Fun and Work

We left off with Thursday night being a busy night for our kids. I took the girls to their school for a reading night filled with activities because it was "Read Across America Week" in celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday (March 2nd). Each grade level had an age appropriate activity, there were books being read to kids, each teacher had a door decorated, face painting, cookies in the cafeteria, etc. 

Each student was handed a paper cat in the hat hat when they arrived.

This was Charlotte's classroom door. Harry Potter!

This was Alice's classroom door. Cute ladybug!

Alice got her face painted but not Charlotte. 

After doing activities at their school for about an hour, we left to meet the boys at Garrett's school for his band concert. Garrett got to play 3 types of drums that night and participated in each song in his group! He texted me that morning and told me he needed a plain black bowtie for the concert. Oh great, where are we going to look for one that we need right away that doesn't cost $30-$50 (like at Kohl's)? I drove over to Walmart and found a small one in the kids section. It said ages 3+ on it and looked adjustable in size so I grabbed it. I also found a black necktie because I wasn't sure if it had to be a bowtie. I later found out that yes, it needed to be a bowtie. The bowtie I bought ended up being too small, so Garrett took his black bowtie that had strips of white piano on it and just turned the bow around. The back side of the bow was all black. Thank goodness! I might have to order one online now that we have more time. We'll also need to find him a suit jacket that fits him. All of the other band members had tuxedo type jackets. Garrett wore Curtis's jacket.

I'm so glad we got his hair cut the day before the concert. He looks so good now!

Playing the bass drum, (same one he did his first year in marching band).

Here he got to play the snare drum, along with two other people.

I did some more touch up painting on Friday and decided that since I had time, I would go ahead and sand down a few spots of dripped paint that had dried before we could get them and then paint over it again. After the boys got home, I had them do a relatively easy job of removing the baseboard trim along the bottom. Jack removed the board (which is more of a rubber or plastic material) and Garrett hammered in the nails that remained in the wall, which were a lot. Jack helped with some of the hammering as well and then he vacuumed up the wall and floor where the baseboard was because it was dirty behind it.

Once you removed a small part of the board from the wall, you could just grab it and pull the rest right off. I had tested a smaller section before giving them the assignment.

Curtis and I were tired and I hadn't thought about dinner yet, so he picked up some Panda Express for us and the boys and picked up McDonald's for the girls. Then we watched the 3rd Harry Potter movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban (one of my favorite of the series). We all went to bed early because Jack needed to wake up very early because he was going to Moscow to the University of Idaho for some trumpet thing they were putting on. He was able to get a ride with a class mate and her dad and another classmate. Thank goodness, because it's a 2 1/2 hours drive one way. He said it was kind of boring and long because they didn't get to play their trumpets very much. They were pretty much the only middle schoolers there. Everyone else were high school or college, so the music was more advanced. I think he still had a good time on the drive though, visiting. He was gone all day from 5:30am to about 6:30pm and of course he was exhausted. Apparently, the dad that drove them over treated them to Panda Express for lunch, so he had it two days in a row, which he didn't mind at all. We love Panda Express! (well, all except the little girls)

While Jack was gone, we did some more work on the house but not much. Curtis was focused on the bathroom and finally got the wiring figured out for the light and fan, without calling my dad. It would have been hard to explain over the phone plus my dad was working in the temple that morning. Actually, before I did any work I attended a baptism for someone in our ward. It was the son of one of the ladies I minister to and Charlotte became friends with her son, who got baptized. Both of the girls came with me. When we got back, the girls went to play. I got some laundry put in the wash and then had Garrett help me with some more brick dismantling, this time in the family room. This fireplace had an extra step and we didn't like it, so we had to remove it before putting the flooring in. We will do something with this fireplace eventually also, but for now it's going to be the same color as the walls. It was white before but it looked kind of dirty.

This 2nd step just really wasn't necessary. The funny thing is we found two mismatched Barbie shoes under the bricks we removed! How in the world did they get under there?

This room is pretty much ready for flooring now. The basement is scheduled to be done next week!

Curtis had to remove the sheet rock above the tub and will be putting a mold resistant sheet rock in its place. He also had to fix some electrical wiring up there. You can see the blue box he had to put wires in.

Curtis added an outlet that will be in the hallway since there aren't any in the hall yet. (It's right behind the bathtub, kind of hard to see in the picture.)

I think the next step is placing the sheet rock, then taping and texturing. Then we can paint. We need to do all of that before the flooring guys come next week. Curtis also replaced the old doorframe after he finished the electrical stuff. We ended the night with watching the 4th Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire. That movie is so difficult to watch because some of the acting is just terrible(like the new Dumbledore), but we got through it. 

Yesterday we went to church in our new building and it was like we were back in our old ward again. It looks almost exactly like the Locust Lane building that we were in since 2008! It was like we were home in Idaho, except all new faces. I ended up being asked to sit with Alice's class for primary that day. What felt weird to them in the new primary room, was total normal for me! 

After church, all of us except for Garrett took a drive over to the river to take a walk and look around. The girls really wanted to play on the playground but we said not today because it's Sunday. We'll have to take them to that park again another day because they do have a big playground.

They had a small side bridge over a small stream of water/canal that we walked over and looked at some ducks that were diving down for food.

Skipping rocks.

Now just throwing rocks.

 

After we got home, Curtis and I got to work making some Navajo Tacos with fry bread. We haven't had that in a long time and it turned out good. Then Charlotte did a lesson that involved building a house (fort) then talking about the wise man and the foolish man. It was fun but Garrett was being a teenager and didn't want to participate with the building. He did show up for the lesson though. I helped build for a little bit but then went to bake some chocolate chip cookies. We ate cookies and ice cream for dessert. It was good but I ate too much and felt sick when I went to bed. Why do I do that to myself?! Thankfully, I feel better today.