Our New Home

Come on over to WordPress and check out our new digs. Click on the following link and it will take you directly there - http://calabashyard.wordpress.com/ . Don't forget to make the change in your favourites.

See you on the other side.

We've Been Very Busy

Pieces of our busy May - click here

Wow, talk about jumping right into life as we know it. Jamaica and Hawaii are now a thing of the past. Since coming home we have been on the go.

Liam is now 6-months old and finally got to enjoy the real thing they call food. He's had the opportunity to taste pears, peas and sweet potato (all in that order) and I have to say I'm really not sure if he's enjoying any of it. Next up will be avocados or maybe even bananas. He'll come around, we all did. He's sleeping really well at nights. Crazy, but it is now 11pm and the moment I typed that last line Malaika cried out...just my luck. When I checked on her the poor baby had fallen out of her bed. She's never done that before. Back to Liam, what a happy little guy if you smile for him believe me he will give you the biggest smile right back. And yes, his hair is red.

Talk about smiles, well Malaika gave off the biggest smile when we took her to see Sesame Street Live - Elmo's Green Thumb. She was bobbing her head to the songs and following all of her favourite characters all over the stage (Elmo, Big Bird, Ernie, Bert) she couldn't stop calling their names when we left.

We've had four straight days of beautiful weather in Seattle. So what do you do, you take advantage of it. We've gone to see the new penguin exhibit at the zoo. Taken the bus to the University Street Fair and enjoyed the our friends in the neighbourhood playing with bubbles, sidewalk chalk and water balloons. I think summer may actually be on the horizon.

The crazy thing is that May isn't even over yet- plus we still have a big birthday to celebrate. So stay tuned.

Balancing the Blog

It was back in February 2006 that I became a blogger. I really wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, the truth is I really wasn't sure if this was something I could keep up with. My main reason for starting the blog was to keep my family 3,000 plus miles away just a little bit closer. With this blog I have shared about the Seahawks, my experience with TNT, our Remodel, family, friends, MALAIKA and much more. My readers have increased from one (my mother) to so many more and I welcome you all and hope you're enjoying Calabash Yard.

Before Malaika was born I was able to share about so much. Since her birth it's been mainly posts about her. I know you all enjoy them and I enjoy writing about her and there is no stopping the photographs and videos of her. However, I have realized that it's easy so I need to challenge myself to write about other things going on in this Bell/Dugaw mind of mine. Don't worry folks I'm not saying goodbye to my blogging days I am however realizing that I need a little more balance in the pieces I post.

Featured On The Local Fox Station

Malaika and I went for our morning run on Tuesday with our friends Cheryl and Dillon, it was a really cold morning and Cheryl and I started to talk about how much the little babies need to be bundled up. It's always interesting to see how little some parents put on their children.

No kidding folks, it was only 5 min. into our run when we were stopped by a television crew asking us how much we wrap up our little ones in this cold weather. I said nothing, which was a good thing but you can see that it's me. Enjoy! The Local Fox station put this together. Click on news archives, go to page 2, click on Take Precautions Exercising in the Cold.

Remodel 7

Take a tour of the completed portion of the remodel. Along with the bedrooms and bathroom the attic was completed, didn't take a picture but it does look good.

We have about 10% left to be completed, this includes the mirror and blinds for the downstairs bathroom, blinds for the hallway and babies room, pictures on the walls, repairs to the upstairs bathroom, cabinetts and clearing out of the garage.

Our new bedroom

Our new bathroom (still waiting for the mirror)

Pillows on futon were all handmade by Gramee (Donna Dugaw)


Our baby room

Happy Mother's Day

As a pending mother I would like to wish all the mothers out there a Happy Day.

Remodel 6a

The living room floors are complete. What do we have left to do? Well, the bathroom downstairs still needs a countertop, faucets and a toilet. The attic needs a ladder and floor boards and the upstairs bathroom needs all of it's plumbing redone and the bathtub needs a new finish. We have moved into the downstairs bedroom and the babies room is on it's way to being ready.

We emptied our storage unit and we currently have all of our "stuff" in the garage. That's a bit of a headache but we are hoping that we can get everything in it's place in the next week or two.

I've attached a picture of me, sorry it's taken me so long to get one up on the blog. Not a great picture, took it myself without a tripod.

37 weeks

Remodel 6

We're not done yet. As you can see we had to live in the living room for about 1-week while they put carpet in the office, babies room, downstairs bedroom and hallway along with painting the nursary. What do you think of the colour? It's Dill Pickle.

So as of today, we have moved into our new room downstairs, which we love, and we've moved back into the office. The downstairs bathroom still has some work to be done to it and this week I will be moving out as we are refinishing the hardwood floors in the living room. Yes, it went from very full to empty in one day. We're about 2-weeks from being finished and I'm 4-weeks from my due date. The nursary is currently storing everything from the living room and I can only hope and pray that I will be actually fixing up that room next weekend.

We were living in a studio (our living room) for a while

The bathroom is coming along

The garage got new cabinets

The downstairs bedroom now has carpet

The office also got new carpet, I wish I had painted it

The babies room got new carpet and a new paint job

Remodel 5a

I've got colour on my walls and I love it. Check it out, the hallways are Alaskan Skies, the bedroom is Cotswald and the bathroom is Meadow Trail . The vanity will be installed in the bathroom tomorrow along with the garage cabinets, the bathroom fixtures should go in sometime next week. The shower doors will be installed in about two weeks along with the carpet. At that point we move it to the upstairs. I wasn't too sure when we were going to get to this point...whew!

Remodel 5

We're getting really close to being finished with the downstairs. The bathroom has been tiled, the walls have been primed, the trim and doors are up and the new window has been installed.

Next week the bathroom will be grouted, the walls will be painted, the vanity and bathroom fixtures will be installed as well as the garage cabinets.

Things are looking good and we seem to be on track for completion.

Pictures - Bedroom, hallway (linen closet) and bathroom

Remodel 4

It was a week of dry walling. From hanging, to mudding, to drying, to sanding. Next up, the painter (see samples below). I'm having a hard time finding the right colour for the bathroom - greens to the right. The babies room is all set - two colours in the middle and the bedroom and hallways are in the light beige colour scheme - colours to the left. Again, I could use my sisters help with this one. Oh well, back to the colour board.

Welcome to our remodel



Bathroom

Bedroom

Bedroom

Remodel 3

Our insulation is now in. For all those Jamaicans out there, that means that the place will be nice and warm in the winter and it makes the place amazingly quiet. Plus, it should help save us some money on our electrical bill. With the insulation in olace the rooms actually look like rooms. Next week, the Sheetrock will go up and I can check out my paint samples.

Remodel 2b

The deck is complete. Yeah, one project down about 50 more to go. Martin has done a wonderful job with it. We weren't sure about the colour but it turned out really nicely. The deck can now hold more than one without feeling like it's going to collapse...party!

Check out the electrical work in Remodel 2a

Remodel 2a

The following are pictures of pure confusion. It's a big job, the entire downstairs is being rewired. We even had to move the panel on the outside of the house. The first picture shows some of the plumbing - red tube for hot water and blue tube for cold water.

Hot and cold water for the washing machine and sink

Don't ask me, I just hope somebody knows what's going on

Our new panel

Remodel 2

It's been a crazy week at the house. We've moved the furnace, which left us without heat for one night - the night it snowed. We've also retrofitted the house for earthquakes, it was the perfect day to be at work. I heard the noise was unbelievable. The new deck is on it's way, as I said the weather took a turn and so that came to a halt and the pipes for the return or waste are in and have been covered again by concrete. Oh I forgot, Tim added a job, he wanted to have his garage finished so that was also ripped out this week.

Next week the electrician comes in to move the panel, rewire the house and clean up the electrical mess everywhere. The tile guy, sheet rock guy and carpet guy should be coming in to give us quotes and the plumber will also be here to put in all of the water lines.

Tim and I have been spending our weekends going to home improvement stores looking at ideas and pretty much making some choices. The good news is that we found our bathroom sinks, I love them. There is so much to be done and I pray that we have these folks out of here by the end of April.

Our deck, a work in progress

The garage, waste line in and covered

The bathroom waste lines

Remodel 1a

I come home everyday to see something new. It's amazing to watch our ideas move from conversation to drawings and now construction. I'm now starting to make choices and that's been a little scary for me. I know what I like and I know what I don't like, the problem is that all the things that I like don't necessarily look good together. However, I have had my personal consultant, Lisa, close by - thank God for the phone!

I came home on Monday and our deck was gone.

By Wednesday there was framing for our new deck already put in

We are changing all of the plumbing in the house,

this is a big job and so far

Terry our plumber is doing a great job

This is piping for the new bathroom in the basement