Garage work and snow play

Happy (almost) March! We've had a very busy February. Here's what's been going on in our lives:
Logan and his dad worked throughout Valentine's Day weekend, and into the next week, to build some new attic space into our garage. Previously, our garage had a really high peaked roof, and we had very little storage space. What we had was difficult to reach. We've now got more storage space than we know what to do with. It's fantastic!
Here's a photo of Clark "helping" us prepare for our guests. We bought a new guest bed with a pull-out trundle, so my in-laws were both able to sleep in our tiny guest bedroom. Clark decided he had to try out the trundle bed just to make sure it was sufficiently comfortable. It passed inspection!: I had to work both Saturday and Sunday while our guests were here, but I did manage to pull together a special dessert for our Valentine's Day dinner, courtesy of Trader Joe's. The chocolate souffles looked really pretty, and tasted great:
Here is a "during" photo of the garage work. The rope hanging from the new ceiling beams is attached to our new pull-down ladder:
Clark really enjoyed bonding with my mother-in-law while they visited. The two of them stayed warm and dry inside the house while the rain poured down and the guys worked in the garage:
Another highlight of our weekend was getting to spend the afternoon and evening with our best friends from college. Chris and Jenn were visiting the Bay Area from Ukiah, and Matt came down to have dinner with us and meet baby Kira. We went to our favorite Thai restaurant and really enjoyed our short time together. Here are the three men with the baby:
After five straight days of working in the garage, Logan was glad to spend some time having fun. We left on Thursday morning to drive to Tahoe for four days in the snow. There wasn't a whole lot of snow on the ground, and it unfortunately didn't snow on us while we were there, but we had fun anyway. We spent the first night in a hotel, and this was Clark's first time staying at a hotel. He wasn't too sure about it since he could hear people moving around in the corridor outside, but he ended up settling down and sleeping well enough. Here he is sitting on the edge of the whirpool tub:
We walked around the stateline area on Friday morning, and passed all of the wood carvings in front of the Heavenly shopping area. When Logan pointed this wild cat carving out to Clark, he was quite startled by it!:
After we checked out of the hotel and had some lunch we drove to the new dog park in South Lake Tahoe. It's a really nice, large fenced park. The snow was all packed down, so it took Clark a while to get the hang of running on the slick snow. But he managed to do well enough, and had a great time:
Now that's a happy doggie smile!:
My two boys:
Clark and me among the trees in the park:
After our fun at the dog park we headed over to the cabin we were renting with some friends. We had a relaxing afternoon and evening watching movies while we waited for our friends to arrive.
The next day we took a walk around the neighborhood and then drove to walk along the water's edge at the lake. The snow was deeper there, and we had fun trudging through the snow.
The view of a dockhouse on the lake:
A group shot (minus Kirsten and Mike, who stayed at the cabin):
After a bit of lunch back at the cabin, all of us drove to our favorite sledding hill to have some fun. It took Clark a while to get the idea that our screams as we flew down the hill were happy, not scared. Once he realized it was all in fun, he enjoyed chasing us down the hill. He drew the line at sledding with us though- it was just too scary for him, and we didn't want him to get hurt.
Our (complete) group shot at the end of our sledding trip:
Clark slept at the cabin while we went out for dinner, and then we had a relaxing evening watching TV. Clark took the opportunity to cuddle up with his new favorite person, Ann:
Below are a few video clips from the weekend, one of the snowball fight at the lake (Clark loves to catch and eat snowballs!), and the other of him chasing down the sled.
My next post will probably feature pictures of the finished garage. We've got to get back to work next weekend- after we're done celebrating Logan's birthday, that is!

Go Jacks!

Just a quick update this time...
On Friday afternoon I got off work early so I could join Logan and my parents for a trip down to see the Humboldt State Lumberjacks men's basketball team play against the CSU Monterey Otters. They won- yay! It was a cold and rainy night- perfect for a warm dinner at Phil's Fish Restaurant in Moss Landing before the game.
At the restaurant we met up with my parents' college friends, Frank & Shari and Rocky & Loretta. For those of you who don't know, Logan and I followed in my parents' footsteps when we decided to go to Humboldt. We're still homesick for it- it's a great area.After our fun Friday night at the basketball game, Logan and I spent Saturday getting ready for our next big home improvement project: finishing the garage. But first we took a trip to see my friend Julie's new house, and went to Lowe's to get a few things. Seeing Julie's house reminded me of ours when we first bought it- so much potential and so many projects to do!
When we got home we started by taking everything out of the shed and then out of the garage. We managed to fit everything back in the shed, so our garage is now nice and empty. Clark, of course, was a big help! He must have sniffed a ton of dirt up his nose. My next update will hopefully feature a much different looking garage. Logan's parents are coming up this weekend to help us work on the garage- we'll be insulating the walls, creating more attic space, and getting some much-needed storage cabinets!
Cute Clark photo of the week: I just love his expressive eyes and cute puppy smile. I took this photo last Monday morning after our run.

January? Where did it go?!

I'm still convinced that January just started- I don't know how it can be February already.
We had a busy and fun January. We took a few days on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend to drive up to Ukiah to visit our friends the Douthits. Their daughter Kira is almost four months old, and the last time we saw her was when she was a week old. So we thought we'd go see how much she has grown since then, and the change was amazing! Jenn says that at three months old Kira was as big as a six-month-old. She smiles a lot and enjoys being outside.Kira had fun hanging out with Logan on Sunday morning while Jenn made us yummy chocolate chip pancakes. Around noon we drove over to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which is the private Buddhist school where Jenn taught last year. It's a lovely campus which features dormitories for the resident students, a large temple, and a wonderful vegetarian restaurant. We really enjoyed our lunch and our walk around the campus. After we finished lunch we drove up to a redwood forest outside Ukiah for a short hike. The road up there was really winding, so I didn't feel so good by the time we arrived. But the fresh forest air made me feel much better. It was really chilly in the forest, but so beautiful. Kira was really happy to hang out in the carrier with Jenn as we hiked along. Here's a picture of the four of us that was taken by Chris and Jenn's friend who came along for the hike: And for the random cute Clark photo of the month... Clark is really funny when he decides to put just his front paws up on the couch. He'll stand there for ten minutes or so and chew his bone while he stands up. We keep saying he's the strangest dog ever. I worked a few weekend days in January, but luckily I wasn't scheduled to work this weekend. Yesterday we spent several hours landscaping our side yard. We've been meaning to do this for a while, and I'm so excited that we finally started. I forgot to take a "before" photo, but I'll go out to take a "during" photo tomorrow. We pulled lots of weeds, covered the ground with weed preventing fabric, and then got a half ton of gravel to put on top. A half ton sounds like a lot, but we'll probably need at least another ton to cover the whole area. Needless to say, Logan and I are both sore today from the work.
Today we had my parents and grandmothers and our friend Heather over to our house to watch the Super Bowl. My dad and his family are from Pennsylvania, so we were all rooting for the Steelers, and were on the edge of our seats during the last quarter.
Clark LOVES my dad, so he was thrilled to hang out on his lap for a while. Yes, our 67 pound dog is sure he's a lap dog: As I've mentioned before, Clark's not too sure about having additional people in the house, but he did really well today. He calmed down quickly and was happy to chew on his bone while we watched the game: We don't get much chance to use our tall bar stools, but Logan and I enjoyed sitting on them today: My mom and two grandmas on the couch: Up next: finishing the side yard, working on the front yard, and getting ready to finish the garage. And for fun, a trip to Tahoe in a few weeks to have Clark see the snow (if there is any!)