Nana and Papa's House

After our visit with Grandma and Grandpa, we took the train down to Oregon. We like taking the train because it's much more laid-back than air travel, and being on the train is quiet, roomy, and comfortable. The tracks follow the Puget Sound all the way to its southern end so it's a scenic ride, and they pass right underneath the Tacoma Narrows bridges.

The stations are also scenic of their own right.

From the station we went to OMSI for some science, like levitating balls and some chemistry.

The kids always enjoy playing in the little stream and pond at Nana and Papa's house. Though while most kids just put their feet in the water and play with the rocks...

Caleb had no problem getting all the way in.

Caleb loved his corn on the cob.

While in the area we were able to attend Cousin Issy's first birthday party.

Caleb got some help from Cousin Mark on the rocking horse.

He also thought it was a hilarious joke to throw water on Mommy.

Another day we went to a splash park. Caleb loved it.

Celia was a little tepid about getting water in her face.

And Sabrina seemed to like to take the jets right in the bum.

We then went out to the beach for a few days for the Fourth of July. When we first got there is was grey and cool, which is fairly typical...

But on the Fourth it was hot and sunny.

We got to march with our cousins in the local parade.

And the kids got to participate in the reunion pageantry.

Caleb was really interested in Cousin Ivory's pacifier. Since he stopped using a pacifier before he was one, it was new to him again, so the whole time he played with her he gave her this confused look.

We spent a lot of time down at the beach, playing in the sand.

Caleb ended up messier than the rest.

After nightfall the kids got to stay up and watch the fireworks. We had a great view from our cousins' rental house. All these fireworks were lit from the beach where "Fireworks Prohibited" signs are displayed prominently at the entrance, so local law enforcement apparently turn a blind eye to these large, conspicuous displays on Independence Day.

After the Fourth it was time to head back home to Alaska. There was much grief expressed on the internet over the replacement of the Portland Airport carpet. But maybe in 30 years our kids will be just as upset about the replacement of the new carpet.

Grandma and Grandpa's House

We took a trip down to Washington in June to visit the grandparents. There was beautiful, sunny weather the whole time. We all enjoyed hanging outside, eating and lounging.

The gravel in the backyard has always brought hours to fun to our kids at all ages.

Pork ribs, anyone?

They played hard and slept hard.

And Caleb liked that Grandpa helped him get to places he couldn't normally play.

One day we went out the family cabin and had all sorts of fun.

Here we are discovering root beer.

And making the most of our s'mores.

The kids got to stay with Grandma and Grandpa alone for a night while the two of us parents escaped off to Bainbridge Island. We had delicious crepes at a restaurant where all the staff are flown to Paris for training, and we stayed in a lovely little cottage.

We also got to see some cousins and drive some cars.

And we met some more cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents for a nice picnic dinner.

We only had a few roasting sticks so we tried to develop a more efficient way to work with what we had. It was great for melting the chocolate and toasting the crackers, but the marshmallows just expanded into the grate and stuck there so it wasn't ideal. But we learned something.

And that was our Seattle visit in a nutshell.

Windows were just the beginning...

In February or March we signed up for the Alaska Home Energy Rebate program. In this program, people go out to inspect houses and make recommendations on what can be done to improve their energy efficiency. Then once improvements have been made, the state will reimburse the costs at varying levels, based on what work has been done. The sole reason we signed up for the program was to get new windows, but while we were at it we took the opportunity to do a bunch of other projects too. 

The first big project was the water heater. When the energy auditor came to do the first inspection we went down in the crawlspace and discovered the water heater was leaking, so that had to be fixed right away. We decided to do as much as we could on our own to save money, so I learned how to replace a water heater. We replaced our old tank water heater in the crawlspace with an on demand unit in the garage. I spent quite a lot of time in the crawlspace and the garage and learned a ton about rerouting water and gas pipes and running exhaust vents to the outside. The new water heater is efficient because it only heats water as you need it, instead of keeping a big tank warm all the time for the few minutes we need hot water every day. Although Marel worries (only half jokingly) that it may turn out to be less efficient for her, because she used to take showers until the hot water ran out, but with the new water heater, it never runs out of hot water so she doesn't know when to get out.

After all the work done and time spent, and with a new water heater hooked up and working, we realized we needed to get the old one out, which turned out to be almost as challenging as the rest of the project, requiring some ratcheting cables to hoist it out of the crawlspace.

One of the smaller projects was replacing our bathroom fans and all the ductwork attached to them. We found out that the upstairs fan had a flimsy, flexible tube that had become detached from the vent on the roof, so it was just spitting moisture from the bathroom into the attic. Then we found out that the downstairs fan didn't even have a vent, so it wasn't effectively moving moisture anywhere. The things you learn when you start taking your house apart.... Now we can take showers with endless hot water and the mirrors don't even fog up!

We also replaced the front door. The old one was mounted a little crooked and was hard to open and close, and became even harder to open and close on the coldest days, when it's most important to keep the door closed. It's been nice having a door that opens and closes easily.

And in order to get the old door out and new one in, we had to remove the old railing, and when I did so it sort of disintegrated because it was built in such a way that rainwater pooled in it and rotted the wood out. So I replaced the railing too.

We also added insulation to the attic and crawlspace. The crawlspace was a long process because I had to foam-seal between the floor joists and hang fiberglass batts, but the attic was quick and easy. We just had to pick up the machine and a bunch of insulation and blow it in. It was sort of a lot of fun blowing it in. The machine outside that you feed the insulation blocks into is kind of like a giant shop-vac--big and noisy--but being up in the attic with the hose was surprisingly quiet and peaceful. It was like being in heavy snowfall out in the woods.

This is what was happening a lot of times while I was working on projects...we had a pretty nice summer.

Also somewhere along the way we got our garage door replaced, which was the only work we hired out for. Then in December we had the follow-up audit and found out that the efficiency of our home improved enough to get all our money back, minus the cost of tools (which aren't covered by the program). So by doing all these projects ourselves under the state rebate program, we made all these improvements for only the cost of the tools we used to do them! And after all that work last year, we're really ready to sit back and relax in our warm house this winter.