Daffodils and Tulips

I put some bulbs in a small bed on the edge of our driveway.
I love seeing the different blooms each day!

I also did a MAJOR pruning on the cherry tree in the backyard last fall.  I was very relieved to see it seems to have survived just fine:

Fucie visits the vet, and comes home with no teeth

Our poor pug has had horrible breath for too long now.  We knew he needed a dental, but we also knew he needed some teeth pulled.
We scheduled his cleaning for a Thursday and dropped him off at the vet early that morning.  We waited all morning to hear from them.  We were very nervous, as he is old, and a pug, and anesthesia is tough on these guys.  I couldn't stand it any longer and called at 1pm.  He had just come out of surgery.  They decided to do a full mouth extraction due to the amount of bad teeth and his age.
Poor guy had a rough time.  When we picked him up he was SUPER groggy and shaking.  And due to the tube, his breathing was really ragged and raspy.
So Skott called in to work and monitored him all night.

The next morning we got him to eat some chicken flavored cream of wheat:

He was in pretty rough shape all weekend and slept A LOT:

He is almost back to normal now.  You can tell he definitely feels better.  We have to soak his food now until his gums heal, and I had to make him some soft treats (pumpkin and peanut butter)

but we are happy our (almost) 13 year old pug is recovering!  So far, his tongue doesn't hang out, but he does have the most adorable pouty lip now!

Spring Break Visitors!

 My Mom and Seth flew in for their spring break.  We woke up early to head to the airport.  Mom text me shortly after we woke up to let us know the flight was delayed 1 hr.  We decided that since we were up, we would just leave as planned and stop and do a little shopping beforehand.  Halfway to Portland (it's a two hour drive) Mom texts again and says the flight is delayed due to the plane being stuck in a blizzard in Denver (it ended up being almost a 4 hour delay).  No point in turning around so we decided to explore and find a food cart village to eat lunch at.
The temperatures just an hour east of us are so much warmer.  All of the cherry trees are blooming as well as tulips, daffodils, etc.  The streets in this neighborhood were just gorgeous!

 We decided to split a couple different dishes and settled on Sesame tofu platter (with kim chi, rice, pickled cucumbers, and veggies).  Absolutely phenomenal!

 Then we tried a salad with grilled Salmon:

and we couldn't say no to dessert:
freshly baked little custard pies with blackberries on top

 and what can only be described as pecan pie on crack.  Oh my!  Chocolate pie crust with pendleton whiskey sauce, pecans, and big chunks of dark chocolate!

 We got plates of food to-go for Mom and Seth and after picking them up at the airport, we raced home and were only 15 minutes late for work.  Whew!

The week just wasn't long enough to stuff in all that we wanted to do.  It didn't help that we had to work and were only able to take a three day weekend.  But we made the best of it.
We explored the tide pools:

a snail? attached to the outside of a barnacle

We went to Newport and walked along the bayfront, had lunch, saw the sea lions, and went beachcombing:

 

 We drove up to Seaside (with a stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, of course!):

dark chocolate with bacon

Seth strikes a pose with Louis and Clark

We went down to the bay for a campfire and some relaxation.  We also threw out the crab traps but, as expected, didn't get anything -the tide was way too extreme that day to catch anything.  It was very relaxing.... until a bunch of jerks showed up with their jet skis (illegal in that bay).

Seth strikes a pose.  hahaha

wading out past the sandbar to throw the traps

We ate lunch at Fathoms, the best oceanfront restaurant in Lincoln City:

It was such a fun trip!  I'm so glad they took the time to come and see us!

Our first big order!

We were ecstatic to get our first wholesale order!  

Then the realities of living in a small town struck a bit of panic in us, as we realized between the 2 Ace Hardwares, and the 1 Bimart.... we were hard pressed to find 20 light sockets and cords.  Yikes! But we got creative and managed to BARELY scrape together the necessary pieces without having to wait for an online shipment.  Lesson learned.  (But quite honestly, we weren't sure the wine lamps were something that would take off so we didn't order a lot of inventory).

First step:

Pick the bottles.

We wanted to get a good variety of shapes and shades of green.

Then, I started scraping labels off with a razor blade.  Once I had the labels removed, Skott scored and cut the bottoms off.  We got all 20 done one day before work.  It didn't take nearly as long as we thought.  Most bottles popped clean, we only had to do 2 extra due to chipping and burs.

Second step:

Sanding.

This step I dreaded but it ended up being not so bad.  I think I just hate breathing through those stupid masks and then my glasses get all foggy and my chin gets condensation on it.  Oh, and I tend to drool.  Don't ask me why, but big schlobs of spit just want to pour out of my mouth when I have these masks on. haha

Anyways, I started out with the belt sander and hit the bottoms with 80 grit.  Once they were sanded smooth, I switched to 120 grit and sanded again.  Then I passed them off to Skott where he used the orbital sander to get the inside edge and fine sand the other edges.  This step requires a lot of depth perception and if done incorrectly, can ruin the edge.  That is why Skott gets to do it!  Once Skott had the inside edges sanded, he passed them off to me where I used a wet sand method to do a final polishing sand and also remove any residue on the neck of the bottle from the metal caps.

Third step:

Washing

Once the bottles were sanded smooth, we hauled them into the bathtub and sprayed them with goo-gone to remove any glue and sticker residue from the labels.  Then we utilized the tub like a giant sink and using dishsoap, a toothbrush, and a rag, we cleaned every bottle.  And when I say "we" I mean Skott.  He washed and cleaned them all.  what a guy, huh?!

bottles are cleaned and ready to wire

 Before we could begin wiring, we had to drill the corks so we could feed the wires down into the bottle.

drilled corks

getting ready to wire

Then we started wiring!  This part was fun for me.  I got to snip the end off the cord, feed it through the cork, then jam the cork into the neck of the bottle.  Oh, and I got to cut all those annoying tags off the cords as well :)

Then I passed them off to Skott where he wired the socket, then put a bulb in and checked the connections. Then he re-wrapped the cord and secured it with a zip tie. 

You can see Fucie was a great help!

I was super worried about shipping 20 wine bottle lamps and didn't know how to get them all there without them getting broken.  We ended up wrapping each one in bubble wrap, then putting them into cut down wine boxes that were lined with bubble wrap, then packing the necks with packing paper, securing the corners of the box with hard Styrofoam, and putting a layer of cardboard on the top and bottom of the box.
We put together hanging instructions complete with step-by-step photos, and spray painted the washers for hanging them.  Minor meltdown when the paint didn't adhere to our standards.  So at 1am, we were back out in the garage, sanding down the metal washers and repainting them with an enamel paint.  Sometime in the middle of the night when I woke up to pee, I turned them and sprayed the other side.  At noon the next day, they weren't drying fast enough.  This is when we noticed the directions that said 24 hr cure time.  (who reads directions on spray paint anyways??? haha).  At this point in time, the only thing holding us up is the silly washers so Skott got the brilliant idea to use a blow dryer on them.  Perfect!  That did the trick.  We headed to the post office where we were (strangely) elated to find out we were only 4 lbs and $5 off our shipping estimate/quote.

Package arrived safe and sound a week later.
Click here to see the online store.
We are so proud and excited to see how people respond to our lights.