snow in the mountains

We went up to Roan Mountain area the day after it snowed during the night and it was so beautiful.  We had a bluebird day hiking around and Maddy was ecstatic to be running around in the snow.  I don't know what it is, but she loves to run, roll and dig her head down in the snow. I don't know if it is the texture of the snow or that it is cold or what, but it makes us happy just to watch her go crazy over the snow.

She was this thrilled all day long!  Mat and I enjoyed taking pictures and hanging out in the snow.  We actually were able to make use of our gaiters and snowpants out here!  Yay!

We tried to take a family picture, but it's hard to keep Maddy facing the camera as that isn't as interesting as watching Mat run back from setting up the camera.

Such a beautiful day!  And to top it off we showed up for dinner at Mat's parents house and had some wonderful warm soup.

Lighting for our counter/bar stool area

Since Mat was working on putting in light switches on the walls in the rooms that still had pull switches on the light, we decided that we should put in lighting over the counter/bar area that is a little dark because the light is behind us when working at the counter.

Mat drilled a couple holes up into the ceiling to be able to place the light mount and as he drilled down to make the holes larger, I yelled up to him to stop because the acoustic tile ceiling was pushing out.

We've always disliked our acoustic tiles that are our ceiling, but have thought that they were glued to the sheet rock/plaster layer above. We had always talked how we could change our ceiling, but it was always a bigger endeavor than we wanted to get into.

But when the tile was pushed out by the drill Mat was really excited to see that it wasn't glued just stapled to a board above. So, we have taken out all the tile ceiling and are now going to be fixing all the cracks and and finishing the ceiling and then we'll go back to placing the light fixture in above the counter.

Funny, how a little task is now going to be our adventure for the next week or so.

Agoraphobia...I think I might have it

Mat's sister, Sara and her boyfriend are in Seoul, South Korea teaching English at school. She has been emailing and every so often updating their "Our Daily Korea" blog. It sounds like they are enjoying it all. I get a little freaked out when I think about all the people who are living in Seoul. Around 10 million people, that is all! With J-P in Shanghai, where there resides only 20 million people, it's making me think about how do people live there (i.e. cities)?

Now, I don't mind going to crowded places such as festivals or events, but I know at the end of the day or weekend that we are all leaving to go to our own little spot that we call home. I also know that according to urban planners, that it is best use of space to have everyone living in tall buildings in a city. But seriously, it boggles my mind to think of all the people that are going about their daily business such as eating, driving, and working. And having no personal space.

A January walk in the woods

Since I had not ever been out to Linville Falls or to Table Rock, we decided to make a day out of it and do both. When we arrived at the trailhead to Linville Falls there was only one car in a parking lot designed for about 100. It was a few short quick walks out to all the different viewpoints and I can only imagine how crowded it must be on a nice spring, summer or fall day.

I also wanted to check out this area to see the hemlocks that were being treated for the woolly adelgid. We saw a bunch of the healthy ones that had been treated by the Parkway (i.e. Mat and his co-worker and boss). You could also look across and down Linville Gorge to see all the dying hemlock trees that hadn't been treated.

Linville Falls was beautiful with a light skiff of snow...we actually thought we were going to be hiking in more snow, but there wasn't much.

We continued on to the Table Rock area...which entails a drive down a dirt road for about 9 miles.  We were driving on it for a REALLY long time and came upon a gate.  Since it was a nice day, we decided to walk up the road and see if the trailhead was within walking distance.  After walking up this section of road that is so steep and so heavily used in the summer that it has been asphalted, we reached the trailhead.  We came across a group of about 20 backpackers.  Which Madera had a delightful time running through and greeting.  After that we had the area to ourselves.  It was a beautiful late day walk up to the top.

Christmas 2008

Mat and I enjoyed spending time with everyone in the family over this Christmas time.  It was wonderful to see how everyone is doing.  Alex is turning into such an amazing guitar player and getting to be so tall!  It really doesn't seem all that long ago that he was born and I was going up to visit him in Ogden.

It was a lot of fun to get out snowboarding with Rachel, J-P, and Phil.  Thanks, Mar and Mary Ann and kids, for letting them come for a day.  It was a beautiful day with some new snow on the ground.





That is Phil in the background with his goggles on...posing incognito!  I think we've talked about going snowboarding for several holidays now, so it was nice to get out.  Next year, hopefully Spencer will be out there and maybe anyone else who'd like to go...but didn't go this year.

Floor Installation project

A couple months before Christmas, Mom mentioned she wanted to change from her linoleum and carpet floors to wood laminate.

So I told her, "No problem, it should only take a couple of days!"

It took about a week longer than that and mom was probably wishing that she had gone on vacation to get away from the chaos.  :)  Which included having the refrigerator in the front room.  It really can't be any more convenient...walk in the door and think hey, I'm hungry and head straight for the fridge!

Thanks to Spencer  for letting us borrow his table saw.  Between that, a jigsaw and a chop box that was borrowed from a volunteer fireman it made the installation much faster than if we'd only had a handheld saw.  Mom, John-Paul and Sarah were roped into working with us to help speed the project along.  I think on day 2 Mat, mom and I were still scraping up the linoleum backing and glue in the kitchen!

Although it took longer than I anticipated...it took about as long as Mat thought it would.  I think my basis is off of the show Extreme Makeover with Ty and I've only seen it a few times.  But they seemed to get things done in weekend.  I forgot to take into consideration that they usually have a crew of people working on the project and that it is a television show.  It was fun though and it was nice to see it in place before the rest of the family showed up on Christmas eve.