39th Anniversary

Happy 39th Anniversary Nick & Jean!  

Wonderful of you to let the crew join you 

at the Roundhouse for dinner to celebrate.

Looking forward to the 40th and more celebration to come!

xoxo, Zach & Sarah

A Room for Our Baby

The process of designing our baby's nursery has helped me in two ways: to stay focused throughout the pregnancy ups and downs, and to have a place to direct my excitement for the baby's arrival while we wait.  Even though we don't know if we are having a boy or girl, I didn't let that stop me from creating a room for our baby.  Nor did I let environmental concerns stop me.  I'm happy to say that on a small budget I was able to keep everything in our baby's little room sustainable, re-used, recycled or chemical free. After all, this is where our baby will be spending almost all of their time growing up. 

I love blue's and green's and knowing the trend for baby girls is pink and blue for boys, I tried to create a room that could incorporate pink later on if needed (since it's always ok for a girl to be in blue but have yet to see infant boys in pink).  I picked bold bright colors that I thought a boy or girl could love.  Throwing pink into this room with drapery and pillows should be easy if we do have a girl for an accent color down the road.  

We only have two bedrooms in our house so the baby's room has to double as our guest room when we have visitors.  The sofa is a pull-out bed from Ikea that my mom will break in when she's visiting after the baby is born.

 The crib and bedding are from Dwell Studio and available through my company, White Canvas Designs.  The bedding is 100% cotton and soft for baby.  The convertible crib is made of beech wood and finished in non-toxic paint.  We have an organic mattress that was given to us by my mom to complete the chemical free sleep zone. 

Zach and I gathered vintage ski posters while traveling through Switzerland and France a few years ago which I re-framed for artwork.  I plan to add pictures of the baby as well after the arrival.  

The area rug is from Dash & Albert and 100% cotton for easy washing.  All the wall, trim, and closet paint is from Benjamin Moore's "Natura" line, VOC and odor free.  For extra precaution while painting I did wear a mask but was happy I wouldn't have to worry about chemical off gassing when baby is sleeping in the room. 

 The knitted mobile was a gift from girlfriends at my baby shower made by a company called Blabla.  The teddy bear was hand knitted by our aunt, Jane, and is absolutely adorable!

 

I copied a simple pattern of a tree and painted it on the wall after I discovered how expensive wall decals can be. 

Instead of a glider (which our little room doesn't have space for) I found a traditional little rocking chair at a garage sale un-upholstered.  I used some fabric scraps (100% organic cotton) I had left over from a company called, Mod Green Pod, to upholster a new cushion. 

Overall, I'm really happy with how things turned out and plan to incorporate more sentimental items when baby arrives.  We have less then a month until we meet the little person that will be living in this room and we couldn't be more excited :)

Spring Delight

25" of new snow on Baldy in the last 24hours has made for some happy skiers in this valley!

Zach is frothing at the mouth to get up on the hill with the rest of the locals. 

My skiers delight is that most of the guys in the office are out on the mountain so I don't have to deal with any ridiculous remarks about being pregnant.

Let it snow!

The 4 Year Old

Time has flown bye!  Seems like yesterday Lucy was being scolded for chewing up another dog bed or recovering from a knee surgery.  But this past Saturday she turned 4 and we did a little celebrating.

She got a bone that I was certain she would devour instantly.  But showing her maturity instead I found her burying it in the backyard for a later treat.  Of course, I pretended not to notice her secret hiding spot.

We love our Lucy-Lu and even though our new baby will probably take over the spotlight, Lucy will always be our favorite furry friend.

Wells

Zach was working on a remote ranch south of Bellevue when a small dog approached him out of no where.  Zach is a hydrologist and works with wells often during his job.  This dog immediately started licking at the pipe of the well where the water was leaking out, desperate for water.  The ranch manager Zach was working with said the dog was a stray and would surely die within the week.  Zach was devastated and couldn't stand to know or see an animal suffer.  He decided he wouldn't let it.  Clearly the dog had never been in a car before and she wet herself immediately out of fright when Zach lifted her light body into the back of his truck.  If she didn't have such a pretty coat of fur her ribs would be visible for the only thing holding her together. 

He got home late that evening and we did our best to feed this little stray and make her comfortable in our home.  She seemed relieved to have someone to care for her but extremely anxious and nervous about any movement or noise.  The next morning we took her to the vet to get bathed and some medical attention.  We wanted to help as much as we could and thought we could handle another dog in our home.  One more night with us and it became apparent that this was over our heads.  With our new baby due to arrive next month, limited time and income, we knew this dog needed more attention and time then we have to give.

She is very sweet and approachable.  She has a gorgeous yellow and white coat that makes us think she is part Collie with freckles on her face that makes her part Red Healer.  Her eyes are a gorgeous pale yellow that matches her fur.  She get's nervous when left alone or things around her change suddenly.  She got use to Lucy after the first night but wasn't trusting immediately.  Once you earn her friendship she was going to be by your side indefinitely.  From her white teeth and small paws we believe she is around 1 1/2yrs.  She seems a lot more interested in people food but would eat anything.  We are guessing she was a scavenger because she is very sneaky about knowing when to take items from your lunch.  She weighs only 28lbs but when on a proper diet should way at least 38lbs.  Her fur is deceiving because she is all bones underneath.  I brought her to work with me on Friday and she was amazingly calm and responsive to anyone that was interested.  She does not understand a leash but didn't seem to mind as long as I was around her.  

Fortunately, we have an amazing Animal Shelter in our valley.  It runs on a no-kill policy, meaning there is no limit to an animals length of stay.  We were lovingly reassured that we were doing the right thing and that our little stray which Zach nick-named, "Wells", would be a desirable adoption because of her unique coloring and behavior. 

Even though we weren't able to adopt Wells, we found relief in knowing that no matter where she goes from being found abandoned on the ranch she will have a good life from here on out.

If you or anyone you know may be interested in adopting Wells or any other animal in this valley go to the Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley website for up to date information and pictures.  Wells will be available for adoption starting this Saturday (March 19th).  Even if your like us and can't take another pet into your lives please make a donation as we did.  This shelter provides an invaluable asset to our community.

Happy Happy Z!

Happy Birthday to my best friend Zach!

I hope you have an amazing day.

Looking forward to this new year of adventures with baby.

You are going to be an awesome dad :)

xoxo

Sarah

New Cork Floor

After months of planning, Zach sacrificed most of this past weekend to install our new laundry room cork flooring.  He and I tackled the removal of our existing linoleum flooring on Saturday afternoon and then a good friend, Ian, came in on Sunday and installed the new cork with Zach.  Thank goodness for Ian's help!  We couldn't have done it without him :)

Bye, bye, nasty linoleum.

Yuck!  Time to go.

Ian and Zach laying in the first row of cork planks.

Job well done boys!  We are back in business.

Ceramic infused cork plank flooring...ahh!

We purchased the cork planks through Sustainable Flooring in Boulder, Colorado.  The warmth and acoustic value of our new laundry room flooring was immediately apparent.  Read below for more specific information on the cork itself. 

Sustainability Benefit:

Cork from Portugal is sustainable for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is rapidly renewable, being that the bark of the tree is peeled from the trunk, and then tree is left to regenerate. This provides an almost limitless supply of cork bark, assuming that once the tree is beyond its’ useful life, replacements are planted (which they are). This heavily protected species also carries with it tremendous mechanical and functional properties, most of which are related to the fact that the cork bark is made almost entirely of cellular pockets of air (200 million cells per cubic inch). These cells of trapped air inhibit the passage of sound (making it one of the best acoustic insulators known), and are known as a thermal insulator, separately an often cold floor from the warmth of your foot. In addition, cork is anti-microbial, has tremendous “bounce-back” properties and forgiveness, and offers one of the greatest slip resistances of any natural material. Despite common wine industry myths, cork availability increases every year (despite minor ups and downs related to weather), and is one of the true really sustainable raw materials in its unaltered state.

• Sustainable Flooring uses “ceramic” and “atomic” finishes (enabling extremely high-traffic commercial use)
• Organic wax coating applied to all sides of the T&G (for added moisture resilience)
• Offers tremendous slip resistance (unmatched with any other mosaic)
• Sustainable Flooring only sources cork from Portugal (not China, where the cork forests are not mature enough to provide the inherent benefits in the cork material)
• Core material in planks is CARB-compliant (E0)