So, last week Docapella (and Vocal Remedy) put on a concert to help people get into the Christmas spirit (more or less...). Here are links to some of the videos:
Jamaican Noel
Last Christmas (a cover of a cover of a Wham song)
White Christmas
The First Noel
O Come All Ye Faithful
Jingle Bells
We're not the best, but we're not THAT bad....
Here's a sample of Vocal Remedy as well:
S'Vivon (a Hanukkah song)
Enjoy!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Thanksgiving and Lights
So we had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Holland... Michigan. : ) We went to visit Weston's aunt and uncle and had a great time relaxing and not worrying about school too much. Mostly he practiced killing people in Call of Duty with his cousins while I played primary songs as background music : ) And tried my hand at the game and failed.... Weston did a GREAT job of not stressing too much for his quiz on Monday morning that wasn't worth hardly any percent of his grade.
This is proof that we were there : )
While we walked and shopped (they shopped) in downtown Holland I quized Weston on his anatomy (well, I read the answers off of the flashcards he's holding).
I finished grouting most of the dinning room right before we left so we were able to let it sit while we were gone and seal it when we got back : ) Here's what it looks like with grout! I'm so happy with how it turned out! The color matches PERFECTLY with the tiles and it really hides the imperfections in the spacing due to different tile sizes and it helps make it more continuous in the places where some of the tiles are higher than the others : )
So my parents had bought a bed for Snowy when she mostly had concrete to sleep on and gave it to us. We tried to put it downstairs but it never got used. We tried to put it at the foot of the bed/ in the hall/ in our room to see if she'd go on it rather than our bed. Didn't work. But then I put it in the side table by our bed and she likes it! For like a week she would go in there almost all the time INSTEAD of our bed! It was great! We would kick her off the bed at night and she'd go in there. So, we're glad we found a place she can call home. : ) She hasn't been in it much this last week (I think she missed us at Thanksgiving) but we're hoping she'll get back to it.
Before it got too cold we decided to go to the "Lights Before Christmas" at the Toledo zoo. They were fun! There were a lot of original shapes and some moving ones with awesome synchronized tree lights with good Christmas music. Here are some pictures. Our favorite lights for those here who have gotten to see them were:
The singing frogs near the carousel by the monkeys
Obviously the synchronized tree lights that Key bank did
The huge tree in the botanical gardens
The bear trying to catch a salmon in the botanical gardens
The swimming shark coming down the ramp near the bird house
The meteorite-like blue lights near the carnivore cafe- we'd really like some like that
The blue and green ones by the seals and polar bears (those are our favorite colors)
The lizards chasing the bugs on the reptile house and the kangaroo's nearby
The spider weaving a web
And the animal shapes were cool as well, but there's way too many of those
The fading crocodiles were a little scary if you suddenly were standing by one :)
We're so excited for Christmas!
Oh, and we have super wonderful friends here. We are so blessed to have been given people who really care about us. The Felts and Tollers are wonderful people. And we went to a party with people in our ward that was pretty fun on Friday. They had a really cool opening game to try to feel objects in little pouches and figure out what they were : ) We enjoyed spending time with people we don't really know. Hopefully we'll get to know them a little better over the years, it's just hard without kids.
And again, I'll end with CHRISTMAS IS HERE! I love the time before Christmas way more than the actual day. I love the feeling and the service that people give. Hopefully we'll get to do something being home for Christmas.
This is proof that we were there : )
While we walked and shopped (they shopped) in downtown Holland I quized Weston on his anatomy (well, I read the answers off of the flashcards he's holding).
I finished grouting most of the dinning room right before we left so we were able to let it sit while we were gone and seal it when we got back : ) Here's what it looks like with grout! I'm so happy with how it turned out! The color matches PERFECTLY with the tiles and it really hides the imperfections in the spacing due to different tile sizes and it helps make it more continuous in the places where some of the tiles are higher than the others : )
So my parents had bought a bed for Snowy when she mostly had concrete to sleep on and gave it to us. We tried to put it downstairs but it never got used. We tried to put it at the foot of the bed/ in the hall/ in our room to see if she'd go on it rather than our bed. Didn't work. But then I put it in the side table by our bed and she likes it! For like a week she would go in there almost all the time INSTEAD of our bed! It was great! We would kick her off the bed at night and she'd go in there. So, we're glad we found a place she can call home. : ) She hasn't been in it much this last week (I think she missed us at Thanksgiving) but we're hoping she'll get back to it.
Before it got too cold we decided to go to the "Lights Before Christmas" at the Toledo zoo. They were fun! There were a lot of original shapes and some moving ones with awesome synchronized tree lights with good Christmas music. Here are some pictures. Our favorite lights for those here who have gotten to see them were:
The singing frogs near the carousel by the monkeys
Obviously the synchronized tree lights that Key bank did
The huge tree in the botanical gardens
The bear trying to catch a salmon in the botanical gardens
The swimming shark coming down the ramp near the bird house
The meteorite-like blue lights near the carnivore cafe- we'd really like some like that
The blue and green ones by the seals and polar bears (those are our favorite colors)
The lizards chasing the bugs on the reptile house and the kangaroo's nearby
The spider weaving a web
And the animal shapes were cool as well, but there's way too many of those
The fading crocodiles were a little scary if you suddenly were standing by one :)
We're so excited for Christmas!
Oh, and we have super wonderful friends here. We are so blessed to have been given people who really care about us. The Felts and Tollers are wonderful people. And we went to a party with people in our ward that was pretty fun on Friday. They had a really cool opening game to try to feel objects in little pouches and figure out what they were : ) We enjoyed spending time with people we don't really know. Hopefully we'll get to know them a little better over the years, it's just hard without kids.
And again, I'll end with CHRISTMAS IS HERE! I love the time before Christmas way more than the actual day. I love the feeling and the service that people give. Hopefully we'll get to do something being home for Christmas.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Cats Like Graham Crackers
At least, Snowy does. I don't know about other cats. She was cramming her head into the bag before Maria could even put it down on the ground. Yet she won't eat raw chicken pieces that we give her. She loves lunch meat, but apparently not raw chicken. Weird cat. Here's the perpetrator, sitting in one of her new favorite spots, which is unfortunately right between our pillows. We recently bought her a new laser toy. I think it's the most exercise she's gotten in years!
She did a great job on the edge leading into the living room! It's so straight!
The artist and her accomplishment. And her cat.
And this is just a little something to make you see how much we really do care. Look at her slaving away on the blog. Such determination! Such... err... ambivilance? I'll stop there and let her make her comments.
Have a great Thanksgiving!!
Maria also found this great double onion. Look! It's twins!
So, while I've been away hacking a cadaver to pieces all week long, Maria's been busy, too! (In my defense, I'm required to hack, and I was able to find some really cool arteries and nerves the other day. I'm sparing you a picture of that project. Some of our viewers might not appreciate it [not that I would take a picture, anyway]) So here's the finished product (without the grout. That's tomorrow)! I think it looks fantastic!
My turn: So I did it! All the tile is laid down in the dining room! That was a lot of work. I think I did a fairly good job. I like that the tile goes into the coat closet and even though the vents aren't in the middle of their respective walls the pattern doesn't look too bad even going around the vents. Unfortunately, I remembered too late that the white tiles are the smallest of the various sizes so there are several places where there's just too much space and the tiles aren't even, sad. But for the most part I think I did ok with having each tile type a slightly different size and width. There's only 1 tile that's significantly raised above another. I must have stepped on it or something because one side is just too high, I hope we don't trip on it alot! Oh... and Weston has been so great and took me into the anatomy lab with him this week! It was so cool to see the muscles and stuff again! Anatomy was one of my favorite classes at BYU and I like seeing what we look like on the inside : ) I'm excited for him taking me in again in the future. I try to help him out while I'm there by making him go over all the stuff.
She did a great job on the edge leading into the living room! It's so straight!
I'm so glad it turned out straight because that's what I was basing most of my alignment with! I think I'm going to roll the carpet under instead of having a threshold and I think it'll look ok. : )
The artist and her accomplishment. And her cat.
And this is just a little something to make you see how much we really do care. Look at her slaving away on the blog. Such determination! Such... err... ambivilance? I'll stop there and let her make her comments.
Have a great Thanksgiving!!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
More Tiling and Docapella
This week has been pretty hectic for us. First of all my parents came to visit on their way up to see my aunt in Detroit. So that stopped any of my projects and gave me a good reason to clean up the house a little! They also brought us a kitty!! The cat that I had growing up is still around and my parents aren't that interested in her so we decided to take her (with their financial backing!) so that she would get more attention [She was previously just locked up in the basement, though Maria's dad would pet her on occasion when he went down to exercise in the mornings]. She has quickly adjusted and we have a happy little critter roaming our house now : ) She is hungry for attention and has taken to following us around and her favorite spot is at the bottom of our bed. She's very furry so it's imperative that I now make the bed everyday to protect our pillows from hair attacks! [As you can see below, she sometimes thinks that she IS a lion, and acts like it. She's also a noisy cat. She snores. I'll let you imagine what a cat snore sounds like. And she groans when she stretches.]
My parents were amazing to me and when I took them to the Habitat for Humanity Restore (because they'd never been in one) they got excited about my projects and bought more tile for me and some wood! They contributed to some good ideas and bought me a framing square as well and most useful to us immediately... my dad tightened the bolts on our table!! It is no longer extremely wobbly and I don't have to worry about it falling down anymore!
After they left it was back to the tiling project for me. Unfortunately I have ignored Weston way too much this week. So I need to learn to not be so one track minded. I will prolong the project for the sake of our marriage and only work on it a little at a time so I can do other non-time sensitive things when he is at home (mortaring tiles requires you to completely finish that section before it dries which takes me over 3 1/2 hours with no break). So hopefully our house won't be utterly utterly a mess like it is at the moment and we might actually have nourishing meals. Oh, so this picture (above) is the layout of where I'll put the tile. I had to dry lay the tiles to get them where I wanted them to have it be the most visually pleasing and then I traced around them. I have learned that having a design when you're tiling makes the whole thing A LOT HARDER and more TIME INTENSIVE! You have a LOT (LOT) more tiles to cut and you have to have them on hand ready to go in the right direction, etc. etc. while you're tiling.
This is one batch of thin-set mortar that I mixed. It takes a lot of work by hand (this plus all the bending over can count as my work out for the day) and it's really goopy and messy and dries your skin out a lot. Technically I shouldn't touch it, I'll now probably die from cancer like all the other cancers I'll get from breathing things in, but there just wasn't any way I could avoid it, and it was much cheaper this way. [But it's still better than tanning booths]
The first set laid down. There is definitely a learning curve with every project! The second time is always easier! (not much less time intensive though).
The break I took the first day to rest my back and let snowy (the cat) get a taste of the outdoors. Plus I wanted to be outside, it was a nice day. I raked one tarp full of leaves to put in the front yard. (supposedly the city will come around to get them some time)
The first and second batches (after it had dried so I could take the spacers out).
This is the process. That's me spreading the mortar (concrete) on Saturday and ignoring Weston all day. [Which is why I came down to say hi. And consequently take pictures. There's no room in the living room right now to study, so i have to study up in our bedroom]
Oh yeah, and THANK YOU all for your comments on the design. With my parents additional tiles though I had to redo my designs because I didn't want the same thing for both rooms and they had to match since they connect. I am using the square design in the kitchen though, with a little modification to make it more aesthetic for the rectangular room and in the dining room I'm using an interlocking square design which I'm way excited about. The designs are complicated though. It's taking forever to do it all. The Delaps are so great to let me borrow their wet saw! I decided I didn't want to use up their saw blade though so I went and bought my own. It took a long time for me to figure out how to change the blades though! I basically had to take apart the whole thing but I feel much better about using my own.
See the "waves" around the square. I was excited when I figured out that I could make it look like that because for the most part the pieces fit together right. (It took a couple hours of juggling them around though). It's quite amazing that the mixed matched tiles that I got at the restore have ended up allowing me to do such a cool design.
Where I got to on Saturday. Good progress if I say so myself : )
Oh, and my parents also brought some square clamps so I could finally put together my picture frame I made in the summer! It fits perfectly and turned out awesome I think!!
Then Saturday night I finally spent some time with Weston! I went to the basketball game with him to watch him perform the national anthem with his "docappella" group! They were really good! We can't get the video to load, but we'll try to post it on facebook or something. I also got to meet them a little. I'm way glad Weston has gotten involved with them. It's a fun group of guys. Good mixture of personalities too! It was fun to see them interact : ) I also got to hear them practice a little. They need some work [That's why it's called practicing. We're not ready to perform those songs yet!] but for a random group of guys getting together, they're pretty good. : ) I'm excited to hear their final versions of some of the songs. It was surprising to learn that some can't read music so I was quite impressed with their ability to harmonize and remember their parts. We stayed for half the game afterwards, which was fun but we were hungry because we didn't eat lunch since I was busy tiling. [Not to mention that we don't exactly feel ties to the Toledo Rockets. I mean.... would YOU?] And... that's all folks. Have a great week!
My parents were amazing to me and when I took them to the Habitat for Humanity Restore (because they'd never been in one) they got excited about my projects and bought more tile for me and some wood! They contributed to some good ideas and bought me a framing square as well and most useful to us immediately... my dad tightened the bolts on our table!! It is no longer extremely wobbly and I don't have to worry about it falling down anymore!
After they left it was back to the tiling project for me. Unfortunately I have ignored Weston way too much this week. So I need to learn to not be so one track minded. I will prolong the project for the sake of our marriage and only work on it a little at a time so I can do other non-time sensitive things when he is at home (mortaring tiles requires you to completely finish that section before it dries which takes me over 3 1/2 hours with no break). So hopefully our house won't be utterly utterly a mess like it is at the moment and we might actually have nourishing meals. Oh, so this picture (above) is the layout of where I'll put the tile. I had to dry lay the tiles to get them where I wanted them to have it be the most visually pleasing and then I traced around them. I have learned that having a design when you're tiling makes the whole thing A LOT HARDER and more TIME INTENSIVE! You have a LOT (LOT) more tiles to cut and you have to have them on hand ready to go in the right direction, etc. etc. while you're tiling.
This is one batch of thin-set mortar that I mixed. It takes a lot of work by hand (this plus all the bending over can count as my work out for the day) and it's really goopy and messy and dries your skin out a lot. Technically I shouldn't touch it, I'll now probably die from cancer like all the other cancers I'll get from breathing things in, but there just wasn't any way I could avoid it, and it was much cheaper this way. [But it's still better than tanning booths]
The first set laid down. There is definitely a learning curve with every project! The second time is always easier! (not much less time intensive though).
The break I took the first day to rest my back and let snowy (the cat) get a taste of the outdoors. Plus I wanted to be outside, it was a nice day. I raked one tarp full of leaves to put in the front yard. (supposedly the city will come around to get them some time)
The first and second batches (after it had dried so I could take the spacers out).
This is the process. That's me spreading the mortar (concrete) on Saturday and ignoring Weston all day. [Which is why I came down to say hi. And consequently take pictures. There's no room in the living room right now to study, so i have to study up in our bedroom]
Oh yeah, and THANK YOU all for your comments on the design. With my parents additional tiles though I had to redo my designs because I didn't want the same thing for both rooms and they had to match since they connect. I am using the square design in the kitchen though, with a little modification to make it more aesthetic for the rectangular room and in the dining room I'm using an interlocking square design which I'm way excited about. The designs are complicated though. It's taking forever to do it all. The Delaps are so great to let me borrow their wet saw! I decided I didn't want to use up their saw blade though so I went and bought my own. It took a long time for me to figure out how to change the blades though! I basically had to take apart the whole thing but I feel much better about using my own.
Snowy was good about staying off the tile too. (for the most part)
Oh, and my parents also brought some square clamps so I could finally put together my picture frame I made in the summer! It fits perfectly and turned out awesome I think!!
Then Saturday night I finally spent some time with Weston! I went to the basketball game with him to watch him perform the national anthem with his "docappella" group! They were really good! We can't get the video to load, but we'll try to post it on facebook or something. I also got to meet them a little. I'm way glad Weston has gotten involved with them. It's a fun group of guys. Good mixture of personalities too! It was fun to see them interact : ) I also got to hear them practice a little. They need some work [That's why it's called practicing. We're not ready to perform those songs yet!] but for a random group of guys getting together, they're pretty good. : ) I'm excited to hear their final versions of some of the songs. It was surprising to learn that some can't read music so I was quite impressed with their ability to harmonize and remember their parts. We stayed for half the game afterwards, which was fun but we were hungry because we didn't eat lunch since I was busy tiling. [Not to mention that we don't exactly feel ties to the Toledo Rockets. I mean.... would YOU?] And... that's all folks. Have a great week!
Here is the link to a video of us singing on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMte7ZqPiEA (Maria's finger gets in the way, but she insists that it's because she was holding two cameras. She was. But it's funny that she stresses the point, as if I'm trying to insinuate that she's incapable of holding a camera. I just thought people would want to know what the fuzzy peach colored thing is that covers the corner. :) )
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Birthday week and tile designs!
I had a wonderful splendiferous birthday! : ) It started off great with a surprise birthday present of yummy strawberry yogurt cheerios which I had discovered the day before while feeding a friend's toddler (hmm... when do children start being called toddlers?) I got to spend a couple days with her while she was recovering from surgery. Which was good, I'm not good at making girl friends so it feels good to have one : )
This is the little bit of decoration that we did for Halloween... hey, it's something!
After her husband got off of work early Weston and I got to come home and spend some time together, but first we discovered a package on our back doorstep. And what was in it? A digital camera from Weston's parents!!! It was one of the best birthday presents ever! It even is the perfect color (blue) and has cool features (like being weight sensitive so the picture changes directions on the screen when you hold it horizontal or vertical). The best part is, if the screen does get broken like our late camera then it still has a view finder! Thank you thank you! We celebrated by heading off to the zoo and taking some pictures (with a barely charged battery because I was impatient). The animals were even wishing me a happy birthday because the cheetahs were right by the fence just staring, it was almost like we got to interact with it. I got to show Weston the kids play place they built which is really cool. But then the best... I got to watch a tiger pounce on another tiger and then apologize (rubbing cheeks)!! The best!
Thank you also to all the family/friends that called and sent me letters! Thank you mom and dad also for all the gifts you've given me over the years. I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you all :) Oh, and I even had some friends that brought us over a birthday cake because they know cake is my favorite dessert. We have been so blessed with friends here and I don't know how to be thankful enough. Oh, and I forgot to mention the most thoughtful perfect gift that I got this birthday was from Weston. He got me a salad spinner! He remembered when we went to walmart and saw it that I said it would be awesome to have (like 2 months ago) and he got one for me! It was also perfect because it didn't cost much but it was exactly right for me! He also got me a scale which was even more perfect, I've wanted one for a long time, but we decided it was too cheap of a scale and not accurate enough and I can wait until we can afford a better one, so we took it back.
The other thing I've done this week is start my tiling-the-dining-room project. It's brought some stress with clutter around the house and the table in the living room so we had to room at all but I'm glad it's started. Below are two options that I'm considering for the design. What are your thoughts?!? I'm also trying to clean up the basement a little because my parents are coming tomorrow and bringing my cat to stay! So I don't want her to run into too many cobwebs or knock too many boards over down there. Well, this is a long enough post... hope you're not too bored : | Have a great week all!
Us ripping up the carpet in the dining room. Weston even helped for a couple hours on my birthday! It was so nice! And I liked being with him (he didn't want to study and wanted to be with me so that was nice). All the plywood is laying done underlayment/subfloor to put the tile on an even flat surface.
Which do you like best? The spiral or diamond in square.
Then for good measure. Weston being happy! Playing around with our new camera (that is also for his birthday).
This is the little bit of decoration that we did for Halloween... hey, it's something!
After her husband got off of work early Weston and I got to come home and spend some time together, but first we discovered a package on our back doorstep. And what was in it? A digital camera from Weston's parents!!! It was one of the best birthday presents ever! It even is the perfect color (blue) and has cool features (like being weight sensitive so the picture changes directions on the screen when you hold it horizontal or vertical). The best part is, if the screen does get broken like our late camera then it still has a view finder! Thank you thank you! We celebrated by heading off to the zoo and taking some pictures (with a barely charged battery because I was impatient). The animals were even wishing me a happy birthday because the cheetahs were right by the fence just staring, it was almost like we got to interact with it. I got to show Weston the kids play place they built which is really cool. But then the best... I got to watch a tiger pounce on another tiger and then apologize (rubbing cheeks)!! The best!
Thank you also to all the family/friends that called and sent me letters! Thank you mom and dad also for all the gifts you've given me over the years. I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you all :) Oh, and I even had some friends that brought us over a birthday cake because they know cake is my favorite dessert. We have been so blessed with friends here and I don't know how to be thankful enough. Oh, and I forgot to mention the most thoughtful perfect gift that I got this birthday was from Weston. He got me a salad spinner! He remembered when we went to walmart and saw it that I said it would be awesome to have (like 2 months ago) and he got one for me! It was also perfect because it didn't cost much but it was exactly right for me! He also got me a scale which was even more perfect, I've wanted one for a long time, but we decided it was too cheap of a scale and not accurate enough and I can wait until we can afford a better one, so we took it back.
The other thing I've done this week is start my tiling-the-dining-room project. It's brought some stress with clutter around the house and the table in the living room so we had to room at all but I'm glad it's started. Below are two options that I'm considering for the design. What are your thoughts?!? I'm also trying to clean up the basement a little because my parents are coming tomorrow and bringing my cat to stay! So I don't want her to run into too many cobwebs or knock too many boards over down there. Well, this is a long enough post... hope you're not too bored : | Have a great week all!
Us ripping up the carpet in the dining room. Weston even helped for a couple hours on my birthday! It was so nice! And I liked being with him (he didn't want to study and wanted to be with me so that was nice). All the plywood is laying done underlayment/subfloor to put the tile on an even flat surface.
Which do you like best? The spiral or diamond in square.
Then for good measure. Weston being happy! Playing around with our new camera (that is also for his birthday).
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Downstairs with our stuff
So... I guess it's time to change the blog layout... it's no longer summer... sigh. : )
So October has been such a long month! Of course it's flown by but it seems like so much has happened! This last weekend some friends of ours came to visit from Indiana and stayed with us for the weekend. We really enjoyed having them here! We went to see a play with them at the community theater in Maumee which turned out to be really really well done. I'd never seen the play before. It was Kiss Me Kate. I really really liked the first half, the second half was good too but there were a lot more bawdy jokes and innuendo's. Maybe I just don't watch t.v. or see other media very often anymore but I'm definitely more sensitive to it now then in high school! Weston says he's seen the play before and it's not always that direct and that it was emphasized by the choreography. We also went to the Toledo Art Museum (which is really really cool and free! Well... you pay $5 for parking but that's not bad if you're carpooling!) and watched a demonstration on glass blowing. It was soo cool! I want to play with melted glass at over 1000 degrees!! It was so awesome to watch it behave as a liquid! Then we took them to 2 ward activities on Sat. (sorry to them) one was a chili dinner and the other was our primary program practice for 2 hours in the morning. I am SOOOOOO glad the program is over! I HATED practices because the kids did not want to be there at all! Of course it went well but we just had way too many practices. My co-teacher did a really good job after the program with class though with the activities she planned that still went along with the lesson.
The other nice thing about having friends come over is that I got the house cleaned before hand! Therefore I was able to take some pictures! Here are some of our first floor.
The living room looking at the front door. I'm standing in the dining room and the den and stairs are off to the right. The piano is back there behind the couches. All the openings in the walls make for few options for where the couches can go. We just changed it. We used to have the piano on the left wall closest to the dining room with both couches in the far left corner but to make it work the long couch had to be on the far wall and the love seat sectioned off the 3rd seat on the long couch so there was no leg room. It made for more space in the living room but this way we get all 5 seats and they are closer together and we could put the coffee table NOT in the center. I don't like coffee tables taking up leg room.
The view from the front door. 
Looking into the dining room (obviously). You can see our tv set up in the corner. It's perfect for it! Except that there's no plug in the corner so we have an extension cord for when we want to watch movies!
This is from the kitchen/dining room doorway looking into the living room. So the kitchen is right behind me to my left. It had tons of dirty dishes everywhere to I'll get pictures late
r. And here is the view from the couch looking up the stairs. We managed to keep the "stained glass" (painted fiberglass) window: ) It fit right over the newly installed little window and can be used instead of blinds : ) This is my favorite new window. The new window is miniature so it's fun.
Stay tuned for more later!
So October has been such a long month! Of course it's flown by but it seems like so much has happened! This last weekend some friends of ours came to visit from Indiana and stayed with us for the weekend. We really enjoyed having them here! We went to see a play with them at the community theater in Maumee which turned out to be really really well done. I'd never seen the play before. It was Kiss Me Kate. I really really liked the first half, the second half was good too but there were a lot more bawdy jokes and innuendo's. Maybe I just don't watch t.v. or see other media very often anymore but I'm definitely more sensitive to it now then in high school! Weston says he's seen the play before and it's not always that direct and that it was emphasized by the choreography. We also went to the Toledo Art Museum (which is really really cool and free! Well... you pay $5 for parking but that's not bad if you're carpooling!) and watched a demonstration on glass blowing. It was soo cool! I want to play with melted glass at over 1000 degrees!! It was so awesome to watch it behave as a liquid! Then we took them to 2 ward activities on Sat. (sorry to them) one was a chili dinner and the other was our primary program practice for 2 hours in the morning. I am SOOOOOO glad the program is over! I HATED practices because the kids did not want to be there at all! Of course it went well but we just had way too many practices. My co-teacher did a really good job after the program with class though with the activities she planned that still went along with the lesson.
The other nice thing about having friends come over is that I got the house cleaned before hand! Therefore I was able to take some pictures! Here are some of our first floor.
The living room looking at the front door. I'm standing in the dining room and the den and stairs are off to the right. The piano is back there behind the couches. All the openings in the walls make for few options for where the couches can go. We just changed it. We used to have the piano on the left wall closest to the dining room with both couches in the far left corner but to make it work the long couch had to be on the far wall and the love seat sectioned off the 3rd seat on the long couch so there was no leg room. It made for more space in the living room but this way we get all 5 seats and they are closer together and we could put the coffee table NOT in the center. I don't like coffee tables taking up leg room.
The view from the front door. 
Looking into the dining room (obviously). You can see our tv set up in the corner. It's perfect for it! Except that there's no plug in the corner so we have an extension cord for when we want to watch movies!
This is from the kitchen/dining room doorway looking into the living room. So the kitchen is right behind me to my left. It had tons of dirty dishes everywhere to I'll get pictures late
r. And here is the view from the couch looking up the stairs. We managed to keep the "stained glass" (painted fiberglass) window: ) It fit right over the newly installed little window and can be used instead of blinds : ) This is my favorite new window. The new window is miniature so it's fun.Stay tuned for more later!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Bathtub caulking
So another little project I did was to recaulk between the bathtub liner and the tub. It's a temporary solution because we'd like to replace the whole liner so I didn't try to make it look all that nice but it's sooo much better than it was before. Whoever lived in a house a couple people ago (the last person was a bachelor who I'm sure didn't do anything, he was supposedly gone all the time working at a hospital somewhere) seems to have done several things for the house but I don't think they knew anything of what they were doing. Most of the upstairs has been painted but... they didn't finish any of it! There's spots they just plain missed, and they didn't get the paint to the edge and in one room they left the masking tape on the wall where they painted. It's going to take some work to get that off! They also updated some of the outlet covers, but some are just missing covers completely! The bathtub is another one of the things I'm just so confused about. When you do caulk you squeeze out a bunch of caulk where you need it then you push it into the hole and smooth it out at the same time. This seals the hole because it touches both sides everywhere and looks better. The caulk in our bathtub looked like they had tried caulking it several times but never did the smoothing/pushing step! There were just rows and rows of caulk and it was over an inch thick!!! Needless to say it wasn't sealed so water was getting behind it and one day some just fell out. We can't see behind the liner but I'm really hoping there's not any water damage. Which is another reason why I want to replace the liner... to look behind it!!
I tried to take pictures but the ones I took didn't turn out... it's hard to aim without looking! I'll do better about making sure I look to see what the pictures look like next time.
I tried to take pictures but the ones I took didn't turn out... it's hard to aim without looking! I'll do better about making sure I look to see what the pictures look like next time.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Windows
Thanks for all your comments! I've decided I will try to create a mural on the ceiling. First we have a lot of other things to do though, I was just excited to look into what I might do.
So here are some updates on the windows. I only have a couple pictures (I really really need to start taking more! I just never remember to or I'm discourage by the fact that I can't see what I'm taking a picture of on our camera... So I just need to try harder to remember).
So below are some updates : )
First of all, I didn't figure out how to move the pictures around until after I posted them all, so they are vertical. Thus taking up a very long post. Anyway...
Here is what it looked like before. Not too bad in the dark evidently! There wasn't a screen and the bottom pane wouldn't stay up so we used the removable adjustable screen for both purposes.
So here are some updates on the windows. I only have a couple pictures (I really really need to start taking more! I just never remember to or I'm discourage by the fact that I can't see what I'm taking a picture of on our camera... So I just need to try harder to remember).
So below are some updates : )
First of all, I didn't figure out how to move the pictures around until after I posted them all, so they are vertical. Thus taking up a very long post. Anyway...Here is what it looked like before. Not too bad in the dark evidently! There wasn't a screen and the bottom pane wouldn't stay up so we used the removable adjustable screen for both purposes.
Here it is in the light. You can't see how bad it is but you can kind of tell it's crooked at the top and the locking mechanism was missing on the bottom pane (the part that goes into the other piece)
Here's the left top. Notice the large gap above the window where the top pane has sagged. It was stuck in this position and permanently open to the outside world... including spiders. ugh!
The right side wasn't as bad. Look between the window and the top, it narrowed from over 1/2 in on the left to less than 1/4 in on the right. The strip in the middle of the white is not it.
Here's the bottom pane. It was rotted half way through in the corner.
Here's a close up of inside of the window. The left lower half.
A little further down.
The right side. (Can't remove this hyperlink).
This is the sill (the bottom). You can see it's completely rotted. It had an vinyl covering on it but I think water could get under it. Plus the water would roll off right where the porch roof meets it and go under the porch shingles!! So I took the whole sill out (and found out that the shingles currently there are just placed over the old wood shingles [same with the vinyl siding, the wood siding is still under it] which would explain why the shingles don't look quite straight in several spots). Anyway, I cut a new sill (that was somewhat difficult and required some creativity with just a mitre saw and a little hand saw and the thickness of the wall). I replaced it, primed and painted it and sealed up the gap that took the water under the porch shingles so hopefully now the water will roll off the roof and not pool and rot all the existing wood.
Here are some shots of the new installed window! Bottom right, before the sill and outside wood was painted.
Also before painting but after sealing the gaps between the vinyl window and the wood 'outside stop' with an expanding yellow foam. (very sticky stuff). Left bottom corner.
Inside. I put the foam in the opening that held the lead weight too.
Inside top corner. This was supposed to show how there's no gap but, the lighting didn't quite work out!
And finally... The completed window from the inside!!! Wahoo! All sealed and everything! No drafts! NO spiders!! The only thing missing is the inside trim. We figured the old just had to go. But that's just a visual thing so we're in no hurry to do it, it's low on the priority list.
Hope you enjoyed : )
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)