Camas House

We're finally moved into the Camas house. We moved all of of our stuff over from North Bonneville in one weekend but since the weather has been so nice, it's taken a little longer to get things put away. The house still needs some love and our list of projects is growing but it's a very livable place. My favorite part of the house is the built in storage. Each room has built in closets and drawers of some sort and since I'm a neat freak, I feel like everything I own has its place and Jarred has no excuses to create piles everywhere. Since I've been in list mode...

Great things about our new house situation:
1. The kitchen has potential to be awesome. Last weekend we drove (that's right, 20 minutes) to Ikea and oogled over kitchens. I've always wanted a kitchen with a big bar counter and this place has one. Granted right now, the counter is bad, bad, almond colored Formica, but that can be fixed.
2. As I mentioned before built in storage EVERYWHERE. LOVE IT!
3. Small yard with good garden potential.
4. Two car garage. Never thought it really mattered but it does. This house is the same size as our other house but with a two car garage. We've come to realize we have more garage items than house items.
5. Fenced yard. While I feel bad that the dogs have a smaller yard, I learned that the dogs really don't use much of a big yard and not having a fence gets dogs like Shuksan hit by cars and dog tickets.
6. Jarred has his own pooping bathroom. Not a necessity in life but sure is nice.

Not so great things about our new house (but things that can be changed):
1. House needs to be painted and fake shutters removed. Why people ever put shutters as "accents" on the outside of a house is beyond me.
2. Big ass fireplace in the middle of the dining room/living room. We're lovers of the wood stove and to us, fireplaces are a waste of space. This one is HUGE and puts out absolutely no heat. I think it's the first thing Jarred will tear down, which should make for an interesting project.
3. Every room has BAD lighting. The bedrooms have huge ceiling fan units which made us think that these huge units would put off a lot of light....wrong. They put off mood lighting. I can't even see what color socks I'm putting on in the morning.
4. It appears that for years the washer hook up has been leaking. This makes for wet sub flooring and a ghetto laundry room set up. Will be the first thing I change if/when we buy this place.
5. The front door doesn't really shut. I'm not sure why but unless it's locked, it's not shut which means that I often walk out and leave the door open while I'm gone. Luckily we live in a safe neighborhood?

All in all we're sooo glad we moved. It's really been a lifestyle change, a much needed one.

Our New Digs

Finally, oh finally- we've moved. I never really knew how much living in North Bonneville affected our lives until this past week when we moved to Camas. For the past month (actually two years but we got obsessive about it last month) , Jarred and I have been trying to figure out how to get out of our North Bonneville house and into a house closer to where we work. Jarred should really be a financial advisor if the teaching gig does not work out for him as he looked at every possible angle of how we could get out from under our North Bonneville house and purchase a house in Camas. We've had our North Bonneville house for sale for TWO, that's right TWO, years now and after waiting and waiting for someone to snatch up the gem (don't a lot of people want a half acre of grass?), we finally realized the market is too depressed (we are among those whose house is now worth less than we owe) and we should rent the place out. Thanks to my awesome parents, we were able to put an offer in on a foreclosed house in Camas and in the mean time rent the place while the offer went through. The minute we had the keys to our Camas house, we packed up and moved. We were tired of spending eight hours a week in our car that had traveled 14,000 miles to and from work in the last year.

Holy shit, what a difference moving has made. Let me just list some of the highlights.
1. I have a two mile bike ride to work.
2. Jarred rides seven miles to work.
3. We're five minutes from a grocery store.
5. I'm ten minutes from the horses.
6. We can ride up two blocks to great running/biking trails.
7. We're 20 minutes from Ikea.
8. We can go to Portland after work and not make a day of it.
9. I mowed the lawn last weekend, took me 20 minutes (1.40 less than in North Bonneville)

As you can see, we're obsessed with how close everything is. The house is not too exciting and has some issues like the fact
that every room has mood lighting, forget bright rooms but everything that needs to be fixed is cosmetic. The important thing is that we are not married to the car anymore and we have so much freedom in what we do during the work week.

Water In Washington Is Cold

This is why I stick to "easy" rafting. The water in Washington is cold.

Yes There Are People In This Boat

Jarred's crazy rafter friends. They raft everything he kayaks....and more!

Eagle Creek

A good reason to love Washington.

Eagle Creek

Nothing like a kiss from a bearded girl.

The weather this winter has rocked. Last weekend Molly came down for a visit and we were lucky enough to have great weather. There's not a ton of indoor activities in the Gorge so we always hope for good weather when friends come down, otherwise we're stuck in North Bonneville suggesting a game of Monoploly to our guests. The good weather motivated some of our boater friends to throw themselves off a 35 ft. waterfall on Eagle Creek. Jarred, Molly and I spent Saturday morning watching these guys and questioning their sanity (or at least Molly and I questioned their sanity, Jarred wondered why he'd not brought his kayak). If anyone every gets down to the Gorge, Eagle Creek is by far, the best hike in the Gorge. It's got about five amazing waterfalls and beautiful cliffs.

The New Digs

This is my dream barn (minus the indoor). I have the whole (two stalls) to myself and can keep it as neat as I want. I'm a neat freak and love the fact that I can finally keep my barn the way I want! Now we just need to move closer so I'm not driving 40 minutes to see my horses.

Together Again

February seemed like a crazy month. Between work, our obsessive house searching (and dumping) and trying to have a little fun it seemed like the month flew by. I finally found a great place to keep Sophie and Nic that wouldn't break my pocketbook and that was ideal for both horses. I spent December and January driving all over Southwest Washington taking care of both horses as I had to board them at different facilities. I moved Nic and Sophie at the start of February. Their new home is great. It's close to my school so I can just ride my bike up after work. They've got pasture turn-out and stalls and they're not standing around in mud. I lease the barn from a teacher who is also a great horse person, so I know they're always in good hands. I don't think Nic likes Sophie too much as he's a serious guy and Sophie would rather play grab-ass over the fence, but I think he appreciates finally being coddled again. He's not a real horse and would instantly die in the wild.