NYC

Our 2010 Vacation

The trip started at 4am Wednesday. The cab ride to the airport was uneventful. It was then Rob realized he forgot his backpack. The backpack that had his Kindle in it. Boo. We were also surprised and excited about how many BSU fans there were at the airport! The rest of the trip to NY was pretty uneventful. Josh and Jahleel picked us up at La Guardia. It was so hot and humid! We headed towards New Jersey and I got my first glimpses of NYC. What a toilet! It was rush hour so we spent a lot of time bumper to bumper with all the honking cars, trucks and buses trying to get out of the city. There is trash everywhere…EVERYWHERE! In the gutters, against the retaining walls, in the middle of the road, flying around in the air currents from the traffic. Everywhere. We were stopped for a moment and I saw two unopened packages of cheese crackers, an unopened box of Hostess donuts, and a hypodermic needle on the side of the road underneath the guardrail. Hello NY! The rest of the ride passed with various views of some old architecture, some cool bridges, more roads than we have in the whole of Idaho and the unending, unabated traffic.


Josh and Jahleel live in Wharton, NJ. It’s a small town that actually reminds me a lot of Troy, ID. There are a lot of old homes (nearly all are skinny and at least two stories, apparently the norm for the East Coast) and lots of trees. That’s another thing I noticed – the foliage. All the highways and freeways outside of the city proper are heavily lined with tall trees and bushes, stark contrast from the miles and miles of vista you can see when you drive in Idaho. You can’t see anything from the roads we traveled.

We got up early the next morning so Josh could drive us to the Rockaway Mall to catch the bus to NYC to catch the bus to Boston. We got off the bus at the Port Authority. We did not have any idea where to go. All the people on the bus headed toward what looked like stairs that went down. We followed. We ended up on an escalator going down…to where? It was completely encased in steel – the walls, the ceiling – the whole thing. It felt even hotter down there than it did on the surface. When I stepped onto the escalator, I honestly felt I was venturing into the Seventh Level of Hell. The escalator stopped at some glass doors that opened up into the Port Authority terminal. Lots of shops, little food places, and of course, the people. My God, the people! We finally figured out how to get out onto the street and ended up on 8th Street right in front of the New York Times building. Again, so hot and so humid! We kind of stepped around the corner to get our bearings. NY looked exactly like I pictured it in my mind, but on steroids. It was louder, hotter, more crowded, more colors – more everything! There was a lady a few feet from us talking to herself.

We had a NYC map that Jahleel had given us and we were attempting to find the way to Times Square. I mean, we had two hours before we had to catch the Bolt Bus to Boston, and we were in NYC…Times Square was a must, right? We finally figured out the way and headed down the sidewalk. I am not sure I can describe that short walk. First of all, the amount of people was absolutely overwhelming. They came from all directions; behind us, around us, toward us. There were cars and cars and cabs and tour buses and trucks and cars and more cars. They all honk nearly constantly. There is trash everywhere. Scaffolding rises from the sidewalks on every block, creating partially obstructed walkways everywhere. People just flow around the obstructions like an army of ants around a big rock. No one even seems to look up from the ground. There is heat everywhere – from the sun, off the roads and buildings, emanating from cars, rising from the grates from the subway. We stopped near the NYC Police Station at Times Square and saw some empty tables and chairs in an open area in front of Sephora and Starbucks. We sat there for about fifteen minutes and seriously just gaped. Made our way towards 34th and 8th Streets at the Tick Tock Diner to meet our bus. This walk as the same as the walk from the Port Authority. By the time we got to the bus stop, we were both dripping with sweat. The stop is not really a stop, it’s just an intersection. There are no benches. The Bolt buses come about every 15 minutes or so and depart to Boston, DC, Philly, etc. They just pull up and leave constantly. We were about 45 minutes early so we walked up the street a little to sit at a bus stop. Another note here…ever since the flight from Denver to La Guardia, time has slowed. Slowed like molasses in winter. Like snails in a footrace. The 45 minutes we waited for our bus felt like hours – the sweat dripping down our backs, the cars and taxies honking and barreling their way up the streets, the Hasidic Jews curiously crossing this one intersection in front of the bus stop – it just went on forever.

Finally, on the bus to Boston. The ride was relatively comfortable. The bus was clean and had places to plug in your phone or computer. I used this opportunity to plug in my phone and download Google Maps for my Blackberry so I could track our four hour ride to Boston. We drove out of NYC and got onto the freeway (or, as Josh’s TomTom calls it in an English accent, “the motorway”) out of the city. We passed the Bronx and Queens, I think. I can’t believe that people choose to live this close to so many other people. There was high rise after high rise of apartments. A sea of brick, concrete and asphalt covered in a mass of people.

My dear friend Matthew met us at the Boston South Station. I cannot tell you how wonderful and what complete relief it was to see a friendly and familiar face! We had been sitting outside the station for about three minutes and Rob had already given a five to a kid who immediately ran down the street…towards? Who knows? Matt brought us a box of Maine saltwater taffy and a “Charlie card”…the fare card that gets you on the subways in Massachusetts. He rode the subway with us to Cambridge and walked us to our hotel. We felt (and looked) like microwaved cheese and were thrilled to be in a lovely, air-conditioned room. We cooled off and cleaned up and then met Matt and his girlfriend Julia at a pub around the corner from the hotel. We had a great dinner and then they walked us to a liquor store. Another aside…in all the states that we went to, you can’t buy beer in a convenience store. You have to go to a liquor store. We went back to our room and chilled out. Finally were able to get a good night’s rest. Woke up the next morning and headed out. We stopped for coffee at a cute shop near the hotel. It was run by a Slavic family who were extremely kind to us and make the best corn muffins I have ever had. We also met a cool guy at this coffee shop. He’s in wheelchair and stopped on his way out and asked for a smoke. We talked about BSU and he said that the person who chose the blue turf “must have been effing high or something.” He invited us to the nightclub he worked at called the Phoenix Landing. He told us to tell them that “Jimmy Red sent us.” Seemed like a stereotypical Irish Bostonian, said the eff word and “wicked” a lot, was even red-headed. A new friend in Cambridge! Walked past the MIT museum but did not go in. We then walked down the main drag in Cambridge, Massachusetts Avenue, or Mass Ave as the locals call it. The buildings are very old and close together. We walked several miles into Harvard Square and through the Harvard campus. What a beautiful and historic area! It was amazing how noisy and crowded Harvard Square was and just across the street, through the gate that dates back several hundred years, the campus was cool and quiet. We met Matt at the hotel and then took the train back into Boston. It finally started to cool off a little as Hurricane Earl came into New England. But Earl made it even more sticky. It was almost hard to breathe. The Red Sox game had been cancelled because of the weather but we walked all the way around Fenway anyway and took a couple pictures. Matt took us to dinner at Boston Brew Works and I had some delicious fish and chips and a blueberry beer with actual blueberries floating in it! We took the train back into Harvard Square and saw some of what we did not know how to find when we were there earlier in the day. We went to the Harvard Co-op (don’t say co-op however, say “coop,” as in chicken) and I bought a Harvard shirt and hat and Rob bought a couple books. Also went to the famous Newberry Comics. Took the bus back to Cambridge (as to experience all forms of public transit in this town) and stopped for a drink at the Middle East, original home to Morphine and bid Matt goodnight. The brunt of Earl finally hit Cambridge and it rained pretty hard all night long. Matt and Julia met us in the morning in Union Square and accompanied us back to Boston South Station. We said our goodbyes and then walked the short half block or so to the bus terminal there. We sat outside and people watched for a while and the SAME dude Rob gave money to two days ago hit us again and got another five bucks!

The ride back to NY on the Bolt Bus was totally annoying. Four hours without stopping, a middle aged woman and her kid sitting in front of us listening to music so loud through the headphones you could still hear every note and beat of her bad music selections. Her kid played a game console of some kind that would intermittently beep or honk loudly. Then the woman went to the bathroom. Hmmm…let’s see…how to describe?…let’s just say that for this particular woman, feminine hygiene should be MUCH more important than it apparently was. We had to pull our shirts over our noses for the next 20 minutes. Totally, totally, totally gross. Made it back into NYC and made the reverse trip from two days prior. Felt more like pros navigating our way back to the Port Authority and “home” to NJ. I am confident that I will probably never return to NYC. Too much of everything. Tooooooooooo much.

Back in NJ, we had dinner with Josh’s family. A typical Philippine meal of white rice, BBQ chicken, chicharron (deep fried pork belly, ie. Heart attack city!) and vegetables. It was delicious! We then finally saw Avatar on their giant TV with theater surround sound. It was AWESOME! The next morning we went to church with the Patterson family. Can you believe it? Me, at church! Jahleel sang a solo and we were both blown away by her beautiful voice! The sermon was about loving the people in your life. Everyone was so kind and seemed genuinely happy to meet us and have us in their midst. We ate another Pinoy (Philipino slang for Philipino) lunch and headed back home. We and Josh got packed up and we loaded into the car, programmed the TomTom for our hotel in Cheverly, MD, and headed for the last great most important part of our trip, the BSU/Virginia Tech game!

The trip was another four hour drive. It was WAY more fun, however. Josh and Rob talked and laughed the whole way – it was fun for me to listen to. We plugged into Pandora and screamed 80’s music all the way there, all three of us. Was a blast! The roads were pretty clear, fast, and expensive. It cost a little under $20 in tolls from Wharton to Cheverly. We got to the Howard Johnson in Cheverly about 8pm. Got into the room and found that the TV did not work. Apparently, Earl took out the satellite the day before. A crappy hotel in a questionable neighborhood with no TV? Lame. We decided to go grab something to eat and the boys wanted a couple beers. No worries, right? As soon as we walked out of the hotel, there was a gaggle of black women sitting outside smoking. When we walked past, they started yelling, “Auntie Em! Auntie Em! I’ve lost my Auntie Em!” and then cackling like mad women. They were letting us know we were not in Kansas anymore. We drove down the road aways and did not see any place that sold beers. There was a cop in a store parking lot and Josh asked where we could get some beer. “Here? On a Sunday evening? Nowhere.” He said it in a way that said, “go home white boys.” We went down the road a little further and it just got darker with less businesses open. We turned around in a parking lot of a nightclub that was thumping with gansta rap. We then saw a bodega thing that said it was open and had beer. There were about five black dudes sitting out front of the store, surrounding the door. We pulled up and they turned around and smiled. We left. We finally decided to give up on the beer and went to KFC (because we could see it from where we were) for something to eat. The guy who took our order at the drive thru did not speak English very well and it seriously took like 10 minutes to take the order and we were preparing for an ambush on our car. Okay, so we are from Idaho and we watch too much Gangland. But, we were totally freaked out! Even New Jersey Josh was starting to feed into the negative energy. We headed back to the hotel but could not figure out how to turn into the lot and had to go around twice. We imagined we were being tailed and were worked into a near frenzy by the time we finally made it back to our hotel. The hecklers were gone from the front and we made it into the room, triple locked the door and holed up, none of us in the mood for eating our now cold chicken.

We got up the next morning decked out in our BSU gear and took the shuttle to the Metro station. I felt like a pro getting my fare card there. Saw a lot of BSU fans on the Metro but WAY more Hokie fans. We got off at the Smithsonian stop and caught our first glimpse of our Nation’s capitol and the Washington Monument. We walked towards the monuments, got pictures of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. We got stopped by some old folks who asked us if the whole population of Idaho had moved to DC. We explained about the game and they wished us good luck. It was pretty awesome – everywhere you looked there was blue and orange. We were high-fiving people we did not even know and we said “Go Broncos” about a hundred times. Bronco Nation is incredible.

We went to the WWII memorial and then the Vietnam Memorial. It looks smaller than I had imagined from far away but when you get up to it, the number of names is staggering. It is quite moving. There was a little old lady Park Service employee who was carrying a beat up dog-eared book that listed all the names of those who were killed. She was helping people find names on the wall. She seemed so dedicated to what she was doing. I thought it was a fitting memorial to the soldiers who died in Vietnam.

We headed back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit and got primed for the game. We took the shuttle back to the Metro with a couple of Hokie fans who were really cool. The subway was PACKED with folks headed to the game…prolly 10 to 1 Hokies to Broncos. Everyone was doing some friendly jawing back and forth. It was really fun. The fans streamed off the Metro and walked the near mile to FedEx Field. It was amazing. A river of maroon and orange dotted with spots of blue. The stadium is giant…the field actually looked very small to me, but the seats that rose up off the field looked like they went on for miles. The energy was intoxicating. BSU fans are rabid, but so are the Hokies. Come to find out, there were more than 86-thousand fans at the game, more than 70-thousand were Hokies. Can you picture it? There was a little less than 3X the entire capacity of BSU’s stadium at the game, and 75% to 80% were for the opposing team. This game was supposed to be on a neutral field. Uh, I call total horseshit on that! It was all Hokies all the time. It was a home game for them, no doubt about it. They showed BSU fans maybe twice on the giant screens at either side of the stadium. The Hokies had their band, their cheerleaders, etc. The big screens only showed VT colors, fans, and only said stuff like “make some noise!” in Hokie colors and on Hokie plays. We watched the ESPN broadcast of the game when we got home last night and the broadcast was WAY more BSU friendly than the stadium was. Anyway, you watched the game, right? It was an awesome game. Beers are $8 for a bottle of Coors and a mixed drink is $12. What a rip off! But! Rest assured that the stadium sold a lot of it. We screamed like we have never screamed before and we have certainly converted Josh to a BSU fan. The end was spectacular and we loved every minute of it. I admit I was a little worried at the beginning of the 4th quarter, but our boys pulled it out in the end and it was all worth it. We filed out of the stadium and celebrated with our fellow BSU fans. The Hokie fans were very gracious in defeat. We heard lots of “The Broncos are for real, man” and “I am going to be following BSU for the rest of the year.” They seemed sad, but also knew they had seen a great game played by two great teams. Rob completely lost his voice and I am still froggy even now.

We spent the next hour or so trying to figure out how to get back to the hotel. We thought earlier in the day we would just get a cab. Coming out of the stadium with more than 80-thousand other people made us realize that there was no way a cab could get anywhere near the stadium so we started walking. We finally made it up to where the crowds cleared out and were able to get a cab. The driver asked where we were going and then asked if we could direct him. Uh, duh, we are not from here! Luckily he had a GPS! He said, “How much you pay me?” and I said, $20. He said “for three people? You pay me $30.” Whatever man, just get us out of here. He made a wrong turn and then said, “this further than you say.” I told him “no way man. The GPS said 4 miles.” I totally grew balls and I actually think I would have fought him if he would have pushed it. There is a gas station at the bottom of the hill from the hotel and we asked to be dropped off there. We saw a dude at the bottom of the hill who asked who won the game. The Broncos! He said, “Y’all are going all the way.” We walked to the top of the hill and found that the wrought iron fence and gate had been closed and locked. There was a sign that said you could drive around to the other entrance. Of course, we were not driving and as you can imagine from our adventures the night before, I was NOT walking anywhere when the hotel was RIGHT there. I called the front desk and she told me that there was nothing she could do. She said we could climb the fence if we wanted. Seriously? CLIMB an 8’ wrought iron fence? I could not believe she actually advocated that! There is a letter to Howard Johnson in the works, I can assure you. So, Rob actually fit under the gate. He and Josh then helped me over the fence. Are you impressed? I scaled a fence. Tore my pants a little and got stabbed by the fence in the knee, but mostly was unscathed. Josh came over a part of the fence that was chain link. We got back into the room and commiserated about the killer game for a bit and then finally went to bed about 1:30am.

We had to leave by 6am. Man, it rolled around fast. We stumbled out of bed and packed up for the long drive back to NJ. Josh had to work that day so we hung out with their sister-in-law Becca, her infant son David, and Josh’s son Julian. Did a little laundry, read all the recent stuff posted online about the Bronco’s win, etc. Jahleel got home from work and we went to the really bad Chinese buffet. We watched Ip Man, about Bruce Lee’s mentor and teacher. Great film, check it out. We had to get up at 4:30am to get back to La Guardia on time. We travelled from La Guardia to Denver, Denver to LA, and finally home. We had been up for 20 hours when we finally passed out after watching the game again on TV.

It was a great trip! We were in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Rhode Island and California. Whew! Thanks to Matt and Julia for hosting us in Boston. Thanks to Josh and Jahleel for being our hosts for the whole week! They opened their home and their life to us, fed us, drove us, scheduled us and took care of us. We can’t wait to see you guys again. Thanks to Katie for taking care of our home and girls while we were gone. We are so glad to be back in Idaho! See you all in Glendale in 2011, right? GO BRONCOS!!!

Christmas 2009

December 2009 I have been trying for weeks to start this letter. Weeks! Me, lacking for words? A new world order, to be sure. So! I am going to make a list. If you know me, you know about lists. Construe the entries any way you wish. 1. new job at the Social Security Administration working for my main man Barack Obama! a. Caveat: this part of the list has taken up the majority of my life since April. It has nearly eclipsed everything else in my life. No joke. 2. banner year for tomatoes 3. we turned 36 4. love my dear, sweet, kind, handsome, hilarious, brave and silly husband! 5. lost the large elm in the front yard 6. went to the coast and Rob’s old Oregon stomping grounds for two weeks 7. go Falcons and Phillies! 8. had a terrible time camping at Sage Hen (boo!) 9. hosted several rockin’ Bunco parties (raised over $300 for the Susan Komen Fund) 10. celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary and our 6th year together 11. made the most delicious carrot cake ever 12. went to Duck Valley with my parents and almost got drowned and blown away 13. reconnected with old friends from our pasts 14. put in another small perennial garden 15. harvested enough basil for nearly a half gallon of pesto 16. still cater too much to two furry babies (especially their dad) 17. canned a couple gallons of tomato sauce (home grown, of course) 18. went to several wedding receptions 19. cheered religiously for my beloved BSU Broncos (Fiesta Bowl 2010!) 20. am glad 2009 is over! So, that’s about it. It has been a very long year for me – and for a lot of others I have heard. One thing I appreciate about the hardships of 2009 is that I feel like people are FINALLY looking back to yesteryear…a time when simple things were the best things. Money was great if you had it, but most people did not and were creative, frugal and conscientious because of it. The clash and tick tock of mechanical and electronic things were unheard of (literally and figuratively). You could see the stars and night and smell the fresh air in the morning. Those were the days. Our wish for our world as always – be good to each other and yourselves. Love with all your heart and mind. Respect each other and the world we all inhabit. Remember we are all woven together in this Web of Life…all living beings, all races, all religions, all creeds…ONE EARTH. We hope this Holiday season is a safe, cozy and memorable one for all. May this New Year be bright, wondrous, and full of joy! Our Love, Rob and Amy House

Flowers!

Here are some of the flowers that I currently have blooming in my perennial garden as of Memorial Day.

Ethan Michael

Just a funny picture of Ethan. He did not want his picture taken, but I still like it! He has the best eyes!

Grace Kathryn Hobson

Here's the newest Hobson! She was born on May 14, 2009...came almost on her Papa's birthday. I think she looks the most like her older sister Libby. She's a lovely baby!

Spring!

Some Spring cupcakes I made...

Happy New Year!

This year has been generally uneventful for the House House. Thankfully. Neither of us are major fans of upheaval! J We are both still at our respective jobs, still in our little house on State Street, and still parents to the Misses My and Sade. Right at the beginning of the year, our ancient oil furnace finally gave up the ghost. Right when it was nice and frigid in late January! We had to have a new gas line installed as there wasn’t one there before – what a muddy mess that was! The new gas furnace is wonderful… so quiet, does not reek of burnt heating oil, and actually keeps the house nice and toasty. The grass and ivy have nearly grown back and covered the two big holes that were dug in the yard. I was also super excited to trade in my old clunker POS washing machine for a “scratch and dent” high efficiency front loading one. It’s a beautiful thing. I spent a lot of time in the garden this summer – raised nine varieties of tomato, lots and lots of herbs and too many sunflowers. I installed a drip system in the garden this year and it made watering so much easier! I built a compost tumbler almost 100% of recycled materials. I will put it into full production next year when I figure out how to get regular water to it. We had a summer squash plant that grew to great heights and produced tons of baby squash, but they all withered on the vine before getting big enough to harvest. Rob even talked to it every day and tried to baby the fruit to maturity, but it was not to be. Old seeds, I think. You all noted that Rob’s Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series, right? Woo hoo! Our wish for this year is that we are all able to slow down. In light of current tumultuous economic and social times, maybe we can all hearken back to an older, quieter, more centered existence. Dare I say “old fashioned?” Personally, I have been working over the years to simplify how I live. Have I been successful? On some fronts. I recycle everything that I can, grow some of my own food, preserve what I can, reuse old things, sew up holes in seams, try to buy locally and organically, and cut down on the chemicals that I use around my home and yard. I am proud to say my garden is 100% organic and has been since its inception. Yes, these practices seem to make the house a little more cluttered, the bugs and weeds a little more plentiful, and my lifestyle a little more eclectic looking – but I honestly believe that I am doing all that I can to be a steward of the Earth and my community. I hope that we can all work together to undo some of the damage that has been done to our Earth and our society in the blind pursuit of wealth and the domination of Nature. If we could all consider the impact our actions have on each other and the world around us, maybe we can once again find the glue that has held us together over the past few generations…the ideals that kept our families and our children close, our hands busy and maybe a little calloused, our minds occupied and our hearts full of pride for what we have wrought. We hope that this letter finds you and yours happy and healthy – full of life and grand ideas. Take care of yourselves and the people and things you hold dear.

February Birthdays

It was Katie's birthday! All of the family got together at mom and dad's for a turkey dinner (well, lunch) because it is Katie's favorite. I was in charge of dessert. Katie requested a pumpkin spice trifle and it was delivered! See pic...

All the kids were very cute...Nick played catch with Grandpa, Maggie and Libby had matching ponytails, etc. etc. Grandma Wood was in attendance!

Here's the pics from the day.

Snowy, Cold, Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday folks! Yep, that's right! Time to get out there and attend your primary or caucus, exercize your right and duty to be a part of the political process, and most importantly, make your vote count and kiss Bush's ass goodbye! Anyway. Life for us has been good - it's been one of the harder winters on record here in Boise. Our 1957 oil furnace went on the fritz the first week in January...it only worked when it wanted to, spewed black smoke when it finally fired and made the whole house smell constantly of fuel. I hated it. It scared me when it fired because flames shot out of various mechanical orifices and it sounded like a freight train rumbling through the house when it decided to come on. It cost me tons of money in parts, labor and service; and in doing the research for a new furnace, I discovered that I had spent well over $2500 for fuel for basically two seasons - and we NEVER ran the furnace! Anyone who has spent time at our house in the winter knows we function in refrigerator temps because we can't afford the oil. (A rant for another time - EXXON is sitting on $25 billion and virtually no debt! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8646744/ I wonder how that happened? Maybe because I pay $3.18 per gallon for oil to heat my home and $3.00 a gallon to fuel my car. Man, something's gotta change.) So! A new 80% efficient two-stage gas furnace has been installed in my basement - replacing the scary, nasty, hulking beast of an oil furnace. Seriously, the footprint of the new furnace is less than half of what the old furnace was. The installation was of course, as unsmooth as possible...as it always is in my old house. They had to install the actual gas line from the main in the alley to the house (imagine backhoes and large men with beer bellies and visible cracks), pipe the gas into the house (a process that changed several times over the course of the day), disassemble and remove the old furnace and air cleaner (seeing the three inch layer of dust, dirt and dog hair in the ducts might lead one to deduce the air cleaner has not worked in at least the 10 years I have been there), install the new furnace, have the gas line pressure tested by the City, have Intermountain Gas come out and install the new meter, etc. etc...all with no less than six men running around my back yard and basement; banging, dragging, yelling, listening to J-105, digging large holes (three), tracking mud, water, and dog crap all over the once pristine snow covering my yard. It was stressful. But! Now, you can barely hear it when the heat comes on, it's clean, and to be frank, almost too warm for me! I have lived in a heat-restricted environment for so long, the continous heat is almost an assault to my senses. But, I'm dealing. :) Special thanks to Western Heating and Air Conditioning here in Boise for their awesome job and great customer service! I would highly recommend them for anything you may need in the HVAC arena. That's it! Be warm! (We are!)

Merry Christmas!

This was written near the end of November...the weather picture has changed significantly - today it is snowing and COLD!!! *** Ah, the sun is shining brightly and it is nearly 60 outside! What kind of weather is that for the beginning of November? My kind of weather, I can assure you. I have been really enjoying the balmy days, even when the overnight lows are in the low 30’s. All of my tomato plants have shriveled and turned black, the oak and the maple are completely devoid of leaves and in the grey twilight, they step right out of a Tim Burton movie. Little Miss Mylie has returned to her Winter habit of sleeping under her blankie, and Sadie prefers the warmth of our bed to any of the doggie beds we so plaintively offer her. The time of hibernation is upon us – time to hunker down, snuggle in, drink coffee thick with cream and sugar, and eat things made with pumpkins and sage. What have we been up to this year? Hmmm, let me see…oh yes! MARRIAGE! That has been our lives this year – preparations for our wedding that took place on September 1, 2007. I can’t really remember if anything else really happened over the past eleven months – unless it was lavender, smelled like lavender, was a wedding dress, wedding food, wedding cake, wedding pictures, or wedding music. But, the result was fantastic! Our day was wonderful – we so appreciated seeing everyone who was there to join us! I got to see old friends from Chicago and Washington. Rob had his best friends in from Kansas, New Jersey and Oregon. Our families were there in force, and I believe a good time was had by all. We appreciate everyone who was able to join us, those who helped us; and we certainly missed those who were not able to be with us as we committed to spend the rest of our lives together as husband and wife. There were a few things that did happen besides our wedding and all the trappings thereof…we had all the windows replaced on the house and new siding as well. We are already enjoying our new forms of insulation! The house is dark green with black trim and I love it. I tilled up about half the back yard and put in grass seed. It is almost all grass still! What an accomplishment! We only managed one camping trip this year. Sad. We spent a lot of time rooting for the Phillies, the poor, poor Falcons, and my beloved BSU Broncos. We hope that this letter finds you all well, fat and happy! J Honestly, we wish you the best during this holiday season, the coming year, and always. We are so thankful for our families, our friends and each other. Please take care of yourselves and hold those you love close to your hearts. Our best to you and yours! Rob and Amy House, and the furry kids.

Wedding Pictures

Just wanted to let you know you can view ALL (good and bad) at the following link: http://picasaweb.google.com/trivoulta You can also print and order any prints you want from here. Thanks again to Robert Marsh Photography!

The House House AFTER

Here is our little house after the windows and siding. Everyone seemed to balk at my black and forest green color scheme - but I really liked it, and I think it turned out really well. The windows are all double hung and have some freakish R-value (for insulation). They all tilt in at the top and the bottom for cleaning (do you think that will actually cause me to clean them?) We are really excited to see what they do for us this winter as far as insulating. When they installed the siding, a layer of insulating board was installed over the existing siding, and then the new siding was placed over the board. That should really help this winter too, as we have had no insulation to speak of at all. The screen door that Terry made for me fits a lot better now and looks great as well. The garage door (be sure to see the "before" picture of that mess) looks so wonderful now! I tried to refinish the existing door, but it was so rotten that when I started scraping it, earwigs came out! OMG! Nas-tac-ular! I found the door at Second Chance Building Materials (they are in the Linen District - they give jobs to people recovering from substance abuse, and recycle old building materials and construction waste. Good deal all the way around - support them if you can!) and refinished it. It is SO beautiful! I love, love, love it. All the sills have been rebuilt and wrapped in metal. No more rotted sills! They look so nice! It was also very cool that we did not encounter any ants in the walls. I was thrilled about that. The contractor cut out the windows with a chop saw that was extremely loud and violent. If there were ants to be found, they certainly would have noticed that disturbance and come out in droves. Thankfully, I never saw one of the little S.O.B.'s. Anyway! This chapter of the house is closed. Thanks to Randy at Airetite Windows and Siding for such a great job! We highly recommend him!

The House House BEFORE...

This is what the house looked like before the new siding and windows. Note the peeling paint, the rotting window sills - and although you can't actually SEE them, the sorry excuse for single-paned glass windows! Look at that horrible garage door! It had earwigs LIVING in it!!!

We Did It!

A quick post to let everyone know that this past Saturday, September 1st, 2007, we became Mr. and Mrs. House!!!

It was a wonderful ceremony, and everything looked beautiful! We want to thank everyone who helped us out and made our day special. Watch for thank you cards over the next couple of weeks!

If you have called me lately, be patient! I am so tired of the phone from having it stuck to my head the last couple of weeks - I will be in touch as soon as I can. Feel free to email me, it is a little easier for me to respond that way.

Again, thanks to everyone. I will post more pictures as they become available.

All our Love,

Rob and Amy House!