Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Our Kitchen


They actually showed up today to install the kitchen!! Yeah!! I cannot wait until it is completely finished. The cupboards were even nicer then I thought, which is always a bonus :) Tomorrow the installers (Steve and Steve, father and son, makes me laugh) will be done with their part of it. We were fortunate enough to stumble upon West Valley Ceramic for our tile. I believe we were working with Dana. She was GREAT! First person in our search for tile to sit there and take the time to help us find the right colors to go with our cabinets. We just kept a door off one of them and brought the whole thing in. She was able to help us find a nice tile for the floor, laminate for the counter and a back splash to help set off the counter. So, two more weeks and all that will be done! We will go talk to someone about carpet tomorrow. Painters come tomorrow also. Only a couple more weeks and it will mostly be over with. Not sure what is up with the siding guy. He showed up yesterday, stayed for a few hours then took off and we haven't seen him since. And of course we are experiencing a little hiccough with our water heater. The water comes out nice and hot for 30 seconds then turns lukewarm. We've turned the knob as high as we dare and still no hot water for longer then 30 secs. After talking with Tom today it seems a part upstairs may have been put in backwards or a switch of some sort left the wrong way and it's diverting the hot or cold water (not sure I get it) the wrong way. The plumber will be here nice and early, 6:30 am tomorrow, to fix it.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Cub Scout Day Camp

Cub Scout day camp was this past week. They have it at Camp Ireland in Hillsboro. Our pack this year got to be the Captains. I had the chance to go Tuesday and Friday. Tuesday wasn't so great. Too dang hot, which made me grouchy. Came home that night and ended up waking up with the stomach flu so I'm guessing I was grouchy from that too :) Friday was so much better. It was cooler and I felt like I could enjoy watching the boys this time. The boys, of course, all had a great time. Jonathan and Nathaniel both got bulls-eyes. Jonathan in BB Gun and Nathaniel in Archery. In fact they each got two, one on two different days. I'm very proud of them :) The following are a few pics of my boys from the days I attended. I will set up a slide show with more pics that include the other boys. If you see any like please feel free to copy.


The first activity Tues was the obstacle course.
They got to make pirate hats next.
And eye patches.
At the archery range.
Friday started with badminton. Nathaniel was off trying to earn another pin for Archery so I only have pics of Jonathan here.



The boys made boats out of styrofoam for the Raingutter Regatta.


They then had to race the boats by blowing them down a raingutter full of water.
The last activity included face paint and some sort of Polynesian craft.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Little by Little

So, here are some photos with the sheetrock up and textered. Little by little it's starting to come together! Our painter is coming tonight with the primer so next week everything will be painted :) It's so exciting!
View from the downstairs living room.
That will be the kitchen.
Upstairs family room.
Looking down the hall to the back, the house is not crooked I just can't hold my camera straight :)
Elizabeth and Rob investigating a giant puddle of mud in the new family room.
This morning we went on a three mile hike with what Webelos were in town. Elizabeth and Jonathan got to join us. Seth was in a backpack on Rob's back. The other three boys are Luke, Steven, and Sterling. We had a great time though everyone was pretty tired when it was over. We went up to the Hoyt Arboretum at Washington Park. Thank goodness it was shaded it was pretty hot out there! We have a great group of Webelos, I enjoy working with them.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Catching up

So, thought I'd catch up on things since I've fallen behind. I don't get as much time on my laptop since I don't have wireless at the Gardiner's and if we are here Seth is usually asleep in the room with the laptop. When he's not asleep we are usually at the house working on it or waiting for an inspector.


Life is crazy right now. We do have insulation up at the house. Today they delivered the sheetrock and guys are actually coming tomorrow to start hanging it! We were a bit surprised at that since it is a holiday weekend. Sounds like they will be working the whole weekend. We were told, too, that if things continue along we may be done at the end of the month! Woohoo!!! I can go for that.

Here are pics to give an idea of what the downstairs will look like. Have to imagine the walls are done.

View of our new kitchen space.

Stairs and entry to garage. LOVE IT!!



View from upstairs, they cut the wall down to a 1/2 wall. We want the appearance of open space.

Went to the zoo last week with Grandpa and Uncle Shane. It was a nice day, not too hot, not too cold.
The sea lions are my favorite stop.

They have a dinosaur walk right now at the zoo. The kids loved it!


Yes, it's called the spitter and it really spits water on you. At least, I hope it's water!


The kids always love to stop and feed the lorikeets. Most of the time they can get them to land on them.
These two were just being cute.
The zoo was too much for Seth, he finally conked out near the end.
The kids are taking swim lessons right now. All three are loving it!
And finally today, Jonathan found a frog outside and had to catch it. It was sitting on the waterslide they have out back.