Katie & Todd Blake

If only casual Friday was this cozy and pink for everyone! Happy Weekend!

We are officially one week away from our due date! And to pass the time, we thought we'd take guesses on when she's coming. Leave a comment with your guess! Whoever wins gets the sweet satisfaction of feeling smarter than everyone else!

Love,
Katie, Todd, and Lola!

Then why are we waiting until November?! Oh yeah, it's so we have time to go on our babymoon!Todd and I's grand love story first started in Disneyland and we've gone every year since, so it seemed only fitting to have a Disney babymoon! We were a little apprehensive of how a Disney trip would work for my rapidly expanding self, but we did our research and we really wanted to have one last chance to enjoy Disney as just the two of us. To make sure it was a success, we splurged on the Grand Californian Hotel, although luckily we got a great deal. It has its own entrance right in the park, meaning less walking and making it easy to pop back in for a rest or two during the day. We packed our sturdiest walking shoes and lots of water. And we scheduled lots of breaks and a couple sit-down meals through our trip. Verdict? Huge success!

We actually came in on a Saturday. As per my usual luck, our flight was almost three hours late and super bumpy. (Does anyone else get carsick on airplanes?) So, three hours late and with unpleasant headaches, we finally made it into Disneyland and proceeded to our first ride of the trip. AstroBlasters! While we were excited, the little boy behind us was not. Much like Buzz Lightyear himself, this kid was unaware that this was not real life. He was pretty sure certain doom awaited him and made sure to alert the rest of us with shrill screams of terror. The kind of screams that actually feel like they are rattling your brains. It was enough that the entire line was giving his parents dirty looks the whole time. Of course, the second he sat down and got his little laser gun in his hand, he was in heaven. (side note: My dad once got my timid little brother Brent on to Alien Encounters by telling him they were in line for the people mover. Which avoided a meltdown like the one we witnessed in line, but could have given Brent lifelong trust issues if he wasn't already dealing with lifelong confuelessness issues...) Anyhoo, at this point, we were pretty sure we had just made a gigantic mistake in our babymoon plans. Luckily, if Todd and I are anything, it's resilient. We found a shady spot, grabbed a couple Mickey Bars, and just breathed in the Disney magic to soothe our heads for a few minutes. And by golly, it worked. We had such a great trip the rest of the time. It was sunny enough for refreshing daily Mickey Bars, but not too hot to bring out my dreaded pregnancy cankles. There were practically no crowds, we never had a line longer than 30 minutes. And with plenty of breaks, snacks, and a daily afternoon nap, I had no trouble enjoying myself and hauling Lola and I all around the park. We enjoyed rides, parades, yummy food, and souviner shopping! Todd and I each got great t-shirts and Todd picked out a little Minnie outfit for our little Mousketeer :) We also picked out a "Baby's First Christmas" ornament and a new anniversary ornament to replace the one our cat broke last year (turns out he likes to climb the christmas tree...).

And with that, we returned home, triumphant and refreshed! We were very happy to have one last trip to ourselves, eating and riding what we wanted when we wanted! But even more, we are so excited to come back in a few years and show our little Lola around the Happiest Place on Earth!

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the long hiatus. We hope to get back posting on a much regular basis.

When last we left you, we had just installed our hardwood floors. The second part of the kitchen was to install some recessed lights in the ceiling. We used to have a single florescent fixture that was bright, but was also loud and gave the feeling like the life was being sucked out of you whenever you stood underneath it. Needless to say, we were not big fans. So we opted to remove the old light and replace it with some newer and more stylish recessed lights.

Installing lights (or doing anything electrical for that matter) is tricky business. Of course you have the whole I-don’t-want-do-die-by-electrocution thing. But then you also have to worry about insulation in the ceiling and walls, whether the ceiling trusses are running north and south or east and west, and cutting the holes where you are not going to run into either a wire or a truss. You also have to buy light housings specifically made for remodeling projects (the only difference is that they have anchors that can attach to the drywall rather than being nailed into the studs.)


The first thing we did was decide where we could get the most coverage for the amount of lights we had. You have to strike a fine balance between having a well lit kitchen and a ceiling that looks like honeycomb. We settled on 5 lights in something like a star pattern. We marked out the holes and started cutting, which was a bad idea. The first two holes we tried to cut ended up running right into a stud. After the second try we stopped, took a step back, and figured out where the other studs were. Once we did that it was smooth sailing. We also lucked out by having a “fake” kitchen ceiling, which is where the builders drop a second ceiling off the original that is generally much higher. Fake ceilings are usually constructed with thin steel bars which are on the outside and thin beams stretching across to hang the drywall. Since there are no trusses, we could run our wires wherever we needed. Nice huh?


Starting from the center hole, we ran a wire to each of the points of the star. After that we turned off the breaker for the kitchen, connected the different strands to the original wire, and then tied them all together. (The wiring can be tricky, so if you are really interested, just give me a call and I can explain it to you, otherwise is post would go on forever.) Once that was done it was simply a matter of connecting the wires to the light housings, snugging them in their holes, and then setting the anchors. Piece of cake!





The only other problem we had was trying to patch the bad holes we made in the beginning. As it turns out, it’s really hard to match the same color of ceiling paint that contractors use. We could have painted the whole ceiling a new color, but we had just installed the new floors and didn’t want to go through the process of covering them up to paint. So, we found the closest color that we could and went with it. They turned out ok, but if you look right at them, you can tell that the paint isn’t quite right. It's certainly not overly noticeable, and we haven't thought about it since we finished, so I think is a success.












All and all, it was a fun two day project. If we had taken the time to find the studs before we started, we could have avoided having to patch the old holes and finding paint to match. Had we done that, it would have been a 2-3 hour job at the most. If you have a fake ceiling and want more light, we would highly recommend it. But be beware, you will get dirty!

And this, my friends, is the finished product! (Cat not included, even though he is precious and his stripey orange fur kinda matches the new floors...)

Hello Interweb! We have returned with all sorts of grand ideas of blogging more regularly! In the past months of blog absentee-ism, many of our attempts at being responsible, grown-up type folks have not gone as well as one would hope. But amidst all this travail, we have done one very grown-up thing! We have become home owners! We are the proud owners of a little two bedroom condo in Centennial, CO. It was a foreclosure and it is in need of a little TLC. So, every month, we are going to pick a little (or sometimes big) project and attack it, weekend warrior style! Then we will blog about our success or abyssmal failure. We decided to start the year off by bidding farewell to our nine-year-old linoleum in the kitchen and dining room! After many trips to Home Depot and advice from real grown-ups, we went with the click together wood floors. First step was ripping out said gross linoleum glued to our cement subfloor. I have to admit, Todd did all this prep work himself while I was at work. He got it all done in one afternoon, which was impressive. Getting the linoleum and the glue up was difficult and required a lot of elbow grease. Then there was a fridge to move, cabinets to unmount, and an oven range along that far wall. Amazing that he was able to do all that without the help of my massive muscles... And then came the big question. Do we rip off our baseboards or not? Luckily for us, my dad tipped us off that we could use quarter round to cover the gap between our floors and our baseboards, saving us the painful job of ripping up baseboards and trimming them down to fit over the new floor. Here is the part where we admit our novice weekend warrior status (like Wort in Sword in the Stone, pre-Merlin...). If we were smart, we would have taken this time to do all the other prep work. We did repaint the baseboards, but we should have done our wall touch ups now and taken off the door frames and really thought about what kind of transition pieces we needed from the hallway into the kitchen and from the door into the house. This would have also been a great time to measure and cut our quarter round, so we could have painted it and let it dry while we laid the floor. Alas, we did not. Thus, a two-day project became a four-day project.
Then came laying down the floors. The first couple rows, we thought we were never going to get it. They just didn't seem to like fitting together and we were afraid we would just end up with a bunch of useless splinters by the time we were done. But we persevered and eventually things started "clicking." ahahahaha, punny! The best investment we made was a rubber mallet! It helped some of the stubborn joints without hurting the wood. And it turned out to be a much better option than just pounding the wood with the heel of my hand. Ouch.
Here we are making sure to keep a quarter inch gap between our walls and the new floors. This is the gap that we covered up with the quarter round, and it's also the gap that keeps your new floor from buckling when it expands in warmer weather. Once we got the hang of it, laying down the floors went pretty smoothly. Our process was a little more complicated because instead of a nice square room, we were doing an odd shaped kitchen and dining room with lots of angles. But, all the more excuse to use the power tools. Or just to admire my manly husband using power tools. Seriously, could he be more adorable? After much coaxing, he did get me to use the saw and the nail gun. It was exhilarating and terrifying. And once we had nailed down all applicable surfaces, I was introduced to the miracle of a caulking gun! Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but up until last weekend, I pretty much thought door frames, baseboards, cabinets, etc, just sprung from the wall and were pretty much embedded into your house. And then we took off our door frame to fit the new floor under it and I learned about caulk. To me, it was like magic. You have this piece of wood just stuck up against your wall. Add a little strip of caulk, smooth it out with your finger, and voila! It looks completely natural and seamless, like it's been there the whole time! Yes, dorky, I know. But it was my favorite part of the project. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we re-did our floors!