Remembering grandma and Family time

Remembering Grandma
Two weeks ago my uncle called to say he was planning a trip up the following week to spend time with family and to see grandma.  So we talked about getting together while he was here, etc.
Well, grandma passed away two days later surrounded by all of us who live here.  Other family from out of state called to say good-bye.  It was heartbreaking since losing grandpa 7 months earlier and she'd been doing pretty well until that day.  She was laughing and joking around just the day before and then she was ready to go.  I got a text from my mom and aunt that Thursday afternoon telling me it was time to say good-bye. Don was working from home that day so we got in the car and headed down. We stayed as long as we could and I got hug and kiss her and tell her how much we loved her. It really means a lot to me that I got to be with my grandparents before they passed away.  I got the call 15 minutes after we left that she passed.  I'm glad Don was driving us home. My grandma was the rock in the family, She always gave great hugs, advice when you asked for it, and her laughter was infectious.  She loved playing games, usually won, and she loved us all so much.  She also loved traveling with my grandpa all over the US, Mexico and Canada.  Later on they took a bunch of long cruises and went to China, Hong Kong, Panama, Antarctic and Australia to name a few and always shared their trips with us through stories and pictures.  Grandma's memorial was this past Thursday and everyone had such great memories to share and my aunt even had a recording of my grandma from the week before that she played and it made us all laugh when we heard grandma say "Where the hell are we going?" The service was beautiful and a great way to remember the amazing lady that she was.
October 31, 1931 - March 24, 2016

 I love this picture of grandma and I 

She loved to laugh

grandma in 1947 - she was 16

 With my grandma - I was a year old 

 Always loved the double exposed picture my Aunt took of my grandparents

 Grandma as a child 

Family Time

So my uncle flew up here for the week and I met him at Snoqualmie Falls on Wednesday.  We talked, walked around and took pictures before heading back to my house where Don had gotten off work early and was waiting for us.  We showed him all the changes we've made to our place and then went to dinner.  We talked and played games and had a great time.  He had to get up early to go pick up my aunt so we met up again at the memorial.  He was heading out to my cousins place for the weekend and we went out for the night on Saturday.  So much fun.  We hadn't been to my cousins new place since he moved last year so it was great on all fronts.  We got to spend time with family and see the island they call home.  They picked us up at the ferry terminal on his sailboat and we cruised back to the island.  The dogs loved it and it was a gorgeous day to be on the water. We met some of his neighbors at the BBQ that evening and they had 4 of the sweetest girls who hang out with my cousins daughter. We talked about adoption and it was great having someone who understands the process. They adopted their girls and they are so loved. One day it'll be our turn.  We hadn't planned on staying the night but we were invited to and we did.  I'm glad we did we had a great night hanging out with family having a few drinks, lots of food and lots of stories.  I liked what my cousin said when I said I didn't have stuff for us but at least the dogs had everything they needed and he said "That's why you're going to be awesome parents because they come before you." In the morning we were driven to the ferry terminal and said good-bye.  It was the first time the dogs had been on a ferry but they loved it.  Don will be seeing my uncle again next weekend since he'll be in CA for the weekend to see his parents. He offered to give Don a tour of CBS where he works so that should be a fun day for them.

  All Aboard Selfie

    Happy Happy

My aunt took this picture of us last week

The dogs meet my cousins puppy who wore them out 

An Oops that led to a room swap and our weekend

We’ve been busy working on the craft room and the game room.  We finished what was supposed to be the game room last year and then packed up all of my crafts, sewing and collections and moved them into said game room.  Fast forward to a few weeks ago where we started painting the craft room (now that last year’s construction is over).  We chose to do it in 2 colors so that meant long drying times to ensure it was dry before spraying the next color.  Well after spraying 2 coats of gray and waiting it became apparent it’d be so much work to tape off the ceiling and walls so Don decided to roll the Orange.  Much easier and it came out great!

 Painted walls and new cabinets 

My craft and sewing tables as I attempted to organize

So once it was all dry we started hanging cabinets for storage.  They look great and then we moved in furniture and I started digging through boxes to begin sorting and putting things away.  That’s when the problems started.  The majority of my Scrapbooking stuff wouldn’t fit in the cabinets.   Then we set up the game table in the game room and there wasn’t enough space to move around the table with Chairs.

That led to us revisiting Home Depot for shelving to put in the game room and once that was in we moved all the furniture out of the craft room and into the game room.  Guess whose room that game room is now.  Yep, mine and I’m still going through boxes but at least the cabinets in that room can hold all my craft stuff and then we moved the sewing cabinet back in there.  With the smallness of the room Don will do his painting in the game room and now he even has space to play his drums since the game table folds down to a smaller table. The added bonus to that is not just good exercise but it opens up the storage area under the stairs next to my desk.  So I get to use that space for anything I just want tucked away like my extra sewing machine or that box of vacation shirts I want to make into a quilt. Don is even thinking we could build a train layout around the room.  I think it’s a great idea.  I’d love to unpack the trains more than once a year for the Christmas tree.

my new room cabinets are filling up

Parker waiting to help me unpack this box

So while I’m doing all that unpacking  Don is going through all our music and reorganizing it all so it’s easier to find and put on our phones.  Yay! No more low volume older music versus high volume new stuff playing in the car.  It should all be leveled now.  That’s how we spent Saturday and then Saturday night we had tickets for the theater.  It was for the play Assassins .  When we were given the tickets I looked it up and was like huh, weird content for a musical.  Well it totally works and it even had us talking about it all the way home from Seattle.  I even looked up two of them because I wasn’t familiar with their stories.  No time like the present for a history lesson.

Sunday was nice and fairly lazy.  I unpacked a few boxes and reorganized some stuff and Don continued to work on the music.  We even played our first game in the game room last night.  A game Don was given for Christmas and I wasn’t sure I’d like it (Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures) given that it’s a starship combat game but it was fun.  I can see us adding the expansion packs to it over time.

That’s our last few weeks.  Here’s to a great week of unpacking.

The Kindness of Strangers and More.

My last post was a pretty emotional one but what happened the next morning would have me in tears, literally. I promise this is a happy post of what’s happened the last two weeks.

• Our basement remodel is pretty much done with just a few minor things left to do.
• Don is in Ghana building a kindergarten playground for the new school the charity recently built.
• We bought new furniture, Goodbye hand me downs.
• Two years waiting but still happy and hopeful

If you follow us on Facebook you may have seen my brief post about it but here is the full context. Don and I have remodeled a large part of our finished basement and are moving our living room down there, so we bought all new furniture.  When we went to the local furniture shop they had a sand sculpture in the parking lot so I took a picture and posted it to our Facebook page.  The shop saw it and decided to add a gift to our furniture delivery. Our delivery was a week out from when we purchased it so that the basement could be mostly finished.

Delivery day came and as they were unloading the furniture from the truck, one of the guys brought a big red gift wrapped box over to me and set it down on the porch. I was stunned! I really was because it was a big box and then I read the card attached and immediately started tearing up.  Not only had they sent us a gift for our future child but I got it just when I needed it most.  I Love the little red chair! I really can’t wait for the day when it’s being used (and not by our four-legged kids).  For now it’s still in the box but hopefully soon we can put it in the living room or nursery. After the shock wore off I took pictures and sent them to Don, who was out of town for the weekend.  He was able to see it and was just as thrilled with it as I was. 

Here's what they said on our Facebook page when I posted our extreme appreciation:

"The Old Cannery Furniture Warehouse Glad you received it! We've been anxiously anticipating your delivery since last weekend! We will be thinking about you!"

We are still waiting for a few finishing touches to the basement but for the most part it’s done and set up.  I love it and can’t wait for Don to get home from Ghana so we can move the audio equipment and satellite receiver down there and hook it all up. We also had cabinets built in down there so I can finally move some things we don’t use often out of the kitchen beginning tomorrow after the contractor finishes up.

Tomorrow also marks our two years "live" and three years since we started the process to adopt. It's also National Chocolate day.  Last year I went for a hot fudge sundae and if it sounds good tomorrow I may celebrate with another one or maybe just eat a fun size Butterfinger. 

Home projects in full force

I haven’t posted in a while but we’re here and busy with many different things, like finding contractors for work in the main part of the basement and for the backyard. I will finally get the yard fenced, retaining walls and an upper deck.  I’m super excited to run around with my dogs out back and play ball with them and our future child.  It’s a long time coming for all of us!

We've been very busy around here with home projects.  They sound so easy and simple weekend tasks but as most people know it’s the unknown that sets you back. Our flooring came in right before we left for Italy and just as we were going to start painting and laying that flooring in the first room, Don was called to Arizona on business then he drove to California to spend time and help his parents that weekend following his week away. His mom recently had knee surgery and his parents could use some help with clearing things out, cleaning a bit around the house, and just moral support. Thankfully all is well on that front and she is recovering wonderfully and his weekend there was a big boost to his parent’s morale.

So we again begin to think of painting and flooring.  The first step is to remove all items from the room.  Now this was our store room and Don’s craft room so lots of stuff to move into the main basement area, then came removing the carpet and carpet pad.  Now the carpet wasn't so hard to cut and remove but the carpet pad was a bear. Once that was up and removed we had to remove the nailed into the concrete foundation carpet tacks.  That was so much fun, NOT! We inspected and repaired the foundation including those many nail holes from the carpet tacks but only after scrapping and scrapping some kind of fiber glue from it.  Don’s quote of the weekend was “I feel like Cinderella!” I couldn't stop laughing.  I, too, had attempted removing that glue from the foundation and it WAS NOT EASY!  Once we had the foundation in order, Don painted the room and ceiling. 

The following day we began laying the new flooring which was by far the easiest part besides the knee and back pain from being on the concrete floor for hours on end.  It was like we’d moved into a new house once it was done.  Removing the ghastly steel blue carpet for bamboo flooring increased the lightness of the room a 100X.  We gave the floor a week to settle before starting on the cabinets the following weekend (this past weekend).  I have to say I love the new room. It’s bright, airy, and just what a basement room needs.

This is the best way to rest while working

Finished room is dog inspected and approved!

Today was spent figuring out where all the stuff we had in that room was going to go and then moving it.  That room is now going to be my craft room and boy oh boy do I have a lot of stuff to transfer over from my current room. The sewing, scrap-booking, paints, etc will be fun to reorganize though into the new cabinets.  My current craft space will get redone into a family game room. We will not only store our games and play them in there with company but it will also have a TV for video games and my exercise machine.  I’m kind of looking forward to having a TV to watch while I exercise and it’ll be nice to have all the games in one spot.  We moved all the stuff into its new home today and throughout this coming week we will begin moving the computers and office area furniture into the main room.  Each area getting set up as we move it so we still have online and general computer access.  Once we get that done we hope to begin removal of the carpet and installation of the new floor.  Since we previously painted and redid this area minus the floor and lighting it should be a fairly smooth and quick weekend project.