Catching up!

It's been awhile since I last posted and I need to repent so here is a review at what we have been doing for the last couple of months. We FINALLY have our family room put back together again! We painted the walls a nice bright yellow color and installed new carpet since our old carpet was ruined by Hurricane Irene. The mudding and sanding process took the longest time and it was terrible to do the ceiling, but we persevered and did it. When the carpet was first installed I felt like I had just walked into a model home it looks so wonderful!! I love it! We still need to put up some trim and do a little touch up work, but it is 99% done. We wanted to have it all done before we left on vacation, but Gary got sick and it didn't get done. We went to Arizona for Christmas this year to visit Scott and his wife Meagan who just bought their new home 8 months ago. We also visited with Meagan's family who live there as well. It was nice to get away, but I'm glad to be home. Here are some pictures of our basement and of our trip to Arizona. Enjoy.

Gary getting ready to paint the stairwell.

All painted!

Getting ready to install the carpet!

Mat

Music Museum

Mesa Temple Lights

Out of Africa (So much cooler then a zoo by far!)

Pilgrim the Giraffe

Brother in law Scott getting a nice sloppy kiss from Pilgrim!

Zebra

Giraffe on the bus!

Cute Armadillo!

Yes, our tour guide is petting a wild tiger!

Majestic!

Soul Sisters :)

My sister in law Megan

Picture is fuzzy, but that is a wild tiger jumping up into the air to get a toy.

Prairie Dog

Freestone Park

10 on Sunday

1) It seems that our life has been consumed with house renovations non-stop for the last year so I'm sorry if you are tired of hearing it, because frankly so am I. :P It didn't help that we had a hurricane and that we had to throw out the carpet and add a sump pump so that adds something else to our list of things to do, but I know that it will be worth it in the end and we will love our new room we built together. I think that's the best gift or reward out of this whole thing is learning to work together and grow closer together as a couple. We might not have that much of a social life, but this has definitely been a good learning experience. So for the last couple of weeks or so we have worked really hard to put up the last walls in our family room and finally be able to put up all of the drywall! We had to buy 20 pieces of drywall which is insane and I had no idea how we would get it all out of the store and then for that matter into the house with just the two of us, but we managed. We were blessed to have a lot of help at Home Depot to get everything on our cart and also onto the truck which I'm very thankful for.
2) The following week we rented a machine that would hold up drywall which we needed to do the ceiling and it wasn't to expensive which is nice and they give it to you for the whole day which was great. It was worth not breaking your back that's for sure. Unexpectedly the missionaries came over and offered if they could give us a hand with anything and we told them that we could use some help so that was another blessing we had. :)The missionaries helped us for a couple of hours and the worked moved along quite nicely.
3) In the middle of the day we went to a baptism of our friend's daughter who just turned 8 so it was really nice.
4) When we came back we continued our work on the room. I think it was around 9pm when we finished and we started around 10-11am. Suffice it to say we were exhausted, but we needed to return the machine so we headed out and when we reached the store gary found that a piece was missing so he went back to get it while I stood in line. The people in front of me took so long that Gary came back just in time to hand everything in.
5) There was only one piece of drywall that we didn't put up on the ceiling, but it's a small piece so it won't be terrible when we put it in ourselves. Gary still needs to work on the venting system so once he does that we can finish the room. Here are some pictures of our work. Enjoy!

One complete wall!

The magical contraction that held up the drywall :)

It's such hard work being a pup!

6) We were able to go out and have some fun this past weekend. We went to the Renaissance Festival with a couple of our friends which is always fun. Last year I was motivated to make myself a nice renaissance dress to go with a beautiful hair-piece I bought a couple of years ago so I started to make it in March and just barely finished it, but it was my goal to get it done so that I could wear it this year. It took me so long, because I was having trouble with it plus all of the renovations on the house so i'm just happy that I was able to finish it. I think it turned out well and am proud of myself for finishing this project. Check out the pictures below.

I really like this picture. :)

I borrowed a cape that my sister-in-law made.

Our friends Teyanna & Ben Munyan

More good friends Julia, David & Asher Halverson

Jousting tournament

7) I had a choir performance this month that went really well. I really need to improve on my directing skill, but I'm enjoying it so far. A new couple joined today so I'm really happy. :)
8) We have stake conference next week so Gary and I have been participating in the stake choir and will sing two hymns for the occasion.
9) The weather has turned cooler so the Fall colors are out and I have been enjoying them very much.
10) That's all for now!

10 for Thursday!

The last couple of months have been pretty crazy so it's been awhile since I was able to update my blog.

1) At the end of August Gary went on a one week business trip to Georgia. Of course that was also the time Hurricane Irene decided to show up! Thankfully he was able to get on the last flight in the morning before they started to cancel all of the other flights. I would of been so depressed if he had to stay there longer. It was so good to see him. I felt like it had been forever!
2) The day before I collected all of the items in the yard that could potentially fly away in our house which was a LOT. I never realized how much stuff we had out there.
3) Before Gary came home I hung plastic over the door and used duct tape to keep it in place. I wasn't sure if it would stick, but I figured that I should at least try to prevent water from entering the house if i could. I was pleasantly surprised that it worked! It fell off just as the water was receding the next day.
4) The Hurricane of course brought lots of water and wind, but it didn't get really bad until like 1-2am. I was asleep so I didn't witness it. I don't know why, but Gary got up at around 3am and decided to check on the basement. Thank goodness, because he noticed that our basement was flooding. :( I woke up when I heard the wet vac on and discovered the bad news.
5) It's unfortunate that this happen, because we were making great progress on our basement. Because of the flood our entire carpet was soaked and I really didn't want to get rid of it, but we came to the conclusion that we needed to so we cut it up and threw it out. We only had two more walls to built before this happened. We didn't put up a lot of drywall and the ones we had on the floor didn't get wet which we were thankful for.
6) We had some friends come over and help us move some of our furniture so we could start cleaning things up. We borrowed some fans as well so things could start to dry.
7)Unfortunately, it decided to rain all week like a week or two weeks later and with the ground still wet our basement had no chance. It flooded again and we already had lots of things off of the floor, but the only piece of carpet that was left in the computer room was absolutely soaked.
8) We decided that we needed to install a second sump pump so we purchased all of the materials and we have a friend that knows how to install it so he helped Gary do it. We also had some other people come throughout the day to help them out. It literally took them ALL day to install it. They were so tired by the end of the day. I'm so thankful that we installed it even though it was so expensive.
9) After this whole ordeal we took a break for a week and now we are continuing working on the basement.
10) I am very motivated to get this done and I hope that we will be able to get up all the drywall by the end of the month. Fingers crossed!
11) Our ward participated in a service day and there were two locations where they needed service. We decided to help clean up the Anacostia river at a park. We got to wear yellow "Mormon Hands" vests which were cool. I wanted to keep them, but they took them back. :( We got to go in canoe's and pick up the trash. It was actually lots of fun! Gary and I made a game out of it and decided to see how many tennis balls we could collect. I think we managed to get 7.

Dirty business!

Look at all that water!

Yay!

Our friend Jerry who helped all day!

The whole group!

Nice shot of the logo there.

Look at all the trash we collected!

There were more turtles on the log, but we scared them off. :(

Not the best picture...

All of the garbage that was collected.