2013 Christmas Time in Missouri

Baby Logan  is coming up on 4 months old and April says he is growing like a weed!  He looks so much like Brennan did that it is almost complete deja' vu for me.  Mostly since about all I had of Brennan at this age were also photos :)  He is sure a cutie.  April sends us photos and videos pretty often.   I sure wish we were ALL closer.  I saw Elizabeth a few times when she was tiny like this but not very often since.

Brennan and Elizabeth all dressed for winter!

Elizabeth and Rick 

Brennan's basketball team.  He really did great - as always!

April's tree with all the different ornaments from over the years.  It is definitely 1 of a kind :)  Maybe someday we will have the pleasure of spending Christmas with this set of wonderful grandchildren ~

"Grandchildren complete the Circle of Love"

The finished product and move in!

We finally made the move out of the storage unit on the 5th of December.  Hard won progress!  On Monday the 3rd we had movers all lined up and about an hour into the truck loading we got word that we DID NOT have a Certificate of Occupancy or a Final on our permits - so nothing could be moved into the house... So we ended up paying the company to move all the stuff back into the storage unit - and then found out that they were booked on the 5th...  Geez... if it hasn't been for bad luck - we've had no luck at all.  On top of it all - the wife to the contractor is a snotty little ***.  If excuses were dollar bills she could paper the county... and most of it false to boot.  I guess she figured that I wasn't smart enough to find out when the permits were pulled or inspections requested.... NOTHING was done in the promised time frames.

But I digress (me and my soapbox!!!)

We did get our final, called a couple on Craigslist.com and met them - and got all moved, set up, and done before 2 pm on the 5th (the last day so I didn't have to pay for another month of storage!).  Thank you guys for the awesome and happy job!!!!  It was soooo cold!!!  and it started snowing just as they finished!!!

As soon as school was out I had LOTS of awesome help in unpacking!  It was an early release day so the kids were home early.  Bray, Jay, Tetee, Mak, and Caveman all pitched in and worked really hard getting all sorts of stuff unpacked and put away.  Ty came over after work and helped out too.  They worked really hard and it was so great for them to pitch in!  Bray put away all sorts of kitchen paraphernalia while Ty moved furniture and did bathrooms.  Tetee and Caveman helped to move and break down boxes and pick up all the materials that got scattered in the processes!  It was such a great help!

At the end of Day 1 - we had this much stuff washed, stripped, unpacked, organized and put away!  It never would've come together like this without the (can I say it again?) AWESOME assistance of my Grandchildren!!!!  And all without begging, pleading, or coercion!!! LOL  I think we even had dinner ready over at S'te's - so we were in them!!! :)

I will have some more organizing to do - but this has been a great day!!!!
Mak helped me get the TV's up on the wall and the cables hooked up right.... so in 2 days - we accomplished bunches...

AND IT WAS ON TO THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY PROGRAMS!! :)

S'te opens her shop

The showroom for All Ribboned Out as it looked when they first opened.

S'te... well what can I say.  S'te is S'te.  She has more energy and craftiness in her little finger than I have in my whole body!  In addition to coordinating all the 'stuff' for our house, trying to get us moved up there, and being the Mom to 8 children, she has opened her boutique.  For several years now she has done crafty stuff from home... starting with her Daddy Pillows and bows... In fact, Will calls her the bow lady :)  She graduated to an Etsy shop and sold her crafts, made to order, online at All Ribboned Out.  Then she bought her embroidery machine and set up the family room... Then they moved and she had a designated workshop - which it took less than a year for her to grow out of.  By chance there was a wonderful place, in a little strip mall, close to home, with plenty of room for a showroom and her machines and inventory, for close to a decent price.  Her work is so awesome and such great quality that she is now working 5 days per week to try to keep up with orders!
- So now she is a businesswoman... :)


 Some samples of the personalized, custom orders that have been crafted by S'te and Jeanne at All Ribboned Out.

They even have 2 Facebook pages... All Ribboned Out  and All Ribboned Out Bremerton - for those who are in the Bremerton area and can come in and patronize the store!  She has some awesome adorable things for boys and girls!!!

and these are my favorites!!  She made one for baby Logan!!!!

Which is our newest addition.  He was born in August and I will probably have a whole page of photos to share as soon as I get some emails forwarded from April.

"Happiness is when what you think, 

what you say, 

and what you do are in harmony."

 —Mahatma Gandhi

November 2013 - The MOVE

In getting ready to move - we had some wonderful weather!  Dad and Al came and took the Salem deck apart to put back together out at Evies' house in Gaylord... (not quite to Powers).  This happened just before they took off for BHC so it didn't get put together (lol) YET - but it will be 'as soon as they get back'... hahaa!!!   The fruit trees gave abundantly this year and I have given away soooo much!!  I am thankful that Keith talked me out of putting in a garden... I would have been totally overwhelmed with all that ripening produce on top of everything else :)

We weren't able to sell the property (rather bittersweet).  In reality - we couldn't have sold it for what we have invested - and we knew that from the start.  SO WE RENTED IT OUT!!  Via Oregon Bay Properties and Herb we were able to rent it immediately!  So immediately that we ended up in a bind when we found out that our David Dr. house was STILL NOT READY for us to move in to.  We had movers booked, renters in place, and no place to put ourselves!  Thankful that we had the Salem still in the driveway at Rod and S'te's since that is where we will be.  S'te got around and quickly found us a storage unit big enough for our stuff - This whole project would never have gotten done without S'te doing a LOT of hard work and coordinating things!

I finally got around to doing some of the packing and almost immediately pulled a muscle in my back... outta commission for over a week.  So between my not.healing.very.well arm and a bad low back... we ended up calling the movers back and contracting for them to do a 'pack and move' - which turned out TOTALLY AWESOME!!! I wish I hadn't lost his contact info because this was the easiest way to move that I've ever had.  He showed up with his crew - right on time - and they all went to work!  They knew what needed to be done - right down to sweeping up after all so much was loaded.  We had the truck, the van, the pickup, AND his pick-up all loaded to the gills...

While we were gone... I spied a couple photos on S'te's facebook page that I really, really liked.  I THINK this is Homecoming Dance for Destini.  She sure looks beautiful.  I hope she had as much fun as possible :)

And next of course, is Ladaria's birthday... She has blossomed into a fantastic young lady.  She has grown into some of her potential - and is working hard on getting back to school and realizing some more of it.  She is one awesome girl!!!

ok... back to the move... With renters expecting to move into a CLEAN house on November 10 - we finally got our behinds out on NOVEMBER 8th... We had to buy another fridge for the house - but - we did get gone!  We had nice weather for the drive up to Bremerton - but towards dusk - it started raining... We should have arrived by about 3 pm but the trailer rented from Uhaul got a flat... and that became a 3 hour delay... but the movers did finally arrive and we did our 3 part unload... Even Ellie made it in 1 piece :)

Now ensconced back in the 36' Salem Travel Trailer in S'te's driveway - we waited, and waited, and waited, for workers to show up.  Our house should have been complete Oct 15 ~ Oct 30 at the latest!  S'te and I went to Lowes and got everything that we thought they could possibly need that I would want to pick out - we had the cabinetry ordered before we even went back down to CB - and they were DELIVERED on Nov 1 - Patrick assured us all would be ready to just 'slap them in' as soon as they got there - Appliances were delivered Nov 3 - and ended up in Rod and S'te's garage because THERE WAS NO MORE ROOM IN OUR GARAGE BECAUSE NO ONE WAS SHOWING UP TO WORK ON THE HOUSE!

When I talked to Patrick on 11/10 he said "be cooking your turkey in your own oven"... bwahahahaha!!  As you can tell by the dates on the photos... we aren't making a lot of "move-in" progress :(  Then to add injury to insult - Peggy from Lowes mis-measured both the kitchen and the bathroom, leaving us with no configuration that seemed workable.  I had to call Peggy and have her come look to see what she had figured... Here below, some of the cabinets had FINALLY been unpacked to measure for flooring.  S'te and Jeanne got all that painting done (whew) and I tried to help... I was told to go wash brushes... LOL ... I love my daughter but sometimes she just gets downright bossy! heheheee  Every time I picked up a paintbrush, she ended up with detail to trim back up... :(
  I love the hickory cabinets and the wood floor in the great room complements it wonderfully!  It is just getting so far behind!  This shows when the trim was finally getting painted (the 1st batch).  Due to it being so late in the fall - wet and cold meant that all the painting had to be done inside :(  Good news was that the drywallers finally got finished and out of there on the 15th - of NOVEMBER (remember here - occupancy was supposed to be 15th of OCTOBER)... feel my frustration mounting?  The NEW heat pump that meant a total rewire of the whole house and a whole new panel - kept blowing a breaker - due to the unusual configuration that Quality Heating chose, the air handler just wouldn't stay on.  That set the drywallers back because the mud and tape wouldn't dry :(  Keith finally called Quality instead of leaving a message for Patrick, and they came out and made some temporary adjustments. Patrick is now not answering calls and wife Katy is snippy and snide when answering questions - if she chooses to answer them at all.  Messages go unanswered as to emails.  Work continues on an intermittent basis... days still go by with no one at all there.  Colder weather is coming and the Salem just isn't the warm and coziest place to try to stay :(

It was a real unusual sight to see 3 trucks with workers there... all at the same time... YIPPEEE!!!!

Thanksgiving week rolled around and Patrick was still saying we could move in before 12/1... What a crock!  These photos were taken the day after Thanksgiving - not a worker in sight and SOOO much work still to do!  The counter-tops ended up costing us about $1,000 more than budgeted because of the lack of planning and scheduling... The empty spaces on both sides are where missing cabinets will go - when they finally arrive.  This is the point we were at when our VA Inspector showed up to inspect for our transition-from-construction loan.  It was not a good inspection.

BUT... on a better note!  We had Thanksgiving Dinner at the Crossroads Neighborhood Church with the family.  Ladaria didn't join us as she was busy cooking her own 1st Thanksgiving meal for her new family.  But we did get a photo taken at the CNC!  So here is the 'family photo' for Thanksgiving 2013!  S'te hard at work in her new shop, Rod still slaving away for the US Navy!  Good things are still happening all the time :)  I don't let the frustrations with the house rule our lives... I still see the blessings in each and every day!!!

 Rod made CHEIF... !!!!!  and here is the family photo taken at the ceremony!  We are all soooo proud of him!!!  Yay!!!

And so ended our November... Still in the Salem but getting to spend each day with the kids and helping out as best as I can! :)

"Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it." 

—Jaques Prevert

ANOTHER remodel!!!

It actually took months and months and months... but we got it...  If it wasn't one thing going wrong - it was yet another.  I so love to use the little bit of talent I seem to have for putting a house together!! LOL   We finally closed on the house on August 15th... We had our contractor in place... 6-8 weeks.... well that turned into a circle jerk... I heard all the excuses for not getting done during the timeframe quoted... but the fact remains, if you don't show up at the house - nothing is going to get done!!!  We started off with a bang... the 1st weekend - we had a rolloff delivered and we started in!!!

 We opened it:

 We tore into it!

 We hauled it out!

 The kitchen almost completely empty! Jeannie and I are hauling the "countertop" outside

 And so many pitched in to help!

 Bray swings a really mean hammer!

 Even Cavelle got into it!  He loved tearing things apart! LOL

 Jeannie shows them how it's done!

 The hole is getting bigger!!

Even Taniyah admires her handiwork...

By the time the weekend was over - both of those smelly walls were gone, vanished, the oh so nsaty ceilings were scraped and massive amounts of just plain YUK were in the rolloff...Then we waited, and waited.

Over Labor Day weekend - or at least on both sides of it - Quality  installed our new heat pump system.  It took them less than a week to install all the ductwork and the system... :)  We had a configuration issue that DID hold us up some a while later - but Quality did come back and make it right - then, we waited, and we waited, and we waited... 

 And did I forget to mention... while we waited for our absentee contractor, we were busy.  On that 1zt Saturday - I up and decided to spend some quality time with the youngest 3.  I have never gotten to spend much time with them, we had moved away from San Diego before Tetee was born.  We visited often, but...

 Went from a death grip to a... well maybe... :)

A bit of break time...

And then it happened.... yes, oh, yes.... I fell... and I broke it!  Imagine my embarrassment when I had to call Rod and S'te and tell them that I needed for them to come help me... because I fell and I was pretty sure I'd broke my arm... I for sure saw stars!!!! There was absolutely no doubt about that!!!

So needless to say that all the hard work that I had planned to do . . .  didn't get done!  It (the bone) just would NOT stay put.  After 5 weeks of a most fantastic orthopedic surgeon trying to avoid surgery. . .  Dr. Brown finally gave up and 'pinned' the break.  She really tried to avoid it!  So I then had little blue balls sticking out of my arm for another 5 weeks before she  relented again and took 2 of them out - with the proviso that I keep my arm wrapped and was very, very careful with it.  And a week later she took the other 2 out - gave me a brace and made me promise to wear it until my followup.  Since we had to go back to Coos Bay and get the move packed up and house cleaned for the renters. . . she relented... and to Coos Bay we headed.  We had confirmed with Easton Construction (our contractor for this project) that we would be returning on November 8 (I remember it because it is April's birthday) and he said the house would be move in ready...  So we headed out...  and the story will continue :)

Always remember: 

 To forgive is divine; 

but also remember to never

 forget the lesson learned :)