Katie built a creative fort in the bed.
Category Archives: Photos
The ongoing Monopoly game!
Grannie said they played forever—and Owen eventually had hotels on everything but he just kept giving Katie money so she could keep playing!
David is the Maggie whisperer!
Maggie really needed her nails cut and we asked David to do it because he seems to be able to do it really easily (better than we do). She sat patiently while he did then and then just sat and enjoyed the cuddle!
I love shopping for prizes!
Esrey Park
Outer Point in the background where Owen had kayaked.
The kids are on a boat!
From Grannie: Heading out on pontoon boat. Going to LacLaBelle. Through lake out to Lake Superior. Bringing sandwiches + for supper
Next house project underway!
Tom is working on my birch wall while I try to finish the kids’ rooms. I think he has the better end of this deal.
So we now have a new front walk!
So the way the front walk was laid out really didn’t work for us. Where we park the car on the driveway puts us getting out right in the middle of dirt (there used to be bushes there but we took them out (and replanted them) because they were in the way).
We had hoped to be able to just add on some bricks and adjust the design a little…but of course they don’t make the same bricks anymore. We totally didn’t want to rip everything out but we didn’t have much of a choice.
They worked on it over a few days, so here’s the progression.
July 30 — Demolition and prep day
July 31 — We decided on a raised bed on one side. More money. Plus they told us we really needed to redo the stoop because it was falling. More money. Plus we decided to add some accent bricks and a few in-brick lights. More money. More money. This is how a $1600 project turned into a $3700 project. DAMN HOME OWNERSHIP.
August 1 — the meat of the project!
August 2 — had we given it some more thought, we might have gone with a more squared-off design (and fewer accent bricks) to save some labor costs! But DAMN it looks amazing!
Katie’s art project turned into a gift!
Grannie said that Katie decided this was going to be a gift for one of her friends!
Kati
Even when Katie’s not home…
Maggie sleeps in her room!
Katie, Owen & Papa on the raft!
Owen got to go out to the raft with Tom last year (he is a strong enough swimmer to go on his own, but Tom went since it was a new experience). So we assured everyone he would be okay to by himself this year, but Katie wanted to go this year, too, so Papa had to join!
We’re changing the front door again!
We really like the purple door…but it’s actually the wrong shade. When we leave the door open, the bright royal purple really clashes with the dusty plum of the front room. Yes it’s a minor thing but it bothers both of us…so we got our our trusty paint wheel and picked a new color! Stay tuned!
Work and fun in the kitchen.
From Grannie: Work and fun in the kitchen. Katie made Papa a pretty plate of raspberries and blueberries. Owen cut the whole watermelon. Then they both cut slices. With lots of laughs and silliness in between.They were safe with knives. I try to be a good Grannie!
Can I just say that if I had asked them to cut a watermelon, I would have gotten eye rolls and attitude all around. Grandparent Camp must be magic.
Pomegranate margarita?!
We decided to try out a new-to-us Mexican restaurant and damn if it wasn’t super delicious! They also had pomegranate margaritas on the menu so of course I had to try that!
Redoing the rooster!
So I really REALLY hated to get rid of the rooster I “stole” from our friend Allison but it just doesn’t go with our new decor…so spray paint to the rescue!
Now it will continue to live on and be a reminder of all the great times we had in Virginia! Stay tuned for the final reveal once everything is finished!
This is very hard for me!
…but I’m doing it. All of these boxes (shipping boxes AND random ones that would make great shipping boxes) that I’ve hoarded are being flattened and going to recycling. Please tell me I’m not the only one who hoards boxes.
This meme sums it up perfectly:
Grandparent Camp handoff!
One last adventure before the transfer!
It’s almost time to make the transfer…heading to the U.P.
They stopped at the deer farm in the U.P. near Brevort.
She just floomphs anywhere.
She let Gramma do piggies!
Back to the lake again!
The kids had such a great time Gramma and Grandpa took them back again!
Watching the designer work!
Don’t get excited thinking I’m showing too much… this is not the final look. This is just one picture of many different options she tried.
To be honest as she was doing it I was liking it, but /skipping a lot of design and redesign/ it ended up waaaaaay too flowery and poofy so I asked her to redo it. Those pics will come later!
Dairy Queen smiles!
Unexpected Room Attacks
I really wasn’t planning on cleaning Katie’s room (even though I desperately wanted to throw every single thing away because she’s really ungrateful). But it happened. I just could not stand this disaster any more. (And moreso because she swears she’s cleaned it and it’s always still a pit.)
- Lots of stuff shoved in the closet. I pulled out about five bath towels.
- I have no idea why this stuff was even in her room! Christmas cupcake wrappers and toothpick flags?!
- All the clothes we pulled out from all the little hidey holes she shoved stuff into.
- Just a regular shot of her room.
- Yes, a partially eaten donut. Rock hard. There’s not supposed to be food in the bedrooms for this very reason.
- More random stuff shoved into a drawer.
- Two bags of candy for my work that she didn’t have permission to eat.
- And why put a bed sheet in the drawer in your room where it goes…when you can shove it in another completely random drawer?
- And everything that was stuffed in just three drawers of her dresser.
We both worked in there for hours. We did all the laundry (at least 4-5 loads—which she had assured us all her laundry was done), picked up all the toys and crap, tossed all the garbage, organized things, and created two boxes of crap for her to go through and sort. If she doesn’t want to, it’s going straight into the garbage. This is her LAST chance. If she can’t keep it remotely picked up, she’s losing things. I hope she’s having fun at grandparent camp because life is changing when she gets home. I told Tom if he ever wanted to be a drill sergeant, now is going to be the time.
And when we moved the nightstand…
Sidenote: I did run across these. Cue ugly cry.
But lest you think we’re just picking on Katie…Owen’s room is getting cleaned out, too. I didn’t move from my initial position (between his desk and the bed) for almost two hours—there was so much crap shoved and crammed in/on/around/behind/under his desk/bed/drawers I wanted to scream. I mean I was duly impressed…but I wanted to scream.
Swim shirt and bathing suit he couldn’t find for weeks? Under the bed. A pack of winter thermal shirts? Desk drawer. Missing laundry bags? Under his bed. All the school notebooks I’d asked him to find that he claimed were gone? Everywhere. Dirty clothes? Everywhere. Candy wrappers? Everywhere.
And of course Katie notes!
I took out two bags of garbage, a bag of recycling, and did four loads of dirty laundry (when he said it was all done) including about six bath towels and 83 socks. I picked up approximately 712 Lego pieces, 128 Pokémon cards, 300 random playing cards and other assorted game pieces, a shoebox of markers/pens/pencils, and about 13 spiral school notebooks that have 2% schoolwork and 98% drawings in them. I steam cleaned the carpet and half-heartedly dusted. Oh, and Tom put up a new ceiling fan!
Life will sure be different for him post-grandparent camp as well.
I realize most of this is par for the course for kids and kids their age but I just. couldn’t. any. longer. I don’t mind a little mess or being unorganized. But both rooms were flat out disgusting.
Stay tuned.
Yep those are my kids!
This just in from Grandparent Camp—two of those little dots out there are our kids! They really only get to swim in a lake up north—they are pool babies—so this is a special treat. Katie is freaked out by fish in the water potentially touching her but Gramma Jean says she’s in up to her neck so this is a big deal!
Gramma said later that they were out there for HOURS. Yep, those are my kids!
The bar is coming along…
We absolutely love our bar and it’s totally amazing…but it was missing a few things.
We really wanted footrests—so dad and Linda offered to pay for them as a housewarming gift! Tom installed them today and they are perfection!
And I’ve always wanted a slot machine and long story short we looked at a few (and I adjusted my expectations) and we decided on this one (it’s not crazy noisy)! The kids are going to go crazy! (That isn’t quite the final resting place—Tom will build something.)
More things are coming, too!! I can’t wait!
Kids at the canoe marathon!
From Gramma Jean: Owen and Katie wanted to go see the start of the race so the three of us went to DQ and then parked at my old office and walked down to Joe’s to watch them. It was fun and they enjoyed it.
When the kids are away…
You can leave at the drop of a hat for dinner out with old friends and new friends an hour away to celebrate National Tequila Day! We drove to Aurora to meet at El Jefe.
Anna and Jami were meeting for the first time but they said it was like they already knew each other! (They met just by posting in my Facebook business group and then friended each other.)
The Al Pastor tacos (me) and octopus (Tom) were both delicious. We also loved the guac trio, the oysters, the flaming cheese, and the margaritas!
The only bad thing was that the music was SO STINKING LOUD that we couldn’t even hear anyone at the ttable—so we really only got to talk to the people directly next to us.
Tom’s looking at trucks!
David recently got a new truck and the boys are just totally geeking out over it. It has totally refreshed Tom’s want of a truck and he’s been researching so when he’s ready, he’ll know what he wants.
Well we were out today and drove by a dealership so I made him stop. And I had to take a picture of me next to the bed to show just how ridiculous the size of this thing is.
This thing is so high it has running boards that pop down when you unlock it—except the battery was dead so it didn’t work so I had to practically pole vault to get in. Still being in recovery I probably shouldn’t even have tried but I thought I could do it easy.
Ha ha. Ha ha ha. What a joke. I barely pulled myself up and crashed into the seat. I just can’t imagine having a vehicle that high and hard to get into (I know it would have running boards but still—yikes). So time will tell.
