Where are the DeGroots?: 2009

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I know you all can hardly believe I'm blogging twice in a week, but here it is! Our first real Christmas tree together! It's an 8-footer and completely brings me back to my childhood (all except for the fact that we picked it out at Lowe's in the cold instead of cutting it down ourselves on a tree farm in the middle of Southern CA in short sleeves...hmmmm..) Our biggest challenge is now keeping Mani from eating it.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Condo Progress Continued

Okay, it's been a while since I have updated on condo progress. We still have to paint the 3rd floor and redo the entire 2nd floor bathroom, but we are making some progress. It helps me to see that if I blog about it :) The first is a picture of our new dining room table. This table turns into an 5X5 ft. square with the leaf that's in it and we have 8 chairs. Much more helpful for having game nights at our house than our tiny little Walmart table. It's also counter-height, so Mani can't put his nose on the table during dinner.

Next is a picture of our new couch for the 3rd floor, bought this summer. Much nicer for movies than two chairs! Note the mini-fridge. Thanks to good friends who donated that to our cause, we no longer have to walk down 36 stairs to get a drink when watching TV.

Next is the finished downstairs bathroom! Thanks to a good friend who helped rip the old vanity out, move the plumbing, re-drywall the wall, and put in a smaller vanity, it looks great! (lesson learned in home improvement...nothing is as simple as it seems!) I included a before picture for you from right when we bought the place.

The next two pictures are the fruits of a trip to an antique row a few miles from our house on my birthday. We needed a mantle and were looking for a stained glass window to hang on one of our massive walls. A guy gave us an awesome deal on these two together. The wood and the build of the mantle match our table almost exactly! We still have some tile work to do around the fireplace and replacing of the masonry on the hearth, but we were happy to find this!

And finally, as we close in on the first floor being done, here is a before and after picture to enjoy.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy 1st Birthday Mani!

Mani turned 1 year old this week. When did this:

Turn into this?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

100th post! MI/Race

It's been a while again! Since our last blog post, our two biggest pieces of news were that we took our annual trip to the cottage with Keri's family and Keri ran a 1/2 marathon. We spent a week in August with Keri's whole family (including new nephew Arie!). It was a wonderful week with time at Keri's grandma's cottage and at Keri's parent's house. We'll include just a few pictures since it was so long ago!! Mani, again, had a blast at the cottage swimming, running up and down the dune, and getting puppy energy out!!

Dexter (2) and Nate (4) in the kayak

Paddle-boating on Spring Lake

Beautiful sunset-not taken in black and white!

Running down the dune at the cottage

What a trusting dog!

Picking blueberries

Kerri Walsh at Muskegon AVP tournament

Our Family

Uncle C.J. and Aunt Keri with nephews

Lots of Arie time sleeping on stomachs!

Dexter and Keri

Ryan, Kelly, and Arie after his baptism

On September 26th in Columbia, MO, Keri also ran a half marathon with 3 of her accountability friends. It was designed to challenge us spiritually and physically this summer, and that it did. We are all greatful it is over, but all in all, it was a cool experience. It rained for the first 8 miles and was very hilly, but the last 4 miles, we rocked it! Here are the before and afters:

What are we doing?!?!

So happy to be done!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Condo Work Resumes/Continues

We have re-started work on the condo after another break! C.J. had a few weeks where work in the lab was slow, so he got a lot done around the condo. Though many of them were smaller projects, it feels SO good to have progress! This past Saturday, we spend 5 1/2 hours cleaning out our basement for the first time. I'm convinced it hasn't been done since the building was built (108 years ago). There were literally piles of dust and dirt to be shop-vacced out and cobwebs that must have come from 100s of spiders (I don't even want to think about that part!) We filled our huge dumpster with all kinds of things left behind by previous owners. It was long, dirty job, but it felt good to get it done! Here are some pictures and some of other projects completed.

C.J. getting the cobwebs

The chaos of the basement before cleaning

Some semblance of organization after cleaning

Shelves C.J. installed to help wtih organization

Us with our dust masks on!

New hooks on the landing to the basement

Shelves/hooks C.J. installed in the front closet

The ledge is finished!!!

Downstairs bathroom waiting to be painted after old vanity ripped out, plumbing moved, and new vanity installed

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Cruise 2009!

We are readjusting to everyday life after being on a 7-night cruise with Royal Carribean leaving from San Juan, Puerto Rico and going to Aruba, Curacao, Dominica, and St. Thomas! This cruise has seriously been in the works for about 5 years. Of Keri's 5 housemates from Calvin and her, 3 got married in 2004 and 3 in 2005. We agreed that on the first batch's 5 year anniversary summer, we would go on a cruise to celebrate! Two couples were unable to make it (and were missed!), but 4 could go. The guys also all lived in the same dorm during college, so they all knew each other beforehand. It was an amazing time! We have never been on a vacation with so many different things to do and a complete lack of responsibility (meaning no dishes, cooking, etc. to do). We loved it! We'll let the pictures do most of the talking. Lots of activities and lots of laughs. If you have facebook, the same pictures are posted on there, so if you've seen those, you've seen these!