kitchen work...

So the bugs came out of the kitchen wall again.  So Shane decided it was time to take the wall out and hopefully rid us of the bugs once and for all.  There was a huge carpenter ant nest in the wall...

Shane and Scott tore down drywall and sprayed like heck as they went.  They decided to take the window out first thing so they had fresh air as they worked.

They removed drywall back to the cupboards to make dry walling as easy as possible.

See we have already taken down some drywall in the main bathroom too.  There is my gross tub that will soon have a new finish.

This is the side with my huge walk in pantry.  Looks so messy right now due to shoving everything in to have it all out of the way of the work.  Shane has talked about expanding my pantry so we can put our freezer in it also. 

I don't think I took any before pictures.  I had been left with some pretty ugly paneling stuff.  had small brown building all over.  But that was nothing compared to some of the 5 layers of wall paper that were under it!  The most obnoxious was a bright flowered print that I am guess was the late 60's early 70's.  Around the 1950's though I did like the paper that had kitchen do dads all over it...egg beaters and measuring cups and mixing bowls.  The color was distorted but it wasn't as bright and flashy as the other papers, muted blue-green and pastel pink I am guessing were the original colors with maybe a white or off white background.


When I first bought my house on Joseph, my brother Danny bought me a garden window because I had always talked about wanting one.  I loved that window and was so sad when I sold my house and couldn't take it with me.  I had talked about wanting to put one in the kitchen but these days they are a special order item and so expensive!  Shane and I had talked about making the kitchen window smaller so that in the future we could put counter top all the way around the kitchen and to save time and money right now since everything has been going over budget.  But Shane knew how much I wanted a garden window and so he got me a HUGE one.  He actually will need to cut the window opening bigger and re-frame it to get the window to fit.  I will have enough space to put all my herbs in it and to even have room for my spring starts each year! 

I want to leave you with a beautiful photo I found while trying to find a before pic of my kitchen.  I love going to the beach and here are my boys enjoying the last moments of daylight.

Best fireworks EVER...

Hoquiam's big thing each year is the Logger Play day which is the first Saturday of September.  This year was the 50th annual and I wanted to go.  Last year it fell on Shane's birthday but luckily this year it was the day before.  Shane had gone as a kid and said it was boring but I worked hard and got both the boys to agree to go with me.  I even got one of Sky's friends who had also been told it was boring and didn't want to go to change his mind and join us...I had bought a ticket for Shane but he was working on the house so this way I was able to use all 4 tickets.

While in college in Spokane I competed in Logger Sports.  Although I double bucked crooked cookies I was great at the ax though...never attempted to climb the pole let alone top the tree because, well that is a really tall pole even when you don't have a big saw tied to you!

I had a blast!  They even had a couple world champion log rollers there and it was really amazing how long they stayed on.  The royal court did not fair so well.  I believe the Queen won but both were in the water within 2 seconds of the log being let go.

The night ended with the most amazing firework display I have EVER seen!  For one because we were so close, I am use to watching from my front deck on my Carnahan house.  But they also seemed to go for ever and were so colorful and amazing.  My phone battery died and I was not able to get any photos of the display and I am so bummed. 

The boys had mentioned a couple times during the show that they were getting bored.  At that point I got them hot dogs, then ice cream and lastly light up swords but after the fireworks Sky asked if we can go next year too.  All 3 boys couldn't stop talking about how cool the fireworks were...There were a lot of "Dude remember the one that..."  and "Oh Dude".

I was just as bad though I gave Shane a complete run down of the show.  He said it sounds better then what he remembers and even said maybe next year he will join us.

1st day of school...

Yesterday was a hard day for me.  Sky moved up to middle school and I was not ready.  He wanted me to go in with him and that helped.  There were other parents there, Shane said kids would make fun of him but he wanted me there and I just helped him find his locker, get his schedule, point out which classes were on which floor and left him long before the bell rang.

I started to break down once but I turned around and saw another mom who works at Central Elementary and her smile made me feel better.  Her youngest of 8 is in the same grade as Sky.

yes this is what he wore the first day.  I don't see fashion in his future career choice.

Mr. Cobb made a comment about how tall Sky has gotten and I said yes, he is half grown, just then Mrs. Cobb piped up that for some he is full grown and I realized for the first time he was taller than she was!

Now onto my GQ son...

This tie was longer than his others so I attempted a double Winsor knot.  Doesn't look too bad in photo but the knot is quite large so I am going to have to figure something out.  I had hoped this would work and I could start getting men's ties, more options available and then he could use them for ever.  For now he has already outgrown a couple of his shorter favorite ties but boys sizes are still a better fit.

It was decided that this year ties will be worn on non PE days because they get in the way and we have had a hard time finding tie tacks!  PE days will sport either his large selection of khakis or jeans and a Polo shirt.  Noticed this morning I have to go get new jeans because although his last year jeans fit fine around they barely come down to the tops of his sneakers...don't want to look like a flood is coming!  Bray moved up to Central school this year and he is excited for the year...fingers crossed that he is able to control his temper the whole year.

Not totally done but getting there...

Ok. so much has been done on the living room!  Looks so great.  As you can see there are still tools around and we have not found end tables yet that we both like and will fit our need but take a look...

Here is standing at the door looking into the room.  Look at how wonderful the floor is with it's new finish!  And I LOVE my new foot stool in front of the mom friendly chair.  With no sofa I have a great place to have all my house plants.

This is still by the door looking across the room to Shane's office.  The hutch looks great in the corner with the dark paneling gone!  And Shane let me have a ceiling fan!  We had to haggle on the style but we finally agreed on this one.  To the right of the fire place Shane is going to build a large wood storage area and the rug in the middle of the room is going to be moved to our bedroom.

We put our favorite paining behind our new chairs.  We still need to get a frame for this one but it looks so much like the river behind our house that we put it up anyway.

My goal is to minimize the living room.  We had so much stuff in it before and once Shane hung the TV on the wall I loved all the extra space and hope to keep it open and roomy feeling.  When the walls were first painted they looked pinky but once all the furniture was added they look better in my opinion and I LOVE the way everything has turned out!

We still have the down stairs bathroom to fix up.  currently the dry wall is half down to studs.  Then we are going to do a little work on the kitchen but I am going to have to wait a while for a big remodel of that room.  For now new paint and a new floor will make me happy.