Project Update

Our project is steadily moving along. In the past few weeks we have done taping, texturing and painting. We haven't quite finished all of it in every room but mostly. There are a couple of windows that need painting around still. Home Depot is scheduled to come in to do floors and carpet next week and so we're really pushing to get as much as we can done before they come. I'd rather not do messy work (like sanding, texturing or painting) on our new carpet and floors.

Spraying on texture in the closet (and other rooms).

They call this machine a "hopper".

Sanding gets a bit messy.

Me painting the pantry.

Me painting the dining room/kitchen wall. Unfortunately, you can still see a bit of a bump in the middle.

Painted pantry (in the drying process).

Doing the knock down texture on the ceilings. This is in the bathroom.

I slacked off on getting pictures of everything we did but after Curtis did the texturing in the master bathroom and hallway, I did the painting. Both of us did the painting in the master bedroom and closet. We moved on to do the stairwell by the front door last weekend and had a bit of a set back. After removing the popcorn ceiling texture, Curtis had to cut open the corner of the ceiling by the front door and chimney because of water damage from the roof leak (before we bought it). He thought it would be a quick fix of just changing out sheet rock but unfortunately, he saw some rotting wood that we felt needed to be replaced. 

Built our own scaffolding. It was a little nerve wrecking but it worked.

This is the most difficult part of the house to work on.

Plastic up and ready for ceiling removal.

Plastic covering everything.

The two smaller boards on top were actually okay and we could leave those but we took out the big board which is a 9x2.

He had to chip away some more "rock" to get to the wood in between the chimney and the door. There was one piece that we had to take out and replace on that side. We thought it might be more but thankfully one is all was needed.

Curtis had to buy some lumber to build temporary support beams.

Got the new wood pieces in. One on top and one on the side.

That was all we could get done on Saturday and because of time constraints, Curtis decided he needed to work on Sunday to finish getting that patched up and textured. The girls and I went to stake conference while the boys stayed to help dad. Although, I don't think Garrett actually helped with anything because he said he had math homework to do. Curtis was willing to work on Sunday but I was not. My body told me I was tired and needed the rest. I did the priming and painting on Monday.

I painted as much as I could but the walls around the door and windows weren't ready yet.

It's hard to tell but this is after I painted the walls. I painted around the ladder for now.

The line where the popcorn ceiling was removed in the small section between the hallway and the living room.

Now you can see where I had to go around the ladder.

We finally got our vanity installed. It needed to be done before floors can be installed. Home Depot will be installing the countertop as well. We wanted granite but it is pretty expensive so we went for a solid surface to save on cost.

That's all I have for project update for now. This weekend we'll work on finishing the stairwell painting and prepping floors. We need to add some stuff to a corner in our bedroom that still smells like dog pee even after two coats of Kilz primer. Some floors still need screws in them to stop the squeaking noises when walked on. The boys will also be removing our other bathroom floor and the kitchen floor. They'll be doing that while I'm at our Relief Society Super Saturday. I'm on the activity board so I "have" to be there. I also need to bake some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and pumpkin bread for the activity, so I'll be doing that today.

On a side note, our black cat, Coco, (I used to spell it Cocoa but most people kept spelling it Coco anyway so I just decided to change it.) disappeared last week and we think the last day we remember seeing him was on Monday, Labor Day. I posted on Facebook lost pet pages and printed a poster to post by the mail box and handed some out to neighbors. I also drove around nearby neighborhoods. With each passing day that we didn't see him our hope of him returning grew dimmer, especially when we reached 5 days. We looked all around the house and at one point I thought for sure he might have squeezed himself into an air vent that was open in our pantry because it's not covered yet. I was ready to call an HVAC company to use their cameras to check. I used my own camera to check as far as it would but that wasn't far. Prayers were said that he would be safe and come back home. 

I didn't realize how much I would miss him until he was gone. It was so hard not knowing for sure what happened. I think it was Monday when someone messaged me about a dead black cat found 2.5 miles away. I went to check it out. It was hard to tell but I was pretty sure it wasn't him. There was no white fur on his chest or belly and it looked more brownish black. Every time I looked out the back window and didn't see him there waiting to come in my heart would sink. By the middle of this week, I was just sure he wasn't coming back. Something must have happened to him, I just don't know what. But then as I was cleaning up after dinner Wednesday evening I looked out the kitchen window while doing dishes and saw a black cat drinking from the pool. I immediately told the girls and we went out to check if it was Coco or if it was our neighbor's cat. Our neighbor's black cat would have run away but this one didn't. It was Coco and he had returned!! We brought him inside and fed him immediately and he was very hungry. We were more careful this time (than we were with our bird) and forced him to stop and wait for an hour after he got some food in him before feeding him more. He looked skinnier but overall still healthy, for having been gone for 9 days. We're so glad he came home. He won't be going outside for a few days. We need to fatten him up again and get him rested.

It was hard to get a good picture of him because he was moving so much to try and eat or find more food.

Sage was happy to see him too and didn't fail to sniff his rear end, like usual. Although, she did get mad at him later that night when he laid on her spot on the couch downstairs. You can tell she's in charge, but I didn't let her get away with it.

Summer Ends and School Starts

Life got more busy again! I might have to do several posts to catch up. Lets back it up to August where I'll do a post about some of the fun things going on. Charlotte finally used her new sewing machine that Grandma Butterfield gave her back in July and she made a pillow from fabric that her grandma gave with the machine. It took a little while for me to figure out how to thread the machine because it is different from mine but we got it figured out and she had a lot of fun doing it. She started the project on one day but had to wait until the next day to finish because we needed more batting/stuffing.

Her machine has more capabilities than mine does. I may have to borrow hers!

She loves her pillow and now uses it to sleep on every night.

Charlotte really wanted to make some art pancakes so we did what Nikki used to do and filled a squeeze bottle with the batter and then squeezed it on to the pan to make different designs. They made several but the first ones are the only ones I took pictures of.

Of course Charlotte made a dog.

Charlotte made a unicorn for Alice.

I made a strawberry.

Jack had some friends over recently who are brothers from a family in our ward, Cam and Cole (not twins). They come from a really good family and so we're really glad Jack is hanging out with them now. The boys had tried to make no bake cookies the first time they came over but I had to leave and wasn't there to supervise and the no bakes were a bit of a disaster. They came out crumbly and they scorched the bottom of the pan. It took forever to scrub that off. So, the next time they decided to bake some bread and I told Jack to make sure I was there this time for questions and guidance. They pretended like they were doing the Great British Baking Show and even played music from the show. It was fun watching them.

The bread was good! If you're wondering, Jack is not wearing prescription glasses. Those glasses are for wearing if you're looking at a screen for long periods of time. He likes wearing them around sometimes. He earned them for part of his reward jar prize.

School officially started for our kids on the 30th, well at least most of them. Because the high school was having a Freshman only day on the 30th, the rest of the high schoolers (unless they were new to the school as well) didn't start until the 31st, so Garrett started a day later than the others. I had him take his picture on the same day as the others though.

The older they get, the less thrilled they are to go to school. I gave the boys a hair cut the weekend before so they would be ready for the first day.

We took the girls' pictures outside to have a nicer background.

It felt like Fall that day. It was so nice!

Garrett was fine with a blank wall as his background. He was happy because he didn't have to go to school that day.

The girls wore their school shirts on the first day. You couldn't see it under her sweatshirt in the morning picture so I got one after school as well. I just bought this shirt for Alice. She didn't have one last year.

Charlotte got her shirt last year. She wanted a tie dye one also but they were $20 so I told her it would have to wait since she already had a shirt and Alice didn't.

I wouldn't necessarily call this "fun" but I was surprised by receiving my first jury summons in the mail since living here. I haven't even lived here a year and I'm already getting one of these? The good news is that it's only for two weeks and it starts on in October. After talking to people about it, it sounds like I only have to call in once a week too (basically, just twice). That's much better than calling in every day for a month in Idaho! I guess it used to be more but they have eased up on it. I wonder if Idaho has also. Well, I guess I'll just get this over with. A lot of people don't even have to go in or they usually strike a plea deal and no jury is necessary.

Jack had his first marching band performance on Saturday, September 2nd. Curtis was too busy working on texturing our rooms so he wasn't able to attend and the other kids didn't want to, so I went by myself. Wow, football is big over here. We were in a much bigger stadium and both sides had big stands to sit in like in Nampa High's Bulldog Bowl. I think they just built one big nice stadium for the local schools to share because it wasn't at Southridge High School and all of their performances will be at this same stadium, which is right next to Kennewick High School. It's called Lampson Stadium. Anyway, it's big and both sides were almost filled. Unfortunately, our team lost. BSU didn't win either so it was not a good day for our football teams. BUT Jack did great in his first performance and I love their uniforms. They are the Southridge Suns, so you can see the sun design on the jacket.

There's only about 42 or 43 kids in the marching band. That's half of Skyview's.

He's the third one from the left out in front. His horn is bigger since it's mellophone instead of trumpet.

He's on the far right this time, on the line.

His new principal was there taking pictures with his nice camera. This was a good one of Jack that he got and posted it to the band Facebook page. I love watching him perform. We wish Garrett was out there with him.

On Sunday, the 3rd, the girls went on a new trail with us that our friends had told us about. It's not far from our house. It wasn't as nice as I thought it would be but there were some nice areas. Alice brought her bike and the girls took turns riding it. Charlotte had brought her scooter but we didn't know the trail was going to be gravel, so she had to leave it in the car. There were lots of people out walking their dogs on the trail. We even saw a dog that was part St. Bernard, part husky. Charlotte loved seeing the dogs!

This was one nice area.

That same evening after we returned, we all played the game LIFE. Since it's only a 4 player game, the girls teamed up with a parent. I had Alice and Curtis had Charlotte. Garrett ended up winning even though it seemed like he started out with the most debt!

It's good to have him playing games with us again!

Garrett had a little bit of a rough week and was already struggling with school after only being in it for one week. There was an assignment that he was struggling to do even though it seemed like a simple assignment. He was to make a poster about himself, things he liked. It was due the next day and he didn't say anything about it until 9:00 at night and he didn't have anything on his poster yet (small poster) . His anxiety was getting the better of him. I guess we later learned that he was worried he would have to present it to the class and is worried about what others think, like he's being judged. We emailed all of his teachers and talked about getting together to make a plan on how to help Garrett this school year. The teacher who made the assignment, which was for Civics, had a good talk with Garrett at school the next day and he helped Garrett get the ideas he needed to get started. It turned out that because of a lockdown that happened at the school, he pushed the due date back one day, so it gave Garrett more time to work on it. I'm so thankful his teacher was understanding. 

Garrett is getting good at his artwork and did a great job on this poster. Once he got the ideas, he was able to run with it and get going. He drew all of his pictures that night and the next morning colored it before school and during some of his classes and lunch when he had free time. I think he did a great job on it. I didn't get a picture of it before he turned it in but told him I wanted one when he gets it back. I was also able to get him to his therapist on Friday and that was good. This was a bumpy start to the year but I hope we can get things figured out soon to make it a better year. 

Garrett asked if he could make himself some pancakes on Saturday and he made himself a stack! He could only eat half of it and had to save the rest for later. Ha ha!

Oh, and we finally went in and talked to the dealership in person about our van and talked them into trying to replace the star connector, which connects electrical wires. We had seen that video that Whitney had found for us and it seemed like the exact same problems that we were having. It was the star connector for them. We were tired of the dealership playing the "waiting" game. They were waiting for the warning light to come back on so they could pin point what was wrong. They had replaced the gear shifter and were still having issues with codes coming on afterwards.  Well, long story short...they put in a temporary star connector replacement to see if that would do anything. It didn't act up after they put it in and decided to have us do a test run for a week to see how it does. We picked it up on Thursday and so far have had no problems! I'm glad it's working so far. I'm just not happy that they didn't listen to me in the first place. I might have had my van back a month ago! They had it for 5 weeks. If all continues to go well this week, then they will order a new star connector to put in the van in place of the tester. 

That's it for this post. I'm going to do a separate one about the house project progress.