Phew! We're all ready for the installation of the carpet in the morning, and I'll be home in the afternoon to start hauling everything back down where it belongs.

We're not absolutely sure what we'll have the the end of the "hallway" below. It may end up being an outdoor scene. But we won't decide until we have the ceiling painted.



I love what Paul did with the lichen:


It looks cooler in person!

A Castle in the Making

We got a lot done in the room downstairs. The first picture is what it looked like when the new sheetrock was in.


This is what the room looks like with a primer and light gray coat of paint.


The castle stones are in place.


We only had time to get the beginnings of the shading on the stone. I'm not thrilled with the way it looks up close. But I have an idea on how to proceed. We'll have to see how it goes tomorrow.


By the way--my feet hurt!

Flood Update

Well, after hours and hours of ripping out wet sheetrock and putting new rock in the larger of the flooded rooms, we're going to be doing some painting today. The house is nearly as old as I am, and the wood is old and dry. I'm finding it very hard to drill the sheetrock screws into it!

Flood!

Well, we had a little too much adventure yesterday. An outside pipe broke (it didn't freeze so we have no idea what happened), and it flooded half of our basement. We had to haul the furniture, books, albums, cassette tapes, toys, etc. out. Thank heavens that our sons David, Robert, Paul, and Adam plus Adam's friend Colby were able to help.

The carpet and padding is a loss, and we're going to have to replace some of the sheetrock and paneling. And everywhere else in the house is a mess, because that's where we had to put the stuff we removed from the basement!

Now all we have to do is get it fixed by Saturday, when I'm having my Harry Potter Party!

Upcoming Weddings

Wow, we haven't have a wedding in the family for several years now. Looks like 2009 is going to be a busy year!

Paul and Kelsey are planning a Casablanca themed wedding for May. Kelsey would like it to be outdoors, so hopefully the Utah weather will cooperate.

Robert and Michelle are now engaged, and they are looking at an April wedding.

How can these two little boys (Paul on the left and Robert on the right above) be old enough to be married? Time sure does fly! Robert (left below) with Ed and Paul (right below) from our family portraits done in 2006.

Robert, whose hair is now shorter than in the picture above, says his hair looks nappy. Paul's hair is much longer than in the above picture.

Mural

For years now we have been working on a room in our basement. It was originally used as the video game room for the kids. We had an old TV down there and some funky recliners from D.I. Since I have some very talented children, I suggested it would be fun to do murals of their favorite video games. They were excited about it, and we got the initial sketching done, but the painting has taken years. First Paul did some with our family friend, Chanel. I even did some painting. Then later, Paul and his fiancee Kelsey finished up the backgrounds. Slowly, Chanel (and even me a little) has been doing the finish work on them.

Most people know that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and I wanted to have a section of the wall for HP, since there have been games released with every movie. I did the initial sketching, and then Chanel tightened it up and put her unique Anime touch to it. She finished the painting on Harry Potter yesterday, and it's fabulous!



Here is a close up:



And here is another wall:



Well done, Chanel!!! I need to take updated pictures of some of the other walls. Perhaps I will post them here as well. It's been fun to be part of the project even though my part was very small.

**Edited to add** I'm a moderator at an HP website, and I must say it makes me laugh that I got spammed because I mentioned Harry Potter!

Gardner Village

I LOVE it when I get to go to Gardner Village with my daughter and her children! The folks at Gardner Village always do such a great job with the atmosphere, and the shops have so much fun stuff to look at. And Sienna and Aidan (and now hopefully Madelyn) love going there as well. It was colder today than it usually is when we go, because of an incoming storm--but it was actually nicer than we heard it might be and hot chocolate always helps!

President Monson's talk made me think of this. It's from a talk by Lucille Johnson (author unknown) that I've always found to be very profound.

Why Don't You Kids Grow Up?

One of these days you'll shout, "Why don't you kids grow up and act your age?" and they will.

Or, "You guys get outside and find something to do," and they will.

"Don't slam that door!" and they won't.

You'll straighten the boys' room neat and tidy, discard the gum and the candy wrappers, pick up the dirty socks and stack the toys on the shelves, make the beds, sweep the floors, and yell, "Now, I want this room to stay like this." and it will.

You'll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn't been been picked to death and bring out a cake with no finger marks on the icing, and then you'll sit down to a beautiful table with everything in its place and say, "Now this is a meal fit for company!" and you will eat it alone.

You'll say, "I want some quiet around here--shut off that TV, turn down that radio, quit banging around, quit fighting; I want some privacy!" and you'll have it.

No more plastic table cloths stained with spaghetti and no more dirty bedspreads; no more plastic sheets to protect the mattresses from wet bottoms. No more toys on the floor to fall over and no more school books on the table. No more dirty rings in the bathtub; no stopped up sinks; and no washer over-run. No more shirts burned with ironing marks or bubble gum in the blankets.

No more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent. No more colic, diarrhea, whooping cough, runny nose, wet clothes or colds. No more sand in the bed or food on the rugs or marks on the wall, dirt on the furniture, paint on the windows; no more smashed fingers.

Imagine, no more ironed patches, wet knotted shoe strings, lipstick with a point on it, no more odd socks that don't match. No babysitter on New Year's Eve. Imagine, seeing a steak that isn't ground. No PTA meeting; no Back to School Nights; no more cavities; no more car pools.

Think about it, no more broken toys on Christmas Day. No more gifts for you made of toothpicks or library glue. No more sloppy, oatmeal kisses. No more giggles in the dark. No more scraped knees. No responsibility.

Only a reflective voice crying out, "Why don't you kids grow up?" and the silence echoing, "We have."

*sob*

After I heard this the first time, I tried very hard to keep it in mind when I would get frustrated with all the little vexations of raising a family. I tried to enjoy the moments as I was experiencing them. I don't know what the kids think of their childhood, but I certainly enjoyed raising them.

It's been the highlight of my life to be a mom.

Of course, that being said, since I worked really hard to enjoy it while my kids were growing up, I'm now really enjoying the time afterward. It's fun to see them making their own lives, raising their own children, and spending time together as an ever growing family (growing in a different way now).

Me too!

Having followed the blogs of my daughter and daughter-in-law, I thought perhaps it would be fun to do this, too.

I've been listening to conference today and feel inspired. I guess this is a kind of journaling--now if we could just find a way to preserve it!

It's raining outside today, and it's a really pleasant change, considering that I started out the week at a conference in Tucson--way too hot for late September!

One of the conference activities was to go to the Pima Air & Space Museum where we saw a lot of planes--including an old Air Force One used by Presidents Kennedy & Johnson. It was really something that they had to block off the restroom at the back of the plane, because they found that people were going in there and sitting on the toilet so they could say they'd sat on the same pot that a president had!