Wednesday, August 19, 2015

June 2014: Autumn's Visit

May 16, 2014: Every summer, Kaden flies down to his Mom's for 6 weeks.  He has a great time, but we miss him when he's gone.  We definitely missed him in June when Josh's sister Autumn and her kids drove up from Texas to see us.  Unfortunately, the timing didn't work out for them to come up before he left.  We ventured out to Enchanted Forest, Crown Point, Multnomah Falls, Bonneville Fish Hatchery, Newport Beach, the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Beverly Beach!
We had so much fun!  
Enchanted Forest: June 21, 2014
Enjoying the show: "Jack and the Beanstalk"

June 22, 2014: Crown Point and Multnomah Falls



Bonneville Fish Hatchery
June 23, 2014: Newport Beach
Haha! I convinced Autumn to drive almost an hour back to town because I thought they had a Samurai Sam's. (A favorite teriyaki place) But when we got there, it was closed down. I was so sad!  But we made the best of our drive and went to a little Thai place we saw along the way.  It was good!
We had Logan and Paxton with us.  Who weren't very happy with the long drive.  But were in better spirits after we fed them.
Playing on Newport Beach.

 June 24, 2014: Oregon Coast Aquarium
Visiting the tide pools and lighthouse.
 The tiny black peak in the water is a whale.
 Beverly Beach

 L to R: Versii, Arie, Logan, Aubry, Paxton and Abi



The Beginning of Catching Up: May 2014

With the exception of my recent posts of our home remodel, I haven't updated our blog since the middle of May 2014. 
Here are the highlights from the end of May.
May is our big birthday month. 
Kaden on May 18th, in his new Scout shirt and Scout Book from his Gammey and Papa.  No longer a Cub Scout!
May 20, 2014 - Kaden touring his new middle school on his birthday.  The face in the lower left corner of the above photo shows his expression perfectly.  He was less than enthusiastic!
That evening the boys wanted to go to the school talent show.  
Happy 11th Birthday Kaden!
Here are the boys with Kaden's friend Nate.
With all three boy's birthdays within a 2 week period, I always try to get the boys to pick something other than cake.  Kaden chose brownies.
Birthday stats: Kaden measured 4'8" on his 10th birthday.
He grew 2.5" during the year, measuring in at 4'10.5"
The day after Kaden's birthday, I received a call home from school notifying me that Kaden had been hit in the head with the head of a plastic hockey stick.  Apparently he was at recess and a swing had gotten stuck up on the bar, so another kid thought it might be a good idea to try getting it down by throwing a hockey stick at it.  But when the hockey stick hit the swing it broke and the lower part (a giant yellow banana shape) flew off and hit Kaden right in the head.  ---When I arrived at the school, they informed me that while examining the head wound they were pretty sure Kaden had lice!  So we left right away to the Dr.  He didn't end up having stitches, just a little glue to seal the wound. And we got a prescription for the lice treatment.  Fun!  Also, while we were at the Dr. the school called and said Versii had lice too and needed to be picked up.
The crazy thing is that I ended up having lice too.  My head had been itching for a few days, but we had also recently been removing old insulation from our house so I thought the itching was from that.  I even said to Josh, "My head's been really itching lately!"  His reply, "It's all in your head."  ---Sure, ok Josh!  I still tease him about that now.  It really was in my head! 
As soon as I returned home from picking up the lice treatment we went to work shaving all the boys heads.
Dealing with the lice on my hair was going to be bad enough, so to cut down on work, the boys hair had to go. We treated everyone's hair and I went to work washing and vacuuming every thing!  Not to mention checking heads multiple times a day and washing with tea tree oil shampoo for weeks after.  I still itch every time I think about lice!  Yuck!
May 23, 2014
 Happy 7th Birthday Versii!
Versii chose his favorite dessert: chocolate cheesecake!
Birthday stats: At age 6 he measured exactly 4' tall.
He grew 3.25" during the year.   

 May 31, 2014 
Happy 5th Birthday Paxton!
Paxton chose vanilla cupcakes!
Birthday stats: At age 4 he measured 3'5.5" and he grew 2" during the year, making him 3'7.5" tall.
May 24, 2014 
The boys helping work at the house.
And who know's what Paxton's doing in the toilet!
May 28, 2014
Paxton at his Kindergarten Preview. The toured the school, met the teachers, made a penguin headband and went on a short bus ride.  He was super excited to start school!
June 2, 2014
Kaden's 5th Grade graduation.
He's aspiring to attend college at Brigham Young University and become an Artist.
Above top left: Kaden with his teacher, Mr. Marsh
Lower Right: Kaden with his good friend Arthur.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Inside Our Home: The Basement

When we bought our home, the basement could only be accessed from the outside.  You can see from the paint on the wall, at some point there must have been a staircase going up into the house.  Our basement "before" seemed really creepy, like one those places someone might kidnap and stash you in.  And these support columns were all over.  
Dad and Josh spent 2 months hand digging the basement floor, so we could have a full 7 foot ceiling height after the finished concrete.  
 We had a lot of help with the concrete.  My Dad and brothers Jeff and Josh came to help us.
The before and after photos are below:
 The basement is entirely the "boys space", they have their own small living room, a play room, a full bathroom and their bedrooms.
 The boys playroom.  
We set up the basement so that it could easily be converted into an apartment should the need arise for someone to come live with us.  The boys current playroom is all wired to have a kitchen added someday.  
 Future Basement Kitchen Plans

The boys bathroom: they have a separate toilet room and double sinks that make it great for sharing.
 This room is Kaden's.  He finally has his very own room.

The electrical room.  Josh did all the electrical work for our home.  He is so resourceful and talented!  And he saved us thousands of dollars by doing the work himself.
I did what I could to help him.  The electrical inspector wanted the ground wires (the copper wires) attached to their own ground panel.  Josh had to work and couldn't get away before the inspector was scheduled to come back, so I had to move all the ground wires myself. It wasn't pleasant, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.
The electical/utility room.  It is also wiring and plumbed for an additional washer and dryer should we ever buy one.

Inside Our Home: The West Entry

Our home originally had just one bathroom, located on the main floor...and it wasn't pretty.
The original bathroom: The shower looked like some kind of crazy space pod, the shape and position of the bathtub was odd and the colors...  At some point, a previous owner had put in a laundry room in above the shower and they had plumbed the washer water to drain directly into the shower below.  That's just one of the many crazy odd things we had to deal with from previous "do-it-yourselfers".
Here are the before and after photos of the bathroom transforming into our new 1/2 bath and west entry/mud room.
Above: we opened up the wall and added in the staircase to the basement.



Above: photos taken during our remodel.  The floor was rotten and needed to be replaced.
Our laundry is just to the side of the west entry, we closed in part of the original covered porch to allow for the extra space.
The 1/2 bath.  My mother-in-law made us the "Be Kind" hanging quote.  Thanks Jenn!