Happy Spring!

Today is officially the first day of Spring and what a beautiful day. The sun is out and no rain in sight. I thought I'd share with you some pictures of my blooming daffodils and growing bulbs as well as my indoor spring decor. Enjoy and Happy Spring!

View of my front walkway with daffodils in bloom

Daffodils and tulips border my front flower bed

Daffodils blooming

Upclose view of pretty daffodils - you can see the variety of yellows and whites

One little patch where I planted about 50 peach and pink colored daffodils

Pretty daffodil

My first tulip looking like it's budding and getting ready to bloom

Intense yellow color daffodils

These tulips aren't from my yard, but pretty table decoration on my dining room table with Spring colored table runner

Hanging from our front door

Easter eggs hanging from mirror in front entrance

Happy Spring decoration on mirror shelf in front entrance

The look of it all

These orange tulips aren't from my yard, but thought they were a nice living room coffee table decoration

White and pink tulips on TV entertainment stand

Clark wasn't a fan of the yellow/purple combo, but I thought was a nice spring color mix

Up close view of orange tulips

Bright red tulips for the kitchen

Bulbs starting to bloom

The tulip and daffodil bulbs that I planted in the flower beds in our front yard poked through the soil starting in January and continued to grow in February, but this morning I noticed that a few daffodils started to show their buds and bloom! So exciting...so below are some pics of the early blooms. With over 600 bulbs and a variety of colors (yellow, white, pink, peach, red, purple), I cannot wait for March and April when they are all out showing their colors!

Spring is on its way

To my surprise and much delight, my tulip and daffodil bulbs that I planted in my front yard began to poke through! I spent many weekends last fall planting over 600 bulbs and I was really worried they wouldn't come up or that they'd get eaten by squirrels. So far, so good. The bulbs in my front flower bed have come up and the side flower beds are starting to see little buds. I can't wait for another month or so for them to bloom! Stay tuned and I will post pics in March when they are taller and in bloom! So for now, enjoy...

My bulbs starting to poke through the soil

Getting taller...

You can start to see the perfectly aligned rows of bulbs

Can't wait until March when they bloom

Our First Home

Clark and I had hoped to buy our first home, but we didn't anticipate it happening so fast! We had only been searching for potential homes for about a month and looked at some houses, but none seemed to be exactly what we wanted. Our realtor, George Pilant, was so patient with us and really helped make this first experience a memorable and positive one. It can be really stressful putting in an offer, having the home inspection, finding financing, and waiting for the close date. George explained all the stuff we didn't understand. If anyone needs a realtor, we recommend George - he is the best! He has many years of experience and truly listened to our needs and got us the best deal possible.

Anyway, we found a house in the North end of Tacoma. It's a 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom house, about 1600 square feet. The house is over 100 years old, which is great because it has such charm and character. It has great built-ins in the dining room and a classic Craftsman/Bungalow style house. We have fenced backyard with a back deck and even a small front porch! Unfortunately, we don't have a garage or a basement, so storage is an issue...but at least it will force us not to keep a bunch of stuff that we don't need or use! Our upstairs has a lot of potential with the large bedroom and half bathroom, with room to expand to a full bathroom. We have two walk in closets and a room off our bedroom...great for a reading/sitting room, office, or perhaps in the future...great for a nursery?

The kitchen and downstairs bathroom were recently rennovated prior to when we moved in. So we have new kitchen cabinets, floors, and appliances. We had to buy a new washer and dryer, so we went with an energy efficient front loading set and we have been SO pleased with our purchase! When we moved from DC, we sold all of our furniture on Craig's List so we are really starting from scratch, which is stressful on the one hand because it's so expensive to buy EVERYTHING all at once, but it's kind of exciting on the other hand because we get to pick out NEW stuff! We found a great deal on a living room set, dining room set, and kitchen table set. In our spare bedroom we have some basic IKEA nightstands and dresser and haven't yet fully furnished our office or upstairs bedroom. Again, a work in progress!

We do have some plans to rennovate and make upgrades, but will have to be phased in over several years as we are saving for our wedding. Here are our projects, in order of when we hope to accomplish them:

1) Yard - pressure wash and stain deck and fence, plant flowers, bushes, and landscape front and back yard.

2) Upstairs Bathroom - expand our half bath to a full bath to make our upstairs a "master suite."

3) Garage - build a one-car garage with extra room for storage. This may include moving our shed to another place in our backyard and possibly expanding our deck.

4) Dining Room - put french doors leading out to sideyard and expanded deck. Make one of our built-ins into a wine rack.

The view of our home from the street - 1228 N. Fife Street

Our front porch - Clark was happy it was painted crimson

Our living room

Our front door

New tile in downstairs bathroom

New tile backsplash in kitchen

Kitchen

Built-in china hutch in dining room

View of dining room from living room

Old-fashioned doorknobs

Back door and back deck

View of backyard from back door

Shed in backyard

Huge side yard - potential to make wrap around deck and french doors off of dining room

Clark on moving day - such a trooper that he moved ALL boxes by himself! Of course I paid him back the favor by unpacking ALL the boxes by myself!

Clark moving the last few boxes!

Boxes filled the dining room

Sadly, we lived out of boxes for TOO long!

Doing our first load of dishes in our NEW dishwasher! Having a dishwasher definitely made us feel special...we didn't have one living in our apartment in DC, so it was really challenging after cooking!

I am SO excited about my huge pantry!

Cooking our first dinner the night we moved in - baked salmon!

Cooking for the first time on the stove!

Our new energy efficient front-loading washer and dryer! Again, we didn't have our own washer and dryer living in DC, so we feel SO special and lucky that we have this convenience!

Andrea cutting our grass for the first time with our brand new lawnmower - Thanks Dad!