What did you do this weekend?

We worked our butts off in the kitchen, but not cooking or canning.

before

before

old countertops out

color going on

our painter

yes, that is a black handle on the dishwasher

finished product

Prep work for the walls took longer than expected, but it was worth it. The electrician came back out on Monday to finish the wiring. We were 98% done on by Monday night with everything functional. Just a couple loose ends to tie up.

In an odd twist of fate, our supposedly black dishwasher turned out to be stainless steel. But once we got to installing it, we found that a black handle had shipped with it, instead of one that matches the stainless. Correctable (and I already have a lead on one), but annoying for the time being. Fortunately, the dishwasher works very very well, and is dead silent.

We love the black countertops, though it and the cabinets together make it look a bit like a chemistry lab! Unforeseen, but we still like it. After a crazy weekend of getting all of this done (we started on Friday), we're getting back to normal. We've passed a head cold around, with Michael and Margaret still suffering a bit. More pictures of the remodel are up on flickr.

Kitchen Update

We did it! We as of last night we have a functioning dishwasher in our kitchen. Last Thursday we started our large weekend kitchen remodeling project. We actually had all of it done for the most part by Sunday night but we had to wait for the electrician to come back and put in a new breaker box for our house (goodbye fuses!). It felt great to be able to wash dishes in the dishwasher last night.

Michael will be expanding on the remodeling project soon including before and after photos. What we did was move some cabinets (already posted that info), installed new countertops and sink, added a disposal, hot water dispenser, and dishwasher. We also painted the kitchen while the countertops where off. The only other things we have left is to replace the one light fixture and put new outlet/light plate covers on. It was a big project but did not take as long as most of our other projects seem to take.

We are both every happy with the finished kitchen. And of course the best part is... the dishwasher. :)

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day from the Lah family to yours! We all enjoyed the day. Margaret and I surprised Addie and Michael with brownie cupcakes while Michael surprised us girls with a nice dinner out on the town. Today Addie has her school party. I'm sure she will enjoy it. I've included in this post some photos including the girls and one of Michael with his little loves. Like always, if you want to see more photos like these go to our flickr page.

A Day at the Beach?

So, we wake up to a ton of snow this morning with more coming down. You might wonder how we where able to get to the beach today but I'll explain a little farther down. Michael spent his morning cleaning the driveway while Addie played in the snow. The snow was not up to her standards though because it was to dry for snow balls and snowmen. After all that fun and some hot chocolate they made more Christmas cookies. And yes, it is very bright in our kitchen. At least according to Addie...


After all that hard work I guess one does deserve to go the beach for the rest of the day. Addie has been having beach with drawl for a while now so she finally decided it was time to make our living room the beach. She had a blast. She played in the sand, splashed us constantly, and had fun running into the water to jump the waves. She even pretended that our dining room was a restaurant at the beach with a great view of the water because there was no grass just beach sand around us. She complimented the chief and said that she would be a return customer of his. Addie can be so polite sometimes :) It's good to know that no matter how deep the snow outside is, her imagination lets her go to a warm sunny place anytime she wants.

More Apples!

What a busy weekend. I'm finally recovering from our busy weekend. Saturday we put up 51 quarts of apples. We made 22 quarts of apple pie filling and 29 quarts of apple sauce. We also made 3 apple pies. Peggy and my neighbor helped with it. We started at 8am and finished at 8pm. I still have a lot of apples left but I'll be working on them a little at a time in the afternoons until I get through them all. If you are wondering how we will be able to eat all these apples don't worry, only half of them are ours. The other half is our neighbors.



Michael and Bill kept busy on Saturday as well. They hung two new storm doors and repaired the third one. Then they tarred the roof where it is leaking and measured the chimney for a cap.
Addie spent her weekend with my sister and her husband who live in Ohio. She had a great time. She was so wore out though that she asked to take a nap twice on Monday! They must have done some serious playing for her to be that tired.

An Apple A Day

Addie has been very excited about picking apples and making applesauce. Everyday I get asked the question "Is today the day we pick apples to make the yummy applesauce?". Well, yesterday was the day for a mini trial run. After I picked her up from school we went straight to a local orchard for some apple picking fun. After playing at the playground and checking out all the fun farm animals we finally make it back the gravel lane to the apple trees.


She had a good time picking apples. Most where not low enough for her so I put her on my shoulders to pick them. That only lasted about 3 apples before she decided that it made her to nervous. Then she became my apple runner. I'd pick them and she would run them back to the wagon dodging the fallen apples on the ground.

We ended up with 1 bushel of apples to experiment with in the kitchen. When we got home Addie could not wait to start in on the applesauce. It could not wait until this weekend. Of course it was not to hard to talk me into it since I had a dinning room table full of apples and fresh veggies we just picked up from the farmers market. We made two test batches. Batch one was 100% Mutsu apples. The second one was 2 parts Mutsu, 2 parts MacIntosh, to 1 part Gala. The second one was the winner of the taste test once I added a tiny amount of sugar to it. Michael liked it without the sugar but Addie needed a little more sweetness. Even though we found a winner I'm going to try some different apple combinations until I find a good mix of apples that doesn't need sugar added.