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hey party peeps! we are finally getting some more of the ‘in progress’ yard projects pics up! you know the drill, too much yard worky and baby duty to actually put up posties! but thats gonna change now.

we have been continuing the landscaping on the slope in front of the house in front of our patio/flagstone fire place area. of course this was a bigger project than we thought starting out, (not just digging holes and putting plants in the ground). stephen of course did the hard work of; reshaping the entire hillside, carving out areas for the ‘dry waterfall’, building a bridge, bringing in rock, laying fabric, etc etc… i will let the photos tell the story. so, here we go! make sure to read the captions!

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ugh. I just wrote a big old post, and then the internet ate it.

Anyway, we went on a hike this weekend, and we have tons of pictures of ourselves to prove it!

We also worked on the yard, but we’ll post about that later.

pics:

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fresh out of the tub is a great time for pics!

samuel is now 10wks old, and noey is a great big sis. i do have lots more pics of the last few weeks but of course am lucky to get these 5 up! someday i hope to post some more.

busy busy!

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It was Mother’s Day on Sunday, and most of the Fitzgerald dudes were out of town for one reason or another. Fairlight and I put together a fun breakfast for Sarah and Mom (my mom) and the weather was just warm enough to eat outside.

mmmm…. waffles!fritattas! mimosas!

The rest of the day included a walk in a historic Portland neighborhood, a visit to the playground near the Rose Garden, and Sarah’s favorite: She got up on the roof and pressure-washed all the moss off. Thats my girl!

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The Fitz Fam came over to the Fitz Farm for easter, and I never got around to posting about it here. I just found the pictures on my desktop so up they go.

It was a wonderful day, and we rolled a mini-celebration for Noel’s #2 into it.

cheerio!

-Stephen

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tonight we are in hood river, oregon. i did a quick bike race and now its dinner @ big horse brewpub. sunny days make everything better…

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A lot of things we post on the blog are pretty tidy in terms of what we show. It usually goes like this: We start, we take a few intermediate pics, and then its all done by the end of the blog post. This time around I thought we’d post some stuff that won’t be done by the end of this post, or maybe even the end of the year. *sigh*

So, this project is the landscaping of the hillside. We feel like Little Chocolate House is pretty buttoned up on the inside, and we put most of our attention on the exterior these days. That isn’t to say that we don’t have a few more great ideas for the interior, but driving up our driveway past a hillside of weeds is more annoying than looking at a bare wall.

Sometimes we’ve got grandiose plans for the hillside that involve trucking in a huge load of boulders and creating a rustic hardscape dotted with awesome trees, plans, and shrubs. At the moment, though, money isn’t flowing freely and we’re being forced to scale back our ambitions to fit our budget. This doesn’t mean we can’t have fun, though.

To get this hillside project started we hit up craigslist for “plants”. The Portland / Vancouver area is great because it is flush with plant nurseries and the further you drive from the city, the closer the prices get to wholesale. We landed on a nice “liquidation” sale in Banks, Oregon selling a bunch of plants for $2 each. $2 each is our kind of price! Out we went and when we came back we had a pickup truck full of plants ready to go in the ground. When you have a ton of plants just sitting around like that it is a great motivator to get working, and we did just that.

We needed rocks to make retaining walls and steps, so I went ahead and started deconstructing the old buried rock wall along the upper part of our driveway. Later on this year we hope to rebuild that part with new rock to match the lower driveway wall, so taking the old rocks out gets that project started AND gives us some nice materals to work with. By the way, I love rocks, they are like yard legos.

So here are the pictures of how it went down this weekend. Read the captions to get all the info.

-sf

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two posts in one day!

We doubled up projects when we did the trash bin area, and the second project was the lamp posts. We hate our lamp posts. They are rusted, ugly, leaning to the side, and worst of all, they don’t match the house at all.

I’ve often whistfully admired the lamp posts and fixtures that Home Depot sells, but when I look at the prices on anything that isn’t ugly, my jaw always drops. Most of the fixtures themselves are well over $100 each, and then of course you either have to perch them on top of a dinky pole, or you have to build an expensive/difficult stone base for them.

Enter the store that we love to make fun of, but secretly love to love: Home Goods. Home Goods is home to everything sappy and tasteless, but we are drawn to it like moths to the flame because they have good deals! In all fairness, they also have some very nice stuff mixed in with the lawn gnomes, cupid sculptures, and faux italian pillars. While browsing one night, we spied some really cool candle holding fixtures on sale. The price was good ($25 each), and our gears started turning on how to somehow turn them into light fixtures to replace our sorry lamp posts. I had just finished the patio planters, and I thought maybe our cedar blocks could once again fit the bill as a construction material. We bought the lamps then they sat in the pile of shoes by the front door for a few months while we waited for a sunny day or two to get the project done.

We decided to juggle the trash area remodel with this project, and we tackled both at the same time. What I first thought would take an afternoon ended up consuming the better part of a few days, but we did eventually get it done and we’re really happy with how it turned out. We ended up with totally unique lampposts and we feel like we got a total steal on them as well.

More info in the pics:

s+s+n+s

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At the fitzfarm, we don’t have a garage. We don’t want to run back and forth between the barn, so we end up stacking everything right next to the house where we park the cars, and it gets ugly back there really quickly. The trash cans are the worst. The first thing you see when you pull up are oft-overflowing garbage cans and more trash stacked next to them. We needed to remedy this asap, and we finally did!

We got the wild hair idea to do this while buying supplies to make the patio planters, but that was months ago and the wood has been stacked (against the house) for a few months now. We finally got some 70-80 degree days here, and we had no excuse but to plow ahead and get them built.

As usual these were a little harder than I’d imagined, but that was because I had no plan on how I was going to make them. Lesson nuber 1057: always have a plan and a realistic time estimate or you are going to get overwhelmed when the project gets huge.

I didn’t take many intermediate pictures on this project, mostly just before/after. Sorry! The end result is pretty nice, and we’re happy. Its a little strange to have a box tacked onto the side of the house, but I’d rather have this box than what it is covering.

cheerio!

-sf

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and we’re still working on the house! more posts coming soon.

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were on the plane to california. still in one piece despite the best efforts of TSA to confiscate Samuel’s blankey.

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You read it here first. Yes, loyal blog readers, we haven’t even put it on Facebook yet. We’re taking our first family trip as a foursome to LA on April 10th through the 14th for the wedding of our good friends Bob and Loriann.

We’re going to be “that couple” with “those kids” on the plane. Good times!

If you read this and live in LA, lets hang out!

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say hi to the newest member of the family. no, its not samuel, its an as of yet unnamed 1978 ford f250 beater truck. were tired of renting the home depot truck, jamming the subaru with2×4s, and paying $100 to have big things delivered to our house, so we picked this thing up yesterday for a song. were going go be doing all sorts of yard projects this year as well, so stay tuned for more regular updates!

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the little dude is happy.

Video

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We are all settling in to the new life at home with the little dude! He is a sweetie. We are so thankful for nonni and poppi being here to help out and get adjusted. Noey is doing great. Sorry for the lack of words but I figure you are most interested in seeing him….

So here are a few snaps of our first few days home!

Thanks for the prayers and support.

S, S, N & S

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http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1032227651285

sorry for the quickie. we’re busy!

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fitzgerald ladies aglow.

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