December happenings

Welcome back! We haven't had much to say the past couple of weeks but we haven't been enitrely boring...take a look at what we've been up to!


Here's an update on Rob's finger... he woke up one morning and noticed it had changed color and then it completely fell off. Other than that, its doing well!

We had one gorgeous day a few weeks back so we went downtown to explore. Look at how massive Mt. Ranier is!

Can't wait till Summer (AKA July) so we can see it every day!!

View of the Puget Sound with the Olympic National Forest.. something else that is covered up everyday by clouds and rain :(

Washington's state capitol! Please notice the perfrect timing of this picture.

Disappointed in the Evergreen state's capitol city's Christmas tree!

At a cute little park downtown

Check out this awesome wreath that Schaefer made!! Pretty impressive for her first craft project huh?

A woman's touch really does make a house feel like a home! Looks great baby!

Making one of his 2 famous cookie recipes...cheerio cookies!! But really we don't know what they're called...anyone out there have a name that would fit besides "unknown goodness" as is written on the recipe card??

YUM! Rob's co workers didn't believe that he made them himself!

Spreading Christmas cheer to our neighbors :)

We made Dad's famous spaghetti for dinner one night...not as good as his! I'll have to learn his secrets some day!

This picture makes me smile, even though it is at Schaef's expense. Remember Bill Engvall's joke about the person that actually greased the "bottom" of the pan? Well, Schaefer has made her fabulous Lace cookies many times- However this go 'round was a bit different: the recipe calls for 2 whole sticks of butter, but Schaefer as we all know never really uses butter in anything, so her experience there is minimal . She thought the sticks we had were a little smaller than normal- You following me so far? She decided to put in all four sticks... So, we had lace cookie soup... Her next batch turned out perfect. Love those cookies.

For those in Georgia reading this, it looks like Stubby was here :) But really it's an experimental snack from Pinterest. Needless to say, it didn't make the recipe book. Woof...

Example of bad Christmas gifts: 1997 Country Christmas hits together with Hostess Fruit Cake. (However we cannot confirm the date of the fruitcake). Great White Elephant gifts though. Think we could sell the cake on Ebay? Its Hostess...

Example of an EXCELLENT Christmas gift! Courtesy of Uncle G and Aunt Donna! Loads of Puppy Chow, date balls, and so much more. (see next picture)

What a nice and thoughtful gift. Thank you again! And thank you to everyone else who is sending us Christmas (and birthday) gifts. We can't wait to open them!!

Date balls are almost gone already. Rob is destroying the puppy chow!

Aunt Donna saw this at a shop in Hendersonville and thought of us. It fits perfectly on our tree :)

Thanksgiving

Hey Y'all! This is Schaefer typing for Rob tonight for reasons you'll read about in our next post...that's right we have TWO tonight!!


While I was hard at work on Thanksgiving, Rob explored the inlet/bay that is 2 minutes from our house! This sailboat and all other sailboat pictures henceforth are hereby dedicated to Dennis. Enjoy :)

Which one would you like Dennis? I imagine they are all pretty cheap ;)

Besides Rob's handsome mug, you can also see little Jellyfishes!! Rob says jellies give him the willies. (Anyone have any good jellyfish stories? The best ones usually involve pee...) 

We continue to discover mountains all around us! On clear days like this we get excited for the summer so we can explore everything around us!

Rob thought people would enjoy the irony of this picture. The capitol building of the tree-hugger state in the background of a massive pile of cut trees. :)

Rob set the table and made the turkey napkins while I was at work. (Most people don't know Rob has a black belt in oragami.)  What he doesn't want you to know is the amount of tape he had to use to keep these guys up. ps thanks to Aunt Linda for the sweet sparking cider glasses!

The handsome hubby working hard on his surprise turkey dish! It was quite delish!!

The sweet spread...for two people. And yes we ate some today, for the fourth day!

Our first Thanksgiving as Mr. and Mrs. Bell!

We made it a formal affair, pulling out the fiestaware for this special occasion.

Turkey with homemade BBQ cranberry relish, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sister shubert rolls, and broccoli salad.

And for dessert we had...raspberry whip!! I wouldn't let us have a pie for just the two of us. But next year we might just have to make a small strawberry cream cheese pie :)

Don't forget to check out our previous post..entitled Christmas tree adventure! That one has a great story :)

Christmas tree adventure..Thanksgiving continued

So sorry this broken down into two posts. We need help with this blog thing. For some reason it wouldn't post all the pictures that we wanted into one blog..so here we are!


My macho lumberjack wanna-be husband with our chosen tree.

Thanks to Rob's sweet sawing skills, cutting it down took no time!

Thanks to Rob's sweet tying skills, we had the tree on the van and home in a matter of minutes! What would we do without the van?!

Thanks to Rob's not so sweet hatchet skills, we have this.

Story time: So turns out our tree was too big for our goodwill tree stand. Rob (thinking he was a lumberjack) took a hatchet and started whittling down the trunk. After a few good whacks, let's just say he swung and missed...or hit right into his right knuckle. I was rearraging furniture to fit the tree when all of a sudden he came running into the kitchen repeatedly saying, "oh no" while standing at the kitchen sink. I saw drops of blood on the floor the same time he told me that he cut his finger. He then exclaimed, " I think I'm going to be sick" and went to the living room floor to sit down. At this point I started freaking out- mainly because I was worried about Rob but also because I remembered our health insurance doesn't start until December 1st. Yikes. Rob said he might need stitches and that he felt like he was going to pass out. He says, darkness surrounded him at that moment. ;) So before I knew it, he was laying on his back with his feet up against the wall. Thanks to Boy Scouts, I now know this is the position to avoid going into shock! Who needs to be an eagle scout when you can marry one?!

This picture doesn't do it justice. Trust me it was bad people.

The bloodied glove...not to be confused with OJ's. Please notice the slash right over the knuckle.

Our sweet homemade splint! Thanks to Green Ginger for the chopsticks that can double as a splint!
We were looking around for what to use as a splint when I remembered these chopsticks from our favorite sushi place in PTC. We cut them in half and buddy taped his fingers together to immobize and protect his index finger. Don't worry, I kept the other half of them...just in case.

Rob insists that the Vulcan greeting happened by an accident much like this one.

Turns out our splint is awesome! Rob's finger is pretty swollen and painful but it looks like it is healing. To be continued...

Meanwhile...Our tree turned out fabulous!! It fits perfectly in our little house right in front of our window! Thanks to everyone who has given us ornaments...especially Papa!! Our tree would be bare without all of the ornaments Papa passed down to us.

Merry Christmas! Sorry it's so dark though!

Obviously you can see how happy I am. Rob wasn't so sure...still harboring ill feelings toward the tree.

One of our new ornaments from our trip! Mom gave me the suggestion years ago to collect ornaments from all the places that I've been. Las Vegas, Aruba, Austria, Antigua, Grand Canyon, Jackson Hole, and Yellowstone are all represented :) Rob has his own ornament collection with a different story. He and his cousins exchanged ornaments every year at Christmas, so all of his awesome ornaments have special memories too :)

Our New Home in Olympia!!

Welcome back everyone. We plan to blog more often about our life in Olympia and all that happens here! We wanted to show you pictures of our new place and the neighborhood. (p.s. We have extra rooms for all of you to stay in, so come visit us in Washington- And bring a rain jacket.)



Our new townhome/duplex! We love it- and our neighbors are great.

We live just up the hill from Capitol Lake. It's about a 10 min walk from our house and it's quite pretty. Just behind is the bottom of the Puget Sound where the ocean meanders it's way toward Olympia. We took these while the sun was out when we had the chance because people said it would be raining for the rest of the winter. So far it's true.

Us at the lake with not a whole lot to do while we waited, and waited, and waited for our belongings to arrive.  

We took this shot with the hope that you could see Mt. Rainier (highest mountain in the lower 48), but it was difficult to capture with a picture due to the clouds. It's there, just hard to see. In the summer, we will have many more Rainier pictures I'm sure. You can see it from anywhere you go around here!

Funny story here- We learned from the landlord how to work the thermostat. It was set at 55 while it was unoccupied and he showed us how to navigate it. Well, we turned it up to 68 and it was great. We both went to sleep comfortable, while keeping asleep was more difficult. We were both really cold all night long and were kind of worried. I didn't want to be sleeping in flannel onesies (sorry Connor). So when I woke up and noticed it was back to 55, I realized my error. The thermostat is set on time periods throughout the day and we didn't realize we had to program them all- So, we fixed that and I avoided the flannel pajamas.

 

Our sweet new living room. Everyone will notice things they've given/gifted to us throughout these pictures, (i.e. TV, Blue-ray, pillows, pictures, paintings, etc...) so thank you for helping us have a comfortable home :) 

We love our new rug!
It's made by hemp-loving hippies who live in the trees out here. Pretty nice work huh (not true, but maybe...)

View from the front door. Living room, dining room, and kitchen all-in-one. We also bought a nice new dining room table complete with 6 chairs for all our visitors. :) We really like the table. We also like Kirt's painting.

Sweet kitchen with a ton of space, at least more than we've ever, ever had. This doesn't include the giant pantry to the left of the fridge! Schaefer cooking one of my favorites for Sunday dinner- Black Bean Lasagna!! So delicious.  

This is our favorite touch we added this week while waiting for our moving truck that came 4 days after the anticipated day (don't worry I'm not upset or anything like that). We enlarged a few of our favorite photos from our road trip that include Yellowstone and Jenny Lake at Jackson Hole. We like to think Ansel Adams has a few new contemporaries looking to surpass his greatness. National Geographic called last week and asked for our portfolio but unfortunately we had to turn them down..... because we had already given it to Outside magazine.

It's like being at the "Schaefer Art Studio"
 

I know it's just a washer and dryer, but we had to add this one for a story. So, in all my apartment renting over the last decade, I've never installed my own washer and dryer. I've done a few fix it/repair stuff with the roomies, but never installed. Dryer is easy- Check. Washer, I figured I just needed to get the hot and cold lines in the right place and viola, we have washer. So, test run begins well with the lines connected, and I stop it after about 30 secs of filling, when all the sudden water is leaking everywhere. I guess I never, ever before considered where the water in the washer goes after it's done washing. In my case, it was coming all over the floor. I soon realized that little spout at the bottom needs a hose connected to it that ends up in another pipe to be drained. Glad to say that it all works great now, with no water on the floor. :)

Stay tuned for more pictures from our road trip that we want to share with everyone, and pictures of the upstairs as well. Mom's quilt looks fabulous!