Kitchen Has Been Removed

Today Rob went over to the house and, with the help of my dad, took out the kitchen. He actually started earlier, like 4 am. Seth had woken up this morning around 2:30 am and would not stop screaming. No idea what was wrong but Rob finally took him to the house with the hope that Seth would fall back to sleep in his own crib. Guess he continued to scream until 4:30 so Rob figured he was up he would get started on the kitchen. Actually didn't take the two of them too long to get it done. I don't have access to my before pics, they are on the hard drive at home, but here are some during and after shots.

Here is just a cute photo of Seth. He fell asleep there last night after we had run upstairs really quick to talk to Scott. Poor kid was pretty tired.

Life is an Adventure

Well, we've moved into the Gardiner's basement. What a comfortable, peaceful place to be compared to what our house has been recently. It's been fun to get to know them a little better also. Maddie, their second child and going into 3rd grade next year, is unsatiable when it comes to life stories. She had overheard me telling Sarah how life was when we found out Elizabeth had CF and then started begging for more stories. I told her a couple about the kids when they were younger, figuring she could relate to those. After 2 or 3 more I thought that was enough. However, Maddie started begging for me to tell more. Sarah said something about not asking for too much then Maddie replied "But I'm trying to help her think her life is an adventure!" Ok, how profound is that? It hit me pretty hard at the time but we were busy with all the kids so didn't get a chance to think on it until recently. Life IS an adventure. Somedays I get so bogged down in the daily grind that I don't realize how full of adventure it is! Here I was telling stories to a 7 year old that I thought were just typical events in a person's life and she was thinking they were so thrilling! And they are! They are events that have helped shape my life as well as my children's. How many parents get to go to the ER with a toddler who scewered his tonsil with a tinkertoy?! So stressful at the time but I could laugh about it now while watching Maddie's eyes get big with disbelief. She loved that one :) So does Jonathan. Surprise, surprise it was he who did that and he loves hearing me tell it over and over!

That was all Tues afternoon. Yesterday we had dinner with them and Maddie asked for more stories, this time some involving crime. HA! Sad to say I actually had a couple buried deep in the recesses of my brain. Fortunately I had one I could tell where I had made some good choices to keep myself as well as my not-so-smart friends out of trouble and I could use it to teach a lesson. Though I did tell her about one where my friend and I weren't so smart but it all ended better then it could have :) Once again, I asked her what the lesson was. Don't go barreling down Montana backroads at over 100 mph with a cop on your tail! And just so you know, my friend was driving! LOL It was good to remember those as well. I had some really interesting teenage moments that's for sure. This is where keeping a journal comes in to play. I'm pretty sure I don't have any of these stories written down. I need to do that. My kids love to hear them so need to put them somewhere on paper so they don't get forgotten. I wish my mom had told me more stories. I started hearing some close to the time of her death and then realized how much I had missed out on. She was either too stressed out all the time to think to tell them or I was too wrapped up in myself to ask about her life. I do remember a couple she told me and I'll have to write those down too before I forget anymore details. Sigh.

Life is an adventure and thanks to Maddie I'm going to start looking for the "adventure" more often in our daily life.

Changes Inside Today

Before, corner where the piano was located. The piano is now in the boys' room.

After.

Before, this is where the TV was.


After, Jonathan is standing where the TV used to be. Sorry it is so dark, took three photos and my camera just would not cooperate.

The closets after they took them out. You can use the post there to the right for a landmark. I took a before photo but blogger won't let me load it.

And just so people know, we have officially given in and realized there is no way we can live here while this is going on. As I type this Seth is constantly getting into everything that is out of it's place. So, we discussed things with the Gardiner's (Scott and Sarah-friends from church) and they are willing to let us live in their basement for the next couple of weeks. We are extremely grateful to them for their kindness and generosity. They are too good :) I will have my laptop there so will still receive email and because we have internet phone we can hook our phone up there and actually get our home phone calls, hopefully, we'll see :)

Tagged

Julie, Julie, Julie. My dearest friend decided it would be great to "Tag" me. This means I get to go around and take photos-none staged- of various objects. Ug. She even warned me she was going to but I just now found it on her blog. I'm only doing this because I love her so much :) That and I have nothing else to do while my house gets torn apart :) Thanks, Julie!!


1. Favorite Vacation-Every year we go to the yurts down in Winchester Bay, OR. They are deluxe, so they have a bathroom and mini-kitchen inside. That is my idea of camping! We spend a lot of time each year finding and exploring new beaches.

I think this one is at Horse Fall beach.

Taken at Sunset Bay, newly discovered by us this year. It's gorgeous and I can't wait to go back. We had nice sunny days this year too.


2. Laundry Pile- HA! Just got caught up the other day so this is what is left. Unfortunately my washer goes away as of today so it's not going to be looking too pretty in a few days.

3. The Fridge- What can I say, it's a fridge :)




4. The Closet- It was just cleaned up since the workers had to come in this morning to look under the house, the crawl space opening is there under my side of the closet. Phew!





5. The Toilet- It didn't say which one so I chose the kids' bathroom. I'm impressed, it's actaully clean, I don't have to be embarrassed :)






6. The Kitchen Sink- Soon to be long gone!! YEAH! Tom came in today and put blue sharpie markings all over the counter. Dang I lucked out today, it usually looks so much worse.




7. Favorite Room- Sorry skipping out on this one cause right now I don't have a favorite room. Every room is trashed from the remodel so I really don't like looking at any of them! I'm sure it will soon be the new family room upstairs :)


8. Favorite Shoes- I wear these everywhere and have gotten lots of comments on them.





9. What My Kids Are Doing Right Now-Ah, game time! Now that school is done they get time every day to play instead of having to wait for the weekend. They have to earn Beasley Bucks though to do it and I think in their excitement blew all the Bucks they had earned. Guess they weren't thinking about tomorrow :) By the time I wrote this Seth was letting us know he was awake.





10. Self-Portrait- There is a reason I don't like to post pictures of myself. Dang I look tired. Feel it too :P I debated make-up this morning, should have done it. And so in need of a haircut! Wearing a jacket because it's FREEZING in here.




Your turn. I tag: Breezy, Rachel, Megan, Melissa S. and Heidi.

OMSI

Yesterday we went to OMSI to celebrate the official last day of school with Connections. We were really done last week but we hadn't gotten a chance to celebrate it :) They have dinosaurs from China there right now. The kids had a great time looking at all the dinosaurs!

The kids in front of various species. Have no idea what the dinosaurs names are. A lot of them had names related to where they were found in China so I couldn't pronounce them much less remember them :)

Elizabeth and Seth playing with a pteradactil puppet.

Seth touching fossilized dino skin. He loves to touch anything he can get his hands on :)

When we got home 2 1/2 hours later we found the roofers had already gotten about 1/2 the roof shingled! Yeah! It's starting to look like a house again :)

June Jubilee

OGA (Oregon Gymnastics Academy) had their June Jubilee yesterday and Jonathan was able to show off some of his gymnastics skills with some of the other students. The following are some of the clips I recorded. Sorry the pictures are grainy, the light was pretty bad and my cameras don't do well under those light conditions.

All the kids received a trophy at the end for their hard work. Jonathan had a lot of fun! We had fun watching him :)

Music Class Performance

Elizabeth had her performance with her music class on Friday. The kids were pretty cute and did a great job singing. Here are some pics and video.

Inside Walls and Trusses

This will someday be the new family room.

This is taken from the family room looking toward the back of the house. The hole on the left will be the stairs the first room on the right is the bathroom and the hall looks strait back into the boys' room. Elizabeth's room is sandwiched between the bathroom and boys' room.

The trusses arrived yesterday. It was fun to watch the crane drop them on top of the house. Unfortunately it was also raining so they called it quits after they got the tarp back on. Today isn't much better, cold and windy but no rain yet. Hopefully they can get them up.

High Blue

Nathaniel received his high blue belt the other night. Such a great accomplishment :) Last month he had to spar Logan, a fellow student, and one of his instructors. Then he had to take a written exam. He passed both tests so was able to move up a belt. It's funny because he went from a blue to a high blue belt. What's the difference? The high blue has a black stripe. He is pretty proud of himself.

First lost tooth!

Elizabeth lost her first tooth the other night. It's been loose forever but the little stinker wouldn't wiggle it because she didn't want to lose her teeth. The other day I looked in her mouth and saw another tooth coming in behind the loose one and it's way back there. I told her she HAD to wiggle that tooth and get it out so hopefully the other one would correct itself. Monday night she was eating a piece of bread and all of a sudden yelled that she had lost her tooth. She ran over to tell me and show me and I asked her where her tooth was. She nonchalantly replied "It's in the carpet somewhere." She didn't even care about the tooth, just cared that it was finally out. Quinlan was over and found it for her. Elizabeth was excited about the Tooth Fairy visiting over the night. Her other tooth on the bottom is also lose but once again she won't touch it, she doesn't want to lose that one too :)

We have Walls!!

The walls went up yesterday! Yeah! Now it looks like something :) They only got 3 walls up, I'm assuming the 4th will go up today. We should have a roof by the end of next week! It's starting to move along pretty fast now. Though Tom told me yesterday that Mark, our foreman, is taking off for about a week and 1/2 so not sure how that will affect things. He's pretty good at driving the others. We like Mark :) I also found out I lose my washer/dryer next week and will not have another hook up for it until the house is pretty much done. I'm not too happy about that one. I can handle most things, I do not handle not having a washer/dryer well. Ask Rob, last time I had to use a public facility with our apartment complex I lost it because other people were so dang rude. I told him I wasn't doing laundry again til he bought me a house. It worked, 2 mos later we were in this place :) End of the month I lose my kitchen too. Ug. Ok it will be worth it, it will be worth it. I HOPE! All I can say is I'm glad it's over the summer. Who wants to cook during the summer anyway?

Week 2

They have all the decking up there now. They have also boxed in the floor joists. I can't get decent pictures because they have to put the tarp up every night and I'm not too hip on going up a ladder while they are up there to get pictures :) I didn't know they had been assembling the wall frames today. They are up there, just waiting to be put up into place. Of course it's going to pour tomorrow so no idea if they are going to be able to put them up. Sigh, it's June and it still feels like late winter around here.

Friday we got to pick out the type of wood and stain color for our cabinets in the kitchen. We decided we will replace all the appliances with stainless steel, will look really nice up against the cabinet color we chose. Plus, we get to keep all the silver hardware we purchased for our kitchen a long time ago! Even better :)

This was the house on Friday.

See how it is all boxed in now?

This is the side of the house. The part sticking out the farthest will at some point be Elizabeth's closet. In order to have a good layout for her room we had to hang the closet out in space :)

Front of the house. The very top pieces of wood up there are the frames of the really long, inside and outside wall.