Aiden Grilling

We (Aiden and I) have been home now for a week and boy oh boy how happy Aiden is to have his dad around again (I'm pretty happy too!) One of Aiden's budding fascinations and excitement is cooking! Playing with dishes or actually getting to help, he loves it and to get to do it with his dad, wow all the better! Throw in grilling in the high 30s and you've got an exciting adventure.

Houston We Had a Problem

See at the end of Day Eight of the Great Bathroom Remodel our shower looked like this:

All sealed with it's red glory of waterpoofing and all set for tile. Day Nine began with tile installation. 18x18 tiles being placed on said walls.

I left for a few hours, expecting to see lots of tiling complete. I returned to see all tile removed. Hmmm turns out that the wall was bowing under the pressure of the bigger tile and in general due to the house 'settling'. I've been told it's good that they caught it now because what would inevitably have happened is that the bowing of the wall would have caused one (or more) tiles to detach and then the whole mess would have come tumbling down at any time. That would have been delightful.... or not. So what occurred was that these poor workers had to remove the tile and then take off the walls.

Yes the sealed in place walls and then put some extra support and level out the walls. So instead of tiling on Day Nine they spent redoing what had been done on Day Seven and Day Eight. They were none to happy. So on Day Ten the walls went back up and tiling began again. By the end of Day Eleven this was the status:

Saturday: Day Twelve (a day past the finish date of Friday, the new finish date is Tuesday) they will finish the last few tiles and then put the grout in and then they will begin the laying the floor tile. They are done with painting, in fact in this last picture you can see the color 'Gravity' that we went with. We like it. I'll be happy when the tile gets going for the floor. Oh let's be honest I'll be happy when it's DONE. D-O-N-E!

To see earlier remodeling progress click here.

Elf Yourself!

Yes! Tis the Season time to turn yourself into an elf and dance little jig! And while the video provides its own hilarity, the screenshots do not disappoint. Although I'm hard pressed to know what my husband will object to more the fact that he's an elf in tights or that he's dancing to country. ;-) Enjoy! Leave your elfy link in the comments!

Fixtures!

I am pretty sure that Aiden is starting to believe that Lowes and Home Depot are his second and third homes as he has been in them nearly every day for weeks now. Checking tile, toilets, cabinets, lights and vanities, oh my! Tonight was the final installment of our tour of Lowes. Yes all the items have been purchased and thanks to the Veteran's 10% discount offered at both Lowes and Home Depot we saved $150 on all of our purchases! Yipee! Tonight was picking up the toilet and ordering 'custom' cabinets - that aren't custom at all but they don't keep them in stock so um yes, our cabinets above the washer and dryer will be here around December 1st.

In our family the member dragging and screaming NOT to go into Lowes is me, not our son. In fact it's a giant playland for him. He loved running up and down the aisle and pushing the 92lb toilet!! My boy's got some muscles!

To Those That Serve

To my husband, my brother, my best friend, friends and those that have gone before us... thank you for serving our country and allowing the freedoms that we take for granted to stand firm that allow my son to live in the Land of the Free. Happy Veteran's Day!