Bath Night

First of all, happy birthday to my Mom today! It's fun to have a group text going with my mom and siblings and to see that most of us all wished her happy birthday already. It's great to be able to communicate with our phones in this way and it's fun.

Now back it up to Monday morning. I did some ministering visits with my new companion, Sister Smith. She's a go getter and seems to be really good about ministering. She made all of the appointments and even gave gifts and a message. I was just there to get to know the sisters and offer a prayer at the end. I can't remember the last time I actually did an in home visit for ministering. I felt like I was visiting teaching again and it was a good feeling. I think I needed that little boost from Sister Smith.

The very next morning I had scheduled to go to the Columbia River Temple in Richland to do initiatory by myself. It was the first time attending this temple for me. I have to say, the drive over there was beautiful and it only takes about 14 minutes to get there. It was such a pleasant surprise when I walked through the front doors of the temple and there was Sister Smith working in the temple! It was nice to see a familiar face. After I went back to get changed, Sister Smith ended up coming back to work in initiatory. She didn't know that's what I was doing today either. It helped me to feel less nervous about being there by myself. The temple is right down the road from Costco, so I made a trip over there after the session to gas up and get some food items. 

I don't know why, but I have been experiencing knee pain in both knees and pain in my left shoulder since last weekend. I don't know what I did but my knees hurt the most when I go up and down the stairs. I finally started taking some Ibuprofen and I think it's helping. My left knee isn't hurting as much today nor my shoulder, but my right knee still hurts quite a bit. I feel like I haven't been able to do much because of it. 

Curtis has been working on attaching sheet rock to our walls in the bathroom each night this week. He still has a few small areas to fill but he's got most of it done now.

The hallway.

Looking in through the hall doorway. This green sheet rock is mold resistant.

Looking from the other direction.

We cut out a hole in the wall over top of the shower so that steam can vent through and get to the fan easier.

Now you can see the little light on the ceiling that's next to the tub. That's the light Curtis was having trouble figuring out the wiring, but thankfully he got it.

Wednesday is usually bath night for our girls, so last night they got in the tub after dinner. The girls had been talking about wanting to give the cats a bath with them. I finally let them try to give Sage a bath after they had already cleaned themselves and changed into their swim suits. Sage did amazingly well for not being used to baths. She did try to jump out a few times but we were able to clean her. There was a lot of cat hair in the tub afterwards, so it must have helped. She won't get as many hairballs now, lol. We only did Sage tonight. I told them we can do Cocoa next time since we didn't know where he was.

The girls enjoyed getting in there with her. We were able to hold her in that position most of the time.

All done and in the towel to dry off now.

It wasn't her favorite thing but she was a good sport.

Well, I haven't been successful getting much more written on my talk. I guess I'm having writer's block. I only have about 1 page worth and I need probably at least 4 pages to make it long enough. I thought if I did a blog post that would help get my writing juices flowing again, so I'm going to try again now. Tonight Curtis and I are going to the temple for the first time together here and we'll finally get to see the new changes that everyone keeps talking about. Can't wait! 

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. 

Family Room Painted!

We slowed down quite a bit after all that happened but we did work on some things here and there. Curtis worked some more on the bathroom and trying to hook up lights and a fan but got confused by the wiring. He'll need to get help from my dad over the phone some time. By the following weekend we got our texture on the family room ceiling and a coat of primer put on. Curtis also finished moving rocks in our yard around to the back side of our yard for now and attempted to level the dirt as much as he could. It's hard to do with an excavator. We'll have to get something better when it's time to fix up the yard this spring. Much to my surprise, Curtis taught Jack how to operate the excavator and had him move some of the rocks! Jack loved it and did very well. I think he said he only bumped into the garden bricks once along the side of the house.

Trying to figure out the wiring in the bathroom.

Spraying on the texture to the ceiling.

I was on the other end of the room filling in holes and smoothing them down.

Jack dumping a load of rocks.

This is what our front yard looks like now. What a mess! Can't wait to clean this up but the inside of the house is priority right now.

We will need to regrade our yard away from the house anyway and then just replant grass and maybe even redo some landscaping.

On Sunday we had a special Stake Conference to create a new stake in Kennewick. We were in the Kennewick East Stake but they moved our ward to the Kennewick Stake and created a stake called South Richland Stake. That means we change buildings and times. The church we'll be attending now is a newer building and there are only 3 wards in the building so we'll be at 12:00 noon church instead of 1:30. I'm grateful for that! This building is a little further away but it's in a nice area. Curtis, Jack and I drove over to the new building after we ate lunch after church to see what it looked like. Curtis joked that we are going from the Deerflat Building to the Locust Lane building again because that's what these buildings look like over here, the same as the ones back in Nampa. Later we had fun playing Throw Throw Burrito as a family. Alice even played for a little while but she's got that competitiveness in her and got upset when she lost. She decided she would watch us the remainder of the time.

I spent all day Monday filling in holes and prepping for painting in the family room. I started to paint primer on part of the ceiling and a small section of wall by the windows but got frustrated and tired. I decided that maybe using the sprayer would be a better idea. By the time Curtis got home and we ate dinner, it was time to paint some primer. Curtis used the sprayer and Jack assisted him. I came down later to help as well. It was dripping like the closet doors did so it was a little frustrating. We ran out of primer before we finished but I went to Home Depot Tuesday morning to pick up more primer and more paint. I worked all that afternoon trying to fill in spaces that we missed with rollers and brushes, and pretty much just painted the whole thing over again. 

After finishing the sprayer

This is what it looked like Monday night after spraying and attempting to fill in with brushes and rollers.

This is what it looked like after I finished priming it again on Tuesday, trying to fill in the brown.

Curtis was able to spray paint on Tuesday night and I noticed that a lot less paint gets in the air when it's actual paint instead of just primer, so that was good. We both wore a mask anyway. Later I got a phone call from a member of the bishopric. This was a call I was expecting because we were new but I was hoping it wouldn't come until being here for a few months. He called to ask if I would speak in Sacrament Meeting on March 12th. I hesitated and was a bit concerned because we're so busy and I get so exhausted but after he told me the topic and said he thought of me, I went ahead and accepted it. The topic is "the eternal principle of and blessings of change". It honestly is perfect for me because we just made a big change in our lives. He only asked me to speak, not Curtis. He was just looking for a 2nd speaker for that day and thought of me.

Anyway, Wednesday I spent the morning filling in some missed holes and sanding down a few spots. Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as the closet doors. Garrett had a special early release day and got home around 10:45am. After he relaxed and watched a couple of shows I cut his hair for him. He asked me to do it on Sunday but I had said I don't really want to do hair cuts on Sundays. So, it was a good time to do it since I was waiting for spackle to dry on the walls downstairs. I didn't think to get a picture of him afterwards but basically we left the top long and shortened the sides and cleaned up around his neck. It looks pretty good! It's just in time too, because he has his first band concert at his new school tonight, so I'll definitely get a picture then.

I went to work painting touch up, starting with the ceiling and got interrupted a couple of times and took a break also. I ended up repainting the whole room again because a lot of it needed it and it was just easier to do the whole thing rather than try to hunt down the spots. Maybe one of these days we'll get that sprayer figured out to where it gets well coated but not too much. Anyway, I worked in the evening and was about to stop and finish up the next day but Curtis was busy working on installing lights in the room, so I decided to keep going. It was close to 11pm when I finished painting and cleaning up. I had to get a shower so we didn't get to bed until about 11:30pm, but I'm so glad the painting is done and we have lights again!

Spraying the first coat of paint on. 

All finished and this is what it looks like this morning.

Ah, so much nicer than that dark brown.  

Curtis thinks it looks like a trailer home. I guess it kind of does but I hadn't thought about it. I think he thought about it because he lived in a trailer home when he was a kid. My thoughts were how much the brown panel walls reminded me of the walls in the basement in the home I grew up in, which was basically the same. They were built around the same year, after all. 

Today has been SO windy! As Winnie the Pooh would say, "it's a blustery day today". It is also garbage day and here they only have the small blue buckets for recycling, no lid. The big garbage cans have been getting blown over here and there but the stuff from the recycling bins are blowing everywhere, and the spot where we live tends to catch a lot of the garbage blown, even our neighbor also. Our garbage got picked up early, around 6:45am, thank goodness. The girls got on the bus around 8:04 and I started picking up a bunch of recycling that was blowing everywhere, including our own. I had to grab an extra blue bucket that we have in the backyard to put more in it. Thankfully, the recycle truck came about 8:20 as I was finishing picking stuff up! So I took one of our blue bins inside to our kitchen and the other out back behind the fence. When I got back from the store later this morning, I saw 3 recycle bins that weren't ours and a bunch of recycling blown back by our fence and in our yard and the neighbor's. They were blown from the newer neighborhood in front of us. I picked up as much as I could and put them in. I later dumped everything into our blue bins so I could carry them to ask neighbors if they belonged to them. The first one I tried said not theirs. Fortunately, the guy across the street said he was looking for his two bins. He was very nice and ended up taking the third and said he'll figure out who it goes to.

These are the three bins that blew into our yard along with all of the stuff inside of them.

I had heard it gets windy here but now we're seeing just how much! Anyway, I'm hungry now after all of that running around and typing this up. Time to eat something!

We Have Water Again!

First thing Monday morning Curtis went to the store to grab the supplies he would need for fixing the water line. We had to level the trench out when he returned and get it ready for laying pipe. After he got the pipe hooked up to the main, we zigzagged the pipe through the trench and held it in place with some dirt. We couldn't cover up the whole thing yet because we needed to get a permit and inspection from the city. It was President's Day, so there was no school and the city was off as well. We weren't going to wait for the city though to hook up the water and start using it. By Monday afternoon around 4:00 I think, Curtis had it all hooked up and we had water again! The boys didn't need to do much with helping that day but I stuck around Curtis to assist him with anything. I learned a little more about plumbing so it was kind of fun.

The view we had of the trench first thing Monday morning from the girl's room upstairs.

And here's the other half of the trench.

I was helping to unroll the pipe as the boys packed dirt on it. Charlotte took this picture.

Drilling a new hole into the concrete for the pipe to go through.

Those white pipes are sprinkler pipes and will have to be repaired later. Curtis tore right through them with the excavator.

Got most of the pipe laid. Going to test the water and clean out the pipe before going further. Surprisingly, there was dirt in the pipe. We drained it out at the gutter on the street.

Now it's through the hole and hooked up. Curtis wrapped the pipe in duct tape to protect it when sliding it through the concrete. We certainly don't need any new holes!

Here's the pressure gauge inside of Jack's closet. Then it goes through the side wall to link up with the existing pipe under the stairs.

We were so thankful to have water again! Curtis had turned the water heater back on about an hour before we were done so that there would be hot water for showers. Jack took the first shower and then I think Garrett. Garrett started the dishwasher while Jack was in the shower, so the hot water went fast. By the time the girls got in to take a bath, there was no hot water left. So, they had to wait another day. Curtis and I showered later that night after it warmed back up.

The next morning, Curtis was able to call the city right away and get a permit. He emailed it to me so I could print it out and tape it to the door. Curtis explained to them that we needed to get the pipe covered as quickly as possible because we were expecting freezing temperatures that night. Fortunately, the city had come and inspected by late morning and said it was okay to cover (they had wrote it on the permit). They never knocked on the door and I was on the couch in the front room resting so that I could hear when they came. At one point, I thought I heard someone open our front glass door and I wondered if it might be them. I didn't check until a bit later but sure enough, it was! That was a blessing! 

My arms and body were feeling so exhausted from having done so much digging over the weekend that they felt exhausted. The very thought of having to do more digging to cover up the pipe literally brought me to tears. Finally, I asked Curtis if we could ask the ward for help and he said sure. I know he likes to take care of things on his own but our family is exhausted and we needed the help. I texted Brother Smith, our Elder's Quorum president and let him know that we needed help getting the trench covered that day before the expected freezing temperatures that night. He stopped by and took a picture of the trench and said he wasn't sure how much help he could get with it being the same day and that I told him 4:30, so most men are still working. I told him that's when we'll start, but even if we have to do it ourselves, we have to get it covered tonight and we'll probably be working on it all evening, so if men can come later and see where were at, that would be great. Brother Smith sent the picture to someone else in the Elder's Quorum and then they sent out a mass text and email to try to get help. We must say, he did very well in his writing to be persuasive. 

The first person showed up at 4:00 (earlier than we had asked) and Curtis wasn't even home from work yet but he was leaving. The first person's name was Matt and he got right to work filling in the hole. I had to call Curtis though and see if there were any special instructions before he got too far. Curtis said to fill 6 inches of clean dirt over the pipe first and he wanted to keep the water main connection uncovered for now. After Curtis got home, other men showed up. I was inside working on making dinner so by the time I took water out to them I think there were 5 guys there helping. It was so great to see that many!

The first crew was there for about an hour before Curtis said he was going to use the excavator to fill in the rest, so he sent them home. Some had to leave anyway. But then more showed up! It was taking Curtis longer than he thought to fill the hole with the machine so thankfully more men and young men showed up to help and could shovel in dirt on the opposite end of the trench. We were able to keep most of the big rocks out but some fell off of the machine when Curtis was picking them up and they fell right into the trench we were covering, so he left them. By the end of all the digging I was out there helping to pick out roots and big rocks and there were about 10 guys. I didn't get an official count but it was about that amount. When Curtis got to a point where all he needed to do was to use the machine to push the smaller mounds of dirt into the trench, then the rest of the men left, including the bishop. Oh my goodness! I would have been happy to get one or two guys to help us that night, but we ended up with about 15! God answered my prayers that day in a big way. We were both so thankful for the help that was received! We'll have to repay them by having a pool party or something this summer. 

Finally, it was covered and we could rest easy. It was such a good thing that we got it covered when we did because the very next morning it was snowing when we woke up. It's never a good time to have to deal with a water line break but having to deal with it during the winter is especially not easy. God helped us to get it done in the right timing. Even though we didn't want to do it right now, I'm glad that we have a new water line now and that we don't have to worry about it anymore. 

I got a picture of part of the 2nd crew of men. There were a couple of kids that tagged along as well, so they were playing with the girls.

Finally covered!

Our first snow since moving here came the very next morning!

The ward answered our call for help and I'm amazed by how many came out. We don't have family here but this ward is quickly becoming like family and we are so thankful! And we know God is watching out for us!