Father's Day

For Father's Day we were invited to Keith and Lori's home for dessert. I have not used my camera too much in our construction mess. Here are a few photos from Father's Day-- I really tried to get some decent snapshots, but our little kids had other things in mind.







This last one is not the greatest picture of me but I get a crack up from looking at Luke. He really likes being with his dad who always seems to have somewhere else to be. So when he just gets to have is daddy hold him he sure is happy. Looks like I better take some more time out.

Pardon the photo overload; hopefully Grandma Payne and Grandma Jackson will appreciate them. They are a combined total of 2279.01 miles away afterall.

And THEN There Were 5

Five kids that is. Our close friends and wonderful neighbors went out of town this week. They took their oldest daughter on a trip before she begins middle and high school. They let us keep their younger two girls Isabella and Elena. Allie and Elena are only 9 months apart and they adore each other- except for when they don't. Pretty typical for 5/6 year olds. Isabella is so good with Luke and Wesley and they equally love her back. All in all- all 3 of my kids LOVE all 3 of their kids so much!!! Well and so do we. So although we missed Madeline while she was on the trip with her parents we were thrilled to have the younger two girls with us. They were such great sports to want to move into our house for a week amidst all of the construction and lack of a kitchen. Originally I thought we would have had it done by this week but alas- I keep learning the lesson over and over that these things always take longer than what you expect. They did allow us to use their kitchen while they were away so that made it nice.
It was so fun to have the girls here because it made me think and do other things rather than work on the house. We went swimming and to lunch in the park nearly every day. Meal time (at their house), bath time, play time, bed time- everything was so much more fun. Nothing like a week long slumber party and of course hardly any photos to show for it.

The cabinets came in this week - HIP HIP HOORAY. One of my biggest regrets was that we did not a picture of cardboard box neighborhood they made. We had soooo many huge boxes. It was nervana for these kids.

Q & A

Here are a few answers to some questions posted (because I am never sure if people ever check back):

Q: What is your time line?
A: Joy always says "I should be cooking Thanksgiving dinner in my new kitchen" and Jason always says "Tomorrow." The truth is we have never had a time line. Just that it would be finished when it was finished. That has been very wise of us in the end because of all the unexpected twists and turn. I laugh now when I think about our rush to get the cabinets ordered. That was the 1st week of May. Ugh. And even now, I have sunk into a depression twice when I actually let myself think that first last week and then this week the cabinets would be installed.

Q: What are you eating?
A: Lots of cold cereal. Honestly not a whole lot of fast food but definitely our share for the next year or two. We have our toaster, skillet and microwave that has served us well for many a microwave dinner and such (you cannot run them at the same time, even two of them. I don't know how many times we have popped the circuit in the middle of trying to make a meal). Our friends across the street have gone out of town a number of times and let us use their house and kitchen which has really been nice. Some very wonderful friends have had us over for dinner as well. We have done our best but as previously mentioned (i.e. the kids GI problems) we are really excited and anxious to get back to eating normally again.

Q: Are you doing this yourselves?
A: Yes and no. We are the general contractors I guess but we have hired an electrician and Robert our handyman. My (Joy) dad came and helped with the demolition but yes, Jason and I have done a lot of it ourselves.

Q: How are the kids through all of this?
A: Well, you already know about the dietary problems. I feel bad too about the lack of attention they have been getting. We are trying to take the opportunities we have to play and have fun. We had Carter and Uli and Jen come and visit which was so fun to have them here! We went to a Memorial Day BBQ at Cory and Maureen's house and they also invited us to their ward picnic in the park. They kids loved playing with their Dad and there was so much nice, green, pretty grass (unlike our grass) to run around and play. You may have noticed in the photos too that their are toys in every area of our construction so I guess they don't notice or care that things are torn up. Carter and Jen took pity on us and sent us to dinner last night. Here is a photo of Wesley with some left over bread that sums up their situation: find toys and food and take care of yourself.

Q: What about your backyard?
A: Everything in dying now that half of it is covered in dirt and also that the sprinkler system is destroyed because of the dig. We will let the rest of it die and then tear out and start from scratch. The garden however is still alive and we are taking good care of that. I thought about letting the garden go this year since we have so much going on but the thought of a new kitchen with NO garden fresh veggies- unacceptable.

Q: You haven't called, emailed and I can't leave a message. Is everything ok?
A: It has really been frustrating how much of the time we have been without internet and the phone (since our phone is through the internet). You never realize how much you use it for everything until of course you don't have it. We think we have the problem worked out. We thought at one point that we had hacked through the line while digging the ditch but that turned out to another electrical line of sorts. So if we have been slow to respond or haven't commented on your blog or called you back- we're sorry. We love you still!

Q: In your TMI post, things looked... pretty bad. How do you live like that?
A: When we first moved everything out to start the demolition, I didn't think it would take this long so I sort of just pushed it to the side. As things have dragged on we have improved the organization a little but still the "no place for anything and nothing in it's place" is part of what is making us crazy. Also, in some of those photos you saw that the laundry was totally out of control. Beside the fact that we had to cut holes into the laundry room ceiling, move things around, use the washer as a work bench, have we mentioned how many times we have been without hot water at all? Our neighbors, the ones who have let us come use their kitchen, have also let us use their dishwasher, shower and bathtub- several times. I like to hang my clothes on the line out back but we were digging (and picking and chopping) and throwing dirt every where that it wasn't working for the laundry. Our dryer has not been hooked up (because of the gas) for weeks now. And the dust and dirt inside the house really makes keeping the clothes clean- especially for the kids, really difficult. So the laundry has been a HUGE challenge. Last Sunday Luke went to church with one green and one blue sock and tennis shoes instead of church shoes. It was the best I could do.

And lastly:

Q: Seriously?!
A: Seriously.

This Place is a Dump!

The dumpster finally left this week. Hooray! It sat smack in the middle of the driveway. We didn't think we would need to get one since we were only removing one little wall. The kicker was breaking up the sidewalk and the hauling out the rocks. So not only did we have our cars parked out on the street (the garage is full of, among other things, appliances just waiting to be installed), a big ugly dumpster full of rock and cement, we also had a 20 foot long trailer that we have also used on several occasions that I was certain we wouldn't need. Yes, we were looking pretty trashy. We had my friend's daughter with us for almost a week while they were out of town. She told me "Your house is ugly and my house is pretty." I could not have agreed with her more. She is 3 years old and very smart.

Before:

After:
We have been working on the floor this week to have it ready before the cabinets go in. I don't mean putting in new flooring, I mean renting two different scraping and sanding machines (very LOUD) before finally, last night on hands and knees while pinching a razor blade between our fingers- scraping the floor.

In other news, the taping and first coat of mudding are done. Hooray. Now just another week of digging that ditch. Ditch digging... is getting old. It took us 10 days to dig out the line while destroying our backyard and killing 3 trees. The ground is hard and full of stones and rocks and roots. Now we just have to dig the ditch deeper to get to code.
(Ok I will admit I wanted to include this shot to show off my ditch digging muscles. I would rather be doing push-ups in a clean house away from the gnats.)

The kids have been... not well. Our change in diet has created a severe case of constipation which ended in taking both Allie and Luke in to see the doctor (at different times) since the usual remedies were not working. It is hard to see your kids in pain as well as exhausting and wearing to have the constant whining and crying. That is a difficult thing to add to the mix of our current life.

I have to end on a positive note and say that every time I whine and complain, I feel really guilty because of how lucky and blessed we are to get to do this and really how somewhat fun it is at times. I don't think Jason would say this is all that fun. I have had to apologize a number of times for my behavior. The highs and lows of this project have been pretty extreme and I feel bad to take it out on him. Someday, as everyone likes to remind us, it will be over and it will be beautiful. Someday.

Progress

This is how it has looked for weeks while we went through all the city inspection rigmarole.


I had to laugh when my friend Jamie (Diaper Diva) commented on the last post about us tired of living in a construction zone and thus getting motivated to hurry up and finish. If motivation and exhaustion had anything to do with the speed of the work... um, yeah, we would have finished a long time ago. We are trying to enjoy the journey though.

The insulation went up Monday and the inspector for the insulation came Tuesday. I went the night before to buy the sheet rock so almost as soon as he walked out the door we began. We discovered a few more changes that we need to make so we ended up taking a piece or two down but things are well on their way. We also got new french doors. That will be so nice this winter to not have to put up the plastic over our paper thin glass.