Rapunzel Let Down Your Long Hair!

It was January 2009 when I decided to grow my hair out. I had the same short hair cut in different variations for the last 5 years and I wanted something different. The most different I could get was going opposite of what I have had for the last 16 years. Long Hair.

This was probably the shortest I have ever had my hair. Most places weren't even an inch long!

This is also me about 30 heavier... you can see it all in my face.

This was in 2010 at our apartment. I remember taking this one specifically to record my hair growth. Don't mind this face I'm making...?

2012 and a whole lot of Biotin later and I'm a lot further along than I ever thought I would last! I usually chop it off when I get bored but I am committed. Only 6 more inches and I will be satisfied. :)

Finally!

3 months later and we are getting this bad boy FIXED! I hated seeing my tarp strapped chimney every morning as I backed out the drive way... just made my stomach sick. This many weeks later (17 to be exact) and I'm liking the way it looks already!

Even though it's fantastic, I think we will still face it with the stone and paint the brick. ;) I can't wait for the final outcome though!

California Car Adventure

We bought a new car! Boy, was it an adventure getting it too. We

drove about 1400 miles round trip to San Diego, California to pick up our 2004 Subaru Forester XT. Our joint best friend, Logan Aostri, came with us too! We were able to buy the car and hang out on in warm t-shirt weather on the beach in La Jolla (temps reaching a toasty 14 degrees at home).24 hours of driving later and we have one more thing crossed off our list of "things to do before we have kids." I have a pretty freakin sweet mommy-mobile now! ;D

3:00 am pit stop in Las Vegas... no time for fun and games though!

Who is this clown?

Holiday Happiness

Despite our tree falling onto our home, we had a very lovely holiday season filled with family and friends. I love my girlfriends and I don't know what I'd do without them! They are all uniquely beautiful in their own ways and I am so blessed to have them in my life.


Ollie girl went nuts over her stuff Santa brought her! She had a blast unwrapping her presents and just loved her new bed. We were kinda tired and I forgot to take pictures of us! Oops... guess we love our dog more? :)


New Years was spent at our house with a low key tone to the evening. Tea in the basement while the boys play Ping Pong. Doesn't get much better! (Except maybe a warm basement...)

Happy New Year's Everyone!!!

Love: Koa.

57 Rings

It truly is amazing how we as human beings can be capable of so much destruction and chaos and yet in the midst of destruction and chaos we can come together as one. What we are 'capable' of is what separates the humans from the animals. A few days ago our neighborhood formed a giant human-cleanup Transformer. So many wonderful selfless people came together and formed sort of a tree removal and clean up crew!
We had about 18 people and 5 chainsaws hacking down the poor poor tree in the front of the house so we could all get our power back on. 5 days was just TOO long! I had to replace all the food in our fridge because it all spoiled! :(
Oh well... having to replace the food in our fridge is better than having to replace our roof! :) Here are some pictures of the clean up. The cute young boys helping out counted the rings on the tree with me... she was 57 years old.

Windageddon Pt. 2

Took a few more pictures today while cleaning all the crap that blew all over our yard. I'm so sick a raking it's not even funny! Last weekend we filled fifteen 20 gallon bags of leaves and most of them were from this lovely tree that tipped on over.

This was the first thing I saw when looking out my front door to investigate what that rather loud noise was... oh. Just the tree horizontal, that's all.

Yeeeah. Those roots are huge! It's nuts to think they were not strong enough to hold up to that wind! We could probably make a swimming pool out of that hole in the ground.

Sun bathing on the grass... standing up.

We love and miss you tree! Your tire swing will go to a good home. :'(

WINDAGEDDON

Timberrrr!!

Nuff said. We are in mourning over our beautiful, most awesome tree on our property. The tire swing in no longer needless to say. Uh! And this picture just does it no justice to how bad and large this thing is!
I got no sleep last night, tossing and turning since 12:30 a.m. just thinking in my head "something bad is going to happen." to me, that was my 'Hippes use back door, no exceptions' sign was going to blow away or my Christmas lights are going to break. Boy was I sure in for a shock. At about 7:10 a.m. I took Olive out to go potty (who blew over mid-poop... classic) when I hear a low creaking and breaking sound then abruptly a thud. Right before the thud I hear tree branches scrape the whole length of the front of the house and siding and I hear my Christmas lights being torn down... NO!! Not the Christmas lights!! That's just taking this too far... I spent way too much time putting them up BY MYSELF to only enjoy them for 4 days.

Poor things... they never had a chance! :'( The craziest thing of it all was opening the front door and all I see is roots and my lawn vertically... I'll have to post more pictures later!

Now this is what we get to deal with. Our chimney teetering on the top of the house about ready to fall into the living room. After the tree fell it broke the brick and mortar up top. The winds putting pressure on the crack for 3 hours after is what made bricks fall and crack even more! Yikes! I just feel horrible. I loved that tree. You can replace brick, lights and a roof but it will take another 50 year to get a beautiful mature tree like that. I'm quite the tree-hugger if you haven't noticed ;)
BUT in all of this mess and devastation we have come out on top. It could have been MUCH MUCH worse! We could have had that tree in our living and dining room right now. It's kida weird how it fell between the house and our apple tree and didn't do more damage than it did. We are just so very blessed to have such good karma in times of crisis. Not to mention wonderful friends and family to support and help us, along with great neighbors that can all empathize with us.

Cherish the little moments with the things you have, because they might just be gone tomorrow. Even if it is just a tree.
Goodbye tree.
Goodbye tire swing.
Goodbye summer days lying on a blanket under abundant leaves swaying in the wind, peaking the glorious sun through your many branches. I will miss you <3