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.

Here's Sean & Claire checking out the ducks

Me & Aunt Cathy. It was such a beautiful, sunny day! We had a lot of fun :)

A turtle sunning on a rock

Ducks in the pond

It's so funny the way they dive down in the water looking for food!

Pretty daffodils

Happy birthday to Barry & Dan last week, and to our sweet little niece Delilah this week! We love you all!

Finally, a Sunny Day in Seattle!

Today was the first sunny day we've had in Seattle in a long time! Mom even asked me yesterday on the phone if we've been surviving the cold weather we've had in Seattle--I had to break out my wool winter coat again last week. Thank goodness for sun! I was starting to forget what sunshine looks & feels like...

We've had a busy few couple of weeks. Last weekend, Barry & Cindy were in town. They were helping us with a few things around the house, and we all helped out at Steph & Dan's new house.

Here's our new ceiling fan that Barry installed in our bedroom. Chelsea is in heaven, she loves ceiling fans! This one is nice too because it has a reversible feature, which helps keep the heat down during the winter. We love it!

He also installed a new toilet in our guest bathroom. When we bought the house, the inspector noticed a hairline crack in the toilet and although it wasn't leaking yet, he recommended getting it fixed. So here it is! I know, it's kind of weird to take a picture of a toilet, but I'm so impressed with Barry (and his hard-working assistant Chelsea) for installing it!

Here's our first day at Steph & Dan's house last Saturday morning. Friday night, we discovered the sweet hand knocker on one of the front doors. We were joking about it being a little Addams Family when the stager for the sellers came and knocked on the door--we all looked at each other and Barry says "It's the hand!" as we all started laughing. Hilarious! Chels is not too big of a fan of it, but I think it could be cool on the right door. Cindy said she could see it on an old Victorian style house, definitely!

Here are the Toby women, getting started putting contact paper in the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. The new house has a big, beautiful open kitchen. It has room for a kitchen table, has a sliding glass door out to the patio, a window seat (I'm so jealous, I LOVE window seats!), and a bar counter that looks out into the living room.

Steph & Dan, the happy new homeowners!

We painted their master bedroom a soft light blue, much to Stephanie's delight. It was previously a burnt orange color that the sellers had painted it before putting the house on the market. Blue is much more soothing. Steph said she couldn't sleep in an orange room--it was a little bright!

Here's Chels hard at work with the primer. This was good practice for us because we are going to paint our TV room as soon as we get rid of the hideous sofa we have in there now. We got a sleeper sofa from one of my bosses last summer for free--she was moving into a smaller home and down sizing. Well, since it was before we bought this house, Chels and I thought it might be nice to have a sleeper sofa as additional guest room space in our future home. Unfortunately, this one was just too big for our new place. Not to mention that the fabric is a loud 90's print, which would have been fine with a slipcover, but it's a good 10" too big so it has to go. We'll post pictures as soon as we have that room together, I can't wait!

Here's poor Dan with his head stuck up in the ceiling! As the new washer and dryer were being delivered, we ran into a little hiccup with the hookup. Apparently the previous exhaust hose was not the correct material (it should be metal), so Dan got his first taste of new home housework--he and Barry got to cut through the sheet rock to remove the old plastic hose and replace it. Barry made at least one trip to Home Depot each day, and they were only here Thursday night through Monday!

Dan is a little dirty but smiling after a job well done! Great job guys!

After all of our hard work last weekend, we went out to a nice family dinner Sunday night. Steph and Dan recommended Seastar Restaurant & Raw Bar in Seattle, it was great! http://www.seastarrestaurant.com/

Here's Chelsea's dinner, yum!

Sushi for the rest of us. It was delicious!

We had a fun, albeit busy, weekend last week, but it was fun! Steph & Dan's moving truck comes today, so I'm sure we'll have more updates soon. Barry & Cindy, next time you come to visit Seattle I hope it will be to relax. We appreciate all the hard work you've done for us!

This weekend is a little more low key for us. Today, we had brunch at Grandpa's with cousin Claire & Sean. They made homemade waffles and they were delicious!

Sean is the master chef

Claire displaying the fresh waffles, yum!

Everyone is enjoying the waffles

Here's an action shot of Chels--I told her to smile, I should have known this is what I would get... We had a nice time at Grandpa's. When we go over to visit, Grandpa usually has out an old family photo album or two to share with us and further our "continuing education" on the Nunneley family history. Today, we saw Grandpa's baby book and Aunt Cathy's. We also saw an album where Chelsea's parents were really young, where her Dad was graduating from law school, and Uncle John had long hair when graduating from college. They were so fun to look at!

Last but not least, we have a few pictures of Kitten snuggled up with her stuffed animal friends on the guest bed.

So cute!

More Pictures of Our New Place!

Oh my, I can't believe it's taken this long to put up more pictures of our new place! Well, it's hard for me to show pictures when we're still in transition, but I guess we'll just have to post pictures later after everything is finished and looking gorgeous.

Here's the dining room & living room, we have curtains, yay! Things are definitely coming together in these rooms.

We're doing a gallery of family pictures in the dining room over the buffet. It's about half-way complete. I love it already!

Here's the half bath on the second (main) level, where the kitchen, dining, & living rooms are. All we've done so far is hang up one print...the red was not our color choice, it may have to go!

Here's a shot of the guest bedroom/office on the third level. As you can see, we're still in the process of getting this space organized.

This room was also painted prior to our moving in, and coincidentally Chelsea's desk happened to be blue as well. So this has become quite a blue room!

This is the guest full bath on the third level. We're happy about the granite counter-tops, and the nice tiling.

This is the hallway leading into our master bedroom. We have a full bath with a good sized linen closet off of it.

And we each have our own closets! How exciting! I think I was mostly excited about this, whereas Chels was glad my clothes couldn't "crowd" her side anymore.

Here's our bedroom

A shot from the other side, looking down the hall with the guest room at the end. Our laundry machines are at the top of the stairs, hidden in a pretty good sized closet. We're thrilled to have nice, new laundry machines in our home!

Here's our master bathroom. Chelsea was as happy about the double sinks as I was about the separate closets--apparently she was crowded before while brushing her teeth! Ha ha, the things you find out later...

Another shot of our bathroom.

So there it is! It's still a work in progress, but we're having fun decorating our first home together. Can't wait to have our first visitors of our family & friends to come and see it! We're planning to have a housewarming party sometime in the near future, cross your fingers for us that we get our act together before 6 months has flown by :) Thank you to everyone who has sent cards and well wishes for our first home, they are all very sweet. We love our new place and will keep you all updated!