Jonathan & Jenelle » Better Homes & Gardens

Nana and Grandpa Dell in Oregon

jonathan — Sat, 22 May 2010 18:51:45 +0000

In late April the Vance family was fortunate enough to have as their guests Nana and Grandpa Dell — or, as Annika sometimes calls them, “Jonathan’s parents.” Grandpa Dell did all of the home repair projects that Jonathan had left undone. Nana brought wonderful birthday presents for the girls. Together, everyone went to the zoo on a beautiful Saturday.

Independence Day

jonathan — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:38:28 +0000

In Great Britain, it’s called “Boxing Day,” in Germany it’s the “Second Christmas Holiday,” but this year at the Vance house December 26th was “Independence Day.” Yesterday marked the completion of Jenelle’s most ambitious project of 2009 (well, next to having twins): cleaning and organizing the entire house. Jenelle calls it “The Purge.”

Being an accountant, Jenelle determined a monetary storage cost for each item that she scrutinized. If the storage cost exceeded the item’s value (cost_storage > value_item, for those of you who think like that), it was off to the garbage bin, recycle bin, or the Goodwill. Let’s say that Jenelle kept those three destinations very busy.

After many weeks of work, the result: the house looks like it’s been expanded (or robbed).

A Room of a Different Color

jonathan — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:43:54 +0000

Ever since we moved into this house, the “guest bedroom” has been a lovely red-orange color (see below, with the previous owners’ furnishings).

Now that the “guest bedroom” is set to become the “twins’ bedroom,” Jenelle has decided that red-orange is not a suitable wall color for little girls. So, with the help of some generous friends, the room now sports three pale yellow walls and a lavender “accent wall.”

Hopefully this will keep our little girls from becoming agressive.

Affordable Housing

jonathan — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:25:53 +0000

Jenelle and Jonathan built a gingerbread house this year. Normally, this would be too ambitious a task for them, but this year they took the easy route and purchased a kit from Costco.

So, that probably means the house is the gingerbread equivalent of manufactured housing. You can see more photos here.

Jenelle’s Flowersplosion

jonathan — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:43:07 +0000

Thanks to Jenelle’s hard garden work, flowers have exploded in our backyard (with a small boomlet in the front yard).

White Christmas

jonathan — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:00:58 +0000

We are pleased to report that we had yet another lovely Christmas season in our neck of the woods. Although our efforts to get the decorations up were hampered by Jonathan’s post-Thanksgiving appendectomy, before long we were looking for a tree. Feeling uncertain that we could repeat every year our 2006 feat of finding a U-cut tree for only $10, we decided to invest in a truly evergreen tree. (You know, a “fake” tree.) One thing we like about our tree is that it’s pre-lit with 1100 lights. This sounds like a lot of lights, and it is, but it actually looks about right on a 9 ft. tree. However, as we learned the day we bought the tree, our house’s wiring isn’t designed to have all of the kitchen and living rooms lights on while microwaving dinner while powering 1100 little Yuletide sparklers.

Continuing a long tradition, Jenelle made ~~hundreds~~ thousands of Christmas cookies (13 varieties of cookies, plus 1 drink, 1 truffle, 1 fruitcake) in what is locally known as the annual “cookiesplosion.”Â Many of them went to lucky friends and neighbors.Â If you didn’t get any, move closer to us next year.

On Christmas morning, we dressed Annika up and photographed her in a cute penguin costume that Jenelle found in a second-hand store.Â It probably traumatized Annika, so she may not be looking forward to Christmas next year.

After opening presents and starting breakfast, a miracle occurred: snow began falling from the sky!Â Although it never quite made the day a white Christmas, it was still a wonderful surprise.

You can see more of our Christmas pictures here.

More Firsts for Annika

jonathan — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:05:22 +0000

As Annika prepares to experience her first Thanksgiving holiday, we wanted to let you know some of the other exciting firsts she’s been experiencing.Â For her first Halloween, she dressed up as a beautiful butterfly.Â Jenelle made Annika’s costume herself, and though Jenelle did not think of herself as a seamstress in the past, she’s encouraged by the success of the butterfly costume.Â The family costumes were rounded out by Jenelle the Bumblebee and Jonathan the Flower.

In early November, the family took a drive through the fall scenery of the Columbia River Gorge, where Annika saw her first waterfall, the 242-foot Wahkeenah Falls.Â She was obviously very excited and looks forward to seeing many waterfalls in the future.

Around the House

jonathan — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 21:03:34 +0000

Jenelle and Jonathan have been busy lately getting the house ready for baby. And what does the hone of every newborn need? Why, a cheesecake, of course. So, one evening Jenelle made a lovely blueberry one. We are now more excited than ever to go pick blueberries this summer.

Jonathan has lately turned the garage into a lean, mean, garden-housing-project machine. He recently completed two of three raised beds that are currently slated for the backyard. Each bed is about 4 feet by 8 feet by 1 foot. The soil in the backyard isn’t good for growing much, so they ordered some lovely topsoil to fill the boxes with. Jonathan knows it must be good dirt because it smells like a farm.

Since June is a little late to be planting a garden, they cheated by purchasing some starts, which are now very much at home in their beds.

Pre-Mother’s Day

jonathan — Mon, 14 May 2007 04:03:00 +0000

In honor of our household’s soon-to-be mother, we have posted a few pictures showing the growth of our soon-to-be daughter.Â We hope to add a few more before the big day.

Tulips, Lovely Tulips

jonathan — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 20:32:53 +0000

To celebrate Tax Season Liberation Day last week, Jenelle and Jonathan visited a local tulip festival. Although it’s not the big deal they have in Holland, they still had a lovely time and are considering visiting the local iris festival in May.