Youth Temple Trip

I had the opportunity as one of the Young Women leaders in our ward to attend the temple with our youth for Baptisms for the Dead on the 25th.  To say that we have a large group of youth is an understatement, and it is always a logistical effort for the leaders and temple workers to accommodate them all.

One of our young women is a non-member and was beyond thrilled to visit the temple for the first time.  She was happy just to wait in the waiting room of the annex.

House Progress - Mar 26

I usually stop by the house after dropping Kristen off at school to check on progress and keep an eye on things.  I have walked in to the house on many mornings to discover changes that need to be made.  I am sure that I drive Dave, the Construction Manager, crazy on these days when I start texting him.  He is great though and seems to have endless patience.

The kitchen cabinets were delivered last week!  Yay!   They sat in the garage along with the newel posts and some of the trim--window detail, baseboards, and stair rail.

When I arrived this morning, the workers were busy moving cabinets to their designated location in the house and unpacking the boxes. 

Doors were also being hung.  This was one of those quick texts to Dave however as I headed to the basement and noticed that all the doors were hung in the basement.  We are only hanging a door on Chris' office and his "Command Central" equipment room.  The doors did look nice however.  It will be nice when we are able to finish off the basement space (hopefully by the end of the summer).  These are the doors on the girls' bathroom on the second floor.

The deck railing was delivered and hanging out in the garage where all deliveries are staged.

The accent around the exterior windows was being created.  The workers use styrofoam! to build out a small frame around the windows.  The styrofoam is then covered with a plastic mesh which allows the stucco to adhere to the surface.  The windows were covered in plastic and lined with red duct tape to keep them clean.  It will be nice to see the finished product without the red striping.  The window accent will then have a lighter color of stucco applied.  The parts of the house that are still black will have stone applied.

Amy and I returned later in the day after picking Kristen up from school to find that the kitchen cabinets had been hung along the west wall of the kitchen.  I LOVE THEM!!  They are espresso-colored knotty alder.  The island will be a cream colored cabinet with chocolate glazing.  Makes it sound like a flavorful kitchen.

House Progress - Mar 24

We have doors (though upside down in this shot) and decking material.  Chris and I have tried to make selections that are different than what we have had in previous homes.  Surprisingly, we have found that our design choices/preferences lean a little to the Craftsman side of things.  Here's hoping it all comes together nicely!

House Progress - Mar 20

When I checked on the house this morning, two men had the unlucky job of scraping all of the texture off of the floor and stairs.  They had a scraping tool and water to spray to soften the goop.  They asked if I wanted to help, but I politely declined.  This is a textured wall but similar stuff was sprayed all over the floors as well.

I returned in the afternoon at Amy's request so that she could see the progress.  To my surprise, the garage door had been painted.  Yay!  To my relief, I liked the color!  Double Yay!!  I second guess myself all of the time in the choices I make, so I was happy to see that this was a choice I liked.

Willy Wonka

Misha has looked forward to participating in her school's play this year, all the way back to the moment her school's play finished up last year.  I am glad that she has found something that she is so passionate about.  Auditions were held back in January and Misha was cast as Mr. Salt--Veruca's father--a man who indulges his daughter in everything she wants.

She makes a pretty stylish looking guy.  Gotta love those eyebrows!

Lunch Reflections

I sat down at the table for lunch with my iPad sitting in front of me on the camera setting and thought it was a pretty cool picture.

House Progress - Mar 19

There are some days when a lot of progress is made.  The sheetrock guys finished up the hanging, mudding, and taping yesterday.  Today as I arrived at the property, I noticed that the second layer of the front porch concrete had been poured.

The cabinets were delivered.  I think they start the install for those on Friday.

The newel posts were stacked in the corner of the garage.

Some of the trim was stacked next to the newel posts.

And they were just ramping up to spray the texture on the walls.

Chris had hoped to work more on his wiring tonight, but the place is pretty wet mess.  He is limited to working in his electronics room.  Might be an early night for him.  For the past two nights, he has spent hours with his friend, Adam W., insulating all of the can lights in the attic space before the spray foam is added.  Apparently a lot of heat loss happens through the can fixtures.  Adam is amazing to share his expertise.

Our lighting has been ordered as well as our appliances.

Daddy Long Legs

I am pretty sure that my legs, if I could fold them up like this, would not stay in this position for longer than two seconds on flat ground let alone on a chair!

Drama

I was so furious with Misha’s drama teachers yesterday. Along with about 20 other parents....but “We sent an email,” the teachers said.  Apparently the 20 other parents and myself did not get it. We all waited outside the school to pick up our kids from their drama practice. We waited and waited and waited. I knocked on the door once to no avail. Then, one of the kids came out to talk to their parent. That mom and I, went back to the front doors and one of the students inside finally saw us. When we finally got in to the school, this mom and I got on the teachers' cases. We’re sorry was about all they could say. “It’s only common sense that you look out the window and see the line up of parents.” Then, you send students out to let parents know. Duh.  I had to pull Misha from her dress rehearsal.

Misha and I had to be at the church at 6:30 for Young Women and still needed to pick up Kristen for Activity Days. So much for dinner. I left Amy, who was sick, home and said, "Don't let the rice burn," as we rushed out the door.

Frustrations of a Renter

For the past month we have had to live in a fishbowl as our landlord put the rental on the market.  It has been frustrating and inconvenient and annoying to say the least.  AND add to that, I don't think there has been a single week in all of that time that I haven't had at least one sick child at home.  Now that's fun!  Dragging a sick kid around for an hour during a showing when they can't breathe and would rather be in bed.  At least I had a one-day reprieve from showings when Kristen was throwing up!  I would guess (though I could go back and count on my calendar) that we have had upwards of 20 showings.  No skin off the landlord's back, but you can believe he expected us to be out of the house.  I accidentally refused a showing request and got a nice little text from him asking why?  I am so ready to be done with this whole renting gig.

An offer was accepted on the rental just this morning.  Yay!  That's the great news.  The bad news?  Our house won't likely be finished by May 1st (when our contract is up), and we will be homeless for a short time.  That should be fun.  It all adds to the adventure right?

House Progress - Mar 18

The sheetrock is up and the last little bits of sanding are being finished up today.  It is a slow process for sure, and so often the subs just don't show up for work.  An interesting thing about the subs that have been doing the mudding and taping--they brought their own grill to cook tortillas at lunch time.  It smelled great.  (I came back to the rental after seeing the grill at the property to find that the guys painting the rental house had a microwave set up on the front porch to cook their lunches!)  That just seems to take the boring out of lunch.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to "dress" these windows? 

Karma

I was walking in to Home Depot when I spotted $100 lying on the ground. Hmmm, how to find the owner? A man was walking up to a truck and I asked, "Did you drop some money on the ground?" He pulled some bills out of his pocket and said, "$100." I handed him the money. He replied in amazement, "So honest," as I walked away.  Either he was REALLY lucky that he guessed $100, or he was REALLY lucky to get his $100 back!

House Progress - Mar. 4

Hallelujah!  The drywall was being delivered as I drove up.

And, the basement insulation was completely finished.  You can see in this picture the hearth on the fireplace that was added.  All exterior basement walls were sheathed in plastic as a vapor barrier.

And...the roofers were adding shingles.  I must admit that I have been feeling sick watching the snow fall knowing that our house would leak every time.  Such a relief to see this crew working.  You can see the overcast sky.  There was rain and snow coming.  Our plastic windows will hopefully be replaced with real ones on the 6th.

Scrunchie Love

Chris was such a good sport on Sunday.  Kristen was bored, and this was the result.

Gotta love a man who lets an eight-year old put scrunchies in his hair.  See, look how happy she is!  AND a man who has more than enough hair for five scrunchies!

House Progress - Mar. 3

The insulation continues to be added.  It was supposed to be done by today, but when I checked later in the day, the basement still needed work.  The house looked so different--darker--though hopefully it will lighten up once sheet rock has been hung.  This view is on the second floor in the loft looking toward the master bedroom and down in to the kitchen.

House Progress - Mar. 2

Well, we still aren't water tight.  The windows for the living room have still not arrived and won't likely be here until the 6th.  There are icicles in the house!

We opted to add spray foam insulation to the exterior walls of our home for added warmth and energy efficiency.  There are so many frustrating days to building a custom home, and waiting for contractors to show up when they darn well please is a big one.  "My van broke down...", "It is too cold to work..."  I am so ready to be done.  Finally the insulation guys showed up on Saturday to begin when they should have started the Monday previous.  Already it has made a difference, though with only plastic on three of our windows, there is room for improvement.

We checked with our General Contractor to make sure that the foam was being sprayed to a depth of 2".  They were doing a pretty good job.  While one guy sprayed, another worked at putting in the insulation batts.  We have chosen to insulate all exterior and interior walls.  Here's hoping for an energy-efficient house.

It won't be long before Misha won't be able to climb the wall to her shelf without some kind of ladder.  She climbs up every time we visit and has plans for an elevated reading nook.

Whenever I think the lake is as full as it is going to get, I notice that the shore line has risen just a little bit more.

Young Women Fundraiser

We came up with the idea of selling pizza and cookie dough as a fundraiser to raise money for Girls' Camp this summer. So many leaders put in hours to make this event happen, and we had great support from the Carlsons and Papa Murphy. So grateful for wonderful people. Many of the young women came for hour and a half shifts on Friday to put the pizzas together.