A few more photos from backpacking

Brian took these photos from the weekend, so I thought I'd share those too!

Backpacking with a great end in the rain!

We started out the weekend on Saturday, using a beautiful three day weekend to GET OUTDOORS!! Our trip guide was Chris (Jeannine's fiance-sorry if I spell any names wrong).
The destination was San Mateo Wilderness (north of San Diego).
Weather reports were: rain, rain, and more rain.

God really blessed us because Saturday and Sunday could not have been more beautiful backpacking weather: Not too Hot; Not too Cold.

Here's Day One when we are still clean and not stinky!

The hills were beautiful, and we didn't have to fight any crowds (in fact I think we saw about a total of approx 15 people the entire trip)!

Here's where we were searching the hills for the first campsite. We decided to go back a bit to a better location we had already passed.
If you can find her, Jeanine found a great spot to rest...Chris was high above looking for a spot.

Tobin coming back after giving up.

Water was a bit sparse on the trip...don't go in the summer, you won't have anything! But we made do when we had it...Despite the cow manure pasture!

Here's the site we decided on. It was the maiden voyage for our Mountain Hardware tent...

it was great!

This is how I felt in the morning...a little blurry!

Chris and Jeannine

A couple that loves the outdoors...even with crazy conditions,

a few blisters, and sore joints...it's all part of the adventure!

Brian and Tobin enjoying lunch on the second day. I ate this packaged halibut, it was not too bad...but everything smelled a bit fishy the rest of the trip. Wouldn't recommend that in the future!

Teneja Falls, a bit small, but pretty in it's own way none the less (mostly because we were getting closer to our second night's campsite).

We don't have any photos of our campsite the second night. It was a bit of an adventure because we kept looking for water. The map showed several springs, but unfortunately, they were all dried up! So by the time we realized that much of the trail was just going to keep heading up hill and not provide much of a place to camp, it was dark! We actually turned around and went back to a junction in the trail, and literally pitched our tents in an off-shoot of the trail. It started raining sometime in the middle of the night, and both our tents weathered the storm well! We packed up camp quickly and slogged our way through the mud back to the car. Thankfully it was a short 5 miles because we had done more mileage on the second day. Thankfully, all of us stayed fairly dry (underneath our rain gear), and made it back to the trail head! It was a great weekend!

The five of us with our gear in the rain!

So...what do you think?

Don't know if I should ask this, but I want your opinion on our new pillow accents in our room. We've had a Pottery Barn gift card since our wedding (because it was a wedding gift), well because we move so much I really don't feel like we've decorated much. So I wanted to brighten up the room an try to add some color to our bedset (I really would just like to get a new duvet cover), but thought this was a great start. Let me know what you think. I bought the green and orange embroidered pillow along with the orange striped rug on the floor.

The Couch

I really didn't give the new couch justice. After living nearly 3 years without one, and strongly hinting at the fact that we needed a couch, we are now enjoying it! I like being able to actually snuggle with my husband while watching a movie rather than sitting on camping chairs or laying on the floor. It's great! I also just got the pillows to go with the couch...so I thought it deserved it's own post!

My exciting purchase!

Well, the other day, I had the joy to go shopping with a nice gift card to Nordstrom's. My sister informed me that I could use it at Nordstrom Rack..so me being the bargain hunter that I am; I did just that! Two of my purchases, I was stoked about because I got two pairs of designer jeans for about $20 each!!!! Since the jeans now are made to only fit women who are 6'6", they needed to be hemmed! So I braved the task myself, so that these jeans would truly be a great deal! So on my "day off" (I got called off from work on Monday), I hemmed both pairs! Here is the finished product, of which I'm very excited and proud about! I even saved the original hem and it was actually easier to do it that way than reado the hem (less pressing). If you want to see how I did it, I used this "tutorial." I personally think they look great...no more paying for tailoring for me!

The Box

It's finished (well there are a couple very minor details, but only the builders could really tell this part). If you'll remember Tobin and his Dad faithfully worked on this project over Christmas. We got here, and I stained it. Tobin assembled it just last week, and it looks great!

Impoving Little Mexico

We have named our backyard, Little Mexico as it unfortunately has been a little neglected. We decided that we didn't want to live with a backyard that looks like a dump, so pretty much every weekend we have been spending some time and muscle into getting it to look descent.



Among things we have found and gotten rid of (I wish we would have taken more photos right at the beginning...but really we wanted to just get to work): computer screen, computer chair, rolling shelf, chain link fence gate (this was buried under dirt), lots of metal rods/poles, bricks, concrete, an old fountain filled with dirt (that was handmade), pogo stick, baby blanket, two hockey sticks, pry bar, two wheelbarrows (which we've fixed and are using, but the tire keeps going flat on one of them so we just keep pumping up the tire), two stand up lamps were just in the backyard (we cleaned them up and are now using them in our bedroom!).



It's been pretty hilarious what we've found and each time we are less and less surprised to find something random. Little by little we'll continue to improve Little Mexico and hopefully make it inhabitable!

Our backyard...in process of improvement,

which is actually much better than the way we found it!

Our patio, which before was covered with trash and you could barely walk on it!

mounds of dirt we have yet to dig up...who knows what we'll find!


The truck load of concrete Jenna and I took to a concrete collecting place.
We had to throw these all in by hand and back out by hand. We felt like rugged women!

Our side yard...getting better.

The pile of rocks is what we saved out of the stone fountain that was under a bunch of dirt there in the far corner.

Anyone want some gravel and rocks? We have plenty!

Tobin groomed the Ponytail tree out front.

Well, if you come over for a weekend, I'm sure we'd love to have you join in on the fun!

Our new Place!

We want to welcome our friends and family to a virtual tour of our new humble abode. We welcome any of you that would like to come over for a visit to do so. We have a nice extra guest bedroom where we can set up a nice air mattress! So come on over!

The front of the house

Walkway up to the front door

Entryway

Living room...with Tobin reading a book

And our amazing couch that one of Tobin's coworkers let us use!

Kitchen/Dining area. It is really nice that everything is so open!

The nice big kitchen

Standing in the living room looking down the hallway, our room is the second door on the left

Jenna and Josh are living in the room in the first door to the right

Our bedroom

It was really nice this vanity fit in the bathroom, otherwise I would have had no counter or storage space!

The massive shower and sink.

Sp that's it. I'll post more with the project in our back yard! But for now enjoy.