Trip Over East

After only a few days at home, we ventured to the eastern part of the state. Bria had a doctors appointment on Thursday to check the progress of the scar from the bump we had removed on her face. After her appointment, we left D with our friend to do some landscaping projects for a couple of days, and Bria and I headed to D's parents where we had left Bentley.

While D was helping our friend with their project, the girls and I hung out at grandpa and grandma's and also took a short trip to Wtown to see our friends. It was nice to be able to let the girls run around in a house that wasn't under construction.

Bria playing with a portion of the Thomas the Train set.

Bria and Bentley swinging in the hammock.

Bria, Bentley, and Grandma making the train go back and forth between them.

The pheasant in my grill that I hit on my way to Wtown. It was still alive. It survived the whole day until we got back to D's parents, where D's dad took it out, and it flew off. I did know it was in there, and that it was alive, but there wasn't any one of our friends available to help me remove it. The pheasant went in a different way than it could come out, but he kept sticking his head through the hole in the grill that we had from a previous incident. It was quite funny, but I felt bad for the little guy.

Saturday night, D came back to his parents. After church on Sunday we headed back home.

4th of July Weekend

On July 1st, J's family came to our house and stayed in their camper. The next morning we spent hang out around our place, and around lunch time the girls and grandpa, grandma, aunt D, and uncle N headed to the hills to start the camping weekend. D and followed after D was off from work. We didn't do much that first day except set up camp and let Bria go swimming before a thunderstorm came through.

The 3rd we spent lounging around at the camp ground in the morning and the afternoon at a lake up in the hills. There is a nice little walking/hiking path around the lake that we had fun exploring. The day was actually a bit chili, but Bria wanted to put her feet in the water so we spent some time wading after our walk.

The water coming over the dam behind the lake.

We squeezed the stroller through the narrow crevice to get around to the back of the lake.

Waiting on Bria, who was in the water.

Hanging out at the campsite.

After getting back to the campsite we had some supper, put the girls to bed, and the younger adults sat in the hot tub to keep warm.

The morning of the 4th we went to a church in town that D and I attended when we lived out there. It was lots of fun to see people that we hadn't seen in about 5 years. For the afternoon, some people played tennis, went swimming, napped, or played miniature golf. The evening fireworks were in town. We found a nice little spot to view them from then headed back to camp to get to bed.

D and I headed home early on the 5th to get back to our projects. My parents brought the girls back as they were traveling through on their way home that afternoon. It was nice to get away for a relaxing weekend, especially since we needed a break from all of our house projects.

How Long Has It Been?

I believe it has been a whole month since I posted anything on our blog. What have we been up to?

After moving into our new house there were endless projects. Hanging pictures, rearranging furniture, trying to treat the carpet for the dog pee in the living room, planting trees at our local dam, deciding that we couldn't live with the pet smell, shopping for new carpet, and list goes on and on...and on. All of that took us a week or so. A few days after we finally felt settled we had to start all of the projects we wanted to get done in the living room before the new carpet was laid. This started with fixing some bowing in the sheet-rock. Before D sanded the sheet-rock, however, we had to take everything out of the living room (including the computer). All of our furniture was in the garage, the decorations were in our master bedroom, and the computer was in one of the spare rooms (we were not able to actually hook it up to have internet access). That brings us to the weekend of July 4th and our camping trip with J's parents, which I will blog about in the next post.

When we came back early in the morning on July 5th, D started mudding the sheet-rock again, and I headed out to the dam to plant more trees (187 in all), fortunately, it was with a tractor. That afternoon we tore out all of the carpet so we would have time to treat the subfloor to get rid of the pet smell. J's parents brought the girls back and we continued to work by painting the ceiling with the first coat of paint that night. The next morning there was more work on the sheet-rock, ceiling painting, wall painting, and floor treatment. It was a long, tiresome day. D's parents had come to help and played with the girls and pitched in with all of the other projects. They actually went really fast. The next day was about the same. Then we took a break and headed to the eastern side of the state for several different things we had going on over that way, which I will also blog about in another post.

We came back home on Sunday, July 11th. The first half of week included detail and touch up painting, removing the water heater and getting a new one, having the new carpet installed, and moving all of the furniture and decorations back into the living room.

Before and after pictures.

Before the new carpet and paint.

After. We still have to hang curtains and finish painting our computer desk. Then our living room will be complete.