New Items Up!

I put some new items up on the Etsy site, go check them out, I am sure they would make great holiday gifts!

Custom Photo Pendant



Fiddle Love



I Don't Want to Play Grown Up Anymore

Hello world!

Wow, I post some pictures on Facebook and my little world explodes in a wonderful kind of way! I just finished up my first ever custom order for a friend and hopefully have a few more on the way! Which reminds me I also listed my first item on KatieVDesigns.Etsy.Com today!

Kayaking Original Photo Pendant








I probably will not be able to get any more of my original photo pendants up on etsy for a little while owing to the fact that my poor Sony Alpha 300 had to be sent out for repair...I am already in withdrawal, hopefully it will be back safe and sound soon! Till then I will be working on custom orders and building up my stock of Original Pendants so keep checking for new listings!

New Adventures

So we haven't done much geocaching lately, mainly because of the house stuff and the weather, but also because we still have to get Sirius down to the vet to get him his flea, tick and worm meds, don't want to risk getting anything out in the woods!

One thing we did get to try out is Kayaking!! It is so much fun! The previous owners of the house left a kayak here when they left so Matt decided to take it out and liked it so he got me to try it out (something I never ever thought I would try) and surprise surprise, I had a blast :)

Some Pics I took with my cell phone (I was WAY too scared I would flip and loose my good one :) )

The great rack Matt built for the truck, he insisted he could do it cheaper than we could buy it for, I think he just likes building things

This is literally out back of Matt's work, must be nice...

Updates and Such

Sorry, It has been such a long time since the last post and so much has happened that I am not even going to try to get everything in to one blog post so here goes...



We have an addition to the VanDerlofske family coming in February!!



Our little smudge is due on (around) February 3, 2010!



We also got some more home improvements done!! We took off some time for our (2 year) anniversary and got some work done!! I won't bog down the blog with tons of pictures, but we fenced in the back yard so that Sirius could run free and we got our bed room finished!


Beginning

Middle










Final!

Here is the link to the full picture set if you would like to see all the work. The we still aren't 100% finished with the room yet, but finished enough for the time being! Next project is the soon to be baby's room!

Next post will be about our latest adventures in Kayaking!!

Home sweet home!

We bought a house :o) a little bit about it, it's in Schenectady, about 88 years old, has lots of parts that are updated and lots of parts that are just waiting for us to revamp...

Here She is!

The fairly large backyard (and yes that is a club house complete with tire swing)


The Hot Tub, which is simply wonderful


The kitchen - totally love all of the space and the butterflies on the wall :o)


Prissy just loves trying to be in the way :o)


Living Dining Room





Main bedroom, sans the waterbed, this is going to be our next project, hopefully this weekend we will be taking down paneling and putting up sheet rock, putting down carpet and painting some walls...


Guest Room :o) Not sure what to do with this room yet, I'm sure we will think of something...


My craft room/office/studio - also our first project...

Before



After



And that's about it for now, more pictures to come as we get more settled and do more projects!

Sorry, its been a while

Sorry I have been so absent lately, we have had loads going on, not much to report on yet, but hopefully soon!

We managed to take the weekend off from work and stress and everything else. For Valentine's Day we went out to lunch at P.F. Changs then went geocaching for a little bit. We found our first cache inside a cemetery and we found our first cache hidden by our friend Ira :o)

A gravestone we ran across at the Lisha Kill Reformed Cemetery Cache

I thought the "his wife" and "also his wife" lines were quite entertaining, and especially appropriate for our Valentine's day caching fun :o)

Makes me want to go see if I can find the story of Mr. Lansing's life :o)

Our GPS @ Max's World War II Cache - hidden by Max and Ira


Yours truly, leaving Max's World War II Cache

Matt and Sirius looking for a cache near Lock 7 which we decided to leave for another day since we didn't have the proper tools.


And a little frozen waterfall near that same cache


All in all it was a pretty decent day! When we got home we had a pizza and pay-per-view night, it was nice and quiet!

Quebec City!

For our Thanksgiving trip this year we drove up to Quebec City please accept the following as a review of same (sorry I am still in work mode :o) )

Friday morning we started out right on time at 8:00ish!

The weather on the drive up was mostly dry, we ran into some snow around Lake Placid/Elizabeth Town, but nothing too bad all in all we were on the road for about 8 hours or so, that is including a wait about an hour long to get over the border, there were only 2 booths open!

But it was well worth the drive, because it was amazing up there! When we got into Old Quebec City it took us a few tries around the block to actually find the hotel we were staying at, then we checked into the hotel, dropped off our stuff and went out to find somewhere to eat!

Our room at the Hotel Champlain...Note the fire place, jacuzzi and flat screen/hi-def TV!



Downstairs in the lobby and breakfast nook



Some pictures we took walking through the city after dinner, it was absolutely magical with the lights and the snow coming down!



Saturday morning we headed out of town to see Sainte Anne de Beaupre, which is an amazing 350 year old church that seemed to be something straight out of Europe, it was just beautiful, the pictures do not even come close to doing it justice. I wish I could have taken more pictures, but it is still an active church and there were people praying and we didn't want to disturb them.


On the way back to town we stopped at Montmorency Falls which is a waterfall that was literally on the side of the road, it was pretty neat

After the falls we went back to the hotel to drop off the truck then we went out on the town to do some exploring and geocaching! We found all 6 caches we had book marked for the trip which I think is a record for us to find in one day, plus it took us to some interesting landmarks in the city, it was a blast!

Hotel Frontenac - the most photographed hotel in the world...


And some caching pictures...

Well this one isn't exactly a caching picture, I saw it on our way to one of the caches and couldn't resist snaping a shot...


The cache that was here was under the fountain, we learned later on our carriage ride that this fountain was sent from the French government to Quebec City as a gift for their 400th anniversary this past summer



Doing a cache called Le quartier des Irlandais



Matt trying to get our bearings...Little did he know he was standing right ontop of the cache...


Me signing the log book for La chaussée des Écossais which was our last cache of the day and almost right across the street from our hotel!


A beautiful building I had thought was a church...but apparently not it was originally used as a jail!



When we were done with the caching we went back to the hotel for a bit then we went out and found a horse drawn carriage ride, which was fabulous! It was nighttime and it had just started snowing so everything was beautiful, the streets and the lights, it was magical! Our driver was great, he was knowledgeable and funny, but not too goofy, and the horse was just beautiful (and huge!). The ride was about an hour long and took us past some more interesting landmarks and took us back past some of the places we saw when we were caching and explained more about those places. After the ride was over we went and found some food at a pub, we did a little shopping (apparently the shops all close up 7 on Saturday's in the winter!) but ended up turning in early anyway since it was such an exhausting day!

Saturday Night shots...

Parliament (taken from the carriage)


First trial run for the Empire State Building


Random Alley Art, there were sculptures like this placed in alleys all over, it was kinda neat...


And that was pretty much our trip! It took us a bit longer to get home than to get up there because we ran into some snow that seemed to slow traffic up alot, but it was nice to get home and sleep in a bed that was not rock hard and have Sirius at our feet :o) But we would go again, maybe in the summertime though, Matt likes the warm and it would be nice to see some of the amazing fountains that they have with water running through them.