And the 2013 pumpkin king is....

Dustin takes the title for the second time (first annual and 2013) with pumpkin number 4...the witch running into the tree!  Following close behind was Ariel with the creepy hand pumpkin.  Thank you everyone for participating and great work Dustin!!!

Great pumpkins this year.

Kasia

Sarah

Ariel 

Shalyce

Tiffany, Siobhan & Shalyce

Kyle

Nate

Savannah

 

Stacey & Daniel

Great pumpkins this year and super successful party.  Can't wait until next year!

Zoni beach

What can I say about this beach other than we were literally snorkeling in a setting you would see from Disney! Amazing. I hope the pictures I took do it justice (have to load later, can't get them off my underwater camera till I get home). We saw a ray just hanging out, darn that I didn't have my camera then, all I could think about was the crocodile hunter and not getting too close. Tomorrow we are going on a catamaran to two small islands to see the oldest lighthouse in the Caribbean and swim with the turtles. I can't wait. Every day is a great day on vacation :) last night we treated ourselves to surf and turf, way good. Churrasco (skirt steak) is delicious here.

White Sand Beach time

I write this blog as we sit on a beautiful white sand beach called Flamenco on the island of Culebra. We are staying in a water front cottage on the bay. No AC but also no neighbors other than iguanas and crabs. The weather is gorgeous and there is a lot of beach time and snorkeling in our future! Our wheels on this island is a golf cart, definitely on island time here. Tomorrow we are going to try and snorkel at turtle island, that should be amazing. It stormed big time last night but the sun came out this morning. More fun ahead :)

Vieques and parents

Yesterday we parted ways with my parents, they headed home and we headed to Culebra. While on the island we experienced a tropical depression named Gabrielle, enjoyed private white and beaches, home cracked coconuts, neighborhood doggies and so much more. The food was great, drinks were cold and the company was amazing. We were sad to see our friends go but boy oh boy we had a great time while they were here. My pictures are limited to what I took with my phone until I get home but hopefully I snapped enough to entertain for now. Happy anniversary to my parents and birthday to my mom.

Puerto Rico!

What a trip we have had so far, water falls in the rain forest, foodie walking tours, bio luminescent bay kayaks, 10 seater airplane rides just to name a few. I will post 'a few' pictures here and then more when we get home. Needless to say if you haven't been to Puerto Rico you should definitely get here. So far Old San Juan and the island of Vieques have been extremely beautiful and fun filled. Enjoy the pictures :) 

NARF Walk-a-thon

So for the past two years of living in San Jose, every time the Nike Animal Rescue Foundation has this event it either gets rained out and moved to a weekend that I can't participate or we go to Costa Rica for some other event...go figure ;-)  Anyways, this year I reserved the day early and have done the no rain dance just so I can walk to help raise money for the homeless animals in the Bay Area.  Please help me raise money for the kitties and doggies that need homes.  If you know me at all you know I have a big soft spot for shelter animals, heck we have two shelter pups that we have called our kids for years now (Tucker for almost 10 years! can you believe that?!?!)

Anyhow, please see the flier in this post and if you want to sponsor me that would just melt my heart and 97% of the donation would go towards helping these animals.  I promise to post pictures from the walk to my blog and facebook so you can feel like you helped out and walked with us.  Even better if anyone in the bay wants to join us we would love to have you, bring the furry friend along for the fun :-) My mom and Kyle will be joining me and the pups for the event. 

Thank you thank you in advance. (if you decide to donate you can send me a check made out to NARF or you can contact me sirgens@gmail.com and we can work out another way to send payment)

The doggies and kitties thank you for your support.

Kitchen Update from Start to Finish, no particular order ;-)

Photo dump!!!  I will try to get these in logical order but no promises...what a project this was and we aren't 100% finished yet, still need a couple new hinges for a cabinet door (busted when i was trying to put them back together) and touchup paint around the edges of the cabinets, a fun paint dance between yellow and grey.  Needless to say I think the transformation is AWESOME and we are totallky enjoying the new look, ESPECIALLY the butcher block island :-)  Next project inside for me is to tackle our baby poop colored bathroom and green bedroom, i see some overhead lighing installation, paint for sure, and possible closet door facelift...wish me luck, throw in some outdoor landscaping and call it spring :-)

 

This is how we got the kitchen with the house...not bad just not our taste, especially the wood pulls on the wood cainets, ugh

Old appliances...old owners took the fridge with them and we sent the oven to my parents rental up north. the new appliances mad a world of difference

View of the overall kitchen, use this to compare to the finished product :-)

New Years Eve dinner preparation....functional yet ugly

testing out paint color for the accent island

wall and cabinet paint next to one another, making sure the finished product will jive

hardware removed and organized for smooth replacement after the paint has been completed

Doors removed and ready for prep

Doors laid out in the garage for assembly line painting...learning curve on this one, when you flip them put them on plastic (garbage bags) insted of paper towels, the "dry" paint sticks to the paper towels....extra touch up paint work

 

Cabinet boxes prepped and ready for final paint color

 

Kyle painting away on the island, nice accent piece :-)

doors have been painted on one side, time to flip

Kitchen painted and ready for sealing, just waiting on those darn doors

doors flipped and painted on second side, ready to seal!

Doors sealed and hung, patiently wait for a little bit to install the pulls.

 

while waiting for pull installation, time to plant cool/shade garden :-)

we planted two avocado trees and can't wait to harvest them :-)

sequoia, our strawberry theif, helped me plant our fun new strawberry pot

Tucker as always was quite the helper, he assisted in the planting of potatoes, soy beans, sugar snap peas, arugala, butter leaf lettuce, and romain lettuce.  Now we wait for the harvest season. 

AND....the finished product minus one door and touchup paint, but not bad eh??