I Love SPRING!

I think spring is finally on its way...and oh how exciting that is! Of course, it’s not coming nearly fast enough for me, but I guess that’s part of living in Utah! Something about the warm weather, the birds singing, the flowers blooming and the sun shining gets me all excited...and I’m not alone! The boys have officially discarded their socks and tennis shoes for flip flops or bare feet and even spend more time outside playing than in here watching TV...and those are all sure signs that they’re equally as excited as I am!

Spring is a time for new life and fresh starts and it makes you want to just be outside and enjoy something new...I think they call it spring fever! Invariably it makes me want to have something new of my own to go along with the idea of new things…and this year it’s actually going to happen! My kitchen that has now been undergoing a major overhaul for well over a month and a half, is only days away from being complete...and I can’t wait!

Yesterday was the big day for the cabinet company to start installing my cabinets, and then right when they were scheduled to show up, they called to tell me that they weren’t going to come after all because my cabinets weren’t ready. When I heard that, I didn’t know whether to be mad and throw a fit...or cry! The crying won out! I’ve been waiting for so long and our lives have been disrupted and on hold for what feels like an eternity so when I heard that, I just couldn’t help but break down! Apparently our wood had been on back order and the cabinets just weren’t ready!

The kitchen without cabinets, but with new hardwood

Hayden is showing off our new hardwood...isn't it beautiful?

The newly painted green wall in my family room

As I began to inquire more, I soon found out that it only meant that they’d be delayed by a day, which wasn’t quite so bad, but I was still bummed. I did manage to convince them, however, that they HAD to come and install the cabinet above where the washer and dryer were going because Rod was going to bring my new washer and dryer home tonight...and I already had clothes stacked to the ceiling after not being able to do laundry for almost 3 weeks now! They told me that they would make sure that they got that cabinet made today so that they could do that. (What? They hadn’t even made my cabinets yet? That didn’t make me happy but I tried to remain calm.) I also told them that they HAD to install the mantel for our fireplace because the fireplace guys were coming today to start on the fireplace...and they told me that wouldn’t be a problem because the mantel had actually been just sitting around waiting to be installed anyway. Well it might not have been exactly what I expected to happen yesterday, but it was a good start.

My new laundry cabinet...and did I mention I got a new washer and dryer too?

My new mantel

I wasn’t the only one that felt like they needed something new, Rod must have gotten the “fever” too, because last week, he decided that he needed a “new” tractor (I use the word “new” in relative terms because in tractor terms, “new” could mean 45 years old or older!). Rod didn’t really just decide last week that he needed a tractor though, he has really been on the lookout for his dream tractor for years now and he finally found it and even though he probably wouldn’t classify this tractor as the exact “dream” that he’s had, it’s pretty danged close...and it’s beautiful! He has been watching the classified ads everyday for forever and it finally paid off! The guy who was selling the tractor had been restoring it as one of his winter projects and when Rod saw it, he knew it was the “one”. Rod never buys anything without at least attempting to negotiate a better deal, but when he did that with the tractor, the guy wasn’t budging off of his price. Rod almost passed it up too, and it was only over a few hundred dollars! When I heard that, I knew he would regret it if he didn’t go and get it...so I encouraged him to just give in and that’s all he needed! The next thing I knew, we were the proud owners of a brand new 1964 Massey Ferguson tractor! The boys were thrilled!

Rod with his new "toy"

"Dragging" Rocks with Connor

Whatever Connor does, Hayden has to do too!

Las Vegas or bust!

In the midst of all of this kitchen stuff, the boys and I took a break and went to Las Vegas with Rod for the week. It was actually a greatly appreciated little vacation and it made eating out a little bit more exciting...since that’s what we’ve been relegated to now that all we have for a kitchen is a beautiful new floor, a card table and a microwave...oh and beautifully painted “moose mousse” walls! Those conditions just aren’t too conducive to making anything lavish. In fact, we’ve been relegated to making whatever we can find that we can cook in the microwave or possibly out on the grill...or eating out! Eating out, of course, is the easiest option, but it’s also expensive and a person can only take so much of it.

With that in mind, as much as I was looking forward to going to Las Vegas at the first of the week, when it came time to come home on Friday, I was equally (if not more) excited to come home! I realized that I was going back to a house with no kitchen, but even if we had to get by on cereal and sandwiches for the next week, I was just glad not to have to eat out again for a long time! To add to the fact that we ate out for 3 days straight, I wasn’t doing any sort of exercise, besides “racewalking” everywhere I went, so I was feeling rather “blimpish” by the time we headed for home...and I couldn’t wait to go running as soon as we got back. Maybe not the 18 miles that we had planned for Saturday, but I was still looking forward to running!

As far as our trip to Las Vegas though, the boys and I had a great time. Rod had to work and go to a conference the whole time we were down there, so I’m not sure he could say that it was as fun for him...but I think he enjoyed having us along just to keep him company! On the other hand, more than once he was left stranded without a car because the boys and I were off playing somewhere and I’m not sure he liked that so much.

We left here on Tuesday morning at 7:00, which meant we got to Vegas by 3:00…in plenty of time for Rod to go straight to work. That’s not quite what I was expecting, but I should have known that that’s what would happen because that’s one of the reasons that Rod had gone down. We dropped Rod off at the Summerlin store and the boys and I climbed right back in the car after we dropped him off and headed to the park and to do a little shopping to find me some much needed sunglasses, which I had left home. We found out really quickly that the parks in Vegas are much cooler than anything we have near our house! We also found out that there are Kohl’s just about everywhere...and I’m a bargain shopper whenever I shop there!

In between playing, the boys had to do some homework

On Wednesday, the boys and I dropped Rod off at work, stopped and bought some sandwich stuff and then went back to the hotel and packed ourselves a lunch. We then set out to find a park that my friend Jodee had told us about in North Las Vegas. It took us nearly 30 minutes to get there from our hotel, but it was the coolest park ever. It was aptly named “Dinosaur Park” and it was incredible! It had a 3 tiered playground toy with the most amazing slides, a sandbox surrounded by dinosaur bones, a splash pad, a small waterfall nearby and a big dinosaur head right in the middle of the playground. It truly was one of the coolest parks I’ve seen. Just as we got to the park, of course, Rod called to see what we were doing and I just knew that he was going to want us to come back and get him to take him to his conference at the Sands in downtown Las Vegas…only it wasn’t going to be that easy because he was probably about 45 minutes from where we were at! Sure enough, he was already done with his work but fortunately for us, he had made plans for one of his guys to go to lunch with him and then he told us that he’d meet us back at the Henderson store that was near our hotel and much closer to where we were at. At least we didn’t have to leave quite yet and even better...we didn’t have to drive quite as far to get him!

After we met up with Rod and took him to his conference, the boys and I decided to just stay down on the “strip” and go see the water show and the conservatory display at the Bellagio. We parked at the Miracle Mile Mall and walked through there to get to the Bellagio and the boys were totally enthralled (just like I had been the first time I saw it) by the way the ceiling in the mall had been painted to look like the sky and it looked just like we were outside. Of course, we got to the water show about 30 minutes before it was going to go off, so we staked out our spot and waited. In the meantime, Rod called to see where we were at because he was ready for us to come pick him up. Needless to say, by the time we watched the water show, went to see the conservatory inside the Bellagio, stopped and got stuffed animals for the boys at Build a Bearville (which I had already promised them we’d do) and walked back to our car, Rod ended up waiting for us for nearly an hour. See what I mean about the fact that he probably wasn’t sure why he took us along with him?

Notice Connor's fingers in his ears...it's too loud for him!

On Thursday, the boys and I drove to Hoover Dam while Rod went to his conference at the Sands and fortunately, even though Miss GiPS told us that it would take us almost an hour to get there, it only took us about 30 minutes. We didn’t really spend a lot of time at the dam because the only thing we could do was to walk along the dam and take a few pictures and then head back to our car. The only sightseeing things available cost lots of money (even to go in the visitors center), so we weren’t interested in any of that anyway. We didn’t spend too much time out walking around either because it was incredibly windy and cold and it doesn’t take that long to walk from one end of the dam to the other.

On the way back to town, we did stop to see the “pirate house”, which our friend Jodee had also told us about and where her family spends a lot of their vacation time because her brother’s father in law owns it. I had heard a lot about it, but I was in awe when I actually saw it. It was amazing!

Rod didn’t call us until we were just about back to town, so lucky for him, he didn’t have to wait as long for us to come and get him. It was only about noon and he was done for the day, so we got to spend the remainder of the day with him. Besides doing a little shopping, which Hayden and I did ourselves while Connor and Rod sat in the car and waited, and a little swimming back at the hotel, the only other thing that Rod wanted to do was to find the Pawn Stars pawn shop. It took us a while to find it because it wasn’t in Miss GiPS directory, but after asking for directions at our hotel, we drove right to it. It wasn’t in the nicest part of town and it wasn’t nearly as nice in person as it looks on the TV show...in fact it was a dive, but we had fun just being able to see it since “Pawn Stars” is currently one of Rod’s favorite shows!

By the time Friday morning rolled around, we were all more than ready to be home...and we still had an 8+ hour drive ahead of us! As we left Las Vegas behind and got closer to St. George, we noticed that the temperature was slowly going from the 70’s that we had become accustomed to in Las Vegas down to the 50’s in St. George and by the time we reached Cedar City and stopped to get some lunch, we were right in the middle of a snowstorm! We looked a little funny in our shorts and capris that had been appropriate for the Las Vegas weather when everyone around us was in coats and boots. The cold is probably the one thing that we hadn’t missed while we had been gone and the one thing that we weren’t looking forward to coming home to...but we were going to get it anyway!

Living Amidst a Mess!

My kitchen has undergone a transformation this week and is now officially “moose mousse” in color! At the same time, my entire house has undergone a transformation too...and it’s now officially a “mess mess”! I’m excited about the first transformation, but the second one is still throwing me out of kilter! As anyone who knows me (or lives with me) knows, I’m not a person that likes my house to be messy and so this is truly hard for me to stomach. I almost have to lock myself in my room (which is probably one of the only rooms in the whole house that is still in its “normal” state) and try to imagine what my house is going to look like in a few weeks, and not what it looks like right now! I’ve really tried to stay on top of this remodel by keeping things clean as we went, but as of this weekend, it is no longer possible!

My "moose mousse" walls in my "mess mess" kitchen

Yet another "mess mess"

My husband promised me a week or so ago that when we got the painting done, we would have about a week in which we could clean things up and have things at least semi-normal around here. When he made that promise, however, he had no idea that he was going to have problems with the paint sticking to several spots on the walls, which in turn has led to his painting, patching, repainting, repatching and repainting the same walls over and over again. To say that he’s been a little frustrated this week would be an understatement...but with that being said, he’s also shown a lot of patience through the whole mess and that shows just how incredible he is! Now aside from a couple of bubbles that still remain (which Rod refuses to try and fix anymore), it’s actually looking pretty good! Unfortunately, it also took him at least 2 or 3 days longer to get the painting done, so that promise of getting things back to “semi-normal” doesn’t look like it’s going to materialize!

Nice paint job huh?

On top of the mess that has been caused by the painting fiasco, we got our new front door and basement windows on Friday and Saturday, which caused yet a few more remodel dilemmas. The door was measured wrong, so the installers had to cut off an additional ¼ inch of the wall above the door, which wasn’t easy, but they did it without too much of a problem. Then when they went to install the basement windows it all went well until they got to the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th and 7^th windows (out of 7 total windows) and then they had a problem! Apparently, the guy who had measured for the basement windows (and it wasn’t Rod) only measured the ones in the family room downstairs and even though the other basement windows are all the same size, they had been sheetrocked over after they were originally installed, which made them impossible to replace unless the sheetrock was cut out all around them. So guess what else is now a mess? Every room in the basement!

Look at my beautiful new door...from the inside!

The mess doesn’t stop there! While I was gone Saturday morning running the 3^rd of my 5 Winter Circuit races (which I’ll get to in a minute!), Rod finished painting the laundry room and had time on his hands, so he decided to tear off the mantel on our fireplace to get ready for our new fireplace. That’s all well and good, but our fireplace won’t even get installed for about 3 more weeks when our cabinets come, so I’m not sure why he had to take it down so early...but it was gone when I got home from my race, or at least it was sitting in a pile on the floor! Yes...another mess! But that’s not all, I decided to add to the mess too. I wanted to paint the wall where the new fireplace is going to go and since we still had all of our painting stuff out, I suggested to Rod that we paint that wall before we put it all away. He seemed to think that it would be no big deal because he didn’t have any patching to do on the wall, so he told me to get it ready and he’d go pick up my paint.

Doesn't my fireplace look "naked" without the mantel?

While he was gone, I started to wipe down the walls so I could get ready to tape them and guess what I found? A huge crack in the wall where one of the chairs had been pushed back too hard...so it looked like there was going to be a little patchwork that was going to have to be done after all! As long as I was at it, I also wanted to paint one wall in the family room the same color, so I suggested that we might as well get that one ready too...so we moved some more furniture and took some more things off the walls and I began to clean and tape that wall as well!

Of course, once we got started Rod began to find a lot of holes that needed to be patched and he also discovered that one of the intercoms to the old intercom system (from when the house was originally built) was still in the wall behind the stereo. So he ripped that out and decided that he’d patch the wall, but that also meant that he was going to have to paint the entire room...and not just the one wall that I had originally planned on painting! Needless to say, because of all of the patching, we couldn’t paint yesterday but we also couldn’t put the furniture back, so my walls are now sitting bare, my furniture is in the center of the rooms, knick knacks are piled everywhere...and Rod is leaving for Boise in the morning! That means my house will be like this until he gets back and when he gets back on Wednesday, his number one project is to get the cabinets out of the kitchen so that the flooring can be laid on Thursday. So what does that mean for my painting job? Who knows when it will get done? I have this feeling that my house is going to remain in chaos for a while too! Isn’t it funny how our one “little” project of remodeling our kitchen has turned into this? I just keep telling myself that it will be worth it when I see the final results!

As I mentioned, yesterday morning I ran one of my Winter Circuit races. This one was a 10 miler and by all accounts, it was incredibly hard! They had combined the 5K and the 10K that we ran a few weeks ago, which all by themselves were very hard because they consisted mostly of running uphill, so to combine them just made the race pure torture! But I finished it and even though I didn’t run the race faster than I did last year, I ran it stronger, so that was an accomplishment for me!

My friends and I after the 10 mile race

Just like last week, it feels like the remodel thing has overtaken our lives, but there are so many other things going on at the same time that are exciting too. The two little boys started soccer this week and it feels like they’ve been eating, drinking and dreaming about soccer ever since...Connor especially! They got their new uniforms at their first practice and Connor has all but lived in his...in fact I think he would live in it if I’d let him, but I have to draw the line somewhere. They do look awfully cute though and they’re both having so much fun! I just hope that their enthusiasm keeps me going through the remaining 6 weeks of it because I’m still wondering why I signed them up knowing that it involves being there on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of every week! I’m sure it will help when the weather gets warmer though because a couple of times this week, it was unbearable even sitting out there in the cold!

Hayden loves to play soccer

Connor just learning how to handle the ball

Hayden...always the jokester on the sidelines

Also this past week, Patrick left for Korea...and a day and a half later, he called to tell us that he was finally there! I had to laugh because that same day we got a message on our phone that sounded like it was Japanese or something and I couldn’t figure out why. Then the more I listened to it, I thought I recognized a Korean word in the midst of the babble, which I only knew because my friend went on a mission to Korea and had taught me a simple phrase that included that word, so I immediately started wondering who we knew in Korea that would call us. It took me a few minutes to realize it but...duh! Who else would be calling us from Korea? It was Patrick! He’d obviously tried to call us and even though it hadn’t worked on our phone, he’d been able to get through to his dad so at least we know he got there safely!

All Things MOOSE!

I have officially made a decision on the paint color in my kitchen...and it wasn’t an easy decision to make! In fact, besides Rod and the boys, I even had a few of my friends come over and weigh in on the decision…and the color that the majority of us chose was (can we have a drum roll?)…MOOSE MOUSSE! Isn’t that a great name for a paint color? I can honestly say that I didn’t pick the color because of its name, although it was awfully tempting, I just really liked that color the best out of all of my choices (all 2 of them)! It’s just a little ironic that mooses are my favorite animal!

"Moose Mousse" is the one on the left

We’ve been busy this whole week making more progress on the kitchen, but unlike the two previous weeks, nothing we did this week was too noticeable. Rod and Jon painted the walls and the ceiling with primer one day and then Rod put a couple of coats of paint on the ceiling. It’s all white though and so it doesn’t look any different than it did before...but maybe a little shinier! He also had to paint the front foyer and a little bit of the hallway because “builder Rod” had textured the ceiling where Rod had patched over the old swamp cooler hole last fall when we got a new air conditioner/furnace. Unfortunately, when Rod started to paint the hallway with what he thought was the same color he’d painted it before, we soon realized that it wasn’t the same color at all...and in fact, was much whiter! At first, we really thought that meant we’d have to repaint the entire hallway, but then Rod came up with the perfect solution. He took a piece of the old baseboard to Lowe’s and had them match the paint color...and they did it perfectly! So he only had to paint a portion of what he originally thought he might have to. Whew!

See how shiny the ceiling is? It's that new paint!

We were also supposed to get our new front door this week, but when they delivered it, which was already a day later than they had scheduled, I took one look at it sitting out on the side of the truck and knew we had a big problem. The door that they had ordered and painted especially for us…opened the wrong way! Not only that, it had ¾ sidelights and I had ordered full sidelights! Needless to say, we’re not getting our door until Wednesday...and I really hope it works out this time!

We have a new light...but it's still the same old door!

Otherwise, besides having to clean my kitchen over and over and over again (everytime Rod got done painting and left all of the painting stuff all over my counters) and taking a literal “ton” of garbage to the dump (which consisted entirely of my kitchen and the fireplace insert), it has been a relatively quiet week. But honestly, does that sound like a quiet week to you? It didn’t feel like a quiet week to me either!

Despite what I make it sound like, life beyond the kitchen has continued to go on. Hayden had his first soccer draft this past week and although he didn't feel like he did very well, he still got picked for a team, so he will start practices on Wednesday this week. We also signed up Connor to play soccer for his first year and he starts his practices on Tuesday. Anything to get him out from in front of the TV! So besides all of the work that we’ve created for ourselves in doing this kitchen thing and all of the time involved with our callings, we will now be running the kids to soccer practices and games every single night except Mondays and Saturdays (and Sundays of course) through the month of April! Doesn’t that sound fun? I’m not sure what I was thinking when I did that.

I think Jon has decided to join his older two brothers...and move out! It’s not that he doesn’t like us, it’s just that his friends live closer to his job and honestly when you’re that age, friends really are much more fun than family. He hasn’t decided 100% that that’s what he’s going to do, but I think his decision is probably about 99.9% sure, so we’re already trying to get ourselves used to the idea. I think Hayden and Connor would move out too sometimes if we gave them the choice...but luckily, they don’t have a choice and they’re stuck here for a while!

Also this week, Patrick will be leaving for Korea. He called us last week to tell us that the moving company had come on Thursday and packed up everything he owned except for what he could carry in a duffle bag and they even took his modem that he uses for his internet. So he was officially bored and planning on being that way for several days...or at least until Monday when he flies out! He will fly for 10 hours to get to Japan and then he’ll fly another 3 or 4 hours to get to Seoul, Korea. Now doesn’t that sound fun? He’s not thinking so, and quite honestly, it sounds horrible to me. They just can’t feed you enough or entertain you enough on those planes to make that time go by quickly...and it’s impossible to sleep on a plane! So all I can tell him is “good luck with that one and we’ll be thinking of you!” But really, we wish him the best in Korea and hope that he enjoys his assignment over there. We’ll definitely miss him since he’ll be gone for at least a full year, but we know he’ll do a great job and be a great asset to his new unit over there!