Tovigby Today!: What We've Been Up To!

We've been busy lately! Here's what we've been up to:

Our friend Lindsay has a new CD out and we went to her CD release party in March. It was at a local pub in Ballard and it was awesome! She played with Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls, and there was also a surprise guest appearance by Dave Matthews! It was really cool--it's great to see her music getting a lot of exposure, and awesome to hear other famous musicians singing her songs. Find out more at: http://www.lindsayfuller.com/. Great job, Lindsay!

We also went to another concert in March (almost as awesome as Lindsay's show)--we saw Kelly Clarkson with our friend Danny. Chelsea and Danny love her (okay, I might a little bit, too) and have been to a few other of her shows in Seattle. Chels & Danny used to work together and they would sing her songs together at work...they have also been known to sing her songs at karaoke. Matt Nathanson opened for her, and we got to meet him after the show!

Here we are with Matt Nathanson. He was pretty good! His most famous song that you've probably heard on the radio is called "Faster". That was fun!

Chels and I decided to paint the room on the ground floor of our townhouse. It's going to be our TV room, and it was this hideous shade of orange when we moved in. Kind of between peach and salmon, not a color I love... Last month we happened to discover that Ace hardware was giving away free quarts of paint on Saturdays. How lucky! We were able to get 4 quarts and paint the whole room (well, it's maybe 10'x7', so not huge).

We painted the ceiling and two walls a silvery-bluish grey color.

And the other two accent walls are a shade of aqua. It matches an accent color in the curtain panels & matching throw pillows we have!

Here it is, nice & new and not orange!

I think we did a pretty nice job!

Here are the curtains. The room isn't totally done yet, so we'll post some pics once it's complete. I really like it! It's fun to have a room that we decorated completely ourselves, paint and everything. Our next painting project will be the half bathroom off the kitchen--it's a deep red that is not commonly found on my color wheel :)

Last Friday, Chels and I got to spend time with Grandpa Jack. We went over to his house after work and made dinner. Then we just hung out and relaxed--we got to look at more picture albums, this time the late 90's were featured. We got to see cruise trips that Jack & Cynthia went on, high school pictures of Chels & Steph, Steph's high school graduation & Andrew's graduation from middle school, and other fun family pictures. It's so neat that Chelsea's Grandma Cynthia had made all of these photo albums over the years--it's a nice way to put a picture to all of Grandpa Jack's stories!

We've been doing some work in the backyard. Well, mostly Chelsea has been--the backyard is her domain to decorate. She first started pulling up ivy that's wrapped all around the big tree we have. What a project! She dug a big hole at the base of the tree to cut out the roots, and got all the ivy off the tree as high as the top of the fence. Our yard waste bin has been full each week!

Kitten has been getting braver in her outdoor adventures. She's mostly an indoor cat, but we let her come outside with us while we're in the backyard. However, yesterday she jumped on top of the fence, so we'll see how much freedom she gets in the future...

Here are two little evergreen trees we got for free from my work. We have a gardening service that comes and brings plants according to the season--after the holidays, I was able to get these because they were switching to spring plants. We've yet to decide exactly where we are going to put them in the backyard yet... Chels is thinking of planting ground cover in the backyard, and Claire suggested stepping stones to make a little patio. Between Chels, Barry, Claire, and Aunt Cathy, we'll have plenty of ideas and advice for a great-looking backyard!

Kitten also likes to eat the grass, silly cat!

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and Chels made a little display for our house. It started out with real eggs she had dyed last year with Aunt Cathy. Then she remembered all the beanie babies of hers that Cindy brought up last time they were in town. How perfect!

We all went to brunch at Aunt Cathy & Uncle Sandy's house--we were there, Boo & Dan, Claire & Sean, Miranda & Matt, Grandpa Jack, Cathy & Sandy, and their neighbor friend Jerry. It was delicious as always! After brunch, we walked down to the pond to see the ducks. Here we are in front of a really pretty cherry tree.