Tile

Sunday was a day well spent. It was a gorgeous out and hopefully we captured it with a few pictures of family. The kids were as well behaved as expected and I am expecting a typical family picture with ornery kids and exasperated parents. Unfortunately the photos shoot was shorter than desired because Jasmine had another exciting afternoon of softball. Her fall ball season is well underway and Jasmine is learning more with every game. Sunday games are usually double headers and Jasmine has taken to playing short stop and second base. This particular Sunday, Jasmine's team was short players and had to play with eight players but they were okay.

As I was enjoying an excellent fall like day at the end of August, Chris was slaving away on the addition. Being the Jack of all trades, Chris tiled his way through two rooms. They look beautifully and the paint is complimented by the tile and looks better than expected. The first picture is of my laundry room and the second is the boys bathroom which will be eventually green.

Chris is hoping to have the second bathroom tiled this week and the cabinets in the kitchen set and awaiting counter tops before Labor Day weekend. I just hope I can keep up with the grueling pace he is setting. What a slave driver he is!!!

Only Tony!!!

Just wanted to share with all of you how creative our Tony boy is...he wants to walk but doesn't want to stop playing.

It would take one of our kids to take the dump truck and turn it into the walker, but Tony was determined to take those steps. For the past week, Tony has been taking his little walks on our cement slab outside the garage with his truck. The space is small but that didn't stop Tony. Every time he ran into an obstacle, Tony would just pick up his truck and move it in another direction and continue on. He loved this way of walking but this hasn't translated into any more steps inside the house. His only fault is that he wants to hill climb the sand pile, but that darn dump truck gets stuck no matter how hard he pushes.

You can see it in his eyes and his face that he wants to cruise but his little feet won't listen to him. So for now he is settling with walking his dump truck.

Check!!!

Check, another task is off our list of to do's. Last Saturday, Chris, Tim and Joel put in hours of pumping insulation into the attic of our addition. This meant another trip to Menards and another trailer load of materials coming to the house.

Take a close look at the trailer and you can see that it barely fit into the garage and the silver truck was loaded down with two blowers. There were just as many tow straps to secure this load as there might have been if they were hauling two tons of metal. Looks can be deceiving since the 125 bags of insulation probably weighed less than what was in the truck bed.

Nothing goes as smooth as we hope it would and this job would be no exception. With the intuition to get the two blowers, Chris had hoped to finish the job quicker but a few hours had to be spent de-clogging the hoses and fixing the machines too. I think having 100 feet of hose couldn't have helped the issue either. They got it done and the job was finished around 10:00 at night. Cleaning up took a bit longer and I am grateful for the dumpster because otherwise where would we have put it all. About half of the kids sandbox ended up in the dumpster too but the kids haven't noticed.

The addition is noticeable cooler now in the days since the attic got finished so now we just have to wait on the sheet rockers to get finished so we can get moving again on this long drawn out project.

Amazing!!!

Just a short note to say, we are completely sheet rocked. The entire house is done and now they just have to tape and mud. We are getting there FINALLY. Luckily the rooms and garage look bigger now that the rock is on the walls and we only had two sheets of rock left over. Not bad for estimating Adrian. My final question is...how come the tiny dude gets to do all the lifting and the bigger guy gets to hold the power screw driver? Next will be my calling Painting, which I will be more than happy to do. Pictures will come sooner than later of the rooms coming together.

Impossible

9:18 pm and we are witnessing a miracle. The second floor of the addition is totally sheet rocked!!! The guys came came around 9:00 am and went right to work. Unbelievable, they had Tim take the sheet rock lift apart and downstairs and did the entire ceiling, minus the back room, by hand. The sheet rockers want to hit the first floor on Thursday when they come back to mud the second, but I am not sure if Chris will be ready for them by then.

The room pictured below is Jasmine's room and I told her that we are going to have to go paint shopping soon. All of the kids rooms feel great. I think everyone was scared that once the walls were covered the rooms were going to shrink, but with the extra tall ceiling the rooms are spacious enough. I am excited to get the laundry room tiled out.

The sheets were flying and Chris gave them a hand throwing up the insulation down the hallway as the rest of the guys were throwing up the rock. We know how fast Chris can throw together the plumbing but sheet rocking is another story, so I guess I don't have to worry about Chris conquering another trade any time soon.

Once the rock covered the walls, it was a little claustrophobic walking down the hallway. I am glad that we went with a slightly wider hallway. It truly feels like a bowling alley.

This addition is coming along fast now that the end might be getting closer. It is hard to believe that I am getting the chance to shop for the nitty gritty stuff like; paint colors, tile, light fixtures, even trim excites me. For now we are going to go without closet doors and I am working with a different idea hopefully saving a bit of money there. As for other things, I hope we can work fast but with in the budget.

Safety Town

As school gets closer, Nick is getting ready for his first day of Kindergarten. In preparation for that big day, Nick went to a week long program that district 622 puts on for their kids on bus and other safety. Safety Town helps kids learn the laws of the road and what to expect when it comes their time to ride that big yellow school bus. Nick loved coming home everyday and telling us what he learned and to make sure we were up on our safety tips as well.


Upon graduation from Safety Town, Nick got diploma as well as a cool red bike helmet. Now all he needs to do is learn to ride that two wheeler. Below is a picture of Nick as his buddy Ryder from preschool.

Sheet Rock

Very exciting news...we are sheet rocking rooms!!! Tonight Chris got sheet rock delivered to the house from Menards and we are ready to rock and roll tomorrow. Having all that sheet rock boomed up to the second floor was exciting to see and thanks to all the guys, we had there to help. Justin, Sager, Warner Stallion Bob, BenO and of course Tim.

The second floor is busting at the seams with sheet rock filling every room as well as the hallways. For a few bucks more, the sheet rockers are going to insulate the interior walls for us as they go so we can relieve Tim of that duty. So we have to get set because bright and early at 7 am there will be sheet rock dust and Mexican music blaring.

That is a lot of sheet rock!!!

It never seemed like this day would get here and after playing phone tag with the sheet rockers, Cesar/Adrian and his crew will be starting the second floor. It sounds like it will move faster than I can imagine. WOW

Rain, Rain, Please Go Away...Plllllleeeeaaaase!!

Well, Friday was a interesting day to say the least. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Carvelli, Chris and I were able to celebrate his one and only 31st birthday at the CA-Sino, Treasure Island Resort and Casino (lovely song). We had the buffet with Erik and Amy and then spent a few hours giving our money away. Chris isn't much of a gambler so having him part with his money was a challenge to begin with, but he finally got on a Black Jack table for a little bit. Jimmy (dealer) was great at giving friendly advise and taking their money.

The way the casinos are set up there are no clocks and the only view of the outside is through their doors, so when we left we didn't know that the weather was getting bad. The ride home was exciting to say the least with the torrential downpours and lighting strikes that seemed to be right at the car. We realized that the power was out once we hit Hastings and knew that our house was going to be black as well. We weren't prepared for what was in store.

At once we realized it was bad, when Tim was out in the addition with the wet vac trying to stay on top of the water pouring down the South wall of the addition back into the addition and kitchen, but unfortunately with no power the wet vac didn't work and Tim was left with a squeegee and no place for the water to flow. Quickly Chris had to move the sheet rock that Tim was courageously saving away from the water to drier ground and then they did a quick assessment to a temporary solution.

Leaving the guys to their way of thinking, I made the mistake of jumping into the kitchen with whooooshing sound of water running into the room after me. There I found Vicki with the lights out, four scared kids, and a dog with an upset stomach. Jasmine and Grandma were trying to head off the rain before it made it into the living room as it rushed into the kitchen with a decrepit mop. They did a great job saving the living room from a disaster.

By this time it was 1:30 in the morning and Excel was predicting lights back on around 4:45 in the morning and there was no end in sight to the rain. Squeegeeing continued at a frantic pace as well as cleaning out the kennel after poor Emma's stomach had acted up. Everyone was a trooper and thankfully Jayna was sleeping for the better part of this adventure with her winter Pjs in a humid room with no air conditioner.

I am truly grateful for everything Grandma and Grandpa did while we were gone to make sure our water adventure didn't get really out of hand. It was around 2:00 when the light came back on and Chris found his way onto the roof with a piece of metal in his hand WITH lightning to reroute the water away from the door. Finally around 3:00 in the morning things were settling down, Grandma and Grandpa went home and my kitchen floor is the cleanest it has been in years. The kids were sleeping and the dog was washed, clean and in her clean kennel.

Sleep was calling us...Ohhhh did I tell you that the entire South wall of the addition and the house was wet including our bedroom? At least the bed wasn't completely wet! :-) Nighty Nighty. Morning came all too early and Chris is off and running trying to figure out a more permanent way to reroute the next rain fall. Again their adventure started with a trip to Menards, but of course shortly after their departure I got a phone call. The silver trip took a dump and was broken down. High Ho mini van to the rescue. Don't tell Chris but I think this is a scheme to show me that we need to keep the tow truck around. With the mighty tow truck, Chris rescued the silver truck and is now trying to diagnose the problem.

With only a hint of sarcasm, Chris said there could be a chance that someone put sugar in his gas tank with a weary look at Ron next store trying to dry out his own basement in the new house. 8-) Let's hope it doesn't come to that and the timing is just off or someting.

One Done

We have sheet rock. On God's day of rest, Chris convinced his dad to come down and try out his new sheet rock lift. With all good intention to save a bit of money, Chris drove all the way to Glenwood Wisconsin to borrow the lift from a buddy but nothing with this addition has gone the way we hoped and he wasn't home. So with the need and desire to get this project rolling, Chris purchased the sheet rock lift himself and Tim came down to help.


If I thought lifting these large 12 foot long pieces of sheet rock was bad enough into the garage, Chris and his dad got to haul them up the stairs and then try to move them to the far northwest room of the addition. The first sheet was the learning experience and with a few choice words they were successful. We have the first sheet done and 29 more to haul up and lift.

As the sheets get hung, they will learn either the easiest way to achieve their goal or they will have a greater appreciation for those who hang sheet rock for a living. It is amazing how much of this project Chris and Tim are willing to attempt and how much grief Tim is willing to endure in this journey. I am extremely thankful.

Menards

The addition is progress nicely. Erik and his crew came by a few days last week and got the west and north walls of the addition browned and will be working on the east wall next week. The outside is looking wonderful. We had another inspection last Tuesday and we got the okay on the second wall to start sheet rocking.

So Chris and I loaded up the kids in the silver truck and took the weekly trip out to Menards. I didn't realize how much sheet rock weighed and once Chris had 30 sheets of the stuff in the truck it was squatting pretty good just about 3000 lbs. So we have to go back tomorrow to pick up the rest of the stuff. Like most trips, making our way back to the house was interesting.

Once we got back to the house and 30 trips back and forth later, we got the stuff into the garage. I didn't realize how heavy that stuff was until we were half way through the pile and my arm was burning. I think Chris wants to try and sheet rock one room before making the decision to continue on his own. Slowly but surely we are getting closer. The list of things seems to be getting shorter but there is an awful lot left to do.