Making progress

Back in the depths of time, our house stood empty for a number of years and there was a lot of water damage done at the time.  Hey, we live in a temperate rain forest and lack of maintenance takes a toll quickly.  The hardwood floors that are under our carpet are in bad shape and in part of the dining room, no longer exist.  Fortunately, we’d already figured that out and planned to replace them with bamboo flooring.  Greg pulled back the carpet to see what he could see on Saturday.  While we were getting ready for a party.

Isn’t he lucky that I’m a good sport?

Anyway, it’s ugly but not surprising.  We’ll pull the rest of the carpet out soon.  We worked out a schedule — with rough dates and stuff.  First thing is to pack up the kitchen.  I can’t believe we’re there already.  Guess I’m getting some paper products at the grocery store tomorrow.  Then we’ll take out the countertops.  Then we paint the interiors of the cabinets.  Then we sand the doors and exteriors.  And, then we paint.  and paint.  and paint.

All in our copious free time.

Hopefully we’ll be done before the kids go away to college.

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Holding wood with style

Chaos = 8 year old boy birthday party

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve taught 2nd grade. I know that 8 year olds are chaotic. Here’s the thing, I thought we’d dodge a bullet or two. Gage only invited 4 friends over. His plan was to watch at Star Wars movie, eat pizza, then cake and ice cream, and presents and boom! we’re done.

But, one boy couldn’t come and then we remembered our neighbor who has to come because he lives at our house on the weekends — so much so that we forgot to include him! Sheesh! — and then there was an RSVP phone call in which a brother got invited too somehow. Anyway, we ended up with 6 boys and 1 girl (who hid in her room most of the evening with her dad standing guard — the boys were NOT respecting her wishes! 🙂 ). First there were sword fights with much running and jumping and yelling. We finally got them chilled and watching the movie. A couple of them have issues with being still so it was a bit chaotic even during the movie. Pizza helped. One boy could not sit still even to eat — Wow. That was intense. When the movie was nearly over, we did cake and ice cream — totally fun. After though, none of the boys (except Gage) wanted to watch anymore. The sugar was coursing and they wanted to PLAY! Gage was a little bummed so I went and “teacher voiced” them. They are such good boys — they all came and sat and watched the end of the movie and were good sports about it. Presents were an intense group activity. And, then there was about 10 minutes of playing before parents started arriving. Great timing. My headache was just ramping up from simmer to boil.

Most important though. Gage had a great time. He loved having his friends there. Loved watching the movie with them. And, since we have the world’s biggest TV, it’s almost like being in a movie theatre.

Happy birthday, Gagey. I wouldn’t do it for any boy but you!