70th wedding anniversary!

Rus and Dorothy, my great aunt and uncle have been married 70 years.  Yes, 70!  Holy crud.  I'm not even sure I will live that long.  Eric and I drove down for a super quick weekend (down saturday, back up sunday after the party.  8 hours each way!).  It was amazing to see all the people that love them though.  Such a fun couple.

Big snow

Well, we've moved in.  (yippie!) and then it snowed, and snowed, and snowed.

Classes were cancelled, heck we could hardly even leave the house.  

Which was fun because the neighborhood got together and had a whatever is in the house potluck.  Yummy.

Watching the animals was amazing.  Coyotes were out prowling and doing a whole lot of talking.  Here you can see their prints in the slushy lake.

Pounce!

Yes, Vancouver Lake froze over!

as did everything else

After one night of snow

The eagle juvies were fighting over some food thing on the frozen lake.  Nature channel anyone?

Lots of eagle activity

It was still spectacular after it thawed

And the eagles still sat in the tree just in front of the house

ALMOST DONE!!!!!

The house is getting so close!

 We may have an occupation permit by the beginning of next week.  Seriously?  I don't know if I will know what to do with myself if I'm not stressing about the house being done.

 My table isn't actually done, but you can get a really good idea what it will look like.

 The kitchen cabinets finally have handles and doors!

 Doesn't it look official?

 And these amazing shelves are going in in the office.  They were obviously horrible to put in, but man are they pretty!

So close

Babysitting

I had the girls for the day.  Took them to Erics house to play around with the construction boxes and at the lake.

One of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen

On the way home, Rin decided he was a kid too and joined the girls on the back seat.

New Years

We had a lovely dinner party on New Years Eve with some of the neighbors.  I made an absolutely wonderful cioppino.  No pictures of either the soup or the party, but here is my table all dressed up!  It was a BYOC (bring your own chair) kind of party.

And can I just say, superstition aside, thank goodness 2013 is over!

Christmas at the house

The house is done enough that social events aren't deadly! We went to the neighbor's caroling party and they came over and sang in the living room.  It has great acoustics! 

 My tiny Christmas tree

 And another pretty lake view

Merry Christmas everyone

Project Runway

Seth Aaron from Project Runway happens to be from Vancouver.  He has been hosting viewing parties at a local pizza place all season.  For most of the term, I had classes Thursday night, but for the past few weeks we have been able to go.  Turns out he is exactly who he appears to be on tv.  When we ran into him as we were leaving, he sat and chatted for a while, with a fun conversation even though he was obviously freezing.  I officially like him.  

Light project

Eric and I have been working on making the lights for over the bar.  I love the veneer lights but they are always super expensive, and often not that nice.  I found one I loved, but the website was in Japanese and ordering it wasn't really possible.  So, we made them.  

Poplar veneer

 with a flashlight

 I fell in love with them because you can do this

 and hung over the bar.  Pretty aren't they?

Snow in Vancouver

Cold, oh so cold.

At my house, the hot water pipe froze.  Yes, the hot one.  We had running water but no hot water for a week in this crazy cold weather.  

Then it got colder.  Vancouver lake froze over.  Eric's well even froze.  I made Christmas candy at the house because my kitchen really is too small and well, I'm impatient.  but it was record breaking cold,  there was no water (at first), the emergency heat system couldn't keep up (why no real heat system? bureaucracy my dears). My candy on the induction stove was boiling at the bottom and cold at top.  Makes for some odd consistency candy let me tell you.  It was an interesting experience.

 But, it was really pretty.  I guess that makes up for it.  A little bit.

Fall 2013 classes

I only had 3 classes this fall.  Some really great kids though

Friday night biology 112.  Friday night.

 Environmental Science 171.  

We had some really great field trips for this one.  Man Im glad I don't have to plan any more for a while though.

Biology 101

This group asked so many great questions that I never finished on time.  and I talk fast!