Praying Mantis!

As I was gardening right out back yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to find this praying mantis on the side of our house. I'm a country girl at heart, so seeing things like this in the city makes me smile.

Fun With Big Machinery

Check out these photos! We had fun with a carnival ride machine for a few days. Thanks to the generosity of our neighbor Eric, we were able to fix a gutter problem (sort of) and finish part of our roof - shingling the back dormer. Of course, just like every project, it became bigger than what we had imagined. We not only shingled the dormer, we also put up siding and facia (which was an adventure in and of itself).

Front Trim Painted!

After almost a year, we finally have paint on ALL the outside trim! Here's a before...

During (that is our painter friend Dan on a big construction lift!)...and after!

Summer Time

Hi guys,
Just little update on some of the recent work. Joy has been hard at work between her sabbatical reading and resting. Friday we started shingling the front porch roof only to run out of shingles (left over from last year) and to find out that Home Depot doesn't carry them anymore!!! (sorry no pictures) So we will special order them. Tuesday, our neighbor is renting a lift so we hope the painting of our peaks will get done as well as a few other up in the air gutter issues. If we are really inspired we will reshingle the back corner of the roof that was done in a different color before we bought the house. The following week we will have my dad come to help put the heat ducts into the bedrooms and I will try to get my final paper done for class!
love,
'cois and Joy

moving towards a finished bathroom (left) and the new pantry (right).