We're breaking all kinds of snow records in the Philly area this winter. Between the Christmas storm, last weekend, and today, we've smashed the record for snowiest winter ever! It was pretty sunny on Sunday and Monday, so some of the snow from Saturday melted, but with the extra snow coming down now we're definitely up over 2 feet total. It's still supposed to snow for another 5 hours, so I'll try to take more photos in the morning when it's all finished. Here's what it looks like out our front door right now...
Jason did shovel before lunch, but you can't really tell anymore...

And the back deck...

Our picnic table is disappearing...
Everything is closed today. Jason had off of work, and even Merck told us not to come in unless we absolutely had to. I'll post more photos later...

Once again we had one of those weird snowstorms where you got more snow the further south you are, so we ended up with more than Mom and Dad again. Our grand total is about 20 inches. It's difficult to tell exactly how much because it's been so windy that the snow is really drifting. Here are a few photos of our big storm...doesn't everyone miss PA winters??

I've had multiple requests to post photos of the living room with the new rug. I was hoping to get the curtains up too before I posted the photos, but I just learned that my curtain rods are on back-order until the end of February! So, you'll just have to imagine some maroon curtains on the windows for now. :-) I'll post another photo when they're up. I'm also going to look for some endtables to go on either side of the couch...

Pippin loves having all of our furniture back...

And in case you didn't hear, yesterday was Christmas with Uncle John and Aunt Linda! Jason and I hosted it here at our place. It went very well, except for the fact that I made a dessert with cool whip in it, but that's a whole other story. Anyway, here's a photo of our Christmas present from Aunt Linda, which we have hung proudly in the foyer...
And, one more thing! We only have room for one endtable in the family room, and we really didn't want to put a coffee table in there because we like the open floor space, but we felt like we needed something for people to put drinks on. So, we found this perfect solution. This square ottoman is easy to move around, it provides extra storage inside (for blankets and things), and the top flips over to be a tray when you need it. I saw them in a Crate and Barrel catalogue first, and then we found them in Target for half the price! They work great...

That's all of the updates for now. I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Hi everyone!

I found a few spare moments tonight to snap a few pictures of my new room and kitchen. The house is a gorgeous home, built in the 1930s I believe. This means lots of interesting architectural elements, and nice, solid building materials, along with a lot of quirks (i.e. doors that take an extra push to get them to latch)



Currently, my desk chair is that rather small balance ball...a la a suggestion from Manda. It's really a terrible chair, but it'll tide me over til my new one arrives!

My favorite part of the room...these gorgeous built in little step/shelves (my room is over the front entryway downstairs, hence the stair outcroppings. I'm quite the fan, however. The blue parasol up in the top corner was my Christmas present from Stephan :)



Love the tile work in the kitchen, and all the dried herbs and plants from the garden..

And here is the infamous washer/dryer. I tried to use it last night, and it took me 2.5 hrs to wash/dry a small load of jeans...well mostly dry...and the jeans came out so wrinkled I had to iron them anyway. Damn! Guess I'll be putting in some quality iron time for a while ;-)

I'll put up pictures of the outside of the house and the garden soon!

In honor of Mom's snow day in PA, here are some photos of the beaches in San Diego! It's also unseasonably chilly here, but not nearly cold enough to snow :)


Pretty sandstone cliffs above the beach






The patterns in the sand are really cool, right? They reminded us of that sandscape toy that Grammie Sheard used to have.

Hammy, as always :)





A reindeer kelp!





Beautiful Pacific sunset! We had an awesome time at the zoo and Sea World as well...will post pictures soon.

Yes, we're running a bit behind on the blogging...but here are some pictures from the second day of our Thanksgiving road-trip, when we left the ocean and headed over the hills and into the highland plains!

Carrizo Plains National Monument -- it was pretty deserted at this time of year!

Did you see the bird?

Coyote!

Antelope!

Pretty flowers, I forget what the sign said they were...


Native American rock art -- apparently some of the most important remaining examples (though it was hard to take pictures...this one is breaking apart but you can at least see some of the patterns and colors)

'Twas a very flat landscape -- it seemed to stretch on forever!

The San Andreas fault!!

Don't worry Mom, we saved Laura from falling in :)


Sunset on the plains....where the deer and the antelope play, yodel yodel yodel....
Overall, a very fun trip and cool experience! The whole trip felt a bit like we were stepping between those diaramas we made in 7th grade! We'll post the desert pics soon :)