Happy Memorial Day!

This past weekend we enjoyed a great weekend up in Sturgeon Bay at Mom and Dad Mitsche's new house. We got out for some bike rides and got out on the water with some paddle boards. Cassie had a great time going out on the paddle board. She is a lucky pup and gets to stay up at the bay for over 2 weeks while Diana and I go on vacation to Montana and Seattle. We are lucky to have some good pup sitters willing to watch her! We hope to have lots to share when we get back from our trip!

Sunset from the new house

Cruisin on the paddle board.

Paddling together!

Spring has Sprung!

Well the weather here has been all over the place... 80 one day, 40 the next... but the flowers know it is spring time. Our garden in the back yard has started to show some nice color.

Close up of the tulips

Close up of the lilac

Cassie loves spring!

Nothing else new to report. This coming weekend we are heading north to Sturgeon Bay for Memorial Day, and to leave Cassie with our pup-sitters (Mom and Dad Mitsche). Next week Diana and I leave for a nice long vacation starting with a visit with Rob in Montana for a few days and then a train ride out to Seattle. Hopefully we will have a lot to share after that trip!

Spring Update!

It's been about two months since the last post and I am going to try to increase the frequency of the posts for the rest of the year. That is if I remember to.

March left us and winter finally started turning into spring. Most people were ready for spring, but that Cassie Pup was hanging onto every patch of snow as long as she could. She will miss the snow, but soon she will be able to be swimming again and she'll be excited for warm weather like the rest of us.

Cassie Loves Snow

There's still some snow left!

Snow's all gone... just this boring grass

With spring, we decided to put out some bird feeders from the garage and hope that the squirrels wouldn't get them this time. With Cassie spending more time in the yard, she does a good job keeping them away. As soon as the feeders went up, the birds started coming. So naturally, I started birding. Checking out all of the sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, and others.

Those birds can't escape my eye.

The European Starling in its natural habitat on the power lines.

Winter Update!

It's been a few months since the last post, but we have been enjoying that start of 2015. Here's what we have been up to so far. First, we wrapped up the holidays and Cassie was able to take her hat off.

Then we took advantage of some fresh snow and got out cross country skiing and snow shoeing. As cold as this winter has been, there hasn't been too much snow around here.

Cross country skiing!

Snow shoeing! Cassie has her shoes on too!

Early in January, I had a work conference in New Orleans and Diana took some time off to come down for a little vacation. It was warmer than Wisconsin, but still chilly. We went down a few days early to visit our friends Burke and Carolyn who live south of New Orleans in Houma. We enjoyed some of the local sites and had some great food.

Eating some beignets from Cafe Du Monde!

Relaxing in the Carousel Bar

Listening to some local musicians

At the end of January, I met up with my dad in Colorado for a week of skiing. We stayed at Breckenridge for the week and ventured out to Vail for one day. It was nice to get in some big mountain skiing compared to what is available in Wisconsin. We skied for seven days straight and logged just over 150 runs and 200,000 vertical feet.  On our last day of skiing we had about 10 inches of fresh snow, which was a lot of fun.

Picture after hiking to the summit at 13,000 ft

View from the summit

One of the snow sculptures from international competition. This started from a 12 ft square block of snow.

Here is a video of Dad skiing though the powder:

And here is a video of me:

Into February, we took some time to add decorations to the walls in the basement. Diana used her creativity to make a foam-backed map in a frame so we could pin all of the places in the country we have been. Then we added a set of "ranger naturalist service" posters of natural parks we have been to (except for the everglades poster, we haven't been there but liked the way the poster looked).

We have a lot of states to visit!

Ranger Naturalist Service Posters

 From Diana, Cassie, and myself, we hope you all are have a great start to the year as well!

Cassie loves her walks

New Basement!

Earlier this spring, Diana and I decided to tackle the project of finishing our basement. In April, we met with a company called Owner Assisted Renovations, who helps homeowners complete projects by doing some portion of the work. They helped us work up a design and then we agreed that Diana and I would try to do everything except for the utilities. How hard could it be? They would do the plumbing, HVAC, and electrical. The plan was for a main family room with a wet bar, a full bathroom, and a office/extra room.

Building plans.

Here is a look at the starting condition of the basement. Your typical unfinished basement that we used to store a lot of stuff... and to ride our bikes.

In May, we had all our permits in place were ready to start. But where? I guess any wall is better than the next, so I picked a wall and started framing. We got quicker as we went with me measuring, Diana cutting studs to length, and then me nailing them in place. Framing along the foundation walls wasn't bad since we had a guide to follow, but then came the bathroom. We learned a lot about framing, and angles, and doors, and shower stalls framing that bathroom in. But we got it done and then the plumbers were in to rough in the bathroom plumbing. Now this whole time I am working out of town all week so basement work was saved for Sundays or my other day's off. All of the framing took us until the end of July to complete.

Framing in the full bathroom

Framing complete

More Framing

After passing the framing inspection, it was on to insulation and flooring. Putting insulation in was relatively easy. For the flooring, we put down a dimpled plastic subfloor just in case we do get any moisture. We haven't had any water since we've lived here, but it's better to be safe. With this flooring, water can flow underneath the main floor through the plastic channels to the floor drain in the utility room.

Above the floor is plywood sheathing since we planned to put carpet down. This was where I really felt the sweat equity... We put that plywood down on a 90 degree day in august and I was cutting sheets out in the driveway and carrying them into the basement all day. Once in place, all of the plywood was anchored to the concrete floor with screws. We finished up the flooring by laying a tile floor in the bathroom. This stage was done within a month by the end of August.

Plastic subfloor with plywood

More flooring and insulation

Tile floor in the bathroom

After flooring, and passing the insulation inspection, we were on to drywall. Diana's favorite! No, not really. We had a stack of 60 sheets of drywall in our garage and we knew it was going to take some time. Once we got the "hang" of it, hanging drywall wasn't that bad. Just measure, cut, glue, and screw. Mudding and taping on the other hand, was a little less fun. This is one skill where it would have been useful to have an expert show us how it is done. We did improve as we went on, but we had a lot of sanding and smoothing to do. All of the drywall, mudding, and taping took two months to complete and we were done by the end of September.

Drywall view 1

Drywall view 2

Drywall in the bathroom

Drywall in the back room

Now we were on to priming and painting. At this stage the basement was starting to look finished and we were getting excited for the end. This was a nice easy stage where we could just turn on the radio and paint.  We were done with the paint by early November.

Priming view 1

Priming view 2

Priming back room

Painted view 1

Painted view 2

Painted back room

 By early November I was done working out of town and was able to crank out the finishing work. This included installing cabinets, hanging doors, and all of the base trim and trim for windows and doors. We hired out the carpet and counter top and did some furniture shopping. Now, just in time for Christmas visitors, the basement is complete! We learned a lot throughout the process and think it turned out great.

Completed basement view 1

Completed basement view 2. Cassie loves the basement and the room to run inside.

Wet bar.

Bathroom view 1 with custom made shelves.

Bathroom view 2.

Back room view 1. I still need to cover the electric panel.

Back room view 2