Spring break fun

Spring break started out with a visit from my bff since childhood, Susie, and her daughter, Emily, coming to visit us for a few days. It was their first time in our new home and we had a wonderful time together. When they headed home after our weekend together, my family headed out in a little road trip of our own. We drove to Rexburg, ID and spent the night in an Airbnb so that we'd be ready to explore the town and take the BYU-I tour the next day. (It's crazy that we're already touring colleges with Liliana and trying to help her figure out what's next after she finishes high school and her AA degree next year.) From Rexburg we went to Lava Hot Springs for a night and explored the sunken gardens the next morning. We drove east through Soda Springs and saw the geyser there, learning a bit of its history, then continued on the scenic route past Bear Lake and down to visit family and friends in Utah. We spent Wednesday evening with our long-time friends, the Staffords. It was so good to catch up with them and see how much their kids have grown. We spent that night at my sister's house in Lehi, and then took a tour of the BYU Provo campus Thursday morning, followed by lunch at Waffle Luv, suit shopping for Emmett, and spent the evening with our friends and neighbors from Lynnwood who now live in UT (the wonderful Meyers family), who graciously hosted is in the gorgeous new home and fed us a delicious dinner. From there we heading up to Park City with my sister's family and my parents, where we stayed from Thursday night until we headed home on Sunday. The older kids got to go snowboarding, we all enjoyed the pool and hot tubs, we took multiple gondola rides, are yummy food, celebrated some birthdays, attended a session of General conference in person, and had a lot of fun catching up and playing together. It was good to take a break from all the ongoing house projects we've been working on for over a year and just have fun making memories. 

A Home of Our Own (once again)

After the adventure of moving out of Western WA rather abruptly in the latter part of 2020 and house-sitting for my in-laws for a few years, we finally had a house built last year and are grateful to be in our own home once more. The home came with a mostly barren dirt yard with a handful of mature trees on one side in the back and an unfinished basement. We've spent the majority of our available time over this year doing some initial landscaping and working on finishing the basement. First we planted 8 fruit trees and 4 shade trees last spring. Over the summer we worked as a family digging trenches, installing a sprinkler system, and laying sod. Then we turned our attention indoors and pulled down the bat insulation off the concrete walls, cut it in strips, and tucked it in the ceiling. Next we painstakingly removed the metal fasteners from the concrete that had been used for the concrete pour and those used for holding in the insulation. After that we scrubbed all the caked-on mud off the walls (the basement had been poured in late fall and got coated in mud that the builders just covered with the insulation). Then we attached foam board to the walls and laid thinner foam board over the concrete floors with subfloor on top of it. Next we framed in all the walls, including adding "strapping" to the ceiling to stiffen the upstairs floors and give more solid places for framed walls to be attached and later for drywall to be hung. After that we ran the electrical and then put in the insulation. We hired out the drywall - which was so worth it. They delivered and hauled over a hundred 12' x 54" pieces of drywall that were 3/4 inch thick downstairs and that alone was worth it. Then they had it all hung in just a couple days time and they completed the taping, mudding, and texturing in less than a week after that. We then took back over to prime and paint all the walls and ceilings down there. We ended up paying to have the laminate flooring installed because a little more levelling was needed for the product we wanted and the manufacturer's warranty is only fully honored if the product is professionally installed. We have ordered and installed the swinging doors, but still need to do the bi-pass and bi-fold closet doors and the pocket door for the bathroom. We have the trim materials and will be working on that for the next little while, then we need to paint the trim and doors and finish the bathroom. We have accomplished a lot, but we still have a ways to go. Hopefully we'll be able to get our kids in their rooms soon. 🤞 This has been a fun project, but I do look forward to being done with it. Of course then we have further landscaping to do, the shop to build, raised garden beds to build, and our fire pit to complete. One of these days we will be done with it all, but not this calendar year. Maybe by next summer? 🤞