The Great Eight

Today Steve and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. We had a nice dinner out at a place I'd been wanting to try, Cafe Cruz. Quite tasty.

In our kitchen before heading out to dinner (because blog posts are kinda boring without pictures):

And... that's about it. We enjoy going out to dinner and chatting; I'm thankful we still somehow manage to find topics of conversation after nearly fourteen years together (and two years of friendship before that). We'd been so busy lately that neither of us remembered until last night that our anniversary was imminent. Time flies.

Be-siding Ourselves

One day a few months back, Steve decided to try to get a better signal with our television antenna. So he got out the ladder and leaned it against the siding of the house. He was met with an unsettling sound: "crunch."

Sometime in our house's past, termites were allowed to run rampant. We had an inspection done when we were purchasing the place that found no active, live infestation. That was the good news. The bad news was the unknown legacy damage lurking in our walls, floors and ceilings.

Some of this damage was found when our contractor's crew was working in the kitchen. They opened up a wall and found that one of the studs was quite literally half-eaten.

When working in the attic, Steve and I (and our contractor's crew) patched quite a bit of old damage. At some point in time, our attic was overrun with termites. While they ate quite a bit of the rafters, the ceiling joists were untouched.

Given all this, we didn't know what we would face in the walls when a portion of our exterior siding was removed to replace the damaged boards. It could potentially have become an enormous project. So we hired our contractor back to take it on.

Siding removed:

In the end we were incredibly lucky. On one wall, they only had to replace one damaged board and all of the structure underneath looked great. On the other wall, one stud (miraculously, only one!) was eaten and needed to be supported with new lumber.

Damaged stud (the half-eaten one in the middle):

For those unfamiliar with lath-and-plaster walls, the white "ooze" showing in those pictures is normal; when plaster is applied on the base of wood strips (lath), it squishes through the spaces between the boards, leaving this look (normally unseen, of course) inside the walls.

Beautiful brand-new bathroom window and replacement siding (with insulation and moisture barrier underneath):

Primed and ready for paint:

We have picked our new main house color (a very soft yellow) and will likely embark on the massive project that is repainting the house later this summer.

As an aside, the rainspout in that last shot is so high up because a rain barrel (moved out of the way for this project) fits underneath it.

It's quite a relief to find that our house is more structurally sound than we feared.

Mexico

My family has vacationed in the Cabo San Lucas area of Baja California for a long time. My grandparents began going in the '80's. Though my last visit was 13 years ago, my parents continued to go while my brother and I were busy with college and starting our independent lives.

I admit I'd rebuffed my parents' invitations to return to Cabo. Fun and sun are not really my speed. I'm more for shady and sedate. But since Steve had never been, I eventually conceded and we had a really nice time sharing a spacious suite with my parents last week.

Steve and me on the balcony of our room: 

 My family's traditional afternoon activity, quietly reading:

Resort from the beach:

We went on a sunset cruise on a catamaran. I don't do well on small boats (well, any boats really, but smaller boats pitch and roll more than larger ones), so I was grateful when we showed up at the dock to find a fairly large vessel.

My unbelievably handsome husband on the boat:

I mean, seriously, he gets cuter every day. It's absurd. Anyway...

The very tip of Baja:

My parents pose with us:

Getting brunch at my family's favorite spot on the beach in Cabo, "The Office": 

As a kid, I have fond memories of digging my feet into the sand at The Office while waiting for our food. They have the most amazing dishes made with locally caught shrimp.

Thanks to SPF 100+ sunscreen (applied so generously I appeared ghostly) and wearing a large hat, I managed to survive the trip without any trace of sunburn. I am definitely not designed for that much sun, so I was quite pleased with that accomplishment.

It's not a climate I'm especially eager to return to with great frequency, but it was a nice break from working on the house. Although admittedly the week wasn't fully devoid of house-related activities. I created a scale drawing of Steve's and my kitchen and brought it along to get design input from my parents. Plots are now afoot to change the entire kitchen layout. Vacation's over, back to work!