On the trail again!

So in case you didn't know, we bought a horse trailer last week! Since bringing out the pony, I've been dying to get one so I can start going out on wild adventure, just me, the horse, and the dog! That's the way a girl should be on the trail! I was so excited that I decided to go out as soon as I could. I ended up going last thursday to a wildlife area which was great!! The ride there was not so fun and smooth, poor Rusty looked like he wanted to kill me when I let him off the trailer but the ride was great! My old guy was so happy to be out and roaming free again. He didn't want to turn around to go home after we had been out for about 2 hours; this is unheard of!! This horse was always guaranteed to walk as slowly as possible out and race back home or to the trailer. This time, he was walking full speed ahead onto the trail and there was no looking back! I'm going to shave Joey since it's getting pretty hot out here, then he will get to come on the next ride which will hopefully be either tomorrow or early this week; it's all starting to depend if it gets over 100! Here are some pics of the ride and Rusty's new ride (the trailer). The Sunset pic was taken a little while ago, we went out to feed Rusty and it was beautiful out! Matt even hoped on for a spin!
As for the house stuff, base boards are getting put up and finished today and this week! Soon we'll be able to move our stuff into the house and actually inhabit the whole thing! Whoo hoo!





My constant view on trails!


Whoo hoo!! So happy to be out on my pony!!



Stopping for a rest







Ready to go home!! Such a hard day out on the trail!

New Floors!! Some gardening and Joey gets a bath!

so we've been pretty busy here lately! Matt has finished putting in the hard wood floor and it looks amazing! Once again, my pictures do not do them any justice! You all will just have to come visit and see for yourselves! We need to sand and paint the trim still before putting it back on so there is some work to be done, of course. But, the bulk part is done which is good! No more concrete floors to be walking around on! We also washed the car and gave Joey a bath! His first at the new house; of course he looks miserable but he truly likes it!
Also, I planted some more stuff! I'm loving that I get to put plants in the ground and watch them grow!! I planted a butterfly bush and honeysuckle in the back (and put some pansies to fill the space for now, they'll die which is fine cause hopefully my bushes will grow nice and big quickly!). Also, we put in a little veggie garden! My parents graciously lent us their rototiller so we churned up some ground so we could plant some veggies! SO excited!! There are 2 tomato plants (cherry and big boy), cucumber, zuccini, strawberry, pumpkin, and squash! That is what I'm planting in the pics below-this was also to document what I'm starting to look like these days; in the dirt, sunburned, and with my fun gardening hat on! I look like a little old lady already! And of course Joey is always by my side.
So this is the progress we've made so far. Once we get the trim up then we'll finally get our area rugs and furniture in and we'll actually be able to live in that space!! We've been joking that our bedroom is like a loft apartment since we have our couch and tv in here so we can watch movies and play the playstation until we get the living room taken care of. We also eat our meals in here. Can not wait until we get the table in the dining room! So that's the update for now; hopefully more to come soon!


Eric, this one is for you!

Huberts a girl?!?! And maggots are gross!

Yes, it's true! It turns out that Huebert is a girl! Joel was laughing at the name and then said, you know the bunny is a girl! I was shocked! And a little sad too; I thought Huebert was the perfect name for it. This also explains why Joel's wife Julie laughed at me too when I said I like Huebert as a name; I guess she shall be Hilldie then!
Now onto maggots! Yes maggots. Matt and I have made the ASTRONOMICAL mistake of keeping ALL our garbage in our garage for the time being. Seeing as we were accumulating so much and most of it was house stuff, paint, nails, dust, etc. we didn't think it would be that big of a deal. However, we were throwing away food stuffs in there too. And it was starting to get stinky. But, we didn't think anything of it. So yesterday mom, Gwynne and I are clearing out the trash to put it outside so we can better organize all our stored stuff in the garage and make the space a little more usable until we could get everything into the house. As we start moving boxes and such I see something squirming on the floor. Also, an important side note, just before seeing said squirmer, we saw a HUGE jumping brown spider scurry across the floor which freaked me out big time and so Gwynne squished it very quickly. So the squirmer on the floor turned out to be a maggot. But is it just a few, oh no! There were TONS, probably a hundred or so inching their way across the ENTIRE garage floor, trying to run away from us. It reminded me of the movie "Flushed Away" with the slugs inching their way away from the sewer lines yelling "run away." In that sense it made the situation a little more comical and also made me want to watch the movie so I could get a good laugh out of the whole thing.
To say it was disgusting is an understatement. So we got ant killer and wasp killer to see if we could just spray them to death; no such luck. Apparently maggots are resiliant little suckers who don't like to die! So then we resolve to just vaccum them up with the shop vac. However, they are also stuck (or hiding) in the cracks in the floor so we have to sweep them out of hiding before sucking them up. Honestly, we spent probably a good 2-3 hours scouring the entire garage looking and sucking up all the little maggots before calling it good and eating lunch. The up side to this is that the garage is very clean and orderly now and everything is pretty easily accessable. The down side, that I had to tackle maggots in my house for 2 hours. Thankfully mom and Gwynne were here to help because I was thourough grossed out. And ironically I was a little sad that we had killed the massive spider, because he was probably eating the maggots. But it's ok, they are all, maggots and spider, gone. Well, I figure we got 99% of the maggots; there are a few still lodged in the cracks and refuse to come out at all. Don't worry, I will be armed and ready with a vaccum cleaner at all times, ready to combat any more of those nasty little creatures.

I left my heart in San Francisco....not really

So the nice thing about living in the middle of nor cali is that we are pretty close to a lot of exciting places; the sierra mountains are right here as well as lake Tahoe, Napa valley is a short drive away and so is San Francisco (now going to be designated sf). So the girls and I decided that after working hard for 2 days, we would go a play a little. We got to sf in about 2 hours, found a parking garage in China town, and got to walking. Oh man, the people who live there and walk every where have to be in pretty good shape! Those hills are CRAZY!! But of course sf is known for that, among other things. All I really wanted was to get some clam chowder in a sour dough bowl so we headed toward the fishermans warf over at pier 39. Along the way we went through china town and little italy which were very smelly (in a good and bad way) and exciting w/all their different shops and restaurants! Half the eateries in little italy had signs saying "si parla italiano!"-I got pretty excited at that! We hit the warf, found a place to grab some chowder and enjoyed our seafood delights! Then we wandered around a little more; we went into the musee mechanique which was a museum of all the old timey entertainments and "nickle and dime machines." You know, the fake fortune tellers that are mechanical and the "nudie women" that you can look at in a picture box and stuff like that. They all were converted to taking quarters which was pretty cool so you could hear the different ones going as people played them. We continued our trek along the coast line and got a good view of the golden gate bridge. Then we hit up the ghiradelli factory, but didn't buy anything since it's so expensive. We had some pretty good views of alcatraz but we didn't go on it; we couldn't find a tour of it :( We walked back to the car, met a very strange older man on the street who was ranting about how satanic the city was becoming (based off some wall art that we all saw together) and we walked past a restaurant called "the stinking rose." Apparently they serve a lot of garlic there. My other favorit sign was one on the pier that depicts a person going to close to the edge and the pier crumbling and the person falling in the water. It was pretty funny. All in all it was a really fun trip and we had a lot of fun laughing and goofing off and walking all around the place. When my mom and sis come this coming week we're going to go back and maybe bike the golden gate bridge and take a ferry back! I really wanted to this last time, it was just a little much and too much time for me and the girls. However, sf was a fun city to get to know a little and I'm excited to take more trips back very soon!

Huebert

So Huebert is our next door neighbor's bunny that he set free. You see, Joel got the bunny because who ever had him was going to set him free into the wild so Joel took him and thought that he could give him to a family. No such luck. So now he decided to just set him free and see what happens. He now comes over to our house to hang out, which is completely fine. He eats all the weeds in our yard and we have a lot of those so I think he's probably really happy to be back there. However, Huebert isn't really a tame bunny. He doesn't really like us to come near him so he's not even really like a pet that we can pet and enjoy, other then looking at him.
It's funny though because I was talking to our neighbor, Julie, and we were discussing the different names we all have for him. Julie calls him Hilda, because she thinks the bunny is a girl. Joel calls him floppy. Matt likes the name Bugs, which I think is highly unoriginal. And I looked at him and thought he looks like a Huebert, so that's what I am sticking with. Joel thinks it's funny how "the bunny" is slowly becoming the whole neighborhoods pet. I think he'll probably just go between our yard and Joel/Julie's yard, especially since I've started feeding him lettuce. Maybe if I keep giving him goodies he'll realize I'm ok to be around and then I can pick him up! I'll just have to teach Joey that the bunny is not a toy but a friend to have back there with him; I think it'll all be ok!

Phase 4: front flower bed #1

So the front flower bed is my special project. I love to plant flowers and watch things grow and I was especially excited to get to rip up the horrible plants from before (please see original house posts to see them). I went to Lowes and the girls and I picked out a nice variety of plants. We got a couple hibiscus bushes, asiatic lilies, gerber daisies, and zanias. We sadly didn't get enough so I had to go back and get a few more; which was ok. Matt was kind enough to help me plant some and they look so pretty and happy! Some have already started to sprout new blossoms! We still need to put mulch down but I think it looks waaaaaaay better then the big bushes of death from before!

Phase 3; Living, dining, sitting rooms and office

So this one needs more pics to be taken before it's done but I can start it. So two of my best friends in the whole wide world came out to help us do some house work! It was such a blessing to have their help but mostly to be able to spend time with them! We chatted while working and laughed a lot and got 4 whole rooms done! The living area is a chocolate brown while the dining area is a sage green. The office is taupe while the sitting room is a nice light blue. These rooms aren't completely finished yet though-we're getting ready to put in the pergo! So this one will be update again once we put the floor in and get more pics! Phase 4 was just finished today!!