So many projects

Mom wanted updates on the projects around the house.

First are pictures of Amir and some of his animals.  I was terrified of turkeys when I was a child.  There is even photographic proof.  Now they are not so scary.  Mostly annoying.
We are getting many many eggs. (see photo)  The ducks are still too young to lay. The turkey are the closest to chicken eggs.  The shell is harder though.  I think the goose eggs have a richer taste.  The white is a lot thicker than chicken and the yolk is creamier.

Amir and his favorite turkey

Tom Turkey

Miss Jenny

Chicken, Turkey, Goose

House stuff.  I have to admit I am not much help when it comes to projects.  Amir does it all.  He is the man!
The basement has sump pumps we had to replace.  They failed the...second week we were in the house (if I'm remembering correctly).  Of course Amir knows how to fix them.  The first room is the largest in the basement.  Sort of a downstairs living room.  Amir put in new insulation and dry wall.  The floors are now stained concrete.  Sort of a redish acid washy thing. You can kinda see in the 'almost done' picture, but they hadn't been washed yet.
The bathroom is kinda cool.  Because the water has to go uphill, there is a pump behind the toilet that pushes the waste water into the drain pipe.  (I think its rather ingenious myself; if a little noisy)  He tiled the shower in a light grey mottled color.  Again, very pretty.  The bathroom still needs some finishing touches, but so far it works.
Then there is the new staircase.  It goes from the kitchen into a room that will be my storage room.  I'm way more excited about a store room than I should be.  The joys of being an adult.  Again, Amir is amazing.

Basement room before

 

Basement room almost done

Basement bathroom

New Stairs

The kitchen was repainted before, but then Amir started removing walls.  It is very open now.  And the rock on the wall is being removed. And the laundry room has been opened.  And the kitchen island will now be 'floating' after the wheels are put on.  And I have stairs to the basement. And I will be very happy when its done because my house is now a glorious mess. Again, hooray for Amir! Have I mentioned yet how marvelous, handy, hardworking and unbelievably wonderful he is?

Dining Before

Living Before

Floors in progress

Open Concept People!

Tear down those walls

Kitchen in progress

Big changes-no blogging. Sorry

I haven't blogged in 3 years.  Oops.  Life happens.

So we are now in Pueblo, Colorado. We own a landscape company. We have a new house. It is a full acre.  Lots of room for Amir's business and Amir's animals. We have 10 geese (different breeds), 8 turkeys (Broad Breasted White), 7 quail (Cortunix), 9 laying chickens (Rhode Island Reds. We got a rooster from the neighbor-thanks neighbor!), 2 adult Broilers, 10 new baby Broilers, and 10 baby ducks (Peking). And 2 dogs.

Without further ado... the pictures.

Front of the house.  First entrance.  I love, love, love the tree!

Also front of house.  Second entrance. You can see the edge of the garage to the right.   

This is a Google view.  The house and garage are on the left.  Shop is behind/ to the right of the garage. Like I said- lots of room.  (Creepy little shed at the top there is being removed.)

Before photo of kitchen. It was very dark and making me sad.  It needed to be brightened up. It will eventually have new light fixtures to help too.  I had to go quick and cheap on this project. 

I think I did well-thank you very much.  It makes me infinitely happy. 
(The new fridge was not on purpose.  The old one died, so needs must.)

Close up of pulls.  There are about 8 different designs in this set.
  They are colorful and bright and fill me with joy.

"Tiles" to add color.  They're actually vinyl stickers.
More joyful color.

The bird crew. Chickens and turkeys and geese. Oh my!

The birds enjoying the back lot.  Pear tree on the left.  Peach tree on the right. 
Walnut tree in the middle.

Harley-by a pear tree.
(Harley is the small dog on the bottom-ish left)

New little duckies.

Felfel with an orange.  He thought it was a ball.
He has a ball obsession.

randomness

I do have a life.  I just don't document it like I should.

Our hot little dog.

Amir and I went to Dallas over the summer. It was a long drive and very hot.  Harley went too and had a great time.  I told Amir everything in Texas was bigger.  Including the barbecues in the parks.
The rest are just random pictures to let you all know we're still alive and well.

New Mexican wildlife.
Amir plays with snakes at work.
No he doesn't kill them.  He just throws them over the fence.

Balloon fiesta 2015

Albuquerque snowman.  We discovered him by the Rio Grande.

Graduation-way late

Amir graduated...way back in May. Oh well.

He has his master's degree in landscape architecture.  His favorite thing to say is "Harley's master has a master's." He's adorable.

We attended two ceremonies.  The first was an all-school gradate ceremony; the second was a departmental all-levels graduation.  Both were nice and I'm glad we attended.  Mom came to support her favorite son-in-law* and it was lovely having her here.

Some of the pictures are a little blurry because Amir does not hold still and because Molly was trying out her telephoto lense.

He was way on the other side of the auditorium,
 but we managed to pick him out of the crowd.

His hood was purple- for architecture and landscape architecture.

No celebration in New Mexico is complete without the Mariachis!
I think there was more applause for them than anything else during the ceremony.

Amir and his adviser in front of the school of architecture and planning.

* Actual favorite son-in-law status may differ.  Molly just assumes it because she likes Amir the most. 

hair raising tales

Before

After

  I don't like pictures of me, but I had to share.       My dear darling husband has discovered yet         another talent.  

More stuff I forgot to blog

Its not that nothing happens in my life...



Amir and I have a new niece.  She was born the end of last year, but I neglected to blog.  Her name is Aileen and so far she looks just like her dad. (He's in some of the Iran pictures in case you wanted to compare) I love nieces and nephews!!

A conversation Amir and I had when I went to pick him up from work the other day.
Me: Hey Amir, why do you have a box of donuts?
Amir: Because life is hard.
Wisdom from the mouth of Amir.  When life gets tough...get donuts.

My dear darling husband surprised me for my birthday.  We usually don't do anything big for birthdays, but he gave me dinner and dessert. He made me cry.  Love that man!









Amir planted four little tomato seeds.  They have taken over his office.  This is when the plant was a little smaller.  We've gotten, literally, hundreds of cherry tomatoes. They are sweet and delicious. Amir grows where he can.  These are in a bucket behind his printer.  So you see why I worry when he says he wants to get chickens and keep them in the closet.  He may not be kidding.

Denver

A google picture of the blue bear in front of the convention center

Good morning bear

Hello all.  Last week Amir attended his first ALSA (American Society of Landscape Architects) conference in Denver.  Harley and I tagged along-mostly because we could.







Harley and I had a great time.  We took lots of walkies and visited many parks. We also discovered Harley's new passion -squirrels!

This was a park near our hotel. I love the trees.
You can see the remnants of snow. So pretty, but so cold!

This is Harley's preferred position

Denver squirrel, mocking my New Mexico dog.

The biggest park we visited was Cherry Creek State park.  It has one of the largest off leash areas I've ever seen in a park.  According to the brochure, its 107 acres.  Harley was very well behaved and only snapped at one big doggie.  I was also very well behaved and didn't bark at anyone. (For more more info cpw.state.co.us) We spent two hours walking and exploring.

The shore of a partially frozen lake

Sunshine on the ice

We climbed butterfly hill.  I don't know why it was called butterfly,
 because it was covered in prairie dogs. Another Harley favorite.

Skyline from butterfly hill

We also visited Washington Park.  Amir went with us to this one. Geese are apparently a major issue at the park.  I include pictures to show you the enormity of the problem.  (Luckily, Harley did not care for geese)

On the lake...

In the fields...

Flying...

Frozen...

Sorry I did not get a lot of people pics.  You will have to be content with one of Amir and Harley.

I did not go to any of the convention, but I did get to know my way a little bit around Denver.  It would be great, except for the traffic.  Friday evening it took me 15 minutes to drive 1 mile.  Saturday morning, the whole trip took 15 minutes. <<sigh>> All in all Denver was a nice city and we had a lovely visit.