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!