About 2 years after moving in, I've finally managed to round up some "before" photos of our house! These are from the realtor, so I think they actually look better than the house felt when we walked through it. The carpeted areas were stained, the vent registers were disgusting, most of the ceilings were popcorn, etc.

These don't include photos of the 2 bedrooms and the laundry room, which were pretty standard. The master had carpet and the 2nd bedroom had a bunch of peeling paint on the wall. The laundry room is right off the kitchen and used to be a porch.

We have finished most of the major projects we set out to do when we bought the home except for the pink bathroom. After living with it for a couple of years, we've decided to renovate it, mostly because of structural issues under the bathroom that were hard to ignore. Stay tuned for that project!

The living room

Living room looking into the hallway. Check out those carpet stains!

Dining room. Don't mind the kitchen cabinet front hanging out.

Kitchen looking into dining room

Main kitchen area with hallway to the right. (Please note there are no appliances to be found.)

Lovely pink bathroom with unfinished crown molding.

This bathroom reminded me of a horror movie motel bathroom. Is that too dramatic?

This hike isn't part of any official state or national park. It's kind of off the radar and doesn't have any regulations, so I knew it would be popular with dogs. We were both a little worried about how Sammie would behave, since she's kind of socially inept, to put it nicely. Overall, she was surprisingly well-behaved! She became really attached to a little poodle mix dog and its family, which was really funny.






The water color was gorgeous, and we rode by Vikingsholm, which is another popular attraction in Tahoe. I'm not quite sure what it's all about, honestly, but it's some type of historic castle-looking house. The lighting made it impossible to photograph, but it was cool to see. Overall, we had a great time in Tahoe!


In other news, we have been going into San Francisco on our off weekends. It's not really enough for me to make a whole post about, but it's been fun. We got a burrito from El Farolito, which is one of the Mission's original burrito spots. It was probably the best burrito I've ever had.  I also went in one weeknight to meet a friend for dinner. I have to say, going on weekdays is much better for traffic since most people are leaving the city. I rode right in with minimal stop-and-go traffic (there's always some) and found a parking spot right in front of the Ferry Building. The weather has also become a little better, with less fog. It's been nice to actually see the city!

A couple of weekends ago, we did an "urban hike" in the Berkeley Hills. The hills of Berkeley and Oakland are nice neighborhoods and in Berkeley, there is a system of walking trails throughout the neighborhood. Pictures really don't convey how cool it was, but this is definitely something I would suggest as a Berkeley activity. The houses were all eclectic, which was interesting enough on its own, and the views of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the bay in general were awesome.


The weather for our walk was so nice - probably 75 and partly cloudy. Berkeley is warmer than San Francisco, but not hot at all. The first time we went into Berkeley, we weren't really all that impressed. After watching the entire Parenthood series, I had high hopes (even though I don't really think it was filmed in Berkeley.) We also came on UC Berkeley's graduation day during our first trip, so the terrible traffic really didn't help our first impression. After this visit, Berkeley definitely grew on me. I probably wouldn't be too excited about living in Livermore for much longer, but I could definitely get used to the idea of living in the Berkeley Hills with views of the bay from my deck!


Last weekend, we decided to take a quick trip up the Redwood Coast. On the way up, we drove through "The Avenue of the Giants," which is a 31-mile road along Highway 101 that goes through tons of redwood groves. Again, it's so hard to capture how amazing things like this are with a camera. We drove a lot during our 2 day trip, and often times we were surrounded by huge redwoods that were right beside the road. I doubt we will ever see anything like it again!



We stayed in Eureka for the night, mostly because it was the only place in the area with vacancy for the weekend. July 4th in California is ridiculous. We wanted to go camping, so I started looking for sites and/or cabins weeks in advance, and everything was booked.

Eureka, I would assume, was originally a gold rush town (hence the name) and has lots of Victorian architecture. It is on the coast, so we got to take Sammie to the beach. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for her!




We don't have much time left in California! We have a trip planned to Lake Tahoe, and other than that, we just plan to see more of San Francisco and the bay area. We will be headed to LA on August 8, staying for a couple of nights, and then we'll start our drive back across the country.