Yea Jotul stoves

We had a Jotul coal burning stove in Delta years ago that we loved. We didn't have any way to have a stove in Pasco so we heated our house with an electric furnace and heat pump which raised our electric bill about 150 a month each winter. Well here in the east, with some of the most expensive electricity in the nation everyone heats with oil or gas and most spend 300 to 500 a month in the winter to heat their house. So we got another Jotul stove, this time a wood burner and it's been great! It's heated our house. The only time I have used our gas (LP-propane) furnace was a couple of weekends ago when I went to Utah for the weekend. We have an on demand gas water heater and gas dryer and will have a gas cook top when we get the cabinets done and the cook top installed but hope that use will be minimal. And around here with all the woods I've been able to collect all the wood I've needed, just had to rent a splitter to split it. The wood stove is a real blessing.

New family pic, I love Photoshop

Matthew and Nicole went to Utah for a vacation in January. They rented a house and we all gathered there for the Martin Luther King weekend. Naomi and her kids came down from Washington. The rest of our kids are in Utah except Katie's family. Unfortunately they couldn't make it (they're in Spain). So we took a new family pic. Chris set up his tripod and took three shots. Then I used photoshop to get what I think is the best shot of everyone. Here are some of the "out takes" plus the final project. Not a bad pic!

New house pix

Matthew came up from Florida and spent a weekend in December and hung all the inside doors except a couple of closet doors and 4 doors in the basement. Plus he trimmed all the windows. This was a huge undertaking since the first floor of our house has 13" walls (and 13" deep window sills) because it was first built out of cinder block then we furred out the inside walls with 2x4 walls so we could re-wire and properly insulate them. Plus we have quite a few windows upstairs. After he left I finished trimming a couple of windows and put down all the baseboards. I had 5 doors to hang. When I got done two of them didn't close right. Guess I won't give up my day job. But I fixed them. Our last two cabinets (that we had to special order) come in this weekend. Then we can finish the kitchen. Then all we have is a bunch of painting and the deck. Almost there. Here are some pics. The first couple of pics are of a snow storm we had last weekend that fell on Saturday and melted on Monday. Kind of like being back in the Tri-Cities. It's been unusually warm this winter. I think it's all that hot air from the politicians.