kitchen surprise!!

this past weekend, i went away with aunt betsy to visit my little sister, susie, & her family in north carolina. i expected ed would take a slow weekend, enjoy his return to playing drums at church and just hang out with some of his buddies. ha! instead, i came back from the 5 day trip to be surprised with a totally re-created kitchen! i can't even say how exciting it is to have the kitchen (still in "phase 1 stage") that we've been dreaming of and planning. ed worked with my dad all weekend and the result is a very excited wife!! :) (and the boys think it's amazing also)

because our kitchen has interesting angles & 4 different entry points (one on each wall), we've been limited on how to make the best use of the space. thus, the "big island" plan, which is perfect for the appliances and the counter space we need.

here are pics:

the back yard

okay, so "we" (read: ed) have been working really hard on the house this summer and fall. since ed is still looking for work, he's been home with time on his hands to complete some major work on the house and this is especially great to get the particularly yucky projects done before the baby arrives. so, one major project was the back yard/driveway. our neighbors (downhill) agreed to give us a lot of fill dirt if we would put up a retaining wall (they hoped it would help with their water problems). so, ed was able to level out the small yard in the back and with the retaining wall, extend the driveway a little more to allow 2 cars in the parking area. on the other side of our driveway, we had a small hill that was not only ugly to look at, but seemed to be eroding right before our eyes, so ed also built a wall on that side of the yard (and flattened out our neighbor's yard for her too). this was all tackled just after ed completed the work on the deck (replacing the falling down "lean-to" that was formerly part of our kitchen)... needless to say, the man is incredible and also very sore at the end of every day!

so, here are pics of the backyard project (including the deck):