a snowy day in Leavenworth

We spent five days in Seattle for Christmas, and even had a white Christmas! On the 23rd, Jeff, Kelly, and her parents took a day trip to Leavenworth, a Bavarian-style village two hours east of Seattle. What a snowy wonderland it was! We walked around the village, window shopped, ate lunch, tasted beer (as shown in picture :-), cozied up at Starbucks, watched Chloe in the snow, and enjoyed the Christmas festivities. It was SUCH an unforgettable and fun memory with many laughs, and we really had a blast together.

The hunt

Wow, it looked much smaller in the ground. Here's this year's Meakins (Griswald) family Christmas tree! It's still absolutely huge and grand even after trimming half the branches off to fit it in our living room! It snowed in Portland this morning, and there were some small flurries as we were chainsawing our tree down. Chloe had a blast too, as it was her first experience at a tree farm. So cold though!!

Chloe's first birthday!

November 26th was Chloe's first birthday!

we finished the fence!

After months, we've finally finished it and are pretty proud of ourselves! :-)

visiting the Virgin Islands

On October 26, Kelly took an eight-day trip to the Virgin Islands to stay with some friends who are living on St. Thomas. The weather was beautiful...and so hot and humid! They swam at several of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and also spent a day in St. John, which was definitely a favorite. It was great to come home though! (I missed Jeff a lot :)

yummy yard and new deck

Our grass is growin' strong in the FRONT, and we are a few boards away from finishing our deck in the BACK (except for the pergola)!! The cedar smells so good and it's amazing to finally have a place to spend time outside. We are also finishing up the back fence, as well as the side fence which we are hiring someone to do next week. How lucky we were this weekend to have some gorgeous October weather.

Sunriver in September

The last weekend of September, we spent a weekend in Sunriver with our friends, Justin and Jessica (and Ellie). We rented a great house with a hottub, and spent the weekend RELAXING!! The four of us played tennis, took a bike ride (Jeff zipped Chloe into a backpack...she wasn't havin' it), ate food, and laughed! It was some much-needed down time, after all of the busy-ness of summer.

new grass...finally!

This past weekend we tore out our old grass in the front yard (long overdue), and installed sod which was A LOT of work but instantly satisfying (eight hours later). Sore muscles...Kelly will probably never walk again.

where we call home

In October last year, we bought our first house. Since then we have been doing some remodeling and other projects, which have been exhausting but rewarding.

the concept