trout lake

i will warn you now that this will be a long post with lots of pictures that may only interest a few family members. sorry! finally, here are the pictures of my trip to trout lake. we got so many things done on the house! baseboards, molding, painting, the deck, the shed, locks, staining, and probably many more i am forgetting. i also learned a lot from my uncle al while i was there. he's a great teacher! janine, of course, made fabulous meals for us everyday. i'm pretty sure i have never eaten so much in 5 days before in my life. good thing she is a fantastic cook! unfortunately, my uncle al woke up to kidney stones one morning and had to take it easy. that allowed my mom and i a little shopping time, which i will never turn down. it was so fun to see my family and visit with them. my aunt janine also busted out the home videos from when we were little. i've never laughed so hard. thanks for letting me come visit!

here is a close-up of their awesome house. rod and a neighbor painted the dormers

the whole house

this is what i saw on the way from the portland airport to trout lake. i LOVE the green! it's so beautiful there

there were tons of waterfalls and i couldn't help myself. i love landscape pictures

another waterfall. i think this is multnomah falls...i may be mistaken. i passed about 5 on the way to trout lake

my mom and i took a quick trip to the mall on the way to the airport to pick up my aunt nancy. a "quick" shopping trip later, we ended up with tons of soap, wallflowers, lotion (courtesy of the fab bath and body works sale), shoes for me, jd, rod, and my mom, and a dozen cookies from paradise bakery. we managed to squeeze in a lot! my mom has taught me well. she used to tell me i had to learn to like shopping when i was little...now look what happened. i blame her for this sickness...

i picked up these supercool shoes for jd! who knew crocs made stuff like this? i love them! and the best part? you can take out the insole and wash them! yay!

this is the white salmon river that is behind my aunt and uncle's house. it is literally like 15 feet from their backdoor. you can hear the river from inside the house. i love it!

this is from the side of the house where you have fabulous view of mt adams. my phone camera didn't exactly capture that part well. it's still VERY snow covered.

more of the river. i really wanted to float down it, but i'm pretty sure i would freeze since it was about 50* outside

this sign will be hanging at the front of house when you come up the driveway

we gave the porch a fresh coat of paint and might i say we did a great job!

the boys in the process of converting this into a shed

the almost finished product. this took longer than you would think. it looks so much better!

i also wanted to document my contribution to this amazing transformation. see that piece of wood cut perfectly around the log? I DID THAT! i even allowed room for that little knot in the wood...almost on purpose. rod was busy doing another project so i got recruited to be the gopher. my uncle al let me use the jig saw and the skill saw to cut a few pieces towards the end. i'm quite a pro....don't you think?

cory, janine and nancy put up the railings on this deck in just a few hours! it looks great!

my mom in her lee valley apron which she was quite proud of....she told me not to post this picture...shhh
my mom and i learned how to use the miter saw to cut baseboards for the upstairs hall. we were a great team! and pretty proud of our accomplishments!

my uncle built these beautiful pine spiral stairs. they got the finishing touches and banisters so people like me don't fall down them anymore.

i know this picture sucks, but i am quite proud of myself for figuring out the lock system in the attic and putting this particular lock together. it was quite a bugger to put together.

i am oddly proud of this baseboard. while it may not interest any of you, i am proud of this! i filled all the nail holes in the baseboards in the attic, taped them, painted them, and then caulked them. yay me! i can't take ALL the credit for these thought....janine helped me tape, rod helped paint, and my mom helped caulk.

all the windows, doors, and ceilings got moldings like this

this is the view from the attic window

this is the view of my aunt's 22 acres as we were driving down the driveway to the airport. wow.

after all this my mom and i decided we are ready to buy a fixer-upper and flip it! we are pretty handy with out baseboard cutting skills, nail guns, caulking, etc, etc.