THINK, he's making the face of his pumpkin. One can never be sure, especially because Anne Marie and I have our backs to him. Scary!


Our pumpkins. Mine is the one in the middle on the bottom. It's supposed to be a person in jail.

Quick jaunt to Indiana

Abby and I recently flew out to Indiana to visit family and see my cousin get married. It's been about 20 years since I'd last been back there - that's what I think my Dad and I figured out anyway. We had a great time spending time with my Mom's side of the family.

Here are my sister (Chandra) and her husband (Garrett) and my parents at the church before the wedding.


Here we are outside the church after the ceremony.


This is my Aunt and Uncle - Vianne and Sheldon - the parents of the groom. They were gracious enough to open up their home to us while we were there. They were rockstars too. They stayed up late chatting and got up early to make sure all of our needs were taken care of - all during the weekend of their son's big day too. My cousin Shelly even gave up her bed for us - what a nice cousin.


Sheldon is my Mom's brother. See the resemblance?


Here's the pretty couple dancing at the reception - Nathan and Annette.


The day after the wedding, my Dad, Garrett and I went flying in Barry's plane. (Barry is married to Vianne's sister - my mom's brother's wife's sister. No direct blood relation to me. Clear as mud, right?)


Garrett and I took up the back seat. There wasn't a bad seat in the house (I mean plane). Poor Garrett had to watch me up-chuck in the back seat. Twice I've been up in a small plane and twice I've tossed my cookies. As appealing as going for a fun ride in a small plane sounds to me, I think I'm going to pass the next time I have an opportunity. I really want to like it. I don't get sick on big planes, boats or in cars. It's weird that I get sick in the little planes. Oh, and I had a really BIG lunch too. Filled that gallon-sized ziploc bag pretty full. I decided that sleeping was my best option after that, and slept the last hour of the flight.


The view from the plane. As you can see, Indiana is FLAT FLAT FLAT.


It was fun to be back, even though it was for a short period of time. A big thank you to all the family who helped make our visit so much fun.

Dislike the wind and here's why

I needed a forum to express my displeasure with the wind. What better way to reach an audience than through my blog. Seriously, I'm totally fed up with the wind. I've said numerous times today and I'll say it again, "I hate the wind."

You're probably asking yourself, why does Dustin hate the wind so much. For many reasons, really. Right now, though, I hate it because I was hit by an errant shopping cart speeding through the Fred Meyer parking lot tonight.

It was howling wind and spitting rain outside, so I pulled up to the curb to let Abby out of the car so she'd be that much closer to the door. (What any nice husband would do for their amazing wife.) I then proceeded to find a parking spot, when all of a sudden I noticed out of the corner of my eye a shopping cart speeding across the lot straight for me. I had two options: Stop and let it nail me; or gun it and swerve. It was a going to leave a mark no matter what, so I gunned it and tried to avoid it. WHAMMO!!! I was hit. UGH!

Thanks to the wind we have a dent in the car! Way to go wind. You've ruined my car and my night. Boo.

(I would have attached a picture, but it's too nasty and dark outside to snap one. Maybe later.)

Go HAWKS!!!

Wow, what a blowout! I would have never guessed that the Seahawks would win so convincingly over the Jacksonville Jaquars. Not after having lost their last two games. I fully expected them to lose again. Instead, we spent the whole game jumping up and down, hooting and hollering because they scored so many times. We whalloped them 41-0. INCREDIBLE! Mind bottling, really.

Here we are all decked out in our Hawks gear walking to the Stadium.
Left to right: Corey, Taylor, Mindy, Holly and me.


Me, Abby and Corey.


In our nose bleed seats before the game started.
Left to right: Abby, Me, Taylor, Mindy, Holly and Corey




It's always so much fun going to the games. There's nothing like cheering for the team with 60,000 other fans. When the Hawks are on defense, you have to be ready to work. The whole stadium stands up and screams as loud as they can. We lead the league in creating false starts with our noise. Then, when the offense is on the field, you sit down and relax.

I don't think we've been to a game yet when they've lost. We've had some amazing luck picking games over the years.

Tromping through a corn maze

Abby and I went and visited our friends Ryan and Michelle on Saturday. Since it was so nice out, we decided to go visit Bob's corn maze. It turned out to be a bit more challenging than we expected. In fact, if Ryan hadn't snuck a map of the maze in with him, I'm not sure we would have found our way out. It was easily the most difficult corn maze I've been in.



Ryan and Michelle enjoying the corn maze and each other's company.


Ryan strutting his stuff through the maze. : )


A corny picture of me.


A corny picture of Abby.


Abby and Michelle enjoying some pumpkin flavored ice cream.


Can you believe that it is fall already? It's just crazy. Soon we'll be ringing in the year 2010. That's mind bottling.

Did it again: I'm 2 for 2

It doesn't matter what else happens today, today is a good day! You know why? I've had success again. I caught a second mole trespassing in my yard.

I woke up last weekend and noticed a single mole hole in the back of my yard. It was barely visible, but I spotted it. I prompty dusted off the trap and set it in the yard. I checked the trap repeatedly the first few days to see if I'd caught anything. I started to lose heart after a few days when nothing showed up in the trap. I went outside this morning to set up the sprinkler and noticed a new mole hole. I thought, "Ugh, stupid moles!" The hole was on the other side of the yard from the trap too. I figured I better check the trap just in case. Much to my surprise, the trap had a mole in it. SWEET!

I was pretty sure I'd got my money's worth with the trap by catching the first mole. Now I'm positive I've got way more than my money's worth with the second catch. Maybe I should start my own mole-trapping business.

I hope the rest of you have an uber-amazing day too!