Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Payson with the McMullin's. We ate a wonderful dinner and spent time visiting but the highlight of this years trip was Brady's dart board. 

Everybody got in on the action. The kids especially laughed at the way the automated voice on the dart board made fun of the way we through darts.

Jo, Tamarie, and I went Christmas shopping on Friday and had a great time. On Saturday, we all went to Garrett and Tam's house and the kids decorated the tree while the boys worked on electrical stuff.
It was a wonderful weekend. I'm so happy that Garrett and Tamarie live close enough that we get to spend more time together.

A Little Situation in the Kitchen

A year ago yesterday I was standing in the kitchen making toast when my socks got wet. It puzzled me a little so I bent down to get a closer look and realized that the water was actually coming up from under the floorboards.

We started opening up the cupboards and taking out the shelves and drawers. What we discovered is that our water connections and started with a tiny little leak thanks to hard water build up that just slowly got worse.

The next morning we called the insurance company and spent the next couple of days drying out.

Matthew and Cody spent one evening taking all of our old flooring out and found that it wasn't as bad as it could've been if we hadn't gotten to it when we did.

They took our kitchen clear apart for about 2 weeks while about a third of the subfloor was replaced along with a small portion of our cabinets. We spent a lot of time eating out and I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I got sick of it.

Matt and I went and picked out our new flooring. I was thinking to go with a tile look but Matt set his mind on this. I was so nervous that it be too much wood until they got it put all back together and now I love it.

The one part about the kitchen that didn't need to be fixed was the sink. But while everything was torn out I started shopping and found a sink that I felt would fit so much better.

We're back to normal now and I can't believe it's been a year since we were doing all of this. I guess it's a good thing to have behind you.

Memory Monday ~ Wendy's Raccoons

Matt and I have taken care of Greg and Wendy's house for five years now. It's become like a second home to us in that we are there quit a bit checking on things. One major problem that they have on the east side is mice. And if there's one thing that Wendy hates, it's mice. 

So the cat house has been part of our job. I would feed about a dozen cats or so each week in an effort to keep down on the mice. We were finding however, that the raccoon population was also thriving and it doesn't take long for the word to get out that there's free food. Wendy didn't think that having coons hanging around was a very good idea either so she put a bounty on their heads and for the past three autumn's Matt and I have been on rodent duty.  

We set up a live trap outside the cat house with cat food as bait. Then we'd check every morning to see what had popped up. These little guys are smart, a few times, we knew that something had been in the trap but we found it empty. Matt was smarter though and rigged it so that once in, there wasn't any escape.
Two years ago on Halloween we had a stakeout where we stayed the night and baited the little critters. We had a good time but didn't find anything to shoot. We did wake up to a full trap the next morning though so it was worth it.
  The first time that I went to check the trap by myself ended up being a day I'll never forget. I walked around the corner and sure enough, the trap was full. Now we'd been learning about raccoons since starting our adventure and found that if they happened to get out, they weren't going to just turn and run away. So I had a little pep rally in my head and grabbed the trap. I stood it up and did my best to still my wildly beating heart while filling the trap with water. (Which we've found is a fairly humane way to solve the problem.) I waited quite a while to make sure that everything was quiet and then emptied the water and hauled the trap to the drop off point. I can't even describe how badly I was shaking as I opened the trap door and prayed that the darn critter hadn't come back to life since his swim.
By the time I got the trap set back up and left, the adrenaline had worn off and I was kinda weak so I stopped and got me a hamburger and Pepsi on the way home.

Wendy found a high tech way to keep the mice out this summer so we retired the cat house. It's nice not to have to run and check it all the time but we have some pretty good memories of the raccoon days and the Christmas's that the bounty money helped us buy.

Early Thanksgiving

Kelly called me in October with a fantastic idea - she was coming  to Grandma Sony's house in November and calling to invite everyone.Only Michelle and the girls were able to come and hang out but we had a great weekend.

Sure wish we could do it more often!

The Last Big Project

Matthew and I have been planning a garage since we moved into our house. Last fall we knew that this would finally be the year that we got it. We have been thinking and planning what we were going to build and we came up with a plan that would fit our needs. Matt needed a shop that he could work in, fixing tractors, cars, trucks, and everything else. While I felt that we needed a couple more bedrooms. We also wanted it attached to the house so that we could add a mud room and so we didn't have to run through the snow to go back and forth.

We took our plans to a couple of different contractors to get bids and then to the bank for a loan. Like all things like this, it took a lot longer than we were hoping. We were finally able to sign papers on July 11, and start construction on July 23.

Ironically, we poured concrete footers on the garage the same day that we poured the patio in the backyard - August 1. From there, it went up so fast that we could hardly keep up. The first wall scared me, I thought for sure that we had measured wrong. Wow, it was big!

 The second story looked like it was going to go through the clouds and I was beginning to wonder what we'd done.

 By the time we got the roof on however, things started to come together and it didn't look quite so tall.

Adding the mud room and the awing on the east side made it blend better with the house and kind of finished it off.

And this is how it looks now. We got everything framed in and ready for winter. We'll work on the inside over the next few months and hopefully get siding on it next summer. It still looks big from the outside and I'm still getting used to the new look, but it's something that has been a long time coming, and has definitely been worth it.

Little Miss Honor

 Britnee was inducted into the National Jr. Honor Society on November 14. Matt and I went over to watch her cheer at the basketball game and then we ran over to the school for her induction. It ended up being on of my favorite meetings ever so I took some notes so that Brit could remember a few things from her special night.
        First, the student body president came over from the high school and talked about making goals. She told an awesome little story about planting a bamboo seed. She told us that for the first 4 years after its planted, nothing happens, but that we shouldn't get discouraged because during that time it's busy growing a root system so that on the fifth year, the bamboo tree grows to a height of 90 feet. Then she used that to teach the kids about making goals and sticking to them, even if nothing seems to be happening.
        Then the principal, Dr. Heeder, gave a short little talk about what it means to be a part of the honor society and to have honor. He asked each kid to think of two questions each time they make a decision in their lives:
      *Will what I'm about to do make the world a better place?
      *What if everybody in the world did what I'm about to do?
He challenged each of them to live with honor and then had them all come forward to recite the theme. The whole thing took about 30 minutes. 
 I'm so glad that we could be there with Brit and I'm so proud of our Little Miss Honor!!

My New Favorite Place

 It's been a big summer for us. So big, in fact, that I haven't been keeping up on much of anything else.
                    Project #2- The patio and hot tub. (Project #1 being the front fence)
 For a couple of years now I've been dreaming of a big patio and a hot tub in the back yard. I even killed all the grass and set my porch swing on the dirt, pretending.

 Finally this summer we were able to get everything going. Matt and I spent several hours digging and leveling and ready for concrete. August 1st was the big pour day. The boys came in and did a fantastic job finishing our patio. We are such nerds, we all (Matt, Cody, my niece Brooklyn and I) all sat and watched them pour like we were at the movies.

 I'm just going to close my eyes to all the lawn/grass damage and deal with it later. 

 The crowning piece to our patio was the hot tub that I found on the KSL classifieds. As soon as I saw it, I fell in love and my sweet husband agreed to get it. Happy birthday to me!! (And Merry Christmas, and a lot of other holidays.)

 I couldn't be happier with it. It came with this wonderful gazebo that will be just what we need all winter to keep the wind and snow out. We got in the hot tub for the first time on Britnee's birthday. She said it was the best gift.

I'm so happy to check this off my to do list. And I'm even happier climbing into it at night after a long day.

Roadshows

 This year our stake did more roadshows. The rest of our family opted out, but Britnee and Grandma Sony signed up. It was so fun to watch the ward come together and put on a cute little performance.

 Sony was the scene changer. She carried a sign across the stage telling where the next scene would take place.
Britnee was one of the three blind mice. She really hammed up her part and had a great time being on stage.