Night Out with Thomas

For a graduation/birthday gift for Wade, Mom and Ray sent him to see Thomas LIVE!!! Clearly, this was more for the boys than for him (or, at least it was supposed to be,) but we all enjoyed it.

Kitchen update

Wade, has trap-league tonight, packing and studying tomorrow night, a final on Friday (oh, and um...it's his birthday,) set up for Aidan's fundraiser Saturday morning and then catching a plane by 2 out of Waterloo--then, Italy.

Me, cleaning house to get ready for cupcake-pa-looza, thursday is cupcake-pa-looza, Thursday night is a clean up night at Aidans school, friday is field trip day, set up and fundraiser on Saturday...and then single mom for awhile.

Keeping all of this in mind, Wade skipped a couple steps in the kitchen progress. I have a functional sink and dishwasher, but not completed walls. The progress is nice, but it will be wonderful when its done.

Thankfully, the best part about this project taking so long is that I am allowed to change my mind about details a LOT!!! Wade hates this, but lets just say that I am almost always right...Stay tuned for more pictures.

Earth Day 2009

This is Earth Day 2009: We crashed the Elliott-Ott Earth Day project. They were walking around town picking up trash, but after they picked us up--not much trash was collected! On a serious note, it freaks me out to even think about what kind of mess the boys will be living in as adults. So, grab a reusable bag, eco-friendly cleaner or brush up on your recycling techniques...every little bit counts!

Kitchen!!!

Okay, this blog would be done better by Wade, but I will give it my best shot!
Once upon a time, two young newlyweds/parents of ONE bought a lovely house. There were only three major problems with the house: 1) no (functional) garage; 2) the lovely peach color outside with the teal/magenta trim; and 3) the KITCHEN!!! We (and by we I mean me) promised that we would make the best of the situation until we (and by we this time I mean Wade,) got a chance to fix any of those situations. Fast forward three and a half years--add one more little boy, two masters programs, preschool, job changes, a wedding or two....and there are STILL three major issues with this house! We have figured out the garage situation (it is going to cost a LOT of money, and it is in our five year plan,) and the color (you'll see, things should be different by labor day.) The kitchen is the problem currently being addressed.

Now, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but here were some of the big complaints that I had with the kitchen (NONE of them were cosmetic!) First, I had no counter top space. There was a fold up 10 inch flap next to the sink, but that was it! Everything was free standing in the kitchen so it didn't call for long counter tops. Secondly, I had a sink that only had one basin and wasn't deep. It made it very hard to do dishes (which directly relates to the fact that I didn't have a dishwasher.) Next, my stove is almost original to the house. As far as I can tell by my research it is an early 1940's Tappan gas stove. I very much actually love the stove, and it works very well, but in the early 1940's they didn't exactly engineer the glass not to burn little hands. Fourth, apparently giant amazon people lived here before us. The cupboards that I did have were on the wall--none on the floor--and they were attached to the ceiling. I could only reach one of the shelves without a stool. And, last but not least, the kitchen had a door that connected to a bathroom. The problem with that was that it just took up so much space, and the door helped create a loop through the downstairs. Don't get me wrong the boys loved the loop---many, many, many hours have been spent running through the house, but it had to go.

So, about six weeks ago, having taken all of this into consideration, the kitchen renovation began! Keep in mind, Wade and I are both in school, Wade is busier than ever with work, and Aidan's new school requires me to spend at least six hours a week driving him back and forth...this is definitely not a sprint! To help at the beginning, I took the boys for a long weekend away. I think Wade and I had a few too many 'extreme home makeover' visions in our heads, and we both thought it would move a little faster and smoother, but the kitchen was not on our side! Originally, we were just going to add paint and appliances to what was already there, but....

I returned the first weekend to find that Wade had decided to gut the whole kitchen (see the pictures.) He wasn't terribly thrilled with his progress on the weekend, but he did at least get a chance to expose ALL of the wiring. That would come to be very beneficial to him later.

Then, a long timeout...Aidan, Owen and I all fell to the flu (the real kind, not the tummy version.) Somehow, Wade escaped it, but considering that I had become pretty much useless and that the kitchen sits right below the boys room, Wade's duties changed from contractor to Mr. mom. Once everyone was better, he dug back in only to find that he had NO IDEA how to deal with the wiring. On a side note, to anyone who is a realtor, don't give buyers half truths--especially when there is little kiddos in their family. When we bought this house, from a baptist minister no-less, we were told that the wiring had been re-done. No, it said that it had been 'updated,' and there's no way a minister would lie right?! Nope. In our house, updated meant that they had put ONE FLIPPIN LIGHT SWITCH into the kitchen, and it wasn't even done right. So, Wade bought a lot of books, spent a lot of time researching knob and tube wiring, and called a LOT of electricians. The best we could do was wait six weeks for the earliest available electrician to get to us. While waiting, we sanded, stained and varnished the cupboards. I also got to take my new dishwasher out of the box just to look at...it's so pretty! Suddenly, one day (while reading another book) Wade figured it all out, cancelled the electrician and got back to work. Now, this freaked me out a little bit, but I made him promise that if he came to anything that he was questioning even a little that he would stop and call an electrician. No calls were ever made, and we got power back. Did I mention that during those weeks, we didn't have lights in the entire downstairs and we were living off our microwave upstairs...yep, way fun!

So, with electrical done we were onto plumbing. This meant another weekend away with the boys for me. It worked out to coincide w/ Dad and Lynne's garage sale--and everyone knows that the best thing to help with a garage sale is a stressed out young mother and two little boys with a combined age of five! ;) When I returned, not only did I find some pipes sticking out of the ground, but DRYWALL!!!! Woo Hoo!!! Finally, the drywall has moved from my dining room to the walls of my kitchen. That is where we are now: working through getting all the drywall up. Now, if Wade were writing this, and remember I mentioned at the beginning that it should be him doing this, he'd tell you about how the walls aren't plum (?) and how the plumbing was a mess, and don't even get me started on how much the electrical was run wrong....but, you got me writing today, and now you have a short story about the kitchen! We are in the middle of this tail right now, and so the pictures are from the beginning and middle. I can't wait to get 'end' pictures up! To be continued.....

Finalized plans for the month

Well, Wade has finalized his trip dates, final dates and kitchen dates. After that, I finalized my final date, fundraiser scedules and sitter arrangements. For the record, you won't find us BOTH in school while taking on a major home renovation again. Those elements (with the boys thrown in,) make us a little crazy. Anyway, as it stands, Wade will leave for Italy on May 2nd and return on May 9th. He has to take his final on Friday (also his birthday--happy 32nd; have a final), and I get to take mine at the scheduled time that following Monday with the help of a sitter. We have Aidan's big school fundraiser that day, so we'll go for set up, take Wade to the airport and then come back for tear down. The day that Wade gets back is also his graduation. He should be somewhere over the ocean at about the time he's supposed to graduate. He hasn't decided yet what he's gonna do about graduation. He would like to walk, but he'd have to wait until December...stay tuned.

So, in the middle of all of this we are still working on the kitchen. I say we, but Wade does most of the work. My job has become wrangling the boys...this makes for some very long days! The weather is finally clearing up so we are able to spend more time outside, and this helps. It is going well, and I can see how much Wade is enjoying it! He didn't even go to bed Saturday night because he got too excited about the progress he was making, and decided to work right on through! He is hoping to get the bulk of it done by the time he leaves for Italy. I think he feels bad for me...having to go around to the bathroom for water and washing my dishes in the funny bathtub.

On a fun note: I did get my passport in the mail yesterday. So, the next time Wade is sent on a fun work trip that is at a more agreeable time for our family--I'm ready to go!

SCATTERED!!!!

So, it's horribly late at night (for me anyway,) and I was all prepared to list ALL the things that we have going on in the next couple of weeks....
Unfortuneately, a national holiday in Italy has thrown this blog off course. I was about to tell you all about our kitchen progress (which there is a lot of,) Aidan's BIG school fundraiser, Wade's work trip to Italy, finals week and Wade's big graduation weekend. APPARENTLY, Italy has a Labor Day as well and it coincides with Wade's work trip to Italy in a couple of weeks. It also throws a wrench into our plans for: the kitchen, finals week, Aidan's big school fundraiser AND the graduation....so, when things get finalized I will know more. As for now, all of those things will happen, but Wade won't be here for any of them--including his own graduation! This is why I feel so scattered in this post. So, I will leave you with what I got today, and that is a good laugh from Aidan:
The boys and I were singing a song this morning. It goes along to the same tune as the song about the dog named bingo, but it was about being 'happy.' I was spelling out H-A-P-P-Y, and I asked Aidan if he knew what I was spelling. He replied, "God? Jesus?" I said no. He then said, "boobs?" His spelling needs some work, but he DOES already know his right from his left....so, there's that!