Home Sweet Home #3

We moved into our rental house on July 1st, after spending two weeks in TLF on base.

our first house!

front door & front room

front room

kitchen

kitchen

This house came with a built-in coffeemaker! And toaster oven. But a coffeemaker! 

How cool is that? Especially since ours has been in storage since we moved to Germany and hasn't arrived yet. It's the little things : )

view from kitchen

door on the left is the pantry

living room

view of kitchen/hallway to front door from living room

hallway off of living room that leads to bedrooms/bathrooms/laundry room

view of the office (right) and guest room (left) from hallway

view of guest room (right), laundry room (middle) and guest bathroom (left)

laundry room, which leads out to the garage

 above & below: guest room

 
guest bathroom  

 above & below: office

above & below: master bedroom

 above & below: our closet
We've never had to share a closet before, so it should be interesting...

 above & below: master bathroom

right corner of the backyard

middle of the backyard

left side of the backyard

more of the left side

side yard to the right, facing the back of the house

side yard to the left, facing the back of the house

We had been assured by our landlord that the house would be cleaned before we moved in, but we soon found out that if it had been cleaned, it had not been done very well. We had him bring in a cleaning service to scrub the hard water deposits off the shower glass. Other than that, we decided we could do the rest and therefore be a blessing instead of a burden. I spent a week and a half straight scrubbing, with some help from Nathan. Every single surface of this place has been touched by some kind of cleaner and it's all looking much better.

 One evening we borrowed the neighbor's vacuum and cleaned all along the baseboards. There was a.ton.of.cat/dog.hair. Gross. 
Quotes while we were working:
"Oh, this is so nasty!"
"Look how big this hairball is!"
"We are never having pets. Ever."
"Ok, we're apparently super clean people."

 We cleaned about half of the carpet the afternoon before our stuff arrived. It was so dirty. Look at that water! Gag me.

above, below & following: some progress in the backyard

Plants have been planted and bark chips been laid down in almost all the beds. Nathan, with some help from me, has worked hard to get it looking nice.

 working on getting all the beds covered with bark chips

There were two rose bushes in the backyard when we moved in. They looked terrible, but with the tiniest bit of care, they have really taken off.
There are two things in this house that remind me of my grandparents' house: the rose bushes and the gas stove. Makes me miss occasionally spending the night on weekends and eating big lunches after church every Sunday over there.

 A beautiful sight! Our stuff arrived yesterday. It's great to be sleeping in our bed again.

I was tasked with marking off the box numbers as they were unloaded from the truck. It was really nice to have a job and not just stand around while everyone else worked.

More pictures to come once we get everything unpacked! We're also planning to buy some furniture, like a headboard for our room and a new sofa for the living room. Also, there may be some painting. We'll see how confident I feel in taking that on.

Click here to view Home Sweet Home #2.

Click here to view Home Sweet Home #1.

1-800-CREEP-TASTIC

Ever since Nathan and I bought new cell phones with Sacramento phone numbers, we have been receiving calls from telemarketers. Welcome back to America! Ugh. We just ignore any phone numbers we don't recognize and delete all voicemails that are left. We finally registered for the Do Not Call list about two weeks ago, but still receive the nasty calls daily. The companies apparently have 30 days to take us off their call list. So... yesterday I received a call from a Florida number, which I ignored. For some reason, though, I decided to listen to the voicemail before deleting it. I guess I was that bored and/or desperate for some human interaction. Those are the only possible explanations for my extreme error in judgment. I wish I could upload it on here so you could hear it for yourself. Creepiest voicemail I've ever received. It was a guy with an Indian accent telling me something about needing to contact him as soon as possible after contacting my attorney. He said this matter was extremely time sensitive, told me his name was Jim Richard (yeah, right!) and rattled off his phone number. And then, I quote: "If you don't return the call or I don't hear from your attorney, the only thing I can do is wish you good luck as the situation unfolds on you." Click. Totally gave me the heebie-jeebies. Nathan even validated the creepiness after I played it for him when he arrived home from work. He never sides with me on such matters.

I think these telemarketers have resorted to some pretty extreme measures. Or maybe my phone number's prior owner was a seriously shady character... Either way, I've learned my lesson. Don't. listen. to. the. voicemails.

Yosemite National Park

To celebrate our anniversary each year, we take a trip.

We celebrated our first anniversary in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

We celebrated our second anniversary in Luxembourg.

We celebrated our third anniversary in Baden Baden.

This year, Nathan surprised me with a trip to Yosemite National Park.

Friday morning, we packed up and left. While in the car, Nathan told me we were going to the town of Mariposa, which is an old Californian mining town. My thoughts: Cool! Then, he told me it was located right outside Yosemite. My thoughts: Yes! I have wanted to go to Yosemite! After driving a few hours, we checked into Miner's Inn, where we were staying one night. We thought this room wasn't going to be that nice, so when we walked in and saw not only was it nice, but that it had an in-room two-person jacuzzi, we were happy. Maybe we're just easily pleased, but we thought that was awesome. We grabbed pizza on the main street and then stopped in at a wine store, where we bought a bottle of wine. We then made the 45-minute drive to Yosemite. I didn't really know what to expect of the park and didn't know the must-see sights at all, so it was amazing to see El Capitan and the waterfalls and everything. We drove/walked around for an hour or so, then when we got turned around trying to get to Bridalveil Fall, we decided to park and sit down by the river instead. While there, Nathan walked down the river a ways and while coming back, thought he might have gone through some poison ivy. He practically took a bath in the cold water to try and get all the oil off of him. That night, we ate dinner at the restaurant across from our hotel. It was a cool place, decorated like an old roadhouse diner.

 the main street in Mariposa

El Capitan

On Saturday, we stopped for smoothies, then went back to the park and made the short hike up to Bridal Veil Falls. It was a little disappointing because it was almost dried up. So much so that the wind kept carrying the water away as it came over the cliff. On our way to Mariposa Grove to see the Sequoia trees, we stopped at Tunnel View to see El Capitan, Half Dome & Bridalveil Fall on either sides of the valley. Such a beautiful view! At Mariposa Grove, we took an hour and a half open-air tram ride through the Upper & Lower Groves. It was really cool to see such huge trees and learn about their environment and how they grow. The trees were really impressive; not just because they were big, but because so many had survived multiple forest fires and humans cutting holes in their trunks. We left the park in the early evening, checked into our new hotel, Mariposa Hotel Inn, and then went to dinner down the street at Savoury's. The food and service there were awesome. 

above & below: signs in the smoothie shop
Is this Texas?!

 above & below: Bridalveil Fall

 Tunnel View

 the edge of Lower Grove

Fallen Monarch

 the oldest tree in Mariposa Grove, Grizzly Giant
One of its branches is 7 feet in diameter!

 Clothespin Tree, result of forest fire

 California Tunnel Tree
A tunnel big enough to allow stagecoaches to pass through was cut into this tree.

 us in front of the Fallen Monarch

We saw other neat Sequoias we didn't get pictures of. The Faithful Couple are two trees that grew so close together, their trunks fused together at the base. The Bachelor and Three Graces are four trees, with three of them growing very close together and the fourth a little distant. If one of the four trees was to fall, they would probably all go down because their roots are intertwined.   The Telescope Tree has been completely hollowed out due to forest fires, but it still lives. 

Nathan got up super early on Sunday morning to watch the hummingbirds on the back porch of our hotel before we checked out. We did some window shopping along the main street before eating a great lunch at Charles Street Dinner House and then driving home. 

We really want to go back to Yosemite sometime to see Mirror Lake. 

We've heard the park is beautiful in fall, winter and spring too.