Well after a small hiatus, the home improvement has begun again.. woohoo! or not so much woohoo if you ask Brian:-). The last2 months has once again been super busy. I spent 3 weeks doing a "roadshow" with my company.. I've learned not to ever fly United Airlines again..ugh, 4 delayed flights, an almost cancellation with no apology.. yeah I dont' think so. I also realized that SeaTac is probablyy one of the better airports in the west coast.. Anyhow, got back, kicked off reviews..took a quick trip to Vegas with Brian..we unfortunately didn't win..again.. so I had to go back to work..sigh.. went camping too and brought Stanley. I think he had a great time. John, Jessica, Jaime, Kelley, Kevin, Jordan, Brian and I went out to the Enumclaw area and spent 2 days at the Silver Springs camp grounds.. we ate lots of food..lots and lots of marshmallows.. had a good time. Jenny is off to Smith in a week ..sniff snifff..she's all grown up.. oh and Markane is in town.. theres always lots of dinners and poker when Markane is in town.. We also spent a weekend at Uncle Tom's cabin..always a good time.. along with a wedding in Port Townsend...Anyhow back to the housework...we have taken on the major task of redoing our siding..yep, .. I can't believe it..one minute we're talking about it, the next minute John and Brian are tearing a piece of siding off.. What we found under it was the original cedar in a baby blue.. it looked okay and there was hope by Brian of salvaging it but I think thats all gone after opening up the rest of the far side of the house today.. yeah its there.. not so sure its salavageable..makes sense now why they wrapped it in vinyl. There appears to be water damage too..yikes.. So what this means is taking the cedar off as well, looking at the board under that to see what shape its in..do repairs, cover it in a vapor barrier and putting up hardi plank siding..lots of work but it'll be so worth it I think when its done. Personally we are just not big fans of vinyl.. It looks great in some homes but jsut doens't suit this one all that much..not to mention what we found today is that whoever put it up did not do a very good job.. in fact I'll go as far as saying its a pretty "shoddy" job.. I am so nervous aobut this whole project..its HUGE.. probably bigger then the kitchen remodel..so we'll see.. the interior got a lot of love these last 2 years and now its time for the exterior.. the siding is probably about 30+ years old and starting to crack, buckle, us due to all the repair work outside, there are holes, gaps.. so it was time but nevertheless, its just nervewracking to see Brian going up a 24 feet ladder.. we're going to rent scaffolding so hopefully that'll make it safer.. at least it'll make me a little less nervous:-)

Pictures of course to come! hmm.. maybe now is the time for a camera..