A warm house and a cold rain

We had our house warming party last night. Our Realtor put it on; invitations, food, and all. Thanks, Sean! It was fun to show everyone all the work we have done. I am always happy to hear when people are impressed with how much we have done. It's a good reminder for me that we HAVE done a lot! And it wouldn't be possible without the help of our friends and family. We still have lots to do but we are moving along quite nicely.

Fresh flowers from the garden are a nice touch to the house!

Adam got a good game of croquet going. I was super impressed with how many people ventured out for the crazy game. Nice job Paul on winning!

It' cold and rainy today. It would pour down rain for 10 minutes then be sunny and then pour again. There was even thunder and lightening! We had planned on going for a bike ride up to Birch Bay from Ferndale and right before we were going to leave, it just dumped. We almost decided not to go when a sun break hit. So we decided to give it a try and it turned out great! No rain until the second we got off our bikes back at Jill and Paul's house. Then it dumped again. Perfect timing.

Perfect timing to go to Mexico for some sun and heat! While Brindzi, Gryffin, Harper, and Ali hold down the fort, we are off to Mexico for some fun in the sun! Hopefully the next pictures will include white beaches, sun tanned faces, and maybe even some Mexican wiffle ball, right Adam and Kevin!

Ahh....

Hip to the new technologicals

Internet!

Edith and Aung head to their new digs, hand built by Paul and me

Monkeys

U-Haul sucks. Helpers don't.

Boxes

Jerry, master appliance mover

Helpers Jill, Paul, Mark, Nikki, Julie, and Jerry, minus Kevin and Becky. Thanks!
Moving sucks less with great friends!

Grandpa Dan turns 90! And we spend less Jed and Dani for less time than we spend driving to see them. Grandma Lowmiller also turned 90, but we don't have a picture. Grandparents are old! Grandparents are cool! Yay grandparents!

Another room has new floors and new paint! This is the TV room, with a very light beige and brown accent walls. And the floors were much more flat in this room. I used a little bit of leveling compound around the edges. It turned out much nicer than our practice room. Suh-weet!

We survived another Ski to Sea. We did better than last year! But I didn't. I'm a fast classic skier, but apparently a much slower skate skier. Anyway. Bold!

We are busy

And we still have no Internet at home. So still no pictures. But we are moved, fully. And the renters have arrived. And there is still lots to do.

When we get Internet someday in the unknown future, you might see:

• Garden
• Chicken coop
• Helpers
• Brindzi
• Boxes
• A washer and dryer stacked on top of each other!
• Four new chicks
• Monkeys

Of course, I'm not guaranteeing any of those....

Day 22 & 23 & 24 - Moved!

We've left the old house in the dust...literally. It's layered in dust.

We had eight helpers on Saturday. It was quite a day. Thanks to Mark, Nikki, Jill, Paul, Kevin, Becky, Julie, and Jerry. We couldn't have done it without you. Seriously. Like we might have died.

Pictures to come shortly, once we figure out our home Internet situation. We've only managed to unpack the kitchen so far. I keep starting on one box and then getting sidetracked when I notice something in another box. This could take weeks.

First on the agenda now is a chicken coop and garden stuff. And getting the old house cleaned and ready. The renters arrive in 13 days. Yikes.

Update your address books!

Day 17 & 18 & 19 & 20 & 21 & 21 1/2 - Ugh

Tired.

Stressed.

Tired.

We move tomorrow and we have been packing and trying to level the upstairs subfloor and trying not to rile each other up. We've driven to work separately all week so that I could do a little packing each morning. This morning we even got up and finished putting the floor in the master bedroom. Just the closet left.

We found out that the upstairs and two downstairs rooms were added in 1969. Erin found plans in a cabinet.

Some things that are annoying:

• U-haul reservations
• Unlevel subfloors
• Prior commitments
• Stress
• Sleep
  
• WASL

Things that are not:

• We move tomorrow!
• Helpers
• Sweet floors, dude.
• Weekend
• Go Barristers!
• Food

Day 14, 15, & 16.

The days are getting too be too many to count. We are loosing track, especially since there are not pictures for each day. We think we are now on day 16, we hope. Our backs are sore, our brains are tired but we keep plugging on. Moving day is only a week away.

On day 14 we conditioned the old wood floors after work. Or as one friend likes to say, we gave the wood lotion :-) After drying all day on Friday, Julie and Jerry came over for an inspection and showed we Jill and Paul around for the first time. Then it was time to go out to eat some good seafood at the new Anthony's and watch the Red Sox successfully beat the Yankee's. Yahoo! Then we came home and applied our first coat of urethane. We finished up around 10:30 pm. Needless to say we slept well last night.

We got 3 coats of urethane on the old wood floors. Only 1 or 2 more to go. They are starting to look really nice.

In between waiting for the urethane to dry we started on the new wood floors upstairs in our bedroom. They are looking REALLY sharp! Each board needs to be glued and pounded into place. It is a slow process but very satisfying to see it come together.

Tomorrow we hope to get the last of the coats on the old floors done and hopefully our bedroom. Next week will include gardening, packing, and getting ready for the big move.

Back on day 10 we went to our first Mariner's game! They won! Thanks NW mom and dad for our 16 games!!!

Day 10 & 11 & 12 & 13 - Evening glow

Well?

We spent a few hours Sunday through Wednesday nights (and will do some more tonight and tomorrow) sanding downstairs and laying down underlayment upstairs.

On the old floors, we've spent hours sanding, filling gauges/splinters/knicks/etc., sanding again, and sweeping, and vacuuming, and sweeping, and vacuuming, and sweeping. There's dust everywhere! We should be able to put down the wood conditioner and start with the urethane soon.

Upstairs, the underlayment is down, and we started looking at the new floor pieces and how they'll lay out. Probably start putting them in this weekend.

Other projects this weekend include possible sheetrocking and definitely some garden work.

We're tired, but things are moving along. More pictures this weekend.

Day 9 - Abort! Abort!

No, it's not serious. We just got started today, then got snippy, and then gave in to the fact that we had worked eight full days in a row, and that we were tired. We were already taking tomorrow off to go the the baseball game. But we needed to rest. So we walked tot he Farmers' Market, got a chocolate chip cookie, laid in the sun. We spent a little time trying to envision a garden layout.

But mostly we rested. And we needed it.

From now on it's evenings and weekends only. What a week! Whew!

Day 8 - Fumes

No pictures again today. Sorry for those who need visual stimuli.

First we had french toast and lazied around the morning.

I sanded again today with our third version of a rented floor sander. Hooray Hardware Sales. The issue with our existing wood floors is that the edges were painted, while the center was under some sort of permanent carpet. So there's a fading problem. I've been trying to get a consistency of color. I think it's a bout as good as I'm going to get it. I feel good about it, and it looks nice, and I'm still learning all this stuff.

Speaking of which. I've used a Sawzall to cut out a wall. So I know how to do that now. Just in case.

Erin worked on the underlayment for our new floor, upstairs. It's purple. Cool.

I finished up by inhaling too much fumes from the wood filler. A few of our old boards have some major splintering/bug grooves/etc. So I spent a bunch of time filling those with filler, which wafted into my nose and made my brain fuzzy. Dang. That stuff was nasty. Anyway, I used the whole can, and there's more to do tomorrow. More fuzziness.

Spring break is almost over. Seems like it started long ago. We've gotten a lot done (thanks mostly to helpers). Lost more to do, but we're getting there! Yahoo!