This, That and Another Thing

The last ten days have been busy, very busy.  My grandmother was here for a visit.  We took the time to see the sites of Alaska.  She celebrated her 70th birthday by watching the Iditarod.  We also took a trip to Seward.  We made it there through the snow storm. There was heavy blowing snow in the mountain passes. You couldn’t tell the difference between the sky, road and snow bank. With 10-15 foot high snow walls on both sides of the road through Turnagain Pass things were a little nerve wracking. We just barely missed the avalanches along the Seward highway.  We spent time at the Sea Life Center and had a relaxing time.  The road  reopened in time for us to leave however we did have a small delay while waiting for the crews to finish the avalanche cleanup.   We made it home in plenty of time to get her to the airport yesterday morning.

Iditarod fever is still running strong.  I am following the race and as of this morning the top contenders have reached the Yukon River just a little past the halfway point.  There has been some excitement along the trail this year already. Going to the ceremonial start in Anchorage was fun but being out on Willow Lake at the official re-start was the best. I am so totally hooked on the Iditarod! Last year at the Iditarod hubby left the camera battery (which had been charging) in the car. No problem, there was always next year – right? This year he left the camera at home. No problem, we had just bought my Gma a camera for her birthday and decided we would use her’s! Except the batteries died as soon as we got there. Hey, I guess there is always next year!?! I may just have to swipe some photos from friends who where there.

I am still dealing with having this cast on my hand and am sooooo ready to get it off!  Ten more days until I go back to the orthopedic doctor for another evaluation.

The bathroom remodel has been resumed and we are still waiting to get my son’s room repaired from the water damage.  This is a priority in the coming days.

Sadly, we are down to about 2 1/2 weeks until my hubby leaves.  It has been great these last couple of weeks with the distractions but now we are beginning to really prepare for his departure and the long separation.  I think the younger children are beginning to pick up on it too.  The younger ones, especially the baby, have been extra clingy when it comes to their daddy.  We  may have a very unpleasant struggle adjusting to daddy being gone but will continue to pray that the Lord will allow a smoother transition.

I am hoping to be back to more regular blogging soon but it may still be sporadic for the next few weeks.

So, if you stuck with my ramblings thus far, let me ask you, what has been happening in your life the last couple of weeks?

A Murphy Visit; Rain in the Bedroom

If you remember from the last post we are beginning the basement bathroom remodel.  We had those three leaks in the basement that are finally repaired.  All of the supplies for the remodeling job are purchased and the evening before we were to start we hear our son yell, “Dad, it is raining in my bedroom!”  Murphy decided to come back for a visit, I think.  This particular bedroom is already missing a good portion of two walls already from the previous leaks.

Let me say up front, “God has been abundantly providing for us financially lately!”  You will see that if you read the Melting Expenses post below.  We also just received our tax return and paid off a few things as well as buy the supplies for the bathroom remodel.  We know the Lord is good and not only good but abundant in his provision!  God is not surprised by what is happening now.  That being noted…….. here is the run down of the last couple of days.

Almost every towel in the house was used to try and dry the remaining water that was flowing and to sop up the once again drenched carpet.  Thankfully, we have an ugly drop down ceiling in the basement.  Hubby was able to move the ceiling tile and reach up to see if he could determine where the water was coming from.  He found a large ice-cycle in the floor/ceiling between the upstairs and downstairs. (son’s room is in the basement)  He them placed a call to our home insurer.

We soon had a couple of men shoveling the top of our house and breaking up the ice dam believed to have caused the damage.  The water damage mitigatory then came out to access the situation.  The report is this……..

Ice damming caused the water to back up between the wood siding of the house and the outer wall.  This ran along the outside until it reached the basement level and found the dryer vent where the moisture then moved inside the house.  The ice melted in the heat of the house and began pouring down the wall and dripping from the ceiling.  We have the entire outer wall in my son’s room which needs to be gutted, dried out, and replaced.  That makes wall number 3 in his room!  Not only that but it looks like our roof (only 1 1/2 years old) will need to be completely replaced.  It appears that the previous owner used a questionable company to replace the roof.  This company is no longer in business, therefore no warranty.  They used the cheap kind of ice water shield and it looks as if that was not even installed correctly.   We will know more next week when our reputable roofer comes out to take a look.

So we have all of this to take care of now, finish the bathroom remodel, and Oh Yeah, my hubby leaves in 5 weeks!!!!

Murphy, thank you for stopping by, thank you for giving us another opportunity to trust in my Lord, now please go bother someone else! LOL

Life Goes On

This morning I came to the realization that I had not been to my blog in several days.  In fact, I have barely even been on my computer.  Here is the shocker….. Life does go on without the internet, believe it or not.  That is where I have been, just living life.  My hubby came home late last Friday evening.  It is good to have him home.  We have about seven weeks left until he is gone for more training and on to his deployment. We spent a little time working on getting supplies for a project we are going to use to get the family through this deployment and have a  bit of daddy at home. It is something the Lord brought to my mind in the middle of the night.  I will share more later on that.

The weekend was spent shopping for supplies for the basement bathroom.  If you remember, a while back we had three leaks in our basement that caused some damage.  There are a few walls still torn out.  One of those walls is a bathroom wall.  We had talked about putting a shower in that half bath but decided it was a project we were not going to tackle.  Well, with the wall already torn out and the plumbing exposed we decided we might as well take advantage of it.  So, the basement bathroom remodel is now underway.  Hubby is hoping to have everything finished before he deploys.

I have also begun a new exercise plan.  Typically, I just speed walk at the ice arena when the children are at figure skating but I have added to that.  I bought myself a Jillian Michael’s DVD.  You know who that is right?  She is the mean trainer on the Biggest Loser.  I must say that she is much nicer and encouraging on her DVD but the workout, well, I am SORE!!  I am attempting to do the DVD 5 times a week and am still speed walking twice a week.  Throw in shoveling a foot of snow yesterday……I am aching.  I just keep wondering when loosing inches translates into a loss of poundage!

Hubby and I did go out on a date this weekend too.  We went to the Bear’s Tooth.  It is a movie theater with tables and they bring your dinner to you.  They have great food….they are associated with the Moose’s Tooth restaurant in Anchorage. Yum!  So I enjoyed a yummy halibut burrito and topped it off by sharing some ice cream with the hubs.  We watched the movie Invictus.  It was a great movie!  It is about Nelson Mandela and how he used the South African rugby team to help unite his country.  I recommend it!

Other than that, well, school is still ongoing.  The children are waiting on me to get our school day underway….Life is calling….Here I come!

Week in Review

It has been a bit crazy here on the home front.  Like so many there is always a lot going on this time of year and we are no exception.  I was even lazy this year.  I didn’t do all of the baking I usually do, I didn’t send out our annual newsletter or even very many Christmas cards.  I didn’t even cook Christmas dinner.  We had the tiniest Christmas ever as far as gifts go.  Hubby and I didn’t even get each other a thing.  It was a nice quiet Christmas with our children and we enjoyed it.

One of our daughters turned 8 years on the 26th and we had a nice party for her.  We had a few families over and the children had fun with the pinata in the living room.  I hope I do not find candy months from now under the treadmill or something.  I think she had a good day!

I will be lazy once again.  Rather than separate photos (one for Christmas and one for a birthday) how about one of the birthday girl lighting the Christ candle.

On top of all of this joyous celebration we have also had some trials!  If you follow me on twitter or facebook then you may already be aware of this.  One very recent Saturday we found the carpeting in my son’s room soaking wet.  The wall he shares with the laundry room was so wet is crumbled when touched.  Well, that leak is fixed, carpeting still drying out after a little more than a week and a wall to be replaced.  We then woke the following Sunday morning to a bulging and leaking ceiling out side of his bedroom door.  Another leak with a very poor patch job from the previous owner.  Hubby missed worship that morning replacing copper piping, leak number two fixed.  Then in the evening on Christmas day we found another leak.  This time it was in the bathroom which shares another wall with my son’s room.  This wall will also need to be replaced.   We found the piping not even connected!  This too has been repaired.  We are however still having issues with our water.  This week we will see about having our hot water heater, which we think is the culprit for all of this, either repaired or replaced.  Then we have walls to rebuild.

To top it all off we are passing around a cold……….

Oh well……

Count it all joy…….

Even amidst the struggle of leaky pipes and leaky noses we are still incredibly blessed!  I thank the Lord for his many blessings, his provision, his protection, and his never-ending faithfulness to his children!

So how was your Christmas worship and celebration?  Anything else “fun” happen during the past week??

A Bathroom I Love

A few weeks ago I posted photos of our BEFORE shots of the main bathroom.  If you need a refresher or for comparison sake want another look, here are the BEFORE photos.   We are mostly finished.  In fact, the rest (easy part) will probably take us longer to get to just for the lack of motivation and time.  We have to put coverings over the cabinets and paint the ceiling.  So please ignore the open cabinets with all of the construction supplies in them!   Here are the AFTER shots and a good look at our new bathroom!  I did the paint job(you can’t really tell but it is a green color) but hubby did the rest.  He did an amazing job!  I am so proud of him!!

our newly remodeled bathroom

new lighting, mirrors, paint, sinks, and tile countertop

new white bathtub

white bathtub--tile all around & to the ceiling

new tile floor

new sinks with tile mosaic

Bathroom Grandma Would Love

The last year has been full of remodeling projects on our home.  We have all new flooring and paint (except for the bathrooms).  We remodeled the kitchen, dining area,  and the office.   We also fixed the walkway out back and put in stone steps.  We have since moved on to the main bathroom!  It is a bathroom that grandma would have loved back in the day with baby blue sinks, tub, and toilet.  Really out of date today though!!  It came complete with big brown framed mirrors with plastic frosted medicine cabinets and dangling, spiked, glass ball lighting!  The bathroom has been under construction for the last two weeks and we are getting closer to having a finished product to show you.  We have replaced all of the “blue” with new “white”, replaced the lights and mirrors, and have painted.  The cabinet doors will be changed and there is a MAJOR amount of tiling going on too.  I thought I should share our before pictures  a few days in advance so you can have time to soak in what we have been using for the last year.  The changes hubby is making in this bathroom is enormous!

So without further ado….here are the BEFORE photos!