Gramma's House Remodel

Here's a little update on the house that dad is remodeling. For those who don't know, gramma passed away in 2007 and my dad owns the house now. He has been remodeling it for a while now. I used to have more pictures of gramma's house and property but I foolishly lost all those photos when geocities closed up shop. Sigh.

So here's the best "before" pic  could find. My sister is 9 in this pic. Hello 2001!

Now here are some links to some photo sessions done in the past. http://gallery.niroha.com/gallery/index.php?spgmGal=misc/Grammas_house_remodel

And now that is out of the way so I can proceed onward to today's photos.

New roof. New hardiplank siding (new color still undecided). 

New windows.

The garage storage area on the right side will be torn down and an attached garage will be built there.

 Dad showing off the interior. 

Plumbing and electrical done. Soon they will install insulation.

 This is looking towards what was the wash room

 Upstairs view:

New rafters, new ceilings, new walls are going up.

There was a lot of wood rot up here so it had to be gutted. 

The upstairs area will have 2 beds, 2 baths (and the washer/dryer)

 main floor, looking from kitchen towards the stairs

 New wood beams

And of COURSE there are doggy pics. The love coming over here because it's the only time they have a chance to run free without restrictions. 

No ball required - they run themselves silly here.

Find the pups!

 mmmmm swamp grass

And rob wonders why I want to get out of the city and own more land. All you have to do is look at these pics to know why.

More Snow Pics

The snow is gone now but the girls had fun while it lasted. I managed to get Sadie out there and run around by bringing out a bouncy ball. She's so ball focused the yard could be swimming in hot lava and she wouldn't care.

A little update on Miss Sadie though - she's currently sick with kennel cough. Best guess is she got it from a flyball tournament or practice. She was vaccinated for it but it loses effectiveness at 6 months and she was 6 months out from her vaccination at the flyball tournament. Suck.

Here's a few typical ball-chase-scenes

 Sadie wants me to throw the ball.

 This was taken at Seattle University. Violet was cold so she's wearing my scarf.

Snow Day

So we got a little more snow (I think we got about 4-5" or so) and Violet looooves it. She thinks snow is the bestest thing ever!

View from our back deck

This was Violet's attempt at getting Sadie out in the snow to play

(it didnt work)

A paused pose before going nuts

Bottoms Up

HERE I COME!!!

 Notice Sadie in the background - one paw up. 

I'm pretty sure Sadie is saying "Oh HELL no!"

Nice snow beard, Vi

First Snow

Yesterday we saw the first signs of snow for the year. Just a little dusting, not even enough to cover the ground. I woke up this morning to enough to actually cover the ground! This is Violet's first exposure to snow and she was pretty excited to zip around in it. Sadie couldn't have cared less. She wanted to pee and run back inside where it is warm!

As I was looking out over my yard, I noticed my pineapple sage finally came into bloom. Perfect timing!

My hydrangea looks pretty in a snow cap

And last but not least, Princess Violet enjoying her first snow romp

Surrey BC Flyball Tournament

This happened weeks ago. I'm just slow at updating. So sue me.

We spent our day at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds for a flyball tournament. For those who are reading this and asking themselves, "WTF is flyball?" click here.
Sadie didn't run. She's soooo close to being able to run but she's not there yet. She is up to 2-3 jumps while working the box but she's inconsistent with the 3rd jump. Four jumps is considered a full run. And that's not even with a team run in mind - that's just her by herself. So she has some work ahead of her  yet before she's consistent enough to put her in a race.

Anyway, that's all boring stuff. Pictures are way more interesting.

Team Pic (minus me, the photographer)

Kristie & Danger

Paul & Savage 

(Savage & Danger are littermate brothers)

Jen showing off our new best time

Matt looks stunning in pink, especially when walking a dainty little girly dog

smoosh

Crazy Danger getting his crazy on

Sprite!

Sadie - pure happiness

Ready to race!

Paul & Savage

Human Intruder

Last night we got to babysit 5 month old Fiona!  Violet thought she had died and gone to baby heaven (she loves kids). Fiona isn't a simple babysitting case because she was born with a giant omphalocele (info on a similar case here). So she has an NG tube and is auto fed through this little machine thingy and I had to master all those things while caring for her.

As soon as daddy left she got cranky. So this is what we did for the first hour till she fell asleep. Walk walk walk

Asleep at last

Fiona likes her new puppy friend

My Puppy! (says Fiona)

We taught Violet not to kiss Fiona on the face. So to get around that Violet would gently sniff her face and Fiona saw that as an opportunity to nom the puppy's nose. We actually had to stop her many times from making out with Vi's nose. (Violet thought this was the best game ever)

very content duo

Bliss