Changin Things Up

So, since I've got some bad juju associated with this blog, I've moved everything over to a new blog. A fresh start as it were. Come check it our here! Or if that doesn't work, go to http://idcoastie.blogspot.com. This blog will be taken down after 01 October.

Brent

Get Yourself To The Butterfly Lounge

  As I sit here, listening to podcasts I just heard someone say that you don't need a pool to have a pool party. Interesting. On to business! Today class, we will be talking about the past month or so (pictures may not be included), plans for the future (like what's going down in August) and some other stuff. Let's do this!

  Bad clichés aside, we've had a pretty busy month. Let's start with what's helped us get through a good portion of it. ---> That's right. We now subscribe to Netflix (for the third time). We watched all available seasons of Dexter (and ended up renting seasons 3 and 4 from Blockbuster), and now Cait has moved on to Dr. Who. It's also great because there are a ton of kid's shows on there. Savannah (and I) watched all of the Phineas and Ferb, Backyardigans and a slew of VeggieTales. The only downside is that it is interfering with my latest video game obsession.

Portal 2 (and the Orange Box for that matter). Thanks to the wonder of instant gratification (aka the Internet) I was able to download the demos to both Portal and Portal 2. Needless to say I was hooked. And so was Cait.  So now we trade off on who gets to play (and when) or what we're going to watch. I do question Cait's logic though. Either that or her video game awesomeness leads her to go to places in video games that the user was not meant to go. The portal games are logic / thinking / puzzle games. It involves using your portal gun to allow objects / people to move in unique ways to solve a series of puzzles before progressing to the next level. It is highly addictive. If you're in the neighborhood and want a demonstration, feel free to stop by and either Cait or myself will be glad to show you the virtues of the games. :) 

  To kick off our summer work list, we decided to tackle a couple of big projects. First was to redo our front garden. Most of the plants were dead and it was overrun with weeds. So the picture is what it now looks like. Well. mostly. There are some plants that need to be replaced already and the black anti-weed matting that we put down isn't working as well as we hoped. So, we still need to weed, but not nearly as much as before. On the plus side, the bumblebees LOVE this garden. Everyday I usually see two or three bumblebees going about their business. We also replaced our dead magnolia tree with a 7 year old tree. Same species as before, although we paid considerably less for this one. It was purchased at a local nursery whereas the previous one was purchased at Lowes. We've been talking about what to do with the large patch of weeds in front of the rest of... the front... of the house. I think we're pretty much in agreement of what we want to do and continue with the theme and colors of what's pictured here. In addition to this, we're trying to figure out what we want to do for the patio that we're going to be putting in this summer. What we're looking for is a cement mold that is flat on top allowing us to place chairs and a table on top with out too much rocking or loss of footing. We did purchase an outdoor dining set and place settings as well. Our house is going to be the place to be by the end of summer. Of course that's around November out here.

  If you happen to drive by our house now, you will notice something quite different. Our house is now green. I know what you're thinking, "A green house? Have you gone blind?" The answer is no. The photo to the left represents a couple of things. First is that we don't actually have a picture of the new house color. That will be corrected soon. Second is that we're not completely done. I need to replace a board on the back of the house and then paint. Plus I need to get all 12 shutters primed and painted. That will be done before this weekend. So, I'm not to concerned there. But once we've completed everything, I will share it on facebook, all 3 of my twitter accounts and here. No need to deprive you of the pictures. And my Picasa Web Albums too. Can't forget those. 

  Another change we've made is that we now use TruGreen for our lawn care (weed killer, fertilizer and lawn nuisance control). The results so far have been amazing. At the start of the year, most of the color in my front yard was from weeds. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of that. Thankfully we found a coupon and got a discount on our first application. That was about 6 weeks ago (which means that it's time for our next application) and the results have been amazing. Almost all of the weeds in our yard are dead and my front lawn is pretty. Except for the dead spots that need to be reseeded. But that shouldn't be to hard to do. In addition to that, the lawn gets watered with well water which is full of good nutrients for the plants and yard. By the end of the summer, I'm looking to have a nice full lawn with little or no dead spots.

  Let's talk about my current personal project. I am currently working my way through the bible a few chapters at a time. All of my notes, thought, questions and summaries are posted on one of my other blogs, On Fire For The Lord. This blog is a way for me to keep on track of my reading and to try and look deeper into the bible. So far, I've got a few posts up and will post as I read the sections I've got laid out. Please stop by and take a look.

  My new audio interest is the podcast of my favorite baking blog! Joy the Baker teamed up with a group of her friends and made homefries.com. The podcast mentioned at the beginning of this post? Got it from homefries. It's pretty fun to listen to the various people talk about this and that and everything else in between. This picture is courtesy of Joy the Baker and homefries. You should head on over and take a look. You can subscribe to the podcasts (for free!) or share it with your friends!

  And now onto future plans! And my apparent love of the exclamation mark! But this August, we will be going to Disney World!!! In case me in a Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey hat didn't give that away. We've been planning this for a few months now and I got word a couple of days ago that my leave had been approved. Now, Disney does not have the same offer as a couple of years ago (Active Duty Military got a free 5 day pass with park hopper and water park access). But we are able to purchase tickets at ridiculously low prices through MWR. We anticipate visiting three of the four parks and one of the water parks. Or maybe both water parks. Who knows?!? Once we told Savannah where we were going, that's all she would talk about! Every day she asks when we're going to go see Mickey Mouse. If it was up to her, I'm not sure we would ever leave Disney. I know that this is going to be a much needed break and hopefully, the August time frame will allow us to beat the worst of the summer crowds. Hopefully. We did learn some things from our last visit concerning Savannah and hopefully the heat won't be too bad for her. We did get her a little personal mister from Target and she loves to play with that. All we need for her now is a battery operated clip on fan. Well, I know the Disney trip will warrant their own posts but we've still got some time left before I have to worry about those. I will also be tweeting from Disney, so be sure to follow any one of my 3 accounts. I'll provide them when the time draws nearer. That's concludes today's post. As promised, here is the Portal picture:

- Brent

Luke, I Am Your Father

What a classic line. Along with "These aren't the droids you're looking for." But as you can see, I found the droid I was looking for! All of this was possible because of MegaCon! Cait and I spent a day at MegaCon 2011 this year and we had a blast! I do wish I had a costume that I could have worn though. But I am working on that. By next year's convention, I should have a costume ready! Man, I sure use lots exclamation points. I guess I'm just excited. We drove down to Orlando on the Friday that MegaCon kicked off and we arrived shortly after it started. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised on how big of a convention it was. Having judged it to be a fairly small convention based off last year's pictures, it turned out to be fairly large. Not nearly as large as Comic Con or Star Wars Celebration, but still good-sized. After we got our bearings and got into the convention, we were greeted with rows and rows of booths.

In addition to the many booths, there were tons of people in costume! As you can see, we have Master Chief from the Halo series. I didn't realize that he was that short... Of course, it could just be a regular Spartan too. But he was not the only Master Chief at the convention either. There were plenty of costumed folks dressed the same. Lots of characters from Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist and numerous others that I didn't recognize. Then there were the video game characters. The most recognizable for me were Fang and Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII.  There were costumes all over the place! I was in nerd heaven. But it was a while before I found the main reason that I wanted to come to MegaCon.

Granted, I did see Obi Wan and Boba Fett wandering around. In fact, as you can see, it seems that everyone wanted to fight the Jedi. Even a Smurf. As Cait and I wandered up and down the rows of booths, we were amazed at how much stuff was for sale. There were weapons (swords and knives and such) vendors, people selling costumes, wigs, manga (drawn Japanese cartoons), anime (animated Japanese cartoons), we even found a booth selling authentic Japanese snacks. Things such a Hello Panda crackers, Pocky sticks, rice candy and so much more than I have ever seen. Now, you can find some of this in the ethnic section of most grocery stores, but the sizes that the vendor had were HUGE! Granted they were imported from Japan and didn't have any English written on them, but still. HUGE!  In addition to those who I've already mentioned, you also had local and small manga and comic book artists, various arts schools plus a few miscellaneous booths that didn't really fit into any other category. You also had various groups displaying what they do best. For example, there was a group of Lego builders that built all sorts of displays. They built the Battle of Hoth and animated an AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) along with a Snow Speeder circling around another AT-AT.

Ah, at last! I have found what I've been looking for! The Florida Garrison of the 501st Legion! The fine gentleman pictured on the right is a Scout Trooper. You might remember them as the Stormtroopers on the speed bikes in Return of the Jedi. I was hoping for more than just 1 legion member, but I was still happy to get this picture all the same. And if you look behind the scout trooper, you can see more costumes. Those were just costumes with no one in them. I did take a bunch more pictures and they can be found in my Picasa Web Album here. I was in absolute nerd heaven! All in all it was a great time. I do wish that we could have spent more time there, but there is always next year. And next year, I will be in costume (I can see Cait rolling her eyes now)! If you are curious as to the costume I will be wearing I'll give you a hint: Google Lt. Galle. That's it for this post about our adventures at MegaCon!

 - Brent

Homemade Heaven

Courtesy of Joy the Baker

Have you ever tasted Heaven? Even just a little slice? Each one of the slices of bread in this picture is a little slice of heaven. All of this is courtesy of Joy the Baker. With our her, this post would not exist. If you love baking (as I do), and you have an RSS or Feed reader (i.e. Google Reader) you need to follow her blog. Conveniently, I have included the link to follow her. It is...HERE! It is definitely worth it. Now, on to my adventures in making slices of heaven in my kitchen.

Although I don't have that many pictures of my process (something I need to work on), I'll show you what I've got. Let me put this out there first. There is a total of about 2 - 2 1/2 hours of down time when making this between risings and cooling down. The wait is so worth it though.



Nothing say good like butter!



I would also recommend that you pre-stage all of your ingredients first. To bring your eggs to room temperature, set them out 30 minutes prior to starting. Or if you forgot to take them out, you can put them in a bowl of warm (not hot!) water for 5 - 10 minutes. More information can be found here. Below is the recipe I used. As I mentioned before, this is courtesy of Joy the Baker. The actual page that I pulled this from can be found by clicking on the title of the recipe. 

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Makes: one 9×5x3-inch loaf

For the Dough:

2 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 ounces unsalted butter

1/3 cup whole milk

1/4 cup water

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Filling:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

2 ounces unsalted butter, melted until browned

In a large mixing bowl whisk together 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.  Set aside.

Whisk together eggs and set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt together milk and butter until butter has just melted.  Remove from the heat and add water and vanilla extract.  Let mixture stand for a minute or two, or until the mixture registers 115 to 125 degrees F.

Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula.  Add the eggs and stir the mixture until the eggs are incorporated into the batter.  The eggs will feel soupy and it’ll seem like the dough and the eggs are never going to come together.  Keep stirring.  

Add the remaining 3/4 cup of flour and stir with the spatula for about 2 minutes.  The mixture will be sticky.  That’s just right.

Dough is ready to rise!

Place the dough is a large,  greased bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel.  Place in a warm space and allow to rest until doubled in size, about 1 hour.  *The dough can be risen until doubled in size, then refrigerated overnight for use in the morning.  If you’re using this method, just let the dough rest on the counter for 30 minutes before following the roll-out directions below.*

While the dough rises, whisk together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for the filling.  Set aside.  Melt 2 ounces of butter until browned.  Set aside.  Grease and flour a 9×5x3-inch  loaf pan.  Set that aside too.

Deflate the risen dough and knead about 2 tablespoons of flour into the dough.  Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 5 minutes.  

On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out.  The dough should be 12-inches tall and about 20-inches long.  If you can’t get the dough to 20-inches long… that’s okay.  Just roll it as large as the dough will go.  Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter across all of the dough.  Sprinkle with all of the sugar and cinnamon mixture.  It might seem like a lot of sugar. 

Lots of sugar and a bit of cinnamon.

Seriously?  Just go for it.

Slice the dough vertically, into six equal-sized strips.  Stack the strips on top of one another and slice the stack into six equal slices once again.  You’ll have six stacks of six squares.  Layer the dough squares in the loaf pan like a flip-book.  Place a kitchen towel over the loaf pan and allow in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes or until almost doubled in size.

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.  Place loaf in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is very golden brown.  The top may be lightly browned, but the center may still be raw.  A nice, dark, golden brown will ensure that the center is cooked as well.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 20 to 30 minutes (I did not do this. Cait and I devoured about 1/2 fresh from the oven).   Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the bread and invert onto  a clean board.  Place a cake stand or cake plate on top of the  upside down loaf, and carefully invert so it’s right side up.  Serve warm with coffee or tea.

The deliciousness!

I think this bread is best served the day it’s made, but it can also we wrapped and kept at room temperature for up to 2 days (if it lasts that long...)

As I have mentioned, this bread is phenomenal! Some of you might think that this a monkey bread. And by definition it is. But I'm a fan of the term Pull-Apart Bread personally. Now go forth and bake!
While I want to leave you with a video, I didn't feel the one I wanted was appropriate for this post. So, you can watch the video here. But for my parting remark: Let's learn the alphabet with Star Wars!

 - Brent

Thank you to Joy the Baker for the use of her recipe. I would also like to thank Bowling for Soup for their album "Sorry for Partyin'" as it was the official music of this baking experience.

The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo

I recently made some Challah bread (which you would know if you follow my twitter @ForceBaker.) and felt that I needed to post about the experience. First off, this recipe comes from Baking Bites and the specific recipe I used can be found here. I use a 3 rope braid for all of my Challah (for now). You can use however many strands you want for your braid. You can even make it look like a continual braided circle. Here's a page on different types of braids.  On to the how-to. Let's talk ingredients.

1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup warm (110F) water
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
3 3/4 cups flour (and up to 1/4 cup extra for kneading)

1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 tsp water
2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Now that we have that out of the way, onto the making of the bread.

Dissolve sugar and yeast in 1/2 cup warm water in a large mixing bowl. Let stand 10 minutes.

Add oil, water sugar, salt , eggs and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture.

Mix until smooth, then gradually add remaining flour until dough comes together into a ball and no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.

Let dough rest for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle reserved flour onto a smooth surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, incorporating any of the reserved flour as needed.
Place dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, 1-1 1/2 hours.

Oil a baking sheet and sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired. (I strongly recommend this. Not only does the bread have a slight cinnamon taste, your house will smell delicious!)

When doubled, flour your hands and gently remove dough from bowl onto a lightly floured countertop.

Cut dough into three even sections and gently stretch them out.

Starting in the middle, braid them together.

Tuck the ends underneath the dough.

Set loaf on baking sheet.

Brush very lightly with egg wash, you won’t need all of it.

Preheat oven to 400F and let dough rise, covered loosely, for an additional hour, until almost doubled.
Bake at 400F for 30 minutes, until deep golden brown.

I like to transfer it to the wire cooling rack. It tastes best fresh from the over with some butter and jam or butter an honey. I'm working on a cinnamon sugar version (because I'm a sucker for cinnamon sugar) and will post the recipe here if I ever get it made. There is a lot of rest time in this recipe, but it is worth it. Some things I've learned are that you shouldn't make the braids too tight. If you do, it no longer pulls apart quite as nicely or easily. The biggest tip I can give you is to try to make sure your yeast is fresh. Plus if your water is too hot, it will kill the yeast. Too cold and the yeast won't activate. I know it's a pain to get the water just right, but if you can, it is so worth it.

Once again, I would like to thank Baking Bites for this delicious Challah recipe. And now, I leave you with the video for which this post is named after.


 - Brent

There's a Party in My Bedroom!

That's right! Nothing say's a good time like a party in the bedroom. Or...redecorating the bathroom. Which is what this blog is about. I mean, nothing says "sad" like this bathroom from the 80s. If you could see the light fixture, I'm pretty sure the tears would be flowin'. But rest assured! The Wonder Woman who is Cait has saved us from outdated this outdated bathroom! In order for such a transformation to be completed, 1 vital thing had to occur. I had to get underway. I know! It was difficult, but I was able to do it. When I left, the bathroom looked like this. And when I got back...

The bathroom looked like this ---> Cait is a miracle worker. All I had to do was take care of electrical. Easier said than done. Not to long ago, I replaced the dimmer switch with a new fancy $23 one from Lowes. Works great. Except with CFL bulbs. Of course. However, that wasn't the biggest problem. The major electrical problem that I had was the fact that the wonderfully intelligent builders of my house put a stud right behind the middle of the sink. Exactly where the new electrical box was supposed to go. Imagine my surprise when I saw that.

Time to MacGyver it! I took a fairly thick piece of trim and matched up where the screws were on the mount for the light. After drilling out all of the holes, I screwed the trim onto the 2X6 with 2 long wood screws. That thing isn't going anywhere for a while. After that, It was fairly straight forward. Connect Hot to Hot, Neutral to Neutral and Ground to Ground (which then attached to the bracket). After all of the wiring was done just simply attach the light fixture to the bracket, turn power back on and voilà! Easy as pie. But a fairly easy update. Just add new curtains, paint, shelving and light fixture and you have a whole new bathroom. That's it for this update. And now I leave you with the song that's been running through my head this entire post:




 - Brent

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Well, as mentioned in my post here, we re-decorated our kitchen. In this post, we will discuss what was done. Mainly, I will discuss and you will listen. Of course, if you leave a comment, then you will be part of the discussion...but I digress. On to...Green! Or...Cavern Moss in Semi-Gloss from Olympic. We went from white / wall paper to green. I think it turned out pretty well. Green walls were only a small part of the overall plan. As you can also see, all of our cabinet doors (and the drawers that you can't see) were removed.

And here is Savannah helping Grandma paint the cabinet doors. It took a lot of white paint to cover those doors and drawers. But in the end, they look great. Especially when we added the brushed nickle fixtures. I'm glad that Cait is able to see all of this in her head prior to the start of these projects. There is no way that I could have done this the way she did. But let's move onto the part that I'm most excited about. Tile.

First, I would like to give my dad a huge "Thank You" for all of the work that he did in helping me with the tile. He presented some ideas that worked out for the best. However, none of us took into consideration the fact that when we offset the smaller tiles into the medallion, it wouldn't be center when we put the stove back. Oh well, I like it. But due to this experience, I feel confident enough to do more tile work around the house. Mainly in the bathroom. But after all was said and done, the kitchen looked like a brand new kitchen! We're looking to possibly paint the counter tops to look like granite. Of course, it won't be real granite, but it will look like it. Well, that's it for this post. And now, I leave you with this, How to brush your teeth like a Spartan!

 - Brent

The Force is strong with this one...

First and foremost, I wanted the the banner of the Florida Garrison of the 501st Legion on the top of this blog. Alas, I believe that my lack of timing led to no response from the 501st. But, you can find out more about them at their webpage: http://www.fl501st.com/.

On to business then. The reason that I wanted to  have this banner at the top of this post is because the 501st is  making an appearance at MegaCon! That is pretty exciting for me because, Cait and I are looking to attend this year! I can already see Cait rolling her eyes. For those who are wondering, MegaCon is going to be held between March 24 - 27 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. While being primarily sponsored for comics (artists, enthusiasts, etc.) it caters to all of us who enjoy Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Anime and more! It's like a geek's heaven!

I'm even more excited to attend now! Of course, with my recent obsession with Star Wars, I'm always looking for others who share that obsession. And what better place than a convention? Of course, I really want to attend Star Wars Celebration (held in the same location), but that's later in the year. So, for now, MegaCon will have to do. Although, if I do attend Star Wars Celebration, I will make a costume and go all geek. Once again, I can see Cait rolling her eyes at me. It should be fun though. I'll be blogging from MegaCon this year. Please bear in mind that I might not be attending for all of the days. It should be a blast though. I know that this isn't one of my longest blogs and the next few will be longer. And with that, I leave you with this:

Burning The Ground, I Break From The Crowd

I'm a nerd and a geek. I'll be the first to admit that. And as you can see, I'm getting Savannah started early! Either that or I'm setting her up for an awesome career in music... If you haven't noticed, almost all of blog titles are pulled from songs. Go ahead. I'll be here as you go back and check.

Welcome back. You were missed. I promise. On to business then. What business is that you ask? Why the business of....business... Yeah. Now that the awkwardness is over let's talk about all things geek!

First, get a Nook. Seriously it's great! Each one can hold something like 3500 book. Plus there is a slot for a 2GB MicroSD Card capable of holding an addition 3500 books. Cait got me one for Christmas and I love it! I've got 9 pages of books that were given to me, and that's not even all of them! When I'm done, I'll have 13 pages! I'm thinking that 13 pages is a bit insane and I'm know Cait thinks so as well. If the nook is not your flavor, I have also heard really good things about the Amazon Kindle. But moving on. On to video games! Let's look at my current favorite games.

Some of you might recognize this gentleman. Some of you wont. It's okay of you don't, I'll still like you. I promise. But, if you haven't already, you need to pick up a copy of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. It is an amazing game, and features a very unique multiplayer mode. In this mode, you are given a target to assassinate, while you yourself are a target for another assassin. It can get pretty nerve racking, especially when you don't know who is hunting you or where they are.  The solo campaign is amazing as well. Ubisoft added an amazing level of detail and gameplay into this installment of the Assassin's Creed line. And for those of you who don't know, the gentle man pictures is Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

 Let's move onto Cait's latest obsession. For those of you who don't know what the logo on the right is, it is the logo for a website called StumbleUpon. Based on the preferences that you set, it will show you unique and random we sites across the Internet. It's pretty good. Both Cait and I have signed up. She has a lot more liked pages than I do. You can follow her here: Cait's StumbleUpon and you can follow me here: Brent's StumbleUpon. I'll work on my stumbles. By following StumbleUpon, Cait discovered another amazing site.
Instructables. This is an amazing site for DIY projects, How-to instructions and all sorts of things. I'm pretty sure Cait spends an equal amount of time between StumbleUpon and Instructables. I know that there are a lot of different and unique projects on there. How would you like to learn how to make a Keyboard Circuit Sheet Lampshade? Or how about a Voice Controlled Robot? Those are only a couple of examples. You really need to check this site out. For my final portion of this blog, I am proud to report that since the beginning of 2010, this blog has been viewed in 13 countries around the world and in 25 states in the US. Thank you for your support as I work through this blog! And with that, I leave you with this: 




 - Brent

Ho Hum

Wow. That's all I'm going to say about my time away from here. Things have been pretty busy lately. Let's do a quick rush through the past 6 months (in no particular order).
 - Savannah turned 2.
 - Cait had emergency surgery that resulted in altered Thanksgiving plans.
 - I discovered that I am capable of cooking a Thanksgiving meal.
 - We celebrated Christmas twice (with both of our parents).
 - We re-decorated the kitchen.
 - I learned how to put up a tile backsplash.
 - That makes me want to tackle re-tiling the bath in our bathroom.
 - Cait painted our bathroom.
 - I put up the light.
 - I discovered that the people who built our house were idiots.
 - I also replaced all of the electrical outlets and light switches in the house (excluding the garage).
 - Learned how to replace the S-Drive belt in my car.
 - Discovered I have 2 alter egos (on Twitter).
And yesterday, my dad helped me replace some (more) siding on the house in preparation of pressure washing.  Following the pressure washing will be painting the house O_O. Can't say that I'm looking forward to that.

My parents are in town for the next couple of weeks. They ventured our way to look for a new trailer, which they found. It's looking like they will pick it up on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to seeing it. You can follow their escapades here: The Idaho Nomads. Their blog is updated more frequently than mine. After here, they're looking to start their journey to the west.

Work continues on the house. As I mentioned, I've replaced all of the outlets and switches in the house. During this "adventure in home ownership," I have discovered that who ever did the wiring when the house was built, didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. For example, the outlets in the dining room and hallway are on the circuit labeled "kitchen light." Really? I thought they would have been on the circuit labeled "living room, dining room, hallway." I guess not. Next step is re-labeling the breaker box. That should be fun. Cait also painted the bathroom a nice blue and replace the shelving along with hanging a picture that matches. I got to replace the light fixture. A normally simple process, but not with my house. Let's just leave it at I'm getting more creative in how I go about mounting lights. I"ll post pictures later. Needless to say, the bathroom looks phenomenal.

We also painted the kitchen green! I know what you're thinking..."Green? Really?: Yes really. I thought that it wouldn't work, but it does. Add to that the slate tile backsplash that my dad and I hung up behind the stove and the repainted cabinetry and you have an amazing looking kitchen. I think I need to post a blog showing just updates completed in the past 6 months.

I think this will be it for my late night / early morning ramblings. Until next time!

 - Brent