So I've been away from blogging for a minute or two because I am preparing for my trip to China. I leave in 5 days, yikes! Everyone assumes I'm much further along in the packing process than I actually am. So far, I have underwear, my passport and cash. I'm not kidding. My work life has been crazy and I'm still recovering from our recent remodel. I did sneak a trip to the Tulip Festival in though.

Every year I make plans to get to Lehi to Thanksgiving Point. Once I made it before they opened for the season. This year, I got there on the very first day and it's been cold and wet, so the tulips are a little slow. They'll be better next week, but I will be in Hong Kong.

This is a fun shot I took, standing on a bench on a ledge with my camera extended as far above my head as my arm would reach. Cool huh?

So I went to take pictures of flowers but the Koi were more attractive. I ended up taking 4 fish pictures for every 1 flower shot. I'm a sucker for the opportunity. But answer me this, are Koi a form of carp because they have those little feeler things at the side of their gaping mouths.
Another reason I had to visit the Tulip Festival was to practice taking distance pictures with my new traveling buddy. My daughter Kaytie sent this from Alaska for me to take to China, kind of like the lawn ornaments that get kidnapped and returned after they take an exotic trip. Thank you Kaytie for not selecting something as heavy as a gnome.

Here we are checking out the waterfall.

The meandering creek. And of course the flower bed.

When I return I will post pictures of "Where's ________?" (Sorry, the peacock is nameless so far, any suggestions?) And you can all guess as to my whereabouts, because someone had to be holding the camera.

The kitchen is done?

The problem with starting a remodeling project is you are never quite clear on when you are done. The week after Christmas we started on an adventure that led to our home looking like a case of "hoarders" gone bad. We boxed up our kitchen and then tore it to the ground. The only things that remained were the plumbing, the stove, dishwasher and fridge. In review, this is what we started with.

In the beginning we just rolled out the carpet and replaced it with hardwood. The hardwood filled the dining room and it looked so good that we pushed it out through the family room and even down the hall. With what we had left over we started down the stairs.

Here we are in transition. We have pulled out the old bar and started boxing things up. I use "we" very liberally here, but what it really means is "my husband". So just insert "my husband" where ever you see "we" in the future.

Once the space was emptied and "we" had painted around the pantry door twice, because the first color wasn't right, "we" started filling up the space.

Once the space was full, "we" added the backsplash.

Now with all of this done, you would think "we" might want to rest from all our labors. Not likely, "we" are already considering how to build an entertainment center from the cabinets that we moved to the garage. I'd claim this was a DIY project, but it's really a hubby did it project. Well except for the cabinets which we hired out. Three things I learned while remodeling. (1) It will cost at least twice what you planned. You get to a certain point and you have no frame of reference and the "add-ons" will bite you in the bum. (2) It will take twice as long as you imagined. And (3) It will create 10 times the mess you figured. The dust will be so prolific and thick that you can write the names of all your ancestors in it. This is a lot  of dust.