Mud and Tape

Well I am pleased to announce that we did get in our new windows. Yeah!! And a whole crew of guys came to mud and tape up the drywall. They did our whole house (the first coat) in one day. I am always amazed at what they can do. The house is really starting to take shape. They have two more coats and sanding to do, but they should be done by Monday. Then on to Paint!!!

Wheeler Farm

There is a little farm that the kids can go to for free. We went with some of the families from our ward on Monday. We saw cows, pigs, rabbits, horses, chickens, sheep, and turkeys. Of course Maren wanted to pet all of them. Which she did, except the chickens didn't like it too much and pecked at her. That ended her attempts to pet the animals.

Of course, no outing with Logan would be complete without the the complaining. First it was stinky, then there was poop on the ground, then the geese scared him, and then it was just boring. But it was good to get out non the less.

The pictures are of Maren chasing the ducks and geese. As you can tell from the looks on the geese faces, they are saying "Run Away, there is a crazy kid after us!"

Lagoon Again!

The boys got to go to Lagoon with their Grandma Lu and Grandpa Chris. They had a really fun time. Chris took these pictures and they were so cute I had to post them.



I'm not sure what Lu is doing in this picture, but it looks like she is giving Ashton Mickey Mouse ears.

To Be or Not to Be

We had a great time at our annual trip to Cedar City to see the Shakespearean Festival. This year we saw, "Cyrano de Bergerac," "Taming of the Shrew," "School for Wives," "Othello," "Two Gentlemen from Verona," and "Fiddler on the Roof." I would highly recommend Cyrano if anybody is going down there. Fiddler on the Roof was fun but just not as well acted. Ryan's favorite was Two Gentlemen from Verona which we had never seen before.


We also went to the annual 24th of July parade on main street. We'll we go to the parade, but the kids get bored easily with it, so we end up at the blow up bounce houses and slides that are in the park. It is always a lot of fun.


This was a much needed vacation and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Nervous Breakdown

I knew coming into this house project that there would be good days and bad, but this week I am working on my second nervous breakdown since we started building our house (the first one was in May in case you missed it).

Well last week we had the incident of the drywall delivery guys ruining my two windows. I found out that it will take two weeks to get the windows ordered and installed so that puts a halt on the drywall until the end of the month.

In addition, this week the stucco guys applied the main color that we had chosen to the boarders of the house and the boarder color to the main part of the house. So just reversed. I didn't notice that they were doing the wrong color until they were finished, because I didn't know how much the colors changed when they dried. Now for those people who have seen it, it actually looks good and some people are going to prefer it this way. But with the stone and roofing that we have already picked out, we are going to have them fix it. But they can't do that until we get the windows in. All of the pictures are of the house with the wrong colors.


The only consolation that I have is that we are going to Cedar City to the Shakespearean festival all next week so hopefully I can get it back together after a nice long rest.


Also we were just looking at the house one night and all of a sudden there were other people inside. It was the drywall mudder guy and his entire family just walking through the house. Nice huh. Anyway he thought he was starting right away on the mudding, but I had to inform him that because of the window issue, it would be 2 weeks. Of course I had to explain this several times because of our language barrier. He couldn't believe it, neither can I.

Too Much Homework!!

I just had to blog this cute picture of Ashton. I have been having my boys (not as consistently as I should) do homework books to keep up their writing and math this summer. Ashton one day was working on his homework and I left the room to help Maren, and this is how he looked when I came back. Apparently it was just too much for him.

Stucco and Drywall

Well we are moving right along on our house. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were days full of scaffolding, delivery of materials, stucco mud, and drywall hanging. By Satuday afternoon we had the waterproof wrap and brown coat (the undercoat) of stucco put on our house. They will be putting on the color and stone next week.



We also had all of the drywall (sheetrock) delivered and they have started to hang it on the ceilings. The only problem we have had is that the sheetrock delivery guys bent two of my windows. They used a crane to lift up the large sheets of sheetrock to the upper floors and then they grabbed it and put it in through the windows. Well I came out and talked to them and told them to be careful with my window. They assured me that they were "professionals" and that they never damaged any windows but they would pay for a replacement if they did. Well needless to say they will have to pay for the window replacement.

Insulated

It has been very busy at the Walker house this week. On Monday and Tuesday we had the insulation put in. They put the fiberglass stuff in certain parts of the house and then used the blow in stuff for the walls. It was very cool to see they do this.
Ryan was commenting to me house much cooler our house is with just the insulation in. I guess that's why we got it.

Fireworks!

We had a very fun 4th of July holiday. My brother Colby, his wife Emily and their baby girl Martie came up from Arizona. We played a lot of Pinochle (card game) and lets just say that the Arizona team lost more than they won.

We had our annual fireworks display in my parent's front yard. It is much more tame since they outlawed the really good fireworks. But this year I was happy for that. Our house is still just framed on the outside and I spent the night watching to make sure that any stray sparks didn't sent my house or dead grass ablaze. Let's just say I wasn't very happy when my neighbor was shooting bottle rockets. But all is well.

Family Pictures

Well we finally got family pictures taken. It takes me about 3 years to convince Ryan that we need new family pictures since one of our children is missing from the last picture. He hates getting a family photo. I don't know why? It is just so much fun with three wiggly children, most of whom are screaming, shoving, running, and looking the wrong direction. Not to mention how expensive the pictures are. But we did get some good pictures and so in the end it was all worth it. By the way, these are good until 2011.

Happy Birthday Ashton!!

We have been celebrating Ashton's birthday this week. Tuesday we has his friend birthday party. We went to the Discovery Gateway children's museum downtown. It was fun and sometimes challenging. Ryan and I had to keep track of 6 kids, which wasn't too bad when they were interested in the same thing, but when they were in different areas it got a little scary. The worst was when we were looking at the helicopter and Ryan and I turned around and we couldn't find Maren. Well somebody had opened the door and let her inside and she had found puzzles to do. But she wasn't worried because she knew exactly where she was.

Then tonight (Thursday) we went to a park with Ryan's family and my family and had dinner and ice cream. It was really nice, except it was rather warm (in the high 90's). We played on the playground, played Frisbee and talked. Oh, and did I forget to mention PRESENTS. Of course that was Ashton's favorite part. Thanks for everyone who came and made it a special day for Ashton.

We've been telling him for weeks that he is turning "5," but I don't think that he believes us. He just tells us that he is not "5" he is "Ashton." So we will just have to take him at that. Also when he blew out his candles at our little party at home he wished that "we could all be together." What a sweet wish, I hope that too.