Primary Activity

Tonight was the quarterly Primary activity. The presidency put together a great speghetti dinner and the kids performed in a talent show. Our kids pracitced a song on the hand bells and played that. I've been so scattered I've forgotten to have them practice very often but they played well. I almost forgot about even going so we were doing good to be there and have a talent semi-ready :)

Elizabeth also performed a song with some of her music friends. They sang "Puff, the Magic Dragon".

Day 4-big OOPS!

So, there we were today, quietly sitting around the table doing school work when next thing we know there is a FOOT in our ceiling!! One of the workers accidentally slipped off the beam above us and his foot went right through the sheetrock that is our ceiling. It all happened so fast that all any of us could do was jump out of our skins and just stare dumbfounded at the ceiling. They had been dropping stuff above us all morning and we had finally gotten used to the sound. That something actually came through was a bit of a shock. I felt so bad for the guy, I believe his name is Carl. He was pretty embarrassed and so mad at himself because of course that means more work for them later. We made sure he was OK then he came down and did a quick patch job, plastic stapled to our ceiling to cover the hole. I'm not worried, Tom had warned us before they started that it was a possibility and that they would fix it if it happened. I'm glad he warned us. Maybe I jynxed him, I've just been waiting for something to fall through :)

Day 2 (a little late)

This is a picture of what they managed to accomplish on Friday. There is now a seemingly random post in our living room :) Don't worry it will look like something in the end, the bottom of the stairs will start there. That closet you see will go away and that will be our way up to the 2nd story. For now though it's pretty funny to have that post just sitting there. Just waiting for someone to walk into it, especially at night with the lights out. It's a 6x6 post, really thick. But you have to understand there is a HUGE beam running over the top of that, in fact they are working on getting that huge beam in there now. So it has to be thick to help support the beam above. The beam above is now extended 2 feet over the back of the house and another big post will go outside to support it there. At first they were going to totally rearrange our living room wall with my big picture window. They were going to tear out the window and put in new, smaller ones so they could put another post in the wall but in no way did I want my window messed with so that's when we decided we may as well add a couple more feet and just hang the 2nd story off the back a bit. So the fun continues :) Just keeping my fingers crossed the rain will hold off every day long enough to let them get a full days work in.

Day 1 of "destruction"

Elizabeth has been fondly calling this whole process "destruction". I keep trying to tell her it's "construction" but after today it's totally "destruction". The roof is mostly off. There are a few feet left on the front. Tomorrow they already come in and remove the corner where the stairs are to go. It's freezing in here now. I have a new appreciation for a roof and insulation. We could feel the cold just seeping through the ceiling today as they started removing the insulation! And of course we have a lovely wind sweeping through here now. The sound of the tarp blowing around is going to keep me up all night :( At least they nailed it down all around so hopefully it won't blow off!! Keeping my fingers crossed it does not rain tomorrow otherwise we won't see them until Tuesday because of Memorial day weekend.

The first panel removed from the roof.

FINALLY!!!

Adam came by today to tell us he had finally gotten the permits in his hands!! Woohoo!
Later tonight we got a message from Tom saying he will have his guys here Thursday morning at 8 am ready to start taking the roof off the house. FINALLY!!

Only 1 1/2 more weeks of school work left for us too. Cannot wait to be done :)

Weekend Happenings

Saturday we volunteered at the CF fundraiser at Oaks Park. Every year across the country local chapters put on a walk to help raise money for the CF Foundation. I didn't know about it in time to put together a team for the walk but I was able to go help at one of the stations. I was put in the kids corner where I just needed to help kids make crafts or play games while their parents mingled. It's always so hard at these events because they've found that people with CF can very easily transmit their bacteria to others with CF. And like I've said before once a person gets a bacteria stuck in the mucus in his/her lungs it's there to stay. So now you pretty much have to keep your child 3 ft from other people at all times. That's the worst part about this disease, these kids and adults can't get together and support each other, they could make each other more sick then they already are. I found out a lot of families don't even bring thier child(ren) with CF to these things. They can't even come enjoy the activity set up to help them. How sad is that? I just had Rob keep a close eye on Elizabeth while we were there.
It was amazing to see how many people showed up for it. Some of the teams were huge! It was very encouraging to see so much support. I so wished I had had time to get a team together. I've really been feeling a need to get more connected to my community and I'm thinking this is one way I can. I will be looking into what more I can do with our local CF chapter. I know they have many fundraisers throughout the year so I'd like to get in on more of them.

Later that night the kids were running through the sprinkler as it was another nice, hot day. Nathaniel came running across the deck and slid his foot over a nail sticking up in in the deck. He tore a nice little gash across the ball of his foot and totally freaked out! I guess I shouldn't blame him, there was blood everywhere. But dang, it took a lot of coaxing from Rob and I to calm him down enough to get a good look at it. I have to admit I really thought about getting my camera but it really wasn't a good time. Not sure everyone would want to see the blood pouring out of his foot like that either. Ug! So, off to urgent care, again. We've been to urgent care more times in the last two weeks then we have in the last 5 or 6 years. Crazy! They didn't give him stitches, guess they don't like to stitch the bottom of feet, so they just glued it together. Nathaniel is doing fine. Rob told him to keep a sock on his foot and we chuckled when we saw him put a sock on that foot and not the other. Why would the other foot need a sock, really? So he's been running around the house the last couple of days with only one sock on :) Gotta love him!!

Sprinkler Weather!!!

We went out and bought the kids new swimsuites today. Elizabeth saw one with Spongebob on it and it had a fake grass skirt to go with so she HAD to have it :) It is awfully cute. We got home about 7 pm and they kids begged and begged to go in the sprinkler. The weather has turned and today was pretty warm. Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter.

This was Seth's first experience in the sprinkler. He didn't like it much. Didn't help that one of his brothers, who shall remain nameless, attacked him with a squirt gun first thing. Then this same child decided Seth just needed someone to put him right in the sprinkler. Seth didn't like that either. He ran out of it and found the closest dirt pile to play in after getting all wet. He's in taking a bath as I type this :)

Rob is home!! Yeah! As of right now he's been up 19 1/2 hours.

Good news on the permits, Tom should have them tomorrow. Woohoo!!! We can finally get started. Tenative start time is next Tues. Finally! Will be nice to get it started. The weather should hopefully hold out, looks like it will cool off but no rain. Fow now anyway. I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

Mother's Day

I know it's been a couple days since Mother's Day but this is the first chance I've had to write about it. All I really wanted was to be left alone to sleep :) And maybe some chocolate! So that's what I got. No one bothered me and I got to sleep in til 9:30 then couldn't lay around anymore. I came out to see everyone frantically trying to finish up the cleaning they were doing. Waiting for me on the table were some flowers and chocolate. Many small boxes of chocolate :) MMMMMM! I opened the homemade cards, which were too cute and made me smile, and helped myself to a chocolate or two then noticed a black box under everything. It was my gift from Rob. I opened it up and saw a beautiful crystal piece with the kids' names etched in. There was also a little handprint and some beautiful words from Rob. Unbeknownst to me he had been having this made for me. Then he told me that the names were the actual signatures of the kids. He had, awhile ago, had the kids sign their names then scanned them in so the shop could use them to etch into the glass. Then he showed me that the handprint was the perfect size of Seth's hand, and was in fact the actual outline of his hand. That's when I lost it and just started bawling. He's never given me a gift that made me cry. I don't think he'll ever be able to top this one, nor will I. It's beautiful and such a wonderful keepsake. Definitely better then chocolate!! What a wonderful man I am married to! I love Rob dearly.

Missing him a lot right now. Rob's in Boston for work until Thursday. It's the farthest and longest we've ever been apart. Pathetic I know but we kind of like each other :) I don't know how other wives do it, with military husbands or husbands who have to travel a lot for work. It's times like these I realize how much I depend on him to help keep the house running and just how much he actually does around here.

Backyard findings

So today Rob and I were outside with Seth and Teagen. I was watching Seth put rocks on the deck and then his mouth (ewwwww!) when Rob called me to the back of the yard. I had asked him to plant a hydrangea he had gotten me for my birthday. I had picked out the spot and he was digging when he found an odd hole in the ground. He had only dug down about 6-8 inches and then uncovered a bottomless hole. What are the odds that we should pick the exact spot of this hole. It didn't look like it went side to side. We called our backdoor neighbor over to have a look too to get his opinion.
Doesn't look too deep does it? The shovel is about 5 ft tall, Rob proceded to go down all the way to his armpit and still did not touch the bottom of the hole!!! Lee, our neighbor, suggested we put our hose down it and see if we could touch bottom. We ran the hose down it til we thought it hit the bottom and pulled it out and measured 15 ft!!! Where the heck did it come from? Even scarrier is the fact that the kids play over there all the time and no one has fallen through! Lee grabbed his flashlight and they looked as far down as they could. Deep enough to have water in the bottom. So, we will be calling the county on Monday to see what we should do about it, if anything.

Sparring for the first time!

Last night was belt testing time at the dojo for both the kids and the adults. Nathaniel tested for his high blue. He did great on the sparring and passed that portion of the test. We are waiting to hear how he did on the written test. I'm so mad at myself for not bringing a camera with me. He looked so good!

Following the kids were the adults. Sensai Heather asked if I would spar the higher belts despite having only done this like what? Five weeks? I, of course, said yes. Why not? I was assured the whole purpose was so the higher belts could prove they had control when dealing with a lower belt. I had so much FUN! I sucked, but it was fun :)

Melody was the first I had to spar. The rounds were only a minute long but dang it feels like a long time when you are getting punched and trying to punch and kick back! About 30 seconds into the round she grabbed my arm to do, I think, hiki mawashi, a two hand pull around. Usually from there you can knock your opponent to the ground. Well, I pulled back or something to get our of her grip and a good part of my sleeve ripped away from the seam!!! Took us both by surprise and it let me get out of her grip :) After that she couldn't attack my left side because of the rip! Actually no one could, no fabric for anyone to grab! My first round wasn't bad. However, as soon as they yelled "Hajime" (begin) anything I had learned left my head. It was purely try and block and try and get a shot in. I really don't remember what happened except for the rip and I know Melody landed a solid kick into my shin! Thank goodness for shin pads :)

After watching a few more rounds I was up again against Nathaniel (not my Nathaniel). Nathaniel is TALL and he is all legs. Nathaniel also knows how to use his legs in sparring. Twice his foot ended up on my shoulder tapping my head (we do wear head gear). I never once saw it coming, even if I did I probably could not have blocked it :P That was a little unnerving! All I could think was thank goodness I'm a white belt, he had to go easy on me. I've seen him use that move on the other higher belts and it's just amazing. I was so mad because twice I managed to grab his gi to try and do a hiki mawashi but my dang nails were too long and I bent back the nail on both my middle fingers and had to let go cause it hurt. So, bye bye long nails, at least at testing time :) After that round I was shaking so bad I could barely clip my nails (I had one more round so thought I'd better take care of them). I was surprised by that, I didn't feel like I should be shaking.

Last round was with Senpai Trish. She has been teaching me most of what I know. She was testing for her brown belt. It was fun to go up against her but once again, the ref yelled "Hajime" and all knowledge left the building. I don't even remember what happened during that round except she grabbed my right arm and that sleeve tore also!! I could not believe it. By the time I was all done I looked like I had gotten badly beat up, if you were just looking at my gi. There I was the newest white belt all in tatters! It was pretty funny. I had to assure Melody I'm a seamstress and can take care of it, she was feeling bad.

The rest of the rounds were just fun to watch. I had a great time cheering each person on when it was their turn to test. It was awesome to see the moves they used on each other, especially the higher belts, we had a couple testing for their brown. But oh my gosh, so exhausting. You get to that level and you have to spar 7 different rounds in a row with only 30 secs in between to catch your breath. I can't imagine, the 3 rounds I did were spread out and only one minute each and I woke up just wiped out. I can't imagine how the others were feeling this morning. I woke up at 4 am and just could not stop thinking about all the mistakes I made. I was told I did really well for a white belt but still I feel so clumsy. So laid there for an hour this morning going over the rounds. I had gotten a couple hiki mawashis in but then couldn't remember how to throw my opponent. We practice this every week but I just could not remember. When we practice it's very slow and I just did not have time to think when sparring. I remembered how to knock someone down at 4:30 am :) So, now I am very excited about my belt test which isn't until August, thank goodness. Gives me three more months to learn :)

My gi after sparring last night. Melody did the big rip. Then Trish got the other side.

Computer room is GONE!

We finished phase two on Saturday. The computer room is no longer. Very weird now to walk out into our garage and have a full garage! We are now just waiting for the permit office to notify Tom that we are good to go. We were hoping the roof would come off this week but the permit office is taking their time. It's supposed to be dry and warm at the end of the week so it would be perfect. Next week it's supposed to start raining again so who knows when the roof will come off. It's so annoying waiting on people.

Only proof it was the computer room is the blue wallpaper.

Beginning the Demolition

Well, we finished phase one today. That required us moving everything out of the computer room and garage. We started phase two which is to demolish the computer room. We should be able to finish taking it all down tomorrow. The following are pictures of the whole process. Thanks to my Dad, Julie and Zan for helping to take things apart :)

Here is the room freshly wallpapered from last year. Major pain in the butt to put up the wallpaper but we were trying to sell it.

Julie got to have the first swing at the wall with a hammer. She had some frustrations to take out :)

So much for the pretty wallpaper.

Nice clean wall no damage. Same wall being removed.

Same wall from inside the room.

The two doors in the first picture have to be removed. Problem is when they come to remove the roof they also have to remove our garage door leaving open space between the house and outside. So Zan came over and helped Rob move one of the doors to it's original spot so we'd have something between us and the outside. Makes me feel a whole lot safer as Rob has to leave for Boston on the 12th for 3 days and wasn't looking forward to having a missing roof and garage door while he was gone. Probably still won't sleep but that's just me being paranoid :)