Let's capitalize on the "new house" energy while it lasts!

Not surprisingly, we've been busy getting settled in the new place. In the photos immediately after moving in, we showed you how our table looked tiny in the dining room. The solution? Buy a new dining table of course! We've put it to good use having friends over for dinner and hosting a fun night with my coworkers.

Ryan and I have also been busy cleaning up our side garden area. First, my friend, Amy (a master gardener), spent a day helping me take out an old "raised" bed -- it was only 2 or 3 inches higher than ground level -- and put together an herb garden. Then, we cleared out what seemed like an endless amount of weeds and overgrown grasses. Ryan helped me build 8-inch high raised beds and redo the drip irrigation system. Today, we finished the project by planting some fall veggies including kale, broccoli, chard, and golden beets.

A few things we learned from this experience: 1. Ryan is not nearly as enthusiastic about Swanson's nursery as I am; 2. gardening is my new therapy to teach me patience and the art of "chillaxing"; and 3. Soma is like a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to the plants in our herb garden. Needless to say, we put up some low fencing to keep him out.

Stay out, Soma!

My awesome potting bench a la Amy and Byron.
The bench is a little too clean for my taste...

That's better!

New raised beds with lots of veggies and some creeping Elfin thyme near the walkway.

Another view of the garden

Ryan working hard on the new drip irrigation system

Behold the glory of Ryan's hard work!

I wondered why my lillies were looking a little flat.

Hurray! A second round of blooms coming from some of our 10 rose plants!

A sign of good things to come!

Special Thanks

One more thing about our new house. In our original post, we thanked our wonder real estate agent, Nicole, but we forgot to thank the fabulous mortgage guru, Fred Holland. Fred did a great job working on a tight time schedule and managing around our vacation schedule. Thanks, Fred!

Finally! News from the new house!

Let me start by saying that I'm sorry to all those who have contacted us with congratulations and well wishes without hearing a "thank you" or any response for that matter. For the last month or two, life has been crazy to say the least. We've appreciated and loved all the kind words from those who matter most to us, and we hope we haven't hurt anyone's feelings.

Two weeks ago, we closed on our new house and began the moving process. We've learned a lot (the value of hiring someone to help with the move itself, taking extra time off from work to get settled, etc.) and we love the new place!! A previous post showed some photos of the house before we bought it and made it our own. Here's what the house looks like when the Nonericks get a hold of it!

Are we having fun yet?

Soma gets off easy in the moving process -- he just enjoyed his new yard while we huffed and puffed.

Ryan enjoys his new living room

This is supposed to be our bedroom?

Somehow our furniture looks pathetic in the new place.

Slowly things get settled and put into place

"So, I guess we're getting take out?"

First visitors!!
Jill, Sadie, and Amy brought over burritos and were the first guests to the Chateau de Nonerick.

We are over the moon about the new place! Look for address change information soon and stay tuned to the blog for updates on our new life as residents of the Crown Hill neighborhood!

Mark and Tara's Wedding Movie!

We're a little behind these days -- moving has stalled everything. We will post about our new house and our big move within the next few days, but before that we want to share a video we made of Mark and Tara's fabulous wedding in Michigan. Mark grew up with Ryan (their parents are best friends), and he is always the life of the party. We had a blast! As luck would have it, we shared a flight out of Traverse City with Mark and Tara on the morning after the party!

To Mark and Tara: thanks for showing us a good time, and it was great to meet Tara and her family. We hope you enjoyed your tropical honeymoon! Say "hi" to Jake!

Vacation!!!

We just got back from a fabulous trip to the Midwest. We traveled to Wisconsin to visit Matt (my brother), Emily (my sister-in-law), Lucy and Amelia (my nieces), and Ted (the loyal family Shih-tzu). On the first night of our trip, we enjoyed dinner with another Nonemacher brother, Jake, and his wife, Jenna.

While we love seeing the adults, the visit is really all about playing with Lucy and Amelia. Here's a video of the good times we had with some clips from the past thrown in.

We also drove to Michigan to attend an absolutely beautiful wedding. We'll post pictures of that part of our vacation asap. Apologies for the lack of details, but we are in the middle of packing for our big move this week. We close on our house on Wednesday and move on Thursday and Friday. More to come!!

Doing Our Part For Economic Recovery

The last week has been absolutely insane. The week started with Ryan leaving town for the Mac Worldwide Developer's Conference on the same day that a great house came on the market. Let me back up for a second, a couple weeks ago, Ryan and I started looking at houses with our fabulous realtor, Nicole Barclay. Of course when Ryan has to leave town, the right house comes on the market. So I went to look at the place with two of our very close friends, Amy and Byron, who have a fabulous bungalow that they renovated from an old and outdated mess to a beautiful home. In other words, they know about houses and Ryan and I trust their opinion.

Before Ryan left, he saw a couple photos of the house and was distracted by a ladder-like structure in the kitchen. He didn't want to look at the house and made a VERY clear point that he wasn't going to buy a house with "a ladder in it". The rest of the house looked great, so I argued that we should at least look at the place. The kicker? Ryan was leaving for sunny California in a couple hours.

So he left and Amy, Byron, and I went to go look at the house. Of course it was awesome! The ladder was a little weird but not nearly as bad as we thought. The current owner is an artist and a wood worker, so the "ladder" is more like a permanent attic stair structure that leads to a great finished attic/second story. There are too many fabulous things about the house to mention: wonderful details that you don't get in newer construction, great garden space, a perfect mini-patio for a hammock, beautiful old trees, etc. However, the best part is that the house is about a block from the Packer bar that I like to go to during football season. We also think that we can see the Olympic mountains from our second story window, but it was cloudy and we couldn't confirm that fact.

Anyway, Ryan was gone and it was up to me to decide whether this was a house that we wanted to put an offer on. I went for it and we got the house! I've been losing sleep all week because Ryan hadn't seen the place and may end up hating it -- especially the "ladder". Ryan returned from Cali last night, and we just came back from Ryan's first tour of the place. THANK GOD HE LOVES IT!

What do you think?

It's a Craftsman house that was built in 1910.
The owners have really loved the home and taken good care of the place. I'm already scheming about what to do with the garden. Mature climbing roses and wisteria line the side of the house and the potential is tremendous!

10+ foot ceilings with curved detailing and a working (we think) wood burning fireplace had us at "hello".

A huge dining room ready for lots of company and visitors!

The office - notice the Mac computers.
This was a sign that the place was meant for us!

The kitchen could use some customizing for our taste, but the appliances are new and the size and layout are fabulous!

The "ladder" to the second floor

The beautiful backyard with old trees and an ancient lilac.
Soma will love it!

Mudroom perfect for wiping off muddy paws!

Master bedroom with bathroom and wicked high ceilings.

The finished second story, which is perfect for a guest room!
When we build a staircase, we may convert this into a master. Regardless, visitors are welcome and we have lots of room!!

On to the inspection!

Three Years of Fun and Counting

Soma, our Lab/Hound/Shepherd mix, turned 3 today! We bought him a special cake for dogs (made with carob icing instead of chocolate) and put together a video tribute to our loyal canine companion. Enjoy!

The very delicious (looking) doggie birthday cake.
The bakery calls this treat "Muddy Paws".

Special Note: The movie's opening title lists Soma's 3rd birth date as "June 2, 2006", instead of 2008. After almost an hour of changing the date and reloading the movie to YouTube without success, I gave up and decided to post this disclaimer. Ugh...