..house..

Mike finished up the front trim...the flex molding took FOREVER to get here...

more lights went up and the lovely toilet with no backside hole...

Shower tiling done!! Except...Mike tested out the water holding capabilities of the the shower pan...FAILED!! UGH!! What to do, what to do...

house..house..house..

Got some bathroom fixtures put in :) Two toilets too...so Able will be leaving us soon...Even with the toilets in the house, the girls still prefer Able...very frustrating :S I have also been working on the kitchen backsplash...finished the downstairs kitchen already...

Mike has been working on the master shower...we have been worried about the shower pan leaking, as we used the same guy that Ted/Stacy did, and they are now in the process of tearing out their shower pan...our plumber suggested filling it with water and testing it out...

Another day working on the kitchen backsplash...the girls hung out with us at the house too...I think it was a Friday...even Great Grandpa joined in on the fun and cut tile....

Worked on this one evening. Got the columns up...neat to see how Mike can put things together to create a great trim out...which will look much better once it is painted :)

BAAM!!!

A fun video of Kaylee playing soccer...right at the beginning (I think) she has the ball...Mike thought Kaylee's moves were pretty good...she did the same "move" another time and totally got whistled :P I am glad she is having fun...it is fun to watch the girls play...I will post more pics later...

..house..house..

framers came in and finished up our stairs :) Now for the decking...another project waiting for Mike...

rock in the front of the house FINISHED!!

More updates for my sisters :)

Ok, here are rock pics...I am really hoping the grout fades more...I would have rather had the "dry stack" look, but Michael preferred to see the grout...not sure who chose the grout color, maybe the rock people...

Our framers are beginning some new homes next week...leaving him these next few days to build the stairs and reframe the header on the garage for us...when he came out on Friday to let Mike know what we needed to get lumberwise...he mentioned, "It would be really nice to have the cement slab poured here." (Ummm....for the past 2 months we have asked over and over if we needed to pour that slab yet...in fact, we wanted it poured when they did the front porch and heat pump slab...but the framer wouldn't give us a straight answer...the concrete guy didn't know what the grade of the dirt would be back there...blah blah blah...we paid a "small load charge"...which would have paid for the cement we needed in that slab!!) Well...being as he'd rather the slab be there, Mike and his dad and bro threw it all together this past weekend. It is so nice to have such a handy husband and family that will pitch in no matter the time or day!!

More pics of my wood floor :) Sorry...we wanted to try and "protect" the flooring as much as possible. Thankfully Mike's family pulled through again...his mom was there this time as well...they built the hearth Saturday evening...I am still not happy about my mantle...today Jay (the cabinet guy) said he would just order me a new one...3 inches wider...since he is gathering I am not satisfied with the outcome thus far. Finally he's getting the message :)

Oh...and last week...um...friday??? Allison came over to help me grout. We got the tub area mostly taken care of. It looks nice :) Better with how much it costs too!!

After a long day...

Kassi & Kiera were taking turns reading to their dad one night...and no...I didn't happen to catch him with his eyes closed...

Red Robin :)

Tonight when I pulled into RR, I wondered for an instant..."who are ALL of those kids playing in front for ALL the WORLD to SEE!!"

Wood floor going in!!

So, the stucco is mostly finished!! I like my gable vent and how he trimmed it out....the rock guy has all of his scaffolding up and has prepped the walls and has a whole truck load of rock ready to go!

Tonight Mike and crew (thanks everyone!!) are installing the wood flooring!! It looks super!! Hopefully it will be finished this weekend!!

Allison and I work on grouting the tub area today...luckily there was two of us working together. Made it go much faster...now I am really in the grouting mood and maybe will finish the other bathrooms soon!!

Labor Day in Portland - Final Day

Our final day in Portland included a bit of site seeing and some more shopping!

On our way out we saw the temple and had to stop by to show all the kids this magnificent edifice! I just love how it appears huge and white amid all those deep, green trees! Beautiful!


We stopped at the outlets in Troutdale and stayed longer than we wanted, and
then headed on to Multnomah Falls!

We have a magnet on our fridge from a previous visit, so our boys were excited to see this big
waterfall in person and take the little hike up to get a closer view.


Dorothy's ankle wasn't going to make the hike, so she stayed below and
snapped pictures of us on the bridge!

Then it was time to head home. Aaron and I decided to take the Washington side of the river home to see if it was any faster. Mike and Dorothy ended up staying on the Oregon side and it turns out the WA side is a little faster....like maybe 5 minutes? Depends on whether you get stuck behind some big truck, which we did not, thankfully! Anyway, there are a few cool sites along the way, like this windmill farm....

..and this replica of Stonehendge!
Weird that its in the middle of nowhere in Washington State, but whatever!


All in all it was a fantastic trip and a great way to wrap up the summer.
We're glad we got to do it all with our fun cousins and hope we can do it again next year with ALL the cousins...wouldn't that be awesome?! Let's plan it!

(Thanks Allison :)

Labor Day in Portland - Part IV

After a little lunch, we drove to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum....

we LOVE a good air museum!

This one is proud to display the "Spruce Goose"...a mammoth flying boat that was designed to fly troops and supplies across the Atlantic in the mid 1940's. Because materials were scarce due to the war, Howard Hughes and his team built it out of wood...thus the name "Spruce Goose" (although it actually wasn't made of spruce, but some other wood). The story of this plane is incredible....check it out here.

Anyway, that was the crown jewel of the museum, but there were plenty of really cool early aviation models and exhibits that demonstrated how planes fly.

Sitting in actual airplane seats is fun no matter WHERE the seats are!

The space museum next door had super cool space stuff and something Aaron had been itching to see....

the SR-71 Blackbird!

Although I could easily tell that it was very stealthy looking, I had to look up why it was cool. :) Apparently it was "developed as a long-range strategic reconnaissance (spy) aircraft capable of flying at speeds over Mach 3.2 and at 85,000 feet." That means it was really fast and could spy on people and then zoom away without being caught or shot down! :) It really was awesome to see!

They also had really cool space stuff, too, including this simulator where you could try to land the space shuttle! Pretty hard to keep it steady!

After a super cool morning of discovery, we were ready to do some shopping! Well, the girls were ready!

We hit our favorite outlet joint, Woodburn Outlets, and raced around to grab all the deals we could before they closed!

A very full day, but not too full that we couldn't squeeze in one more swim! :)

Labor Day in Portland - Part III

The next day we stayed in Portland and headed to the OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) for a day of discovery and fun!

One of the first exhibits we saw was this one about human conception and birth! SOME people wanted to veer away from that exhibit, but I dove right in and encouraged the kids to look at it all and explained as best I could how it all worked! :) Why not take advantage of the opportunity, right?

It really was fascinating!

We moved on and found reptiles...

and studied skeletons...

and even got to help dig for dinosaur bones!

On to the Einstein area where there tons of brain games...

and somewhere in there we found this awesome contraption with balls and air sucking it up the tubes....

fun for all!

On the way out we found some pretty cute (and some pretty weird) looking astronauts!

This is one of the reasons we love being with our cousins....watching the sweet relationships between them develop and grow. This is Kassidy and Tanner walking out the car after a morning full of learning fun!

Priceless!