~What a "BLAST"~

Skeet Shooting ~ What a "BLAST" We had so much fun. We all were shooting either a 12 or20 gage shotguns.
We went to the range with friends and the family. Annie Oakley I'm not, but I'm not a bad shot either. It really takes a lot of mind, eye and hand coordination.
I loved yelling "PULL" and watching the orange disk shatter into bits. We all had a great day and enjoyed the cool winter breeze.

~Skeet Shooting~

Family Room with new Built-in Cabinets

This is our family room the place really where we do all our living, the kitchen is right beside it and we can easily see the T.V. from the bar where we eat almost all our meals (yes I must confess we watch t.v. while we eat).
Gary and I are very casual and like to keep thing as simple as we can. The built in cabinets were completed in Oct. 08. The cabinets were custom built by the "Oak Mill" in Modesto. They were Fabulous to work with.

I just love the creamy white sofa the fabric is a cotton washable and it does wash very well. We purchased the sofa from Ethan Allen where we were able to choose the fabric we wanted.
The "Coca Ottoman" was also purchased from Ethan Allen. The fabric you see on the ottoman is the fabric used on the pillows that are now resting on the couch in the front room. I just moved the pillows around a bit, you all know how much I change things around all the time even if is just a pillow or two.
The beautiful deep red afghan on the sofa was made by our daughter Bernadette for us this Christmas. It's just the most sweetest thing she could have done, she made it and it means the world to us. O.K. now do any of you have a recliner like this in your home?. It belongs souley to Man of the house (Big G) and he will not give it up even for my decorating fetish. I have tried so hard to work around this (RECLINER). He loves it and so it must stay!.
The stain glass window you see is one of the many we had made by "Valley Rose Designer Glass Studio" here in Modesto. You can look back at the dinning room to see more of the beautiful glass work that Mary and her daughter Caroline designed for our home.
The day of installation of the Oak Cabinet built-ins.
Hard at work these guys!. They are the greatest.


The fireplace opening its quite large, enough for a man to fit into to work.

Almost done.
The Men from the "Oak Mill" in Modesto. I just can't say enough how great they were, they were professional all the way through the design process to installation. And here is the finished Oak Cabinets with the fireplace installed.
Gary and I are very happy with the way the cabinets turned out.

~ Tea Room Re-Do ~

Before picture of the Tea Room. Before picture.
After Christmas re-arranging of the tea room. Gary and I went back to our favorite antique shop in Modesto the "Antique Emporium" and purchased the blue tea-cart and the pink settee.
What we fell in love with was the size of the settee, all the rooms in our home are very small so this was a perfect fit.
I think we have more room now to move around. The wicker green lounger we had in the corner where the floral chair is now went over to my Mom and Dad's home.
Mom loved the wicker lounger and would go into the tea room to rest. We knew she had to have it so we called her up and said we have a surprise for you we'll be right over. We are thinking she is thinking "Oh the kids are bringing us a dessert". Well Gary and I arrived at their front door carrying in the lounger and Mom was so thrilled and happy!.

Here you can see the corner where the wicker lounger was, now the floral chair rests in that corner. The sun was shining through the window and I just had to take this picture. Gary and I moved the white half table under the window and moved the white round table that was standing beside the floral chair and put it between the settee and chair. We really like the way the tea room turned out.
This picture actully shows the color of the walls, its a light soft yellow that is in the front room as well. Only thing is when ever I take a picture of the walls they seem to look white. I don't get it maybe its the way the light filters through the transome windows.
I also tried to DE-clutter a bit, as I have sad before I have a problem with keeping to much out. I just love to see all my favorite things, but then I have to dust and think "maybe I should put some things away", but then I bring them back out. Silly me!
A picture of the tea-cart, its been painted antique blue the serving tray can be removed for serving but it's kind of heavy so I won't be using it as such.
The fabric underneath the serving tray was left over from the pillows that are now on the couch in the front room.
The wall that the tea-cart is leaning against is where the white half table had been. So this is it for a while anyway until we get the bug to re-arrange again. Our next post I will show you the family room and the new wall to wall cabinets.

~ Front Room Re-Do after Christmas ~

Before the Christmas re-decorating.

Before the Christmas re-decorating. I think I like the new way better, its more cheerful to me. What do you think?.

After Christmas re-arranging - Our Christmas tree stood where the red chair is now and the oak coffee table that we had in the front room is now at our daughter Desire' home. The rose pillows on the plaid couch were on my creamy white couch that is in the family room also the rug was in the family room, Gary and I just moved the rugs around. The white coffee table was in the family room too. All the colors and fabric prints throughout our home will mix and match to every room,this way I don't get as board looking at the same thing in the same room. I love to just move a chair or pillow from room to room.
Just look at this sweet Victorian chair Gary and I found while shopping down town Modesto. The Store we fell in love with and have already been back to buy more things. The store is called "Antique Emporium". Gary and I highly recommend if you are ever in Modesto to go and visit this wonderful eclectic emporium. Everyone is so friendly and helpful, they are open 7 days a week and have two floors to browse. This chair was dated around 1890. I fell in love with the navy blue and red fabric that was used to re-upholster it. The chair even came with the red "Good Tidings" pillow. We had such a great time shopping there that last weekend when my sister Margo was visiting we took her there and she too fell in love with the store.

Gary and I would like to thank those of you who asked about us and why we hadn't blogged in a while. We are back now and in good health except for the cold that everyone seems to have right now. I sure enjoy blogging and meeting new friends, it is a big blogging world at there.
Take care until we meet again while blogging,
Elizabeth and Gary

~Happy New Year Everyone !~

It's not to late to wish you all a very Happy New Year!, is it ?
I have been away it seems as if forever and I have missed my blogging time. I have popped into see what you all have been doing from time to time.
We have had several family illness in the last few months and a dear Friend and Aunt passed way, Gary had a "TIA" that is a blood clot that bursts in your brain and causes you to lose your memory for several minutes. This can happen to anyone, he went through all the tests and all came back fine, thank goodness and he is doing great, although the Doctor did said "Gary I need you to lose weight!", so we are working on that, isn't it so easy to just eat whatever we want and before you know it there's an extra 20 or more pounds just sitting on our caboose or belly.
We had a car accident, we were not hurt just our car and it was Gary's new car too!.
So you see we have been very busy!.
Christmas came and went so fast I didn't even decorate until a week before Christmas. We do have so much to be grateful for and we are!
I can hardly believe we are all most done with January!. I have so much to share. I will be working on my blog this weekend so sooner.
God bless and I'll be stopping by soon.

Elizabeth

~ Mickey & Tinker Bell ~

In September we took a family trip to Disneyland in Los Angles for our Granddaughter Aleena's 10th birthday. While shopping down main street of this very magical place Gary spotted a watch shop. Now if you know Gary, you know how he loves his watches.
A Disney artist by the name of Charles Landholm was drawing with water color Mickey. (click to enlarge ). After the painting is complete the picture is then scanned into the computer and made into a watch face. The watch is just beautiful I should have taken a picture to show you, sorry about that. Anyway Gary loves Mickey and just had to have the watch and picture. We were able to take the watch and painting home unframed.
Tinker Bell is my favorite of all, I just love it when she flies across the sky from the castle at Disneyland. As a surprise gift Gary had the artist paint Tinker Bell for me and had a watch made also. So several weeks went by and a box arrived on the front porch addressed to me. Gary said open the box and when I did I saw the most lovely Tinker Bell ever. We had both pictures framed the same so we put them in our dinning room so we could see them everyday.