Goodbye Summer

For teachers, like us, the unofficial end of summer is signaled by the first day of school. So, I am using this post to say goodbye to summer. Summer has always been my favorite season and this year has been no different. I love the hot weather and I love to be outside, especially when swimming is involved. A perfect summer involves as many sunny swimming days as possible!

I will say that this summer was a little bit different. We did a lot of projects but we still had time for fun. Here is a little run down of our summer:

1. Ryan went on a couple of day trips. First to Cleveland to watch the Indians play with his good friend Greg. Then another quick trip with his sister, Shannon, and her son, Cade to see their grandfather in northern IN.

2. My parents pool had some major issues at the beginning of the summer. I will just say that it involved a drain replacement, new paint on the sides with a new liner and my dad taking the filter apart no less than 10 times. Ryan and I volunteered to help paint the inside. It was a terrible job! We wanted to be in the pool with cool water, but instead we were painting the inside of a very hot empty pool. The first coat of paint was very stinky but the next two coats were much better. Once everything was fixed we could fill the pool. This step is my favorite and for a few short hours we have a slide from the shallow end to the deep end. I really enjoyed this as a kid and Elyse got experience the slide too. (I will post pictures of this soon)

3. We have had lots of visitors. Raphael (exchange student from 2001-2002) came for a visit with his parents. They are from Germany. We did many fun things while they were here including the Newport Aquarium and the Duck Boat Tours in Cincinnati. This tour is when we first learned that Elyse can not stay awake on boats. Seriously, she passed out!

3b. We also had a visit from Christoph (exchange student from 2006-2007, also from Germany). He stayed for three weeks and we got to do many fun things with him too. We went to the Beach Waterpark, and a few Red's Games.

4. Elyse and I went to the Zoo with all three of her cousins, both aunts and some other friends. It was such a fun day!

5. We had family/18 month pictures taken by Linzi Becki Photography. (Awesome!)

6. Ryan and I took a 5 day trip to Cancun, Mexico. It was a wonderful trip and we enjoyed some down time together.

7. I have really debated about how to write about our house project that we tackled. Lets just say that it was never-ending, and I am amazed that my husband still loves me.

It all started because our carpet in the living room needed to be replaced. (white carpet + Elyse= NOT GOOD) We talked about it and decided that we would just try to refinish the wood floors under the carpet. This led to lets just do the entry way and dining room too. THEN, I said we should do the kitchen too to make the whole downstairs uniform. Needless to say the project got huge fast! We are so thankful for our WONDERFUL friends, Lonnie and Mandy Nolt. They gave up THREE days of their vacation to help us!!!

We had to remove everything in the downstairs and take it upstairs or to the front porch. The kitchen cabinets had to come out. The radiators had to come out (we had to use refrigerator dollies to move them outside). Then the linoleum and the sub floor had to come up in the kitchen. The stove and refrigerator had to be put in the back hallway, but not before the doors of the fridge were removed to get it through the doorway. The sink, dishwasher....EVERYTHING had to be taken out!

Then the real work started, we sanded the floors for over 10 hours (using three sanders). After cleaning the dust we stained the floor. Lastly, we wanted to protect the floors with polyurethane. Because of the heat and humidity, this step took 10 days to finish. We lived with my parents for three full weeks! Just last week the kitchen was finally put back together. We lived with out a kitchen sink for 6 weeks. I cooked quick things in the microwave or most of the time I just made dinner at my parents house.

I will post pictures of this whole project. I want to wait until the kitchen is completely finished before I show you all of it!

8. Lastly, we went on a wonderful vacation to Drummond Island, MI with Andrew, Heather, Corinne, and Cooper. We had a great time boating (yes, Elyse was passed out again), enjoying the water and playing games.

Over all it was a wonderful summer and VERY productive! To God Be the Glory!