To blog again?

Whoa...life gets in the way of blogging. It has been forever since I posted anything. I am actually shocked that my blog hasn't been cancelled. I have been thinking of posting on here more to better document the things the Keens do and big things going on in our lives.

Since last blogging we have gotten married bought a house, fixed it up, had a wonderful daughter, moved to a new house (what I call our forever home), completed some big remodeling projects on it and can't stop. :)  Now we are expecting a little boy in May. Hoping I will get back into this by posting some of the stuff we have done to the house, attempted craft projects, Dan's cooking, and who knows what else. I want to document more of what our family does for our own benefit, so what better place than here. Wish me luck and focus to get this done.

IKEA Hack?

Hello Loyal Viewers...I am shocked and yet not totally surprised that it has been a year since I blogged...well, just about. I guess I should add it to the list of things to improve on in 2015. Starting...now.

So, I wouldn't say that I LOVE IKEA, but I do appreciate it. When I first moved into my own place it was my best friend to furnish my living room and provide home from my clothing. It was a great and inexpensive way to get a clean look in my new home and even I can put the furniture together. Oh, I wish I had pictures of the TV stand that I put together...you would all be so proud. 

Anywho, a couple pieces from that first place (to my surprise) have survived a few moves and served me well. This week, as we were packing away Christmas and putting away the tree, we decided to turn one of these faithful pieces of furniture into kitchen storage so that we will no longer have to search all over the apartment for hidden kitchen appliances, bake-ware, stemware, etc (first go to place to look was always under the guest bed).

So, we headed to IKEA to see what we could find. Here are some pictures from the project, if people want to know the details, let me know. I will say that the bookshelf is from a line (Besta Vara) that I believe they are discontinuing, which is unfortunate because it is so versatile.  

Here is the original bookshelf in all of it's glory. Well, actually this is its twin because I forgot to take the before picture of the one that we transformed, but you get the idea. :)

The during...

The after!!!!

A rack to hold cookbooks, some stemware, pots/pans/lids, bake-ware, small kitchen appliances and anything else that might come to mind.

We used the Grundtal Series for the hooks and rods.

Two hanging rods with hooks to hang pans and a utensil box for extra utensils. 

A drawer for lids and splatter guards. 

Lower storage for Kitchen Aid Mixer, Crockpot, and other bake-ware

Some things to note...

1) IKEA does not provide the screws to drill in the hanging rods, we (and by we, I mean Dan) used sheet metal screws (3/4 inch).
2) We purchased the stemware racks at Home Depot, because the ones at IKEA did not fit our glasses (the bases were too wide).  There are also a lot of options online.

I am so thankful to have Dan and all of his tools to be able to help our ideas come to life. Not to say that I couldn't have done this, but it definitely wouldn't have come out so nice and it might have fallen apart over night...the perks of being with an engineer and having a partner in crime. 

Happy New Years!!!

Mount Si Hike

It is sad that I grew up in the Snoqualmie Valley and have never done this hike before (it is also pretty sad about how long it has been since I posted, but we don't need to get into that and other than Katelyn, I doubt anyone is too worried about it). Given my crazy dog and her need to be the only dog in the area, we elected to take the road less traveled and took the less used route (Don't forget your Discover Pass).

http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/mount-si-via-mount-teneriffe-road-trail

We (Me, Dan, Matt (Dan's friend from college who has been visiting us for a bit) and Gabby) ended up hiking higher and more distance than this, our route ended up being about 12 miles round trip per my fitbit  and we didn't even get to an "end" and could have kept going.  If you want an easier hike in the same area try Little Si.

Recommendations for this trip:
- Pack more snacks than some trail mix and shotbloks, this is probably a given for the experienced hiker, but I always tend to try to pack light because I hate carrying a lot of stuff.
- Layer up if you are going to go any time soon, I saw people in coats and bundled up pretty good and the at the top there was a guy in shorts and that was about it. I was pretty cold to start, warmed up pretty good through the hike and then started to get a lil chilly as we made our way back down.

All and all, we were hurting a bit the next couple days and maybe that wasn't a great get back into hiking trip, but we made it and are all ready to go on another hike or perhaps some snow shoeing with my lil sister after Super Bowl weekend.

GO SEAHAWKS!!!

Here are some pictures from the hike sorry for some Instagram duplicates.

You can kind of see Rainier if you look closely. My sister was snow shoeing over there the same day...I am pretty sure if you look closely you can see her. :)

Hopefully there will be many more hikes and posts. I am excited that Katelyn is moving back to Washington so we can go on a bunch of hikes this summer.