sydney

with her favorite toy. missing her parents, Clyde and Kelly.

we were dusted

Last week the granite fabricator's made a template of our counter tops so they could cut the granite to fit. They told us we are able to go to the shop and see the layout. We really didn't have to go since our granite has no pattern. As you can see it's all black with small grey spots. We thought it would be interesting to see anyway and it happened on a day Jeff was off so it worked perfect.

We were a little shocked when we got there. It was near Disneyland but in a very industrial part of town. It felt like we were in a very bad neighborhood. Good thing is was during the day!!! We finally found the shop and it was small with a couple of guys working. There was dust every where. Inches of it on the ground and we could see it in the air. As we walked in I kept telling Jeff, we are going to die in there!!! It was so bad we could barely breathe. After they got the granite out with a fork lift I told Jeff OK, that's good let's leave. The guy wanted to show us the edge styles. I stayed back to take pictures while Jeff went into the shop with the guy. He wanted me to look at an example of a mitered edge. Normally you would see a line where the edge is glued on but on the mitered edge it is sort of hidden. We never heard of it before so we wanted to see it. The piece was covered in dust and as the guy was wiping it off with his hand,I noticed it was a grave stone. I was mortified!!! I couldn't wait to get out of that place. We were covered in granite dust and took us a while to recover...

The template was made with thin wood and a glue gun!!!

our thanksgiving

Our day started with taking Clyde and Kelly to the airport. They are on their way to Japan to pick up the baby they adopted. One suitcase for them and one for the baby. Check out baby Kiyoshi's blog to see their adventure. We can hardly wait till they get home...

Baby's new stroller, waiting for it's first ride!!!

We spent the rest of the day at Disneyland. Just walked around and ate. It was pretty crowded so we didn't even go on any rides. There is always next time...

Very big Christmas tree.

Lots of Christmas decorations to look at.

Our Thanksgiving lunch. It was surprisingly pretty good. We usually get fried chicken at this restaurant but since it was Thanksgiving they served a traditional meal instead.

The turkey the President pardoned, we think. There was no sign yet but last year the turkey also ended up is this same place. The turkey was so big, it could barely walk.

Reindeer . Jeff loves looking at deer. These were big but a little stinky.

A note from Santa.

Taking pictures of ourselves again. Had to take many since most did not turn out very good. There must be an art to self photography. Longer arms maybe???

Bye, Mickey. See you soon!!!

Our simple Thanksgiving dinner at Uncle's house. We had prime rib instead of turkey this year. We are missing the big Thanksgiving dinner we usually have at Clyde and Kelly's house with both family's. We look forward to next year with the addition of their baby... Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

windows are in

Things are moving along in the progress of our remodel. The new windows for the downstairs are delivered and installed. They look great but our house is still a long way to being done. Our granite is being cut and will take several weeks to complete. We won't have too much activity till they are done except for the stuff we are doing ourselves like painting etc. After that everything should go pretty fast. The flooring, appliances and final electrical and plumbing. It's starting to feel like a brand new house. Well, sort of...

granite

A few weeks ago we decided we should pick out our granite slabs. Our choice was easy since it's just absolute black. We went to a different yard than last time. This one was nicer and inside. The granite was clean and easier to see vs. the last place we went to the granite was dirty and dusty. We had to choose from group that contains enough pieces for our counter tops. This is so all the slabs match if you need more than one. Part of our lot was already reserved but there were 3 slabs we put our name on. After our template was made we only need 2 slabs for our kitchen and powder room.

Before the counter top is cut we will go to the fabricator and see if it is laid out the way we want it to be. It should be interesting and we are looking forward to it.