Farewell to July

Summer is almost over! Gi's preschool starts again in August and pretty soon we will find ourselves back in the daily routine of school, music class, gym class, repeat so I wanted to get at least a little update on here about what the last month has been like for us.

We celebrated 5 years of marriage this month and spent about two weeks celebrating. We saw an India Arie concert for free and took a couple date nights out for dinner as well as a weekend at the Resort at Squaw Creek with the kids. There we enjoyed hot tubbing, rollerskating, visiting high camp and a simply DE-lish meal at the PlumpJack, where Diego the bartender from Argentina served me up a concoction of Gin and gin and more gin and some juices and liqueurs that I can't recall but which left me tingly and happy and perfectly primed for the 5 star meal that followed. I'm officially over my reluctance to embrace Squaw for fear of being relegated as one of "those" pretentious types. The resort and the restaurant there were nothing short of amazing and totally deserved of the hype. Sadly or happily, we had so much fun I only have photos of Gi on a pony ride and Noa and Gi in the pool. For once I did not document the experience as I was immersed in the enjoyment of it!

On the home front we finally decided to finish our basement which was framed but not insulated or finished when we first bought the house. We are horrible contractor shoppers so we interviewed someone who came highly recommended to us and when the price was what we were thinking of spending we okayed the job on the spot. Our plans for an extension and bathroom got nixed due to budget but we ended up with a 224 sq. ft space with 12ft ceilings, a wide door to access the rest of the under-house and a new storage platform that now features the wood shelves that were tacked onto the walls of the original room. The contractor put in a glulam beam to support the weight of the master bedroom floor and took out the two 2x4 posts that were taking up center space in the room. That leaves us with a bright, airy, totally insulated and drywalled guest room/exercise room/craft room. All that is left is to paint, mount the ceiling fan, find some mini spotlights, buy window shades and get a friend to do the tile work for cash. Botta bing! We're in business for the holidays and all the family we'll have staying with us.

Here are some pics of the finished room and storage under the house: