Life Adventures

Braddock missed competing at Westminster in  2018 due to his injury.  It was probably best given that we had just gotten Gracie and the trip to NY with a small puppy would have proven difficult.  Even so, a year later, we decided to leave Cadia with Russell's parents because 4 dogs in NY is tough and Cadia hates NY the most. We left on Thursday night after Russ picked me up from working in MD and we stayed at a La Quinta in Newark DE to be near White Clay Creek State Park.  We went to the Whitley Farms trailhead and walked the Brian Fields Trail.  Next time we should just park at that trailhead as there is a restroom in the parking lot.  Also, the trails at Whitley Farms trailhead were pretty muddy from all the rain. We arrived in New York about noon.  It was too early to check in but we went ahead and unloaded our items onto a cart at Ink 48 and then headed to Central Park.  The dogs didn't seemed phased by the big city.  They pulled like crazy after squirrels in the par

We finally decided to improve the kitchen.  We had golden oak hardwood cabinets and a green/blue laminate countertop.  The cabinets did not have any decorative moulding and they were all uniform - no dimensionality.  The island had a raised bar portion that was raised 10 inches high.  I don't have a picture of that, but below is the picture with the bar raise cut down to only4 inches. Step 1 was to have some dimensionality in the cabinet above the microwave and over the fridge.  In addition, we added a light rail moulding at the bottom of the cabinets and decorative crown moulding on the top. Cabinet over fridge has been pushed out Cabinet over microwave has been pushed out Some other things needing to change were the fluorescent light above the island, the chandelier above the table (the light shades were relocated to the den fan), the old white appliances,  and the stainless steel sink faucet. The cabinets were in great condition so we opted to just paint th

The trip home from the Invitational was fraught with challenges.  About 3 hours from home the back tire on the RV blew.  Fortunately we were right at an exit that had a gas station.  We were parked there for about 3 hours waiting on service, but we were able to get the dogs out and get refueled.  But it took us 12 hours in total to get back from Yemessee, SC. To make matters worse, we couldn't go to the house.  We were having work done on the kitchen and floors while we were away, and things were behind schedule.  The floors had just been stained and we couldn't get into the house or we'd mess them up.  So we stayed at Americamps.  The next day, Friday, it rained all day.  We met Russell's parents for lunch at Brio Tuscan Grille to celebrate his birthday.  Neither of us were as impressed as we had been in the past.  Finally, the next evening we were able to get into the house.  We had hoped to wash clothes, but to our dismay, we found that the dryer was broke.  We s