School's Out for the Summer!

Well, my last post was in January and now it's Memorial Day weekend. This is literally the first free moment I have had in the past few months where I haven't had to be thinking about lesson planning or anything with the house! That doesn't mean the house is done, by any means, but it just means I feel a bit more relaxed now that school is out for the summer!

So, where do I even start? The winter months were cold and long. To be honest, I can probably count on two hands (so, less than 10) the number of truly NICE days we have had since last fall. If the temperature does happen to hit above 65, the wind has been so bad this spring that it doesn't even feel warm most days! Josh and Gabe have started to do the siding on the house and it's been so hard! One day, Gabe went to bend down and pick up a piece of siding and the wind just blew it into his face and cut his lip! He had blood and dirt all over! So yeah, it's been challenging. Luckily, I am to the point where my work is on the inside! We are starting to paint! Josh's sister, Shannon, and I spent a lot of time on Saturday putting the first coat of primer on all the drywall. 

But let me quickly recap the last few months! We went swimming at the Summerfield pool on a lot of weekends with the Milners. Even though neither of us live there anymore, we typically borrow a key to the clubhouse from the Moores. Our time would be balanced between doing things at the house, school, work for Josh, and then swimming in the evenings when we had a chance.

I also went to the Gravity Factory with Avery one Saturday when Josh and the boys were busy with something at the house. I have a couple pictures of that. In February, we went to the ice castle with Avery and the Milners. Gabe and Caleb were often either at school or with friends. Gabe went to his very first school dance, which was the prom, with a girl named Shaylynn. It was mostly a date with a big group of his friends, so I don't think he and Shaylynn are anything too serious. Also, for Gabe's 16th birthday, he and I went to Utah and went indoor skydiving! We also went shopping for a lot of house stuff. He LOVED helping me pick out tile! haha Caleb did spring wrestling, which was pretty casual, and Gabe helped out Josh at the house a lot. 

Once the house was all framed, one of the big things that Josh and Gabe helped with was electrical. We had Jeff Wayment, our former neighbor in Summerfield, come and help, but he mostly just told Josh and Gabe what to do and then came back and checked. We also had a guy who was a friend of a friend do the plumbing, and I honestly kind of regret that. He took SOOOO LONG and I felt like we were constantly running around to get him more supplies. I don't even know that we saved that much money! It was super frustrating. We paid a company to do the HVAC and that went pretty fast and smooth, however, they did lose our fireplace. It seems like there's honestly a hiccup at EVERY step. Like, if something even goes completely problem-free, I'm liked SHOCKED. That actually hasn't really happened. Our roofers were fast, but they still haven't come back to finish the steel sections over the bump-outs and it's been 3 months! Our windows were mostly okay, but they sent the wrong patio door and we still haven't gotten the correct one. Our interior doors just arrived and they have silver hinges instead of the black that I wanted. We realized we forgot to wire for a light outside the front door. I hired a tile guy and he's ready to lay tile tomorrow we realized our plumber didn't put in a hole for the bathtub drain. So yeah. Things are going well obviously!

I'll just say it's a good thing that school is out right now because the end of the year couldn't come fast enough. I will probably be out there almost every day doing stuff for the next few weeks. We are hoping to go to Wisconsin for a visit at the end of June, but there are a LOT of things we need to cross off our list first! Paint, trim, finish siding, etc. 

Here are a collection of pictures for the last five months!

(Caleb wrestling, Easter egg hunt at our new homes with Milners, celebrating Gabe's 16th birthday at Da Pineapple Grill, me and Gabe's trip to Utah for his birthday and indoor skydiving and shopping, Josh and my trip to McCall for a police convention, more house building stuff, Avery and I at the zoo and Gravity Factory, Gabe's prom with Shaylynn, and more!)