three friday sunsets ago, my dad and i left the bay area to spend the weekend in gold country. we checked into our sonora hotel late that first night and spent a few hours talking and listening to music before we hit the hay. we woke up leisurely the next morning and stopped at the local walmart (barf, but their stuff is cheap) for lawn chairs and a bag of trail mix before heading to the 29th annual fiddle & banjo contest in columbia.

i can’t tell you how great it was to simply sit there and enjoy the music without worrying about a 2-year-old (no offense, ells). in all honesty, i can’t even remember the last time i got out of bed when i wanted to and just went about my day casually without having to stick to a schedule. it was the best! so yeah, we spent most of saturday sitting in our lawn chairs people watching, eating chips and hot dogs and listening to contestants young and old put on their best fiddle and banjo performances.

it was also cool to kick down the dirt roads of columbia and take pictures of old buildings i haven’t seen since i was a kid.

later that afternoon we headed back to our hotel and hung out for awhile before walking down the street for dinner at outlaws bbq & steakhouse. it reminded me a little of good ol’ hickory pit in that it was more on the dive level than that of an upscale steakhouse, but MAN the food was tasty.

then we bought a deck of cards and spent the remainder of the evening drinking a little more than we should and playing gin rummy, just like the old days.

thanks for an awesome father-daughter weekend, dad. i look forward to many more before we’re through :) xoxo!

it’s a mild autumn afternoon and i just put ellie down for her nap. ryan is trimming the hedges, bruiser is crouched down in the grass stalking sparrows, and i’m sitting here on our backyard patio enjoying a very welcome fall breeze. my feet are up, computer on my lap, and other than the wind in the trees and the occasional airplane flying overhead, all is quiet. in a few hours my dad and i are leaving for sonora, a sleepy old town in tolumne county where my family took many weekend trips when i was little. it will be the first time i’ve left ellie and ryan for more than a day, and i’m looking forward to spending some quality time with my dad.

this summer has been good to our family. our house-hunting roller coaster finally came to a stop on a street we love in a house we adore. we’ve made small changes that have had a big impact and it’s slowly but surely becoming the home we used to only dream about. one of the best things about this place is knowing we’ll never have to move again if we don’t want to. it’s neat to be able to drive by ellie’s future elementary school and think “yes, that will do just fine.”

it’s also nice to have family and friends over to a place we are so, so proud to call our own. we’ve had countless swim play dates and backyard barbecues. i can’t think of another place i’d rather have a birthday party or a family gathering.

and now we witness our first change of season in this new place. the leaves on the trees that line our street are already changing color. halloween is on the horizon, then thanksgiving and, before we know it, another christmas will come and go. ellie will turn 3 and with any luck, 2012 will be as incredible a year as this one has been.

much love from the lacks!

hello! it’s been pretty quiet around here lately, i know. we’ve been so busy with the move that i even went a few weeks without uploading any photos to flickr. what? who, me? anyway, we’re very close to being completely settled, so i thought i’d break out the laptop and post a friendly update.

a few weeks before we moved, we had our annual family garage sale in san leandro. we made a nice chunk of change. ellie sold lemonade and it was the cutest thing ever.

we’ve had some super fun playdates with friends and enjoyed a few mommy-ellie outings as well.

we moved and spent our first night in the new house on august 15th. a few days later, ellie’s new mattress was delivered and ryan and eric assembled her big girl bed. she’s been sleeping soundly ever since!

we celebrated my mom’s birthday and mine with some delicious grub at two of our favorite restaurants. ryan and ellie made me a cake and it was definitely one of the yummiest i’ve ever had (the pictures aren’t loading properly right now, but hopefully i’ll be able to post them soon).

and that’s a quick recap of the past few weeks in the lives of the lacks. home improvement is an ongoing process, but we’re having some of our extended family over for a barbecue this weekend, so i’ll clean the place up a bit and post some pictures of what we’ve done so far. hope all is well with everyone!

well, we finally did it. after years of saving and months of searching, ryan and i are officially homeowners :)

it all started back in january. we hired a realtor and a mortgage broker and within a few weeks we had made two offers, one on a townhouse in pleasanton and another on a single family home in livermore. the townhouse had multiple offers higher than ours, so we lost out on that one, but the sellers of the house in livermore accepted quickly and we were thrilled. we were pretty sure that house was going to be “the one.” unfortunately for them, they left us without a real update for nearly six months, so we grew restless and started looking at other properties.

it took awhile before we found anything else we liked as much as the short sale, but it finally happened on may 23rd when we saw a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in another part of livermore. this one was located closer to downtown in an older (but nicer) neighborhood assigned to better schools. it had a bigger kitchen, hardwood floors, prettier landscaping and a pool! so of course we made an offer. by the following week the sellers had accepted without a counter. we couldn’t believe it! we knew it would move faster because it was a regular sale, so we were really excited.

from that day forward, the home-buying process was an emotional roller coaster. inspections cost us hundreds of dollars, negotiations regarding who would pay to fix what were stressful and frustrating and had us feeling on edge much of the time. our realtor stretched the truth on several occasions and we had a hard time putting our faith in her to represent us the way we felt we should be represented. we often felt misguided and manipulated, even up until the very last day.

in the end, the important thing is that we made it through the past two months and came out with the perfect little house for our family. we plan to stay for a long, long time <3

more pictures to come after a new kitchen floor, some fresh paint and a few personal touches :)

well, we did it. we took the plunge and left ellie home with grandma and grandpa for a weekend getaway to gorgeous yosemite for our fourth wedding anniversary (and our eleventh anniversary of being a couple). we were nervous, excited, anxious and thrilled all at once. we told ellie grandma would be putting her to sleep “TWO TIMES” and then we’d be home. she didn’t seem to mind that idea, so off we went on our grand adventure.

we arrived at hotel charlotte in groveland in the late afternoon of the 23rd, checked in, kicked around our room for awhile and then walked across the street to the iron door saloon where we had a few drinks before we ordered dinner.

everything was great – the food, the drinks and the time we spent together. it was a wonderfully relaxing start to our weekend away. the next day we awoke bright and early, had breakfast downstairs and headed east toward the valley. we stopped several times at little turnouts along the way to simply admire the views and snap a few pictures. one of our favorite roadside attractions was cascade creek. i like how it’s super wide with tons of loud, crashing waterfalls, but it’s still only a creek. soo pretty.

the first place we stopped when we reached the valley floor was bridalveil fall. it’s not a very long walk from where you can park to the base of the waterfall, and the closer you get, the wetter you get. needless to say, i only wore my tennis shoes until we got back to the car and headed toward our next destination. luckily i brought my flip flops, too :)

after bridalveil we went to a bridge that i can’t remember the name of (boo) over the merced river. the river was suuuuper full because of all the late season snow, so part of the trail was flooded and we couldn’t cross over. i stepped in it just to see how it felt and OMG, despite the 75-degree weather, i could have gotten frostbite right there. it was like freshly melted snow. BRR!

after the river (and the amazing view of yosemite falls) we stopped at yosemite village and bought sandwiches for our picnic lunch. we sat and ate on the bank of the merced river with a nice view of bridalveil. how amazing are waterfalls??? i mean, really, and yosemite is full of them!

after lunch we headed upward and out of the valley to take in the view from glacier point. neither of us had ever been up there, so we were really looking forward to it, and it was totally worth the hour-long drive.

after we took about 100 pictures and stared, breathless, at the view for awhile, we got ice cream bars, took a bathroom break and started the long drive back down.

since we arrived back on the valley floor with plenty of daylight left, we thought we’d attempt to find a parking place and walk to the base of lower yosemite fall. luckily we did, but it was quite a walk. we never would have done it had ellie been with us, so of course we took advantage of the alone time and said LET’S DO THIS.

it was amazing! so loud and windy and, once again, we got soaked. it was the perfect final stop before saying goodbye to yosemite and heading back to groveland, where we repeated the first night’s activities with dinner and drinks at the iron door saloon, only this time with live music :)

we headed home saturday morning and were greeted with open arms by little girl who was just as happy to see us as we were to see her. as much as we missed her, it was so nice to “get away from it all,” as they say, and just spend time together as a couple. and as lovely of a time as we had, it was also good to hear how well-behaved ellie was for grandma and grandpa while we were gone. a successful trip all around.

happy anniversary to us <3