Are you curious about who we are? Well, let me satisfy some of that curiosity! We’re Pat and Shelley – a military couple with a few too many household moves under our belts! We met while my husband was training in Florida, married 8 months later, and have spent time living in various areas of Texas, Las Vegas, Washington, and Illinois.

Our family consists of Patrick and myself, and our furry, four-legged children.

Pat is the resident blacksmith, handyman, jack-of-all trades around here. He installed a new hitch on our Subaru Forester recently and I commented, “I wonder how much money you’ve saved us over the last 14 years?”

I (Shelley) am the wanna-be fiber artist. After a visit to an alpaca farm in 2011, I fell in love with alpacas. But what do you do with alpacas? You shear them, spin yarn, and make fuzzy warm stuff! The following Christmas I was gifted my first spinning wheel and my love of the craft has endured. I learned to process the fleece from straight off the alpaca to finish yarn, but then wasn’t sure what to do with it. I knew how to crochet, but as a person living with Rheumatoid arthritis, crocheting and spinning are not always easy tasks. Then I picked up weaving. I started with a rigid heddle loom, then a table loom, then floor looms. I’m still very much a novice but I love to work with my hands when I can and the repetitive motions of weaving are pure joy!

Other fun facts about us — we love beer and wine, British humor (I almost started this section off with “Hello There” thinking of scene from Hot Fuzz), hiking, bird/wildlife watching, and are trying our hands at better photography skills.

We are looking forward to beginning our latest adventure of rehabbing a 1900’s farmhouse in Ashford, WA, just outside the Paradise entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park. This blog will include experiences with the rehab loan process, the construction phase, and moving on to making this our dream home and tourist business. We hope you’ll check in with us often as we share our joys and struggles along the way!