New Floors!

Well, yesterday they installed half of the floors and completed the laundry room so that we could hook up our water heater again last night. We're so happy with how the floors look! I decided though that if we were going to paint behind the water heater, now was the time to do it! I had to quickly paint primer on it before Curtis and I went to the church to meet with one of the bishopric members. As you can imagine, we were both asked about new callings. Curtis was asked to be a Priest Quorum adviser and I was asked to be on the Relief Society Activities Committee. I am very relieved it wasn't to teach! Ha ha. We're glad that Curtis will be with the Priests and can get Garrett to go to all of the activities now. Garrett doesn't know yet, at least I didn't tell him. I figured either Curtis could tell him or he'll find out on Sunday when he gets sustained. Anyway, that gave the primer enough time to dry so that I could paint as soon as I got back. Curtis actually dropped me off so he could go to Home Depot for a few things to get for the water heater.

Here's the finished floor in the laundry room. We will do baseboard trim later.

I just painted the area behind the water heater for now.

We haven't hooked up the washer and dryer yet because I decided I want to go ahead and paint the rest of that wall first. The flooring people came in around 8:40 this morning and got right to work. They worked so fast and got done today around 2:40pm. When they first arrived yesterday we had asked how long they thought it might take and they said maybe 3 or 4 days, but they asked us if they were doing the baseboard trim and we said no, that we are going to do that part ourselves. They then said probably 3 days, but they finished earlier, yay! I wanted to get some painting done today but my neck has been hurting a lot and so I only managed to clean the kitchen and then I sat down and did stuff on my computer. I noticed my email storage was way over the limit so I spent hours deleting messages. I deleted probably over 3,000 old emails but am still over the limit. That's what happens when you wait to delete stuff. It piles up for years! I had to stop deleting to make dinner and take the boys to mutual. I'll have to do more later. More than half of the storage is used up by OneDrive and I have no idea how to clean up storage from that. Anyway, I'm excited about our new floors!

Looking down the hallway toward the bedrooms and bathroom. We don't have hallway lights installed yet so it's dark.

Hallway from the stairs looking toward the family room. The closet under the stairs is on the right.

They hadn't measured to do the closet under the stairs but I asked them if they could still do it since it's such a small space and they did! It looks so much better just with adding new flooring!

 

Here's the bathroom!

Curtis hung up the other light last night. It's a light and fan combined.

The family room! They just moved the couches and desk around as necessary while working so we didn't need to take them out.

All finished!

Curtis went on an over night business trip today so I'm hoping the carpet guys don't show up tomorrow, only because we haven't moved the washer and dryer out of Jack's room yet. That's where we put the things from the laundry room like washer, dryer, water heater, etc., while the flooring was getting put in.

I was happy that Stillman was able to come to town today to go on the business trip with Curtis. He came and saw the progress on the basement. They weren't finished with the flooring at that point but most of it was done. Then Curtis, Stillman, and I went out to lunch at a nearby restaurant called Osaka Sushi and Teriyaki. I had teriyaki chicken and yakisoba noodles and white rice. The boys shared a sushi plate but sushi is not for me unless it's Americanized, no fish or crab, just bacon, lol. They then dropped me off at home and were on their way. Well, I better get the girls out of the bath and in pjs before we have to go pick up the boys from mutual. 

Temple, Talk and Texture

Well, last Thursday we made it to the temple. The boys had an opportunity to go do baptisms the same day, only earlier but neither one of them wanted to go. That made me a little sad. Garrett gave excuses like he wants to go as a family first and he'd rather do it on a Saturday. I told him he could be waiting a long time if he waits to do that but hopefully he'll change his mind. Jack just said "I'm good", meaning he didn't want to either. I think the youth are scheduled to go again in June but I'm not sure if there will be any earlier than that. I hope both boys will be willing next time. Anyway, Curtis had to meet me at the temple because he didn't have time to come home first since he was traveling that day and had someone with him. He made it to the temple about 5 minutes before I did. This temple is a small one. I was a little confused at first where to go but I'm quickly figuring it out. We had heard about some changes in the endowment session and now that we've seen them, we have to agree that we like the changes. It explains things a little better and gives more visuals. The temple is closed for cleaning for two weeks but I hope to get back again soon after, especially after I get more family names to do from my dad. We also made a trip to Dairy Queen after our session, so that was our date for the week. It was a nice evening and good to take a break from working.

Temples are beautiful any time of day!

Selfie after our session.

Friday morning I was able to make some good progress on writing my talk while the house was empty and quiet. I think I spent about 3 hours on it. I really wanted to get as much done on my talk as I could before the weekend. I was in too much pain to help much with our projects last week. The pain keeps traveling from my knees to my left shoulder to now my neck. Sometimes they all hurt pretty bad but then other times it's just one area. Man, I know I'm not that old but my body is sure acting like it! Friday and Saturday nights we watched Harry Potter #5 and #6 as a family. It's been fun having these movie nights as a family. Pretty soon, we'll be doing other things besides movies. Back in Idaho we were usually all split up doing different things like watching a movie or playing video games in separate rooms. I love that all of us are finally watching movies together!

I took a walk in our neighborhood Friday morning while it was nice and to take a break from writing my talk. We get some pretty awesome views!

On Saturday Curtis worked on taping a mudding the bathroom and hallway walls. Things were taking too long and we wanted to get the painting done before the flooring gets installed, so unfortunately, Curtis had to do some work on Sunday evening to be able to make that deadline. He had to sand all of the walls and then spray the texture on. 

By Saturday night, I had my talk mostly done, I just had to do some touch ups Sunday morning. I finally practiced giving my talk and timed myself. It ended up being too long at 17 1/2 minutes, so I had to cut some things out. It turned out my talk length would have been just fine because the first speaker had a shorter talk. Oh well. I was feeling pretty good about my talk before getting up there but of course I still got shaky before, during and after giving it. It probably didn't help that I had taken some Excedrin (for the first time ever) that morning because I woke up with a lot of neck pain. I think the caffeine in the pills might have made me extra jittery. I did pretty well on my talk even though I stumbled over some words occasionally. I tried to make sure I looked around the room while talking but I know I looked down a lot. Many people gave me compliments afterwards so that was a good feeling and I'm glad it's over with now. 

Yesterday (Monday) my neck was hurting less but my knees hurt quite a bit in the morning. I wanted to just rest but I knew I needed to help Curtis get some prep stuff done before painting. I wiped down walls and filled holes, along with some sanding. Gradually and thankfully, my knees started feeling better. Curtis got off work early so that he could get the painting done but he had to help me do some prepping first. Prepping the walls and taping things off took longer than we thought also but we were able to get the primer and paint on last night. I will have to do touch ups later though. We also emptied out the rooms to get ready for the flooring people to come in today. After everyone showered (except the little girls) we disconnected the water heater and emptied it so that we could move it out of the utility room. We got everything out of there except the furnace. 

At the beginning of painting the hallway.

It's hard to see in this lighting but this is after we painted.

Empty utility room.

It looks like they never painted behind the water heater. I think we'd better do that before we put it back. Ha ha

Charlotte came home with a school assignment to create a potato head person using a real potato. When I took her to the store last night to buy a potato she didn't want to believe me that we had to use a real potato. I finally had Curtis send a picture of the instructions to prove that the ones in the picture on the paper were real potatoes. So she picked one out. Not only was she to create a person, she was also to write some things about it. At activity days yesterday, Charlotte learned how to make pom poms with yarn. She ended up using one of them for the hair of her potato person.

She named her Dolly

The flooring people showed up today and it's looking great so far! I will post pictures of it in my next post because he's still currently working on it and I want to get pictures after he's done for today. It's exciting!

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.