Kitchen Refresh

It's hard to believe, but we're done making changes to our house. It's been five and a half years and we're finally finished with most everything on our list. So, having recently completed our bathroom remodel, we decided to do the only other thing we've been planning on and give the kitchen a bit of a refresh.

We kept it pretty simple for this project. Our two main changes were replacing the counters and putting in a microwave hood. For the counters, we picked out a nice white pattern of quartz at our local Menards and then had a guy they recommended install it. He did a fantastic job removing the old ones, putting in the new stuff, and even patching the back wall. We then had to do a little touch up painting and caulking the new edge. Overall, it was a pretty painless project (as we expected since we hired out the hardest part). Our contractor was done in a day and then we finished the touch up the next day. Really, it was so easy I don't know why we didn't do it earlier.

The next part, replacing the hood, was also pretty easy. While looking for a new hood we thought about maybe trying a microwave hood. The problem is that we just don't have the room there for a full-sized microwave. But, then we found something we hadn't seen before - a low profile version! It's a little larger than the old hood (not surprisingly), and sticks out more (because obviously it does), but really fits in the spot well. This was a bit more involved than the counters (since we didn't have a contractor do it), but not too bad. I removed the old hood, leaving nothing but wires coming out of a hole in the wall. Obviously this doesn't work for a microwave - we needed a plug to power it. So I drilled a hole into the cabinet above and installed a junction box and receptacle. Then I followed the microwave installation instructions, which mostly consisted of installing supports on the wall and into the upper cabinet, then making another hole in the cabinet to bring the cord up. And that was it. Boom, roasted. The microwave works like a champ, and we have so much extra room on our counters that we didn't even know what to do with it at first. Another project that we really should have done a long time ago. But oh well.

And that's about it for now. There's a lot coming up though, so stay tuned! But, until then, thanks for reading and see you next time!

Three Months, Three Trips

I've been really bad at keeping this updated... not that that's a huge surprise. Or change. But still. Sorry. So this post will be a little different. Instead of the usual in-depth post-vacation run-down, I'm just going to recap a few trips we've taken since having Owen and dump a bunch of photos on ya. So here goes.

One of the first trips we took after having the little man was to Ohio in October. We drove up to Fort Wayne to see family for Friday night, then left early Saturday morning to get to Cuyahoga Valley National Park in good time. The sky was threatening rain, so we made it a quick tour and got going. Plus the park, while nice, wasn't really that much better than Eagle Creek here in Indy. I'm glad we went, mostly because we're trying to go to all of them (gotta catch 'em all), but I wasn't really impressed. Oh well. Anyway, after regrouping at the hotel, we headed to downtown Cleveland to meet some friends who live in the area for dinner. We had food, we had beer, and we had some amazing ice cream. And then we went home the next day. The end.

Next month, we continued our tour of this great nation's parks with the Gateway Arch! Oh, also my sister lives in St. Louis, so we visited her too. We visited the arch (but didn't go up - we've done it before and it sounded like a lot of work with a baby), toured the Budweiser brewery, checked out the science center, and did a lot of good eating. My sister was a great tour guide / baby-snuggler and it was a lot of fun visiting a city Leslie and I haven't spent a lot of time in. Owen seemed to have a good time too, but I think he'll enjoy it more when he's a little order (the science center especially - so much cool stuff for kids!).

And lastly, we took a little journey to the happiest place on earth: Disney World! I'd been planning this trip for a long time... like, over a year. It was a birthday gift for Leslie, but since her birthday is in June (when she was eight months pregnant) the actual trip was in December instead. The three of us, along with Leslie's parents, drove down on Friday night and Saturday morning, hit the parks Sunday through Friday, and worked our way back north over the weekend. This gave us two days at Magic Kingdom, two days at Epcot, and a day each at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. I'm not a huge WDW fan, but it was so much fun, especially with Owen! He was just wide-eyed, taking in all the sights! It was a great trip and another thing I'm looking forward to doing with Owen again once he's older.

So there it is. Three trips, just like that. We've got a lot going on, but hopefully I'll do a better job posting on here soon (but don't hold your breath). Anyway, thanks for reading and we'll see you next time!