House Progress - April 30

It is amazing that I even had a moment to take all of these pictures in light of the fact that we were moving, but I took a quick break as we were loading up the storage bin in the horrendous wind again.

With our carpet, we did a lot of searching and price comparisons.  We ended up going with a fellow from a company called Carpet Impressions.  He worked on his own and had a direct link to the Shaw manufacturers.  And he was able to get us a great deal on beautiful carpet.  Dave was not too thrilled that we chose him since he didn't know if the guy could be trusted or if the carpet he delivered would be a second or what!  Dave wanted the carpet delivered earlier than needed just to make sure that it was here.  Kevin, the carpet guy, delivered the carpet on the windiest day possible.  The carpet, along with the carpet pad, was loaded in to the garage, and the doors were left open!  Everything, absolutely everything in the garage was coated in dirt.  I was not happy.  At least the carpet was mostly wrapped in plastic, but still.  I asked that the garage doors be kept closed from now on when not needing to be open.

The painters finished painting the interior doors.

Chris added a lock to "Command Central".  A lot of equipment is stored in the room and it only seemed prudent to protect the investment.

The granite arrived and was installed by the time I was able to make it to the house on Wednesday afternoon.  I love the look of the granite.

The electricians had been busy at work adding face plates to the wall switches and plugs.

The master closet was installed about a week ago.  Unfortunately for the painters, they would now have to paint around all of the shelves.  I had worked with a company getting a bid for this project and then found out that it was way beyond what my budget allowed.  I had to call and tell them no.  Meanwhile, I kept pestering Dave for a budget amount.  He finally said, "You have 'x' amount."  It was about half of what I had been quoted from the closet design company, but I thought I would take a chance anyway and sent an email stating, "I have 'x' amount to work with, what will that get me."  I was impressed because the lady came back after a couple of days and said, "With all of the maximum discounts I can offer, and deleting the island, we can work with your 'x' amount."  Hurray.  Perseverance.

The eaves troughs were slowly going up.  Slowly, simply because the windy conditions made it treacherous to work on a ladder outside.  We pray daily for the safety of the workers at our house.  We want them to make good choices and, well, be safe.

The first phase of concrete was poured--the area immediately in front of the garage, the courtyard in front, and the back patio.  I say first phase because we have an e-nor-mous driveway.  I am not looking forward to plowing it in the snow.  I believe the next happy addition to our family will be a four-wheeler.  And we will love him.

Pelican Shores - April 29

The electricians have landed!  Just kidding, but they did deposit some face plates and other lighting supplies.  Our electrician, also named Brian, is good at what he does, but he's kind of a prima donna in not wanting any other trades in his way while he is working.  I just want my house finished so play nice!

The concrete dudes began building the forms for the concrete.  They had hoped to come over the weekend, and even Monday, but the winds were so horrendous, that it made working/pouring concrete impossible.  They quickly got to work Monday morning when the winds had died down.

Amy's Sickness & Moving

I think I wanted to cry when Amy texted me from school that she wasn't feeling good.  I told her that she needed to try and tough it out for the rest of the day.  We were moving in three days, and seriously, I couldn't have another sick child.  I should have gone to get her.  She had chills at school and sat under the hair dryer in the bathroom for the last class of the day.  When I finally picked her up at the bus stop, she was crying.

I had just been through two weeks of sickness with Kristen, I didn't need more.  Guess we don't always get to make those choices.  I wrapped her up in bed, and she promptly fell asleep.  She was burning up.  This was just how Kristen started.  I went back to my packing.  I wanted to cry.

One thing I have learned about packing, you are never as prepared as you think you are.  Between packing and running back and forth between Amy, I wasn't getting as much done as I had hoped.  We had until May 1st to be out of the house and were moving our stuff to a storage container at the property.  Worst possible moving scenario.  We were putting most of our stuff in storage, keeping what we might need to for two to three weeks, and moving to our Bishop's basement.

Amy was so sick throughout the week.  On Wednesday morning, I was in the basement exercising when Chris came down to tell me that he and a friend from church had given Amy a blessing.  He felt that she would be better by noon.

It was moving day, so I just jumped in and tried to get as much done as possible.  I was quite peeved at Chris' boss who just had to have him give a presentation that morning (knowing, of course, that Chris had blocked the day to move).  I finished packing up Kristen and Misha's rooms, taking down beds, pulling out dresser drawers.  Chris finished his presentation and then headed off to Erie to pick up a moving truck.

About 12:15 pm, I was eating lunch at my desk, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  It was Amy sitting on the stairs.  She simply said, "I feel better."  Really?  Are you serious?  Tears came to my eyes.

We both worked to get her room packed up as much as possible.  Chris returned with a big moving truck, and together, he and I, began to pack up all of the boxes I had moved from the basement to the garage.  I had Amy rest a bit so that she didn't over do it.

My sweet friend, Kathy Morgan, showed up to help load boxes.  The wind was horrendous, but we just had to work through it.  We finally got everything loaded and headed over to the storage bin.  I took a moment to check out the granite that had been installed and then headed back outside.  I quickly understood why Chris and Kathy along with Mike Krause and John Stein were wearing sunglasses.  Chris had backed the truck within 8 inches of the storage unit, but still the wind was whipping dirt all over everything.

The truck was emptied in short order and all but Kathy headed back to the house.  A few other friends showed up as well to help--Nolan Polson, Craig Copple, Byron Harris.  Such great people.  Moving your own stuff is no fun; moving other people's stuff is less fun.

Like I said though, as prepared as you think you are, you're not and there was still so much to do.  Amy was back to not feeling so great, and the other two weren't much help.  I kept on packing and directing moving traffic.

I ordered pizza for our helpers.  They ate and quickly got back to work.  We didn't finish until around 9 pm.  There still seemed like there was so much to do.  Fortunately, Chris and I could return the next day to gather up clothes and all the little odds and end pieces we didn't have a great place for. 

We were grateful for the Johns in offering their basement to us.  I felt awful having to impose.  Even more so that we had to bring so much stuff with us for a few weeks of living.  Chris and I hoped we would all still be friends once we moved out, and frankly, we didn't know exactly when that would be.  We got our girls situated for the night in the "movie" room on couches and foam pads, and then headed back to the house for one last load.

House Progress - April 27

Chris and I went to check out the house on Sunday afternoon.  Here's my "Rain" blue bathroom.  As much as I don't enjoy painting, I was pretty grateful to have someone else paint it for me.

Dance Recital

Amy participated in a dance class with Jamie John this past semester.  There were probably seven other girls in her age group that attended the class with her.  (I was grateful that one of the girls was old enough to drive and offered to take Amy to class every week.) She had a lot of fun learning the dances and being with friends.

The dance recital for the whole company was held on April 26th at the 11th Ave. LDS church building.  It was an older building and had a nice stage to work with.  Amy and her group were fantastic.  I tried to take pictures and Facetime with Chris at the same time.  He was at the house because the Comcast people were installing internet.  Unfortunately they didn't get it installed in time for him to Facetime with me. Misha was able to record the performance so Chris still had a chance to see it.

Kristen - Children's Hospital Visit

Kristen had been sick for over ten days.  She woke me up for a second night, moaning and groaning.  When I went in to check on her, she was curled up in a ball in pain.  Not only that, she had been coughing for days.  I had taken her to the doctor to get her checked out, but they just said, "It's been going around."  Not much comfort there.

I gave Kristen some Pepto Bismol and no less than two minutes later, it came right back up.  Good thing I had thought to grab a bowl.

After sitting up with her for about an hour, still with so much pain racking her little body, Chris finally said, "Let's take her to Children's."  It was midnight and her first ER visit.  We packed up a few things for Kristen, her pillow, and her blanket.  She was quiet all the way to the hospital.  We probably should have just used that as a sign to turn around, but we needed some answers.  She wasn't eating at all and was losing weight with each passing day.

We got her checked in at the front desk and then proceeded to wait to meet with the nurse, then wait for an available room, then wait for the doctor.  It was a lot of waiting.  We spent about four hours at the hospital and ended up leaving at 4 am with instructions to keep track of Kristen's food intake for the next three days.

Amazing when you spend $$$, and they start getting better on their own the next day.  Her appetite and energy slowing returned and her coughing finally subsided.

Chris and I were zombies during church the next day.  Amy stayed home with Kristen.

House Progress - April 26

There's lots that happens everyday.  Chris has spent many hours working on all of the low-voltage wiring.  I'm not sure he realized how long it would take, but I also think he is pretty pleased with the results.  He has the cameras on the exterior of the house set up so that he can watch the front, back, and sides of the house from a computer monitor in the basement.  Not only that, he has an app that he can watch those cameras from anywhere in the world!  Along with the exterior, there is an alarm system on the interior as well.

The continuing saga of the slow painters continues.  My goodness they just might be watching it dry!  Not only are we frustrated but Dave, the construction manager, is also frustrated.  I have been wanting to paint the powder bath a different color, so I approached Brian, the lead painter, with a request that if they would finish masking in the bathroom, I would paint it.  He said, "Because we have taken longer than planned, if you will get me the paint you want, I will paint the bathroom for you!"  Hurray.  Not that I was expecting that answer, and I am not sure that the offer would have been made if I hadn't requested to paint the bathroom myself, but I wasn't complaining.

So I returned later in the afternoon with a Benjamin Moore match of Sherwin Williams Rain while the painters worked on painting trim and some of the hard-to-reach spots in the living room.

Our painter prefers Benjamin Moore products, but Sherwin Williams is only three miles away from our house compared to fifteen miles to the B Moore store.  So, I had the fine folks at SW, color match a stain for the railing from the kitchen cabinets.  I think the final shade (between the yellow tapes marks) turned out pretty well.

We mapped out the lines for the front driveway with Dave along with the front sidewalk, the patio between the porch and the garage side door, and the basement patio walkout.

The stone layers finished up the outdoor posts on the back deck.

Talent Show Tryout

Kristen was excited to finally participate in the school talent show this year.  She had tryouts on April 24th and chose to sing "Tomorrow" from Annie.  I was able to find her a karaoke soundtrack on iTunes and sent it to the music teacher.  I showed up at the school to pick up Kristen at 4:30 when the auditions were supposed to be over, and there were still so many kids waiting to audition.  I told Mrs. Z. that Kristen had piano lessons to get to, so she let Kristen sing right then.  Kristen didn't really have time to be nervous until after we got in the car. Mrs. Z had indicated that Kristen would have plenty of chances to work with her and another teacher to perfect the song.

Once Kristen realized that she had made it in to the talent show, she began to rethink her decision.  I suggested that she attend a few practices before making up her mind.  I was proud of her for making the effort.  It takes a lot of courage to sing by yourself in front of people.

Misha and NJHS

Misha was happy to be inducted in to the National Junior Honor Society again.  She was even asked to make a short presentation.  The requirement for the NJHS is to have 12 hours of service (in school and in the community).  Because of a lot of hours spent volunteering after the flood, Misha had over 70 hours of service accrued for the year.  She also volunteered as a junior leader last summer with Kristen's "Camp Invention".

Yep, bad focus.

House Progress - Apr 23

We have been concerned with the grade in the front yard and what we have affectionately come to call "the moat".  I don't have a really good picture of the before, but there was quite a drop off right in front of the house.  We had thought that maybe we would have to have a bridge from the round-about of the driveway to the front door.
 

The front grade was tweaked a little more and now the moat has been eradicated.  Yay!  No bridge needed. 

Here's another shot of the paint color throughout the house.  Did I mention that the painting is taking a loooooooooong time.  Dave (Construction Manager) has had to push back the install of the granite, lighting, plumbing, etc just to accommodate the slow pace.  And I believe it was George, one of the paint crew, who specifically announced that it was not the painters who were slowing down the process!  Liar!

The color is a different shade than the exterior of the house but probably in the same color family.  I like to keep it neutral and then add accessories for the pop of color.  If I do decide to paint any rooms, I would like to live in the house for awhile before I make that decision.

The deck posts are being decorated.

Chris' electronics room door was finally changed around to swing inward.  Probably only he will appreciate the picture.

Chris will hopefully be happy to see that stone was added around the basement window to cover the  foam insulation that was applied.  And this picture, too, is for Chris' benefit since he is in London.

Easter Egg Hunt

Kristen has lamented that our celebrations this past year have been less than stellar, lame, pathetic.  She could go on.  She is right.  Chris pretty much told the girls that we weren't planning to have any more of an Easter egg hunt than the one they attended on Saturday hosted by the Bastsons.  (They will be our neighbors within the next year.)

I, however, realized it was important to keep some traditions going and bought a few things for the girls.  We decided to hide eggs at the property and eat Kristen's birthday cupcakes on Sunday afternoon.  She can have the claim to fame of the first birthday celebrated on the deck.

I hid 48 eggs all over on our property--16 each.  We found 47!  Someday, many years from now, someone will unearth the 48th egg. 

Patiently waiting, though I had to send them to the garage when I started hiding the eggs.

Happy Birthday to my sweet 9-year old!

She's Nine

Happy birthday to my youngest peep! I took cookies for her class on Friday.  The pink frosted cookies are kind of an expectation now.  Speaking of "expectations", her teacher must have been feeling a little shell-shocked.  She has been subbing for Mrs. Everett who had knee surgery over Spring break.  As I walked in to the classroom, Mrs. S looked a little wan.  "I just found out that I am pregnant!  I already have four kids and the youngest is in school."  She was still adjusting to the news of being ten-weeks pregnant and not feeling so hot.

Saturday morning.  Doesn't she just wake up looking beautiful?