Our first hosted Thanksgiving (2008)

In addition to having a new house, the Dormaiers thought it would be fun to come to Seattle for Thanksgiving...which meant Dave and I hosted (and cooked) our very first Thanksgiving Dinner. "Ahhhhh!!! Ok, ok, we can do this," I thought. We just need to finish unpacking (yes, nearly 6 month later!), clean and figure out how to cook a turkey!! Noooo problem! :)

A friend of mine at work bought me a fancy schmancy meat thermometer and gave me a great turkey tutorial that included a butter massage and a aluminum breast plate (henceforth called the Breastplate of Righteousness"). Dave was pretty much in charge of the sweet potatoes and green bean casserole (yum!) and I discovered that I can cook a turkey and that fresh cranberry sauce is to die for! (and really easy to make). Overall, the night was a success!

We also figured out that we can house 14 (sleeping) bodies if we need to...people were spread out everywhere! Most of the kids were on a huge island of blow up mattresses in the family room while most of the adults were in the main part of the house. Everyone stayed nice and toasty between our wood burning stove and electric heat...talk about hybrid!

Asres and Dan watching a movie...


We didn't have a rack to put in the bottom of the pan for the turkey, so Kelley got to make the foil snake. Yes, lots of jokes were made...

Dave gets into one of the (many) books lying around...

Don't mess with my mother-in-law...she's got a knife!!

The happy turkey after it's butter massage.


Kody and Sam horsing around...

Who knew that chess would be such a big hit this year? Dawson, Jesse, Sam, Dave and Paul were nearly fanatics. Glad our board finally got some use!


Thanks to David who utilized his budding photography skills for these pictures! :)

Snow and Baby Paco

I'm an Auntie again!!! Baby Paco arrived on Friday, a gloriously snowy day. Although it took some doing, I finally saw a picture of the sweet little boy. Mary posted some pictures and I hope to add to those when I'm home this week! Good work Danelle! Get rested up so we can hold and love on ya'll. :) Welcome little Emmitt!

Mary is right...Christmas is here in all it's glory! I can't tell you how excited I was yesterday when they closed our office. I just kept saying, "thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus!" Yes, I was that excited. Not only because I have wedding pictures I needed to start editing, but because I was so happy to be able to enjoy a sunny, snowy day! I try to remind myself that this is not normal weather for Seattle and that I should enjoy it while I can. So, these pics are from last week...we got several more inches Saturday through Monday. I'll try to get Dave to email the pic we took of our snowman from his phone.





We do have more decorations up than just our tree, but we're pretty happy with our tree so we'll just show that...

Quick catch up!

So, over the last several months we've been busy traveling to Spokane so I can photograph the Think Swing 2008 Fesitival, getting our house ready to host Thanksgiving, photographing weddings, and enjoying the current snow!

I only have random pics so this will look a little disjointed...sorry! It's all I can do these days to even post something!

We painted our bedroom (and office) as well as the trim that is visible. These are both pics of our bedroom. You can see we picked a nice serene green for our bedroom. Now if we could only get things up on the wall! :)
This is how nice and clean the trim looks after I painted...

Look how dirty the trim was before I painted...gross! (you can see I had already edged the trim)


We went to Bellingham to watch Mt. Baker in the District Tournament. Matt, Kristi, Brandon and Riley were there too. Mt. Baker played Archbishop Murphey (Brandon's high school).



Mary giving the ref grief for a bad call...


After the game we went to dinner with the Todds and then we walked around Bellingham, enjoying the sunset and the cute little shops...


(my cf card with Thanksgiving pics on it seems to be corrupted so stay tuned for those if I can fix the problem)

Mary, Quinn and Stephanie joined us for bowling the day after Thanksgiving. RobinHood Lanes is just a hop, skip and a jump from our place. One of David's new favorite places; don't be surprised when he joins a bowling league!

Dave Sr. and Dan waiting for their turn...

Getting set for a strike! (well, I don't know if that was this one, but I did have 2 strikes!)

Quinn and Mary watching the action...

I'd like to think they were cheering me on, but really, I think I took this pic and Quinn was the lucky striker.

The thrill of victory...

...and the agony of defeat...

Kody, Paul and Dan after the game...

Paco's Photo Shoot...My Favorites. :)

Because, you know, it's all about me. hehehe. Just kidding!!! It's all about little Paco. What does Paco translate to anyway? little bean? :)



I adore this one...super sweetness. Am totally putting it on the ellusive website...




You look so posh and Seattle in this one. I love it!


I'm totally using this one on my website...someday!


Hey, Paco! Can you hear me?


Maybe you're ticklish?


Oh, wait, I guess just Danelle can feel that! heheheh, I'm so funny!

www.brookwhitney.com

I love you guys!! Thank you for letting me take your pics. Hope we can do it again when I'm home and when Danelle is really showing! Congrats!!!

Finally!! House pictures!

WARNING: Massive post!!
Ok, first off you should know that I lost ALL of the "in progress" pictures that show how much we demolished,tore down and shipped out (7 loads to the dump that Kathy and I made...I can't remember how many tons...a lot!). Consequently, it looks like we just took out the carpets and painted...but we didn't!!! :)

Closing Day! :) Happy first time homeowners...


On our first night Jerome came over to help us with our first project...taking down the rickety fence just outside of the living room...

Before...


During...

Still very enthusiastic...but need to take a picture of "after" will do and will repost...


Among our accomplishments:
*Tore out all existing built in storage closets

Below is a sample of the built-ins and "wood" paneling:



*Scrapped off all the popcorn off the ceiling (lost those pics)

*Completely demolished the bathroom down to the studs and subfloor. Even put in all new pipes. EVERYTHING is new...and I learned to tile!!
You have to love the black plastic tile! Before...


*Took down all the fake wood paneling in the main part of the house...discovered that it was covering up several barely covered former windows (you couldn't tell from the outside). So we tore out those walls to the studs b/c there was no insulation...re-insultated, re-wired, drywalled and textured (5 external walls).

*primed all walls, painted ceiling (repaired sagging ceiling)

*Tore out carpet

*Re-wired 3/4 of the house

*Added closet organizer THANKS MOM!

*repaired/painted side fence

It looks so good after dad's handi-work...


*Re-roofed side shed (all by ourselves!) see what bad shape it was in? just to the left (it was leaking badly and not functional). We also tore down the green lean-to in the foreground.


You can see the roofing felt Dave laid down and the facia board I measured(!) and painted...


Me measuring the guide lines for the 3-tab shingles...



The finished product...not bad if I do say so myself!


*Repaired/rebuilt side shed In progress...almost done (yay Dave!)

Did we do all this by ourselves?! Heck no!!! We were SOOOO blessed by our family and the help that everyone gave. We had work crews, cleaning crews, building crews and support crews. I think most all of you played some role in it. And for that WE THANK YOU!!!!!


Don't even ask what we have left to do!!! :)

I wish I had all the pictures I took when the family was here. It was amazing to see everyone pitch in like they did. Dave and I can't even begin to express our gratitude. There is so much more that wasn't even mentioned in this email.

I'll post more before and afters soon. I hope to be better about doing this in stages so it's not all or nothing. At least you have some idea of what we've been up to! :) I'll probably even re-visit some of the topics here for a little more detail and to give credit where credit is due.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has supported us through this major undertaking! We love you and couldn't have done it without you!!!!

Craziness!!

Just a quick post to apologize for how delinquent I've been with posting. But I think I've seen all of you periodically throughout these last 3 months so most of you have some idea about what's going on. Working like mad on the house. I will have pics up sometime next week (hopefully!!). We've made tons of progress, although most everyone still points out how much work we have left to do! LOL Well, if we weren't traveling every weekend or filling it with photoshoots or plans to take over the world (insert evil laugh here...I'll explain in a minute) then maybe we'd have more time to work on our place. Still, it's livable, less smelly, and ours! :)

Below is a picture of Mary's arms after spending an hour sanding drywall...let me tell you, we now know the value of feathering!!!




This is a (poor) picture of our living room the very day we moved in...Mom and I got to work unpacking the kitchen and Dave executed his vision for the living room. It has since met with several coats of paint, but you get the idea...


Plans to take over the world...
Most of you know that my beloved boss Sandy has given her notice and will be leaving BHB to move to Colorado. To say the least it puts a kink in things! I have been approached by several shareholders who would like me to make a bid for Sandy's Director position. That is what I've basically been consumed with for the last two weeks. You should also know that this comes at our busiest time of year! I'll keep you updated if there's anything to announce.

Other news:
Our car officially died three weeks ago! Talk about craziness! Since we only have one car it was rather traumatic. We spent all week looking for a new car. Thank God for Auntie Penny and Ken!!! Each night they would come to our house, we'd drive them back to theirs and head out to look at cars, then we'd come back to thier place and they would finally drop us off after a long night. In the end we went for another Saturn. It's a pretty cute wagon that we are really excited about.



And since I know that all of you would rather read a post that has pictures...