House Buildin'

Henry and I are building a house. Or, we're paying people to build us a house. So many people ask us to clarify when we use the first statement. I would think it would be obvious, but I guess you never know. I am not building anything. This house is going up on a piece of property that had been in Henry's family for a while. The old structure was going to be brought down by weather if we didn't do it ourselves, so it was time.

Tearing into a house isn't an opportunity that comes along every day, so we took full advantage. There was a lot of hatchet, crowbar, and sledge hammer action. Safety goggles were worn by all.

So after what seemed like months of planning (it really was months of planning), construction began on the house. Although Henry and I poured over the plans and every detail, there were still some questions in how our two-dimensional picture would translate. So we have been watching anxiously as it is going up.

First step: earth work. I'm not even including any pictures because it's all just dirt. Although the hole they initially dug was quite impressive (and a little bit terrifying). Moving all that dirt took forever (forever = less than 2 months). 

After we got the dirt mostly where we wanted it, we got a foundation. Cement has truly never been so exciting. Also - where is our fourth wall?

Proudly surveying his new cement.

Cement is exciting!

 Henry was there the day they poured the slab, and was able to put our initials in. Awwww.

 

Somewhere between pouring the slab and framing was a whole lot of retaining wall drama. I mean, who hasn't had drama over a retaining wall before? Basically, when you have two people who know as little about retaining walls as Henry and I making decisions about them, it leads to drama. 

So we ended up with 1 rockery to hold up our dirt, and one huge cement lego brick wall to hold up some more dirt. Our dirt isn't going anywhere it isn't supposed to any time soon.

The rocks want to be more exciting than the cement. But do they pull it off?

Just try to get away, dirt!

Finally, walls started showing up, including the elusive 4th wall of our basement. Our house will not ultimately be this awkward yellow color (that is just the color of the siding before paint).

 After the exterior walls frames went up inside, finally giving us a sense of what the space would actually feel like (so far - just like Grandma's basement).

A man and his castle.

 Currently we have two stories and a basement, but no stairs. I can't wait to walk around on the top floor and see what our view actually looks like. Probably looks like the neighbor's bedroom, but there is a good chance we'll actually get to see something quite pretty.

Ta da!

Spicy!

As facebook or my mom has already told you, Henry and I got engaged a few months ago. It was a fabulous experience, and exceeded anything I could have dreamed up. Also, I was surprised, and I didn't expect to be surprised.

It started as most morning do, heading into the bathroom in the morning to brush my teeth. Henry was supposed to leave that day for a conference in LA, or so I thought. This morning, however, there was a card sitting on the sink faucet. I opened it up, and in it Henry invited me to join him on his trip, leaving in 2 days!!! Yikes! This meant that I spent the day getting things arranged to be gone for a week, moving appointments, and crossing my fingers that nothing would come up. I also thought this meant I would definitely be going to Disney Land.

That evening I was attending an end of the year celebration with students and faculty. Joy, a Seattle friend, and I were driving around when I got further news from Henry suggesting that I go find my next "clue", hidden behind a picture of us in my condo. We picked up my labmate, Jeremy, who was also heading to the party with us, who then became an unwitting participant in the scavenger hunt excitement. Joy was convinced that Henry was going to be hiding in my condo, but I was pretty sure he had actually gotten on a plane that day. After I gave the "all clear" to Joy and Jeremy that Henry was not, in fact, lurking in my condo, we found this:

I quickly grabbed the note to discover that it was written in code and I would have to decipher it. By now, we were late for our party so all decryption would have to happen in the car en route. The first few words read "L.A. is just a layover". This set off some intermittent squeals from Joy which would continue the rest of the night. I decoded some more words including "15 hours away". More squeals. In all fairness, she was not the only one squealing. So now I knew LA was not my destination, and it was likely I would be flying 15 hours from LA (although I hadn't ruled out a road trip). This ruled in about every destination outside North America. So. Exciting.

At the party my friends starting making guesses for where I would end up. Henry texted that we would bring back a souvenir for whomever guessed correctly. My best guesses, based on recent conversations, were Dubai, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and Spain. I was thrilled about each of these possibilities. I just had to wait for my next clue.

Later that weekend, I got a call from Henry's brother. He told me that Nancy Drew was working to solve the case in the hidden bookshelf. I immediately knew where to look, in my trusty Nancy collection.

One of these things is not like the other...

New Zealand!

And with that I knew I was headed to New Zealand. Excitement doubled. I had just one day to get check the New Zealand weather report, buy some needed travel essentials, and get packed. Henry and I had committed to reading Under the Dome together in prep for watching the TV show (we are on a Stephen King kick), and he was chapters ahead of me at this point, making this trip the perfect time for me to get caught up and also supplying some needed entertainment for the 15 hour flight (in regular Stephen king fashion, the book is over 1000 pages). Between that and my malaria pills (code for sour patch kids), I was ready to fly. The entire trip including layovers took well over 20 hours.

When I landed in New Zealand the weather was cool (in the 60's) and rainy. Felt just like Seattle. Henry had arranged a car to meet me at the airport, and I was quickly whisked away to the hotel. I checked in, snarfed a Picnic Henry had left for me (Picnic = Australian candy bar), and promptly passed out from jet lag. Henry woke me up and we went to dinner.

The next morning Henry had arranged for us to do a Skywalk - which is to walk around the top of the Sky Tower, the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. Again, the weather was gray and rainy, and did not promise much of a view. However, Henry was committed to going and I was committed to going along with Henry.

Sky Tower on a day much sunnier than our Sky Walk.

To go out there, we had to put on orange jumpsuits and take off anything that was loose or could become loose, like hair ties, watches, etc. They even made Henry change his shoes. We got put in harnesses, because the platform you walk on is about 1.5 meters wide and has no railings whatsoever. We did our "sky walk" with a guide, Ethan, and another tourist, Renata. As Ethan was arranging the harnesses, we heard him ask a coworker: who would choose to do this on a day like this?, further validating our rainy sky walk.

Waiting to get harnessed and head up -blissfully ignorant of what was to come.

Ethan had us do several challenges which involved varies of forms of putting your trust in your harness and hanging off the edge. Read: terrifying!

Two crazy convicts hangin' off a tower

Pretty soon into our sky walk, Henry dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him. Because my anxiety about being at that height had diminished my frontal lobe capacity into survival mode only, he definitely caught me by surprise. Although I thought he might have something special planned on this trip, I did not expect it on our sky walk.

Yup!

After enthusiastically accepting, I immediately told Henry to put the ring away. I was SO SCARED I would drop it. Little did I know it was double tethered to Henry's harness, which was then transferred to me. The whole "Henry has to change his shoes because they are to loose" was all a ruse to attach the ring without my knowing. We then had to finish our sky walk. I oscillated between feeling completely ecstatic and completely terrified for the rest of the time.

That afternoon Henry gave a key note speech at an engineering conference, the whole catalyst for this entire trip. I was so proud of him. He included a picture of our engagement from the Sky Walk in his talk, making a bunch of New Zealand engineers the first to hear the news. It was really sweet how the conference attendees congratulated us for the rest of the time.

Fancy pants!

I was so awed by how much planning Henry had done, how well he kept the secret, how many details he had accounted for, and how smoothly he had pulled it off. I found out later he had colluded with my sister, my classmate, and my adviser to make it happen. I was so excited to spend the rest of the week exploring New Zealand with my new fiance!

Stuff of late

Let's ignore how long it has been since I posted anything. Here are some of the things that have been happening lately:

Last week was spring break. We were blessed with some excellent weather, which was most appreciated. I spent some days working on schoolwork, some painting my closet, and two days in Portland with Henry.

Submarine Tour!

Voodoo Doughnuts! I kept it classic with a good ol' sprinkle doughnut.

Henry went all in and tried the bacon doughnut.

The requisite beer tasting.  These beers require a lot of contemplation.

Science! This was a demonstration of dropping mentos in diet soda.

No pictures, but we also rented a tandem bike (quite the dandy) and tooled around the city for a bit. Good times.

Henry is also in the midst of tearing down his old house and building a new one. To test out the proposed design as best he could, we created the floor plan using rebar, twine, and spray paint in his front yard.

Sitting on the "couch" in the living room.

Framing the dining room.

After loosing a bet Henry also had to make me chivitos. The result was amazing!