Spontaneous trip to UT

We made a last minute (literally) decision to drive out to UT mid July to help Mike and Kelly with the Striker Fest (see post about More Misery for Julia). I don't know if we were much help, but we sure had fun!

We were able to see our favorite soccer team in action. They made it to the championship and had an unfortunate loss. The other team managed to score a goal when our favorite defender, Jens, was out with a concussion. He was only out for 5 minutes ~ amazing! That was all it took...Jens to leave the game. The team played hard. They were amazing.

This is a picture of Uncle Mike coaching his boys (picture is from Kelly's blog; she is an amazing photographer!).

We were able to hang with Wendi and Brian and gang, Kelly and Mike, Mom and Dad, Brooke and Reed (and some of their kiddos) in the evening and play some fun card games (Werewolf). I was the Moderator/Narrator for the game and I got to see all of the inner workings of different players. My favorite was when Mike was cupid...he made 2 people fall in love... The late nights and early mornings were tough, but SO worth it! Thanks for putting up with us all of you listed above! We miss you!

Kitchen is coming along

John installed the main wall of cabinets (double oven and fridge) the day before the Soccer Team was to arrive. I love the wood! I can't wait to have it all installed. I have really missed having a sink in the kitchen. I have missed having a cook top. We have managed. I haven't complained; I did this to myself! It will be so worth it!



The soccer team didn't mind that the kitchen wasn't functioning. We were still able to cook and feed them!



John has done an amazing job installing the kitchen. He is very precise with his measurements. He makes sure everything is COMPLETELY level. The person who is installing our granite counter tops mentioned when he came out to do a final measurement that John is probably doing an even more thorough job than a professional cabinet installer. That's my guy!!!

The base cabinets along the back wall are the originals. We brought them back in just to help store some basic essentials.

Kitchen Cabinets Arrived

The kitchen cabinets arrived a couple of days before July 4th. We will have to put off the installation until the next week since we were in UT for the 4th. This is the formal living room...

New Flooring

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new floor! The wood is Timborana (from South America). We love how it has so many different colors in it. We wanted something that would compliment the new cabinets for our kitchen (Cherry). We didn't want something too dark or too light. Instead we got it all! It looks like a mix of tons of different woods. Jesse Cordova was our installer and was amazing! Two thumbs up and happy customers for future customers of Jesse's! Now we are waiting for the kitchen cabinets to arrive! We ripped out the kitchen at the end of May...

Preparing for new flooring

We found some beautiful wood flooring to put in 2/3 of our main floor. We had to remove the oak floor in the kitchen (and the kitchen cabinets), ceramic tile in the entryway, and carpet in the living room and dining room. We are so excited to get this project going!!!

Sink and Disposal!

I am in 7th heaven! My sink and garbage disposal are working!!! It is amazing how the simple things in life are so exciting! (We had plywood counter tops installed...just waiting for the granite to arrive...any day now...I hope).

We will wait for the dishwasher install...we will most likely put something else in and John only wants to do it once. So for now, we are living like mom and dad...washing in the sink. Much better than doing dishes in the laundry room!

Moving Boxes Mess

I couldn't believe how much stuff we had! We took 1 1/2 large moving trucks to haul all of our stuff to our new home. We were allowed 30,000 lbs by the company. We had 29,700 lbs! Over 450 boxes. Yikes! Good thing we got rid of a couple of things before we packed up and moved! It was 2 degrees outside in Chicago with snow on the ground when the moving truck was packed. It got down to 39 degrees in the house! I took a picture of the thermostat, but my external hard drive had a horrible accident so I lost my pictures from January...sniff sniff...

Here is Kerst and Kendall discovering their treasures.
Here is Jenna and Jaley folding up packing paper to give to a friend that was moving and needed our boxes and paper.

Julia's Room

Julia has been kicked to the basement (again). There were two rooms in the basement that were not finished. We kept one unfinished to use as our storage room. The other room we had finished as a bedroom/office. We were able to get this project done in the 4 weeks we were holding off on delivering our household goods.

Here is the construction:

Here is the final product. John installed the built-in bookcases. We did the same theme in her room as we did in IL. It is full of mini New Era (MormonAd) posters around the top of her room. Her favorite New Era posters are framed in the larger frames around the room. It is fun to go in there and read the uplifting messages.

Kerst's Room

Kerst's room is a repeat too. I have Book of Mormon/Bible story pictures around his room. I would like to hang scripture verses made out of vinyl letters around the top of the room.



Unfortunately Kendall's crib does not fit in the room. Kendall is currently sleeping in our closet.


The door in this pictures leads to the bathroom attached to Kerst's room. Yep! He has his own bathroom. He does a great job at cleaning it too! Got to start them early!!!

Jaley's Room

Jaley's room is one of my FAVORITES. My SIL, Julianne, mentioned a stripe pattern that she had seen on a wall and I jumped on the idea. Jaley already had her 3 main colors picked out, I just didn't know how to get it to work. I ended up adding more colors. There is no pattern to the stripe either.

I ended up drawing level lines on the top 1/3 of the wall and free hand painting the different colors. It took me 3 days of painting to get it done. John helped me hang the chair rail around the border. The colors are from Ace Hardware paint line.

Stripes: Ace Colors

Peace River A3803

Forgotten Secret A38-5

Key Largo A39-6Olive Garden

B30-6Limeheart B29-5

Limeheart and white (similar to Hey There! B29-2)

Wish Upon A Star B28-1

Bottom Half of room:

Wish Upon A Star B 28-1

Jenna's Room

We did a repeat of decor for Jenna's room. I love having the white trim. It makes the colors really pop. The ceilings in our new home are taller and her room is a little larger so I had to be creative with making more square pictures. Since this picture, I have changed out her curtain and her blanket (still hot pink).

Old Kitchen

We didn't ever update our kitchen in IL. There wasn't much we could do to it. We would have loved to have it larger, but with a sun-room on the outside wall we couldn't expand. Plus John said that if we ever thought we needed to remodel our IL kitchen, we'd move first. Well, we moved and are now remodeling! Crazy, I know.



The first week in the house (1st week in March) I took the upper cabinets off . John had the flu so I did it myself. I wanted to find out if there was anything in the soffits (false wall above the upper cabinets). If we were clear of plumbing, etc., we would tear them out and repair the wall and ceiling.



We found some hokey wiring that John fixed. We also had a vent in the left far corner that John worked some magic and made disappear in the wall. He is A M A Z I N G. (You can see the vent and some crazy wiring in this photo).

We repaired the walls within a week of ripping out the soffit. I lived with a partial kitchen until the end of May when we ripped out the remaining cabinets and also most of the flooring on the main floor to put in new hardwoods. I'm amazed at how patient the family was during this time. It was tricky because I love love love to cook. We survived by using the upper double oven, crock pot, microwave, rice cooker and grill.

We are now busy installing our new kitchen. I will post updates in order of progression. We are currently waiting for the granite counter tops. The sink was installed today! Finally no more dishes in the utility sink in the Laundry Room!!!

New House

John and I made a last minute house hunting trip just before Christmas. We needed to find a home quickly because our home sold in 3 weeks. We weren't prepared for it to sell that quickly. John had been house hunting for several weeks and narrowed down where we should live according to the schools.

Two days before Christmas we wrote up an offer on this home:

It was a short-sale/pre-foreclosure. Short sale is not short for the buyer! We waited almost 2 months to hear back from the bank if they were going to sell the home to us because they were losing money on the sale. We finally closed at the end of February and moved in. We stayed in our new home for 4 more weeks without any of our household goods because it would be easier to paint and finish off a room in the basement before everything was delivered. We were able to borrow some basic essential's from John's sisters (Emily and Sarah) and a couple of people from church.

Julia sings a solo

Julia sang a solo during a portion of a song at her High School concert this past May. She mentioned that during practice they didn't have her with a microphone. This was the first time she had a microphone on her and she said she was a bit shocked to hear herself; she thought she sounded different. I thought she sounded and looked beautiful...

I love to listen to her sing; she sounds like an angel. It is heaven on earth when I hear her practicing her singing and the piano.

Backtracking - Announcing the move to the kids

October 24, 2007
We dropped a bomb on the kids last night while eating Oberweis Icecream.

John has accepted a new job in Littleton Colorado. He will be signing the agreement today. Normal drug test (not worried about that) and then he will drop the "bomb" on his current employer. He also has to get a top secret security clearance...that will happen over the next several months.

He will be working for Lockheed Martin. He will be a Senior Electrical Engineer, staff (Manager of a group). It is an exciting new change for him...something he has been looking for for quite some time. He feels kind of "stuck" in his current job.

The kids are ok. I am mainly worried about Julia. The girls were all crying at Oberweis (I thought it wise to do this in public as they could kind of be aware of the level of wailing...and figured most people would think that the icecream was so good that it brought them to tears). While crying Jenna said, "We look ridiculous" which led Julia and Jenna into a laughing fit. When we got home Jenna was still quite upset. She stopped and thought and asked me if I was going to miss anything. I said I will but I am more concerned about them. She thought again and then said that maybe she shouldn't be so worried about herself. She is very thoughtful.

It will be an exciting change. Please keep the kids in your prayers though. It will be a bumpy emotional ride for them.

PS... A company in UT (SLC) wanted John back in August but they had budget cutbacks and wouldn't be able to revisit staffing the new group they were forming (John was going to manage a portion of it) until next summer. Hey, Denver, Littleton is only 8 or 9 hours away from Provo/Orem.

* Click on the image to see the full size scrapbook page of the kids' reactions of finding a For Sale sign in our yard.

Entering the blogging world

I can't believe I am doing this. Blogging. For 10 years I have posted faithfully on our family website. I still am and will. That is where our family journal is located. I love to read the many fun milestones in our life and to reflect on a few difficult ones.

Life has changed in so many ways over the last 10 years that a blog is deemed necessary to keep in contact with close friends (although I consider them family). So, after a heartfelt plea from my childhood best friend, Bama (Grandma Price), here I am . . . blogging. So Bama, here's to you X O X O.

Kendall mouth update

Kendall's teeth have turned beige in the last couple of days. I got him in to the pediatric dentist today. Our dentist wouldn't have been able to give the attention needed to a 2 year old (not fun enough...).

This practice has the sweetest dentists I have ever met. The staff was really sweet too. The nurse came out to become friends with Kendall. As soon as she mentioned fish, he was following her like a puppy. I stayed away.

They couldn't get X-rays. He wouldn't do that but he would open his mouth and let them check out his teeth. She said that his teeth are a "class 1" in wiggliness which is good.

The dentist said that we are still in the wait and see stage. They could turn white again or completely die (brown) and would possibly need to be pulled.

She said giving him Popsicles and ice cream were perfect. It is a wait and see and treat as needed.

The staff loved Kendall. He entertained them with his animal sounds. They fell in love with his double dimple smile and shy eyes. He was giving me Eskimo kisses when I met up with him in the exam room to talk to the doctor and nurse. They were loving it. They told me this was a great start to their day; he was their first appointment.

We get to go back in 3 months unless other symptoms develop.

John CRACKS ME UP!

I had our windshield chip repaired a couple of weeks ago (one I got on our trip to UT). I received a call today to rate their service for our insurance company.

John's working on the kitchen and hears me answer questions. Then I get to the questions where I rate 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. I say "10" to the first question.

John pipes in, "So is this a survey about our marriage?"

I crack up and have to ask the person to ask the question again and explained why. She is laughing on the other end.

I'd have to rate John's survey at least a 20 in a rating scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest...

Strikers strike CO!

My Brother-in-law, Mike, and my sister Kelly came out to visit the 3rd week in July. They brought along Mike's soccer team, the Strikers. They were invited to the Pike's Peak Tournament. The team (14 teenage boys) stayed in our basement for the week. It was a lot of fun. Very busy. Late nights. Fun games. Swimming. Hot Tub. PS2. Elitch Gardens. Lots of food (and a partial functioning kitchen).

My girls were a bit aprehensive with having these boys in our home, but by the time they left, my girls considered them all older brothers. It was fun to see my kids and the soccer players evolve over the week.

I got a bonus treat out of this visit. My sister brought along her dear friend, Wendi. Wendi and her husband Brian (assistant coach) were out here to cheer on their son Jens. They are an amazing family. Sweet, fun, loving and a family I would love to have right next door. I was sad when they left.

The team signed a jersey as a thankyou to our family. I framed it and I have it hanging in the basement. I have a couple of pictures to add to it and will post a picture. We love to look at it everytime we go downstairs. Fun memories...amazing young men...amazing friends.

Kerst's new friend

Kerst wanted to watch the Strikers play soccer during their Pike's Peak tournament. Wendi (a mom of one of the soccer players) was more than happy to bring Kerst along. It was the first full day of having everyone at our home and Kerst was still learning the names. He didn't know Wendi's name and we thought it would be important for him to know her name. Aunt Kelly whispered Wendi's name into Kerst's ear and he blushed.

Kelly asked him to repeat her name so that we knew who she was. He continued to blush and refused to talk.

He finally "told" us the name Kelly whispered into his ear by spelling it. He spelled her name "B E U T I F U L". It was so cute.

Later that day he was trying to get her attention, so he finally caved and said her name. "Beautiful, _(what ever he said)". I understand it was really cute and sweet.