Home repairs: knocking walls down!

Last weekend we did something crazy ... Friday night we decided we were ready to make a big change.  Lacking the floor tile we need for our basement, we decided to go bigger - and knock the wall down between our kitchen and dining room.  That night we connected with our contractor and he was able to come the next morning at 7am.  Here's the flow:

First, our contractors looked at the wall, and started covering up furniture:

 Then, the boys took a peak into the kitchen before the big knock down:

 And the wall knocking began!  To kill time, the boys and I went on two runs, hikes, and to the playground.

 And then there was open space.  The only problem is now I'm realizing we need to keep our kitchen clean ... and paint our cabinets ... the list just keeps growing!

Race report: Woodland Park cyclocross

Today I was torn between a nice 10K trail race at Carkeek Park, and the Woodland Park cyclocross series finale.  I went with the cyclocross - the clincher was that the boys could easily watch the race AND they could do their first ever cyclocross race.  The day was awesome (but I think Matt is on the brink of a stress breakdown from chasing the boys around the park all day). 

I went out with the beginners again (this is after all just race 2).  The course was HARD with a lot of hills and a fair amount of mud.  There were all more tight turns than I remember on the last race.  Again, I was one of only a small handful of riders wearing running clothes ... I'm OK with that.  I was in the last wave allowed to ride so I started in the back of the pack.  They kick off each grouping off people by having riders organize based on number - mine ended in 7 which was 2nd to last to get to line up.  The course started by going into a narrow single track down a small hill, and then zig zagging up to a big hill where we picked our bikes up and ran.  I only made 3 loops unfortunately - I landed right after the 1st place man (who lapped me) and they closed the race right behind him so I didn't get to do a 4th loop. 

After my race, we met up with Costa, Holger, and Max (one of the boys' friend from school).  Max, Cole, and Wilson were all prepping to do their first ever race.  They were so very excited - I love seeing them get excited about sports.  They were also all hoping to fall down to get to roll in the mud (which Wilson did often) which I found amusing.  We had Cole and Wilson on balance bikes because their training wheels keep getting stuck in the mud.  They now have a reason to get off the training wheels.

All in, great day, great race, can't wait to go again!  And my knees don't hurt (a plus of cycling over running).

Catching up to do! Halloween

I've got some serious catching up to do ... so I'm going to do it in the Clif Notes version.  Halloween seems to have flown by us as completely illustrated by the fact that there are Christmas ornaments popping up in every store now.  We enjoyed a great NQACC (the boy's preschool) Halloween.  We got to school at 3pm for a "parade" around Seattle Pacific University campus (good birth control for the students I think).  Wilson hugged it out with his friend Ella.

Then we made our way to Queen Anne Ave. to trick or treat at the stores.  It was SO packed it was too much.  After escaping the crowds on the ave, we went around Queen Anne and the boys overloaded on candy.

The weekend after Halloween, we went to Ella's house for apple butter making.  I had no idea what went into apple butter - turns out it's 12-hours of mixing a giant pot of apples, sugar, and butter.