Once I started my job I quickly realized I didn’t bring a lot of “work” clothes, no jewelry, and the only contacts I had were the ones in my eyes. We “moved” a month ago so those were starting to feel icky. Plus, Morgan was ready for a visit and I was too.
Morgan had her Storm Sweetie performance Friday night at the football game so we couldn’t leave until halftime. So we had a late arrival to Macomb.
What? You can’t find her? Lol. She is the third girl from the left in the second row. She did great and I was very impressed with the whole group. They were incredibly in sync for only practicing for two hours last Sunday and briefly before the game. They actually fell asleep on the way. We arrived a little after 11 and got them to bed without them waking up all the way. #parentingwin Then Natalie was awake at 5:30am. #waytooearyformama She was Cranky that afternoon and we both took a nap. 😁
Saturday morning started out with Natalie and I checking out the hot air balloons. Then we picked up some donuts and headed home to wait for Morgan and Brandon to wake up. We did all that before 7:30am. Then all of us dropped a couple things off at a friend’s yard sale before heading to Chandler Park for the farmer’s market and Art Show.
Always love seeing the balloons land. Glad they had good weather for the morning flights. I had to improvise for eye protection that morning. We started out so early I hadn’t even put my contacts in yet. An extra fun part of the farmer’s market was petting and feeding the alpaca. His name was Bluey and he did not like being disturbed while drinking his water. He sprayed the girl standing next to Morgan. I think she got a bit on her, too. Only 5 balloons did the flight in on Saturday night. It was too windy for the rest to attempt it. It felt perfectly still to us sitting on the ground but the higher you go up, the stronger the breeze is. The Glow was canceled as well which was a bummer. Maybe next year…
So we ditched the balloon glow and headed to the Powder Puff game at the high school. The girls both found some friends to play with from daycare/school so that was good for them. And we did a lot of this fun stuff with the Westen family which of course made it even more fun. And we spent some football and nacho eating time with them on Sunday before heading back north. All in all it was a great weekend. I should be food prepping or something but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’ll be asleep soon.
It was a short week, so I only have two posts this week. My goal is 3, so hopefully next week I’ll make that goal.
This week marked my first week at the new job! I’m learning a lot every day and meeting a lot of new people. There’s a lot of travel this week, but I think that will decrease as time goes on. They greeted me with flowers in my office and there were treats everywhere I went. Everyone is very welcoming, so it feels like a good fit.
So very nice of them!
A few weeks ago Brandon made a crucial mistake of leaving chicken breasts in his car over a weekend we were gone. Whatever you do, don’t do that. I thought Clarence had killed something big and it was rotting. Nope, just his car. He took the carpet out, used an anti-stink bomb, and even took the plastic out and replaced it with plywood, but it still smelled. After some recommendations, he took it to Shane’s Shine Shop and had it detailed. They worked some serious magic and it no longer smells like death. Most likely I’ll start driving his car since it gets better MPG than mine and I don’t want to show up smelling like a corpse.
Not a Friday Favorite is Clarence has been gone for over a week. I’m still holding out hope he will show up, but it’s diminishing as time passes. His biggest threat is coyotes of course. Plus I saw a large tom cat in a shed and I’m worried he chased Clarence away. But if that was the case, I think he will come back eventually.
If this is the last picture I get of him it’s incredibly appropriate. He brought a live ground squirrel into the house. Brandon got it away from him and we think it lived to see another day.
Tonight, Morgan has her Storm Sweeties dance at the football game. Then we take off from there to pick up Dexter and head to Macomb. I need to get a few more things to wear for work and other staples we didn’t initially pack but realize we need until the big move. I know she is excited to see some of her Macomb buddies and I am too!
It was a busy weekend to lead up to my first day of the new job. Since we want to finish up the floors downstairs while Brandon is off the next month, our bedroom needed to be sanded, primed, painted and carpet removed. So that was the main event with a lot of other stuff filling in the gaps.
How can you tell you are in the Midwest? You watch Friday Night Football next to a cornfield. We hadn’t planned on going but while we were eating supper, Morgan asked “is there a game tonight?” Which I knew meant her friends must be going, so we headed to our second game in two days. But it was worth it because both girls found friends to play with and had a great time. Natalie was not ready to leave when the game was over. 🙂Another way to tell is there is an inflatable pig costume at the game for no other reason than it’s funny. We hope it makes an appearance at all the games. View from my new walking route. I will soon be walking in the dark, so I ordered a lighted vest last week. Then it was time to get rid of the yellow. Yellow ceiling, yellow walls, and yellow carpeting…
We had done a round of plaster repair but that was interrupted, so there were still spots that needed sanding and a couple that we had to put another layer on. While that was drying, we headed to the canal where Brandon and Morgan rode their bikes in pursuit of walnuts while Natalie and I threw some rocks in the water.
We finished up with priming and painting the ceiling Saturday and it needed time to dry before we could tape around the ceiling to add the paint to the walls. It worked out since we had family pictures then had to come through with the bribe and got ice cream after. Morgan would pose for hours for pictures while Natalie was done after one shot.
Morgan had a practice for the Storm Sweeties performance for the upcoming football game after pictures and ice cream. Brandon and I got the room painted while she was gone.
We explored the “West Place” Sunday night. It has a cool barn with a basement and some other interesting old buildings. The girls and I had explored there in the spring, but Brandon hadn’t checked it out yet. Had to get a picture of the carpet before it went bye-bye.
We got the carpet up and are working on the tack strips and staples. We rounded out the long weekend with a trip to Menards to get fun stuff like a dehumidifier and water dispenser.
The girls are getting driving lessons down the long drive way. They have a long way to go. LOL!
Hope you all had a fun and productive weekend! I’m excited to start the job tomorrow!
This will be short and sweet. This was a more laidback week with a full week of school and doing a few things to prep for starting the new job.
Brandon found this toad in the basement. He had been living a pretty good life down there. Morgan didn’t mind holding him until he peed on her. LOL! Natalie thought that was the funniest thing to happen to her sister. We finally cleared off the tools from the dining room table so I got a few things at Walmart’s dollar spot to celebrate being able to sit at a table inside. Natalie was very proud of her mixing of orange and brown. 😉Thursday Night Lights in Princeton this week. With a referee shortage they had to move the game to Thursday night. My new walking route. I just ordered a lighted vest when I have to start walking in the dark next week.
Now we are moving the furniture out of our bedroom to finish patching the cracks and get it primed and painted. Then pulling up that bit of carpeting, so the sanding can begin. Not sure all that will get accomplished this weekend, but a lot will. Have a fun weekend!
Fun side note: We finished up Peaky Blinders a week or so ago and like it a lot. Aunt Polly was one of my favorite characters, but not Brandon’s. This was also the second time we tried watching it. The first time we watched about 15 minutes and both said we couldn’t understand a word they were saying and stopped. Now, we are older and watch everything with subtitles so that wasn’t an issue. Turns out, it’s a great show.
Now, back to the floors. So once I was offered my new position and had a start date of early September, it kick started the need to finish the the upstairs’ floor. The ill-timed first bout of COVID that hit all of us but Natalie gave us an unexpected week off work, so we packed up on Wednesday and worked the next four days to get the floors stained.
The first things we had to do was do our best to eliminate all the dust. We went over the floors again with a broom, wiped down the walls and trim where a lot of plaster and sanding dust landed, and then wiped down the floors again with mineral spirits and tack cloth. It was amazing how much residue that combo cleaned up from the floors. Turns out there are a lot of uses for mineral spirits and if Bob Villa tells you to use it, it must be okay. 🙂
All cleaned up and ready for the next step.
Then it was time to stain. We went with Gunstock for upstairs. We started in the green room and I had a moment of panic when he started in the closet. It looked so much darker than our test patch in Morgan’s room.
See?! DARK!!! At this point I was wondering if we were going to have to sand it off and start again.
But I was patient and it turned out beautiful. It is darker than the test patch but it looks really rich and warm. When we started I was doing the edging and Brandon the main part of the floors, but we switched after a bit and stuck with me on the main part and Brandon the edges. Turns out, I have a good touch with the blending.
We had to pick some points for seams. So we taped it off and then once it was dry the other side was taped to not double up on the stain. I’m not sure if anyone else will be able to find them, but if you look closely enough, I’m sure you could. Looking pretty! And not so dark!
So once the stain was on it had to dry at least 24 hours before we could start putting the polyurethane on it. And that was because we couldn’t walk on it before then. Brandon headed home before the girls and I, so I was able to check on it Sunday afternoon. It was still a bit tacky in spots which concerned Brandon when I reported it. He wanted me to wipe off the tacky spots so I started to do that, but quickly stopped. I felt like I was going to leave footprints and do more harm than good
And speaking of footprints, we were very careful to keep Clarence off the floors while we were staining, but Saturday night I had that instinct and asked if anyone had seen him. Nope, and I noticed the upstairs door was cracked. So I went up to investigate and there he was, looking at me through the banister. Luckily, he came right to me and I was able to smooth out the little paw prints he had made. He hadn’t had much time to explore, so I could reach all of them from the stairs. He is stealth-like, which is why he is such a good hunter.
So the next weekend we had a super busy Friday/Saturday, but Sunday was free, so we packed up late on Saturday night and were able to start covering the floors with poly by 8am Sunday morning. The first coat took us 1 hour and 45 minutes, but by the last coat, I had it done in 40 minutes. Each coat needed two hours to dry. We realized we didn’t have to be super careful about brush strokes like the stain. We finished up the 4th coat around 7:30 and jumped in the car to get back to Macomb since we both worked the next day.
I didn’t get a good picture of us putting the poly on, but it basically looked like we were pouring Elmer’s glue all over the floor and smoothing it out. All shiny and pretty!
So the poly was able to dry a full week before we started moving in the next weekend. Now, the main floors. Then we can get the rest of our house moved. YAY!
This is one of our favorite places to explore. The trail is well maintained and it’s only a couple of miles from our house. Once Natalie is a full fledged bike rider, we will go on longer bike rides. If you want to read about the history of the canal, visit this site.
A stamp under one of the old bridges along the trail.Some of the locks have picnic areas. There are also a few with camping areas. The girls and Brandon may do that, but I’ll hang out at home. I like the hiking and being outside, but dislike camping. And something else you can’t see in this photo are the mosquitoes eating up my feet. It took them a while to show up, but they did. Once we got to walking, it was okay. Before I started work, Natalie and I would drop Morgan off at school and then head to the canal to walk and throw rocks/walnuts in the water. I showed her how the light walnuts floated so she could watch them go over the waterfalls/locks. The girls call the locks “waterfalls”. They were flowing pretty good despite a pretty dry summer. This bridge is just cool. And you can drive over it which I was skeptical of since pretty much all the other bridges have rotted away. But I watched another car go over, so I was reassured. These are the typical foot bridges across the locks. I was surprised Natalie went across like it was no big deal. It’s loud and normally that makes her resistant but not this time. I needed to be higher to capture this better but at this point in the canal it actually goes OVER Bureau Creek. The engineering is impressive when you think about how long it’s been around. This is looking the opposite direction from the previous picture. You can see the creek down below.
We don’t typically see too many people when we are there. Holiday weekends are busier but still not crowded at all. It’s just a great place to take in some nature and explore.
We kicked off the weekend with a night at the Bureau County Fair. The girls were pumped to ride some rides and get cotton candy. I have never seen the appeal of cotton candy, but it’s their fair food of choice. Brandon likes corn dogs, and I personally go for the elephant ears. After moving to Macomb, I realized those are regional because I couldn’t find them at any carnival in that area. If I had been thinking, I would have started an Elephant Ear food truck because who doesn’t like fried dough with cinnamon sugar and a glaze of icing?!
It had been way too long. One of my favorite memories from the fair is going to the Queen contest as a kid with my parents and getting an elephant ear on the way out of the fairgrounds.
The girls rode rides until 10pm and there were still tears when it was time to go. Natalie had one meltdown when we stopped ever so briefly for French fries. It was unavoidable because she would have melted down later from lack of food. Morgan met up with a friend from her class to ride a few rides. I was happy to see that because she has bouts of homesickness missing her friends in Macomb. All in all it was a great night and they got our money’s worth of the armbands.
They rode this Dragon “roller coaster” at least a dozen times. Natalie is a dare devil with rides. She was incredibly bummed to not be tall enough for the big ship that swings way up and down.Morgan still enjoys the younger rides but is starting to prefer the bigger rides. She gets motion sickness in the car (and bumpy plane rides) but the rides are okay for now. She wears bands on her wrists and goes for it. The last ride she went on was the Tilt a Whirl and I was holding my breath she didn’t hurl all over her new friend. And this is what happens on a Saturday afternoon after a late night at the fair.
The rest of Saturday was spent on cleaning out the basement. While Brandon worked out clearing out some stuff, Morgan and I worked on ridding the basement of cobwebs.
It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of spiders. Morgan’s not a big fan but she stuck with this project. This is the area Brandon was concentrating on so he could have a place for all the tools that were in the dining room. We needed to get those cleared out so we could start on the floors. See that big blue tank on the floor? He tried to attached that to my car and pull it up the stairs. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. 🙂 We will need to enlist my dad and his tractor to help out with that and all the other HUGE things that need to get out. All the tools in the basement! The girls liked helping out with this project. Natalie sat at the top of the stairs and handed Brandon the tools Morgan brought her. I just had to help out with the heavier stuff. One step closer to refinishing the floors.
On Sunday we headed to the fair to watch Blake and Lauren show their pigs. They did a great job and the girls had a good time with their cousins.
I grew up showing pigs and have attempted to explain the whole thing to non-farming people, but I think it still comes across as a little odd.The girls even talked us into one more ride. Lauren was nice enough to ride with them. Natalie loved the Tilt a Whirl on Friday night, but was less impressed on Sunday. She must have been on a rider’s high on Friday.
One more week off for me before I start the new job. I still have a few things I want to get done this week, so I’m going to do my best to be productive.
Just a few favorites to wrap up our week. I might make this a regular post to keep people in touch with what is going on with all of us. It will probably be picture heavy.
One of our walks along the canal after a picnic. What kid doesn’t love throwing walnuts and rocks in to water?Throwing walnuts led Morgan and Brandon down the rabbit hole of harvesting walnuts. Now, Morgan thinks we are going to forage pounds of walnuts. Their method of cracking them will have to be more efficient. 🙂 Pizza selfies are always a good idea. And about 20 selfies by a 3 year old are always entertaining. New bedding made their rooms extra fun and bright. Thanks Grandma Debbie, Aunt Jacque and Aunt Sheri! Both girls wanted rainbows for their rooms. Makes it fun to add pops of color. I’m working on a fun art project for their walls. Hopefully it will work and I’ll share soon.
Turns out we are fitting in a lot of activities these first couple of weeks. I’m sure it will slow down once I get back to work, but for now it’s easy to fill up a post with highlights from the week. I left out the trip to Starved Rock, but it deserves a post of it’s own soon. 🙂
We were able to move the girls’ clothes, some toys, dressers, Morgan’s mattress and box spring, and Natalie’s bed along with a few other things up to the new place last Sunday.
I think it took about an hour to get things loaded in my dad’s truck and then add the other mattress.
It went pretty smoothly except we forgot the mattress to Natalie’s bed until we had the other mattress and box spring already strapped down on my car. It was a relatively easy add though those things kept me from going my usual speed. 😉
Unloading was pretty easy too. The hardest part was reassembling Morgan’s old/Natalie’s new bed. It’s the IKEA Hemnes Daybed which is great for the storage. Brandon assembled it the first time and was surprised it went smoothly after hearing the horror stories of IKEA instructions. This time, we were tired and ready to be done so it took a bit longer than it probably should have. I was in charge of the instructions and didn’t know there were no words in IKEA instructions. It took me a hot minute to figure out the instructions, but I managed and the bed hasn’t collapsed yet.
She’s done better than I thought she would sleeping in a new bed in a new room at a new house upstairs away from mom and dad.
Brandon headed back to Macomb for three more weeks of work, but he will be back for long weekends. He will bring a few things along with him each time, but the majority of the rest of things will be moved once the floors downstairs get done.
The girls and I wanted to squeeze in some fun before school started on Wednesday. We checked out some local parks and the Hennepin Canal trail. I love to ride bikes and walk the trail. The girls like the “waterfalls” and throwing walnuts and rocks into the water.
I feel like this is one of the last ones you can actually drive over. Brandon and I took a wedding photo on one of the old bridges a few locks down and it had not been open to cars for years.
Morgan started school on Wednesday. Natalie will start a bit later because the program needed more documentation to start her in the program. Morgan was a bit nervous but I was sure she would have a great first day. She is so outgoing and makes friends everywhere she goes. She did love her first day and every day since, so that does make moving easier for her.
Ready to go at her new desk.
Natalie is very excited to start her preschool, mainly because there is a bunny in her room. Natalie’s comment was “it’s too big to for Clarence to kill.” I’m hoping she will start in the next few days since she asks every day to go to preschool.
So we will keep on getting things settled here and working on little projects. I’ll keep you up-to-date on those as they happen. We are trying to mix in some fun along with work since we are more “moved” now than we have been.
One of the extra projects we didn’t really plan on doing originally was refinish all the trim in the downstairs. But while we were fixing the cracks and prepping to paint it was easy to see that the trim had not been protected the last time everything had been painted. (Neither had the baseboards, but it’s not as noticeable except in the dining room where we painted navy and the sloppy paint is a light color. We did a good job taping, I swear.)
So all the trim came down, was labeled and then refinished. To refinish it, Brandon used a Citrus stripper because it’s not as toxic. We could be around it with out worrying about breathing it in or getting it on ourselves too much. It says it works in like 2 hours, but Brandon left it on and wrapped it in plastic wrap for 24 hours. Two hours was not even close to having it stripped.
After it sat for 24 hours, we were able to wipe them off and then sand them down. Everyone got involved in that process.
This was a great project for the girls to help with.
You can see Morgan using the small wire brush. Those worked great to get in the crevices of the trim. Then for sanding these sanding blocks were helpful.
Then, much to Brandon’s relief, he tried just putting poly on the trim and it looked great. That meant no staining! It was pretty amazing how just the coat of polyurethane brought out the natural coloring of the wood. We think it’s red oak trim so maybe that’s why it looked so good.
See how pretty?! No staining, just poly (satin finish)
I did not take a great before picture of them, but trust me, they were splotched all over with paint. Once they were dry it was a matter of nailing them back up and we didn’t have any issues with that since we labeled and kind of kept them bundled by room throughout the process.
Much cleaner and not paint all over them.
I do need to touch up the painting in the rooms, but I’m hoping once we get furniture in the rooms, the baseboards and door frames with paint won’t be quite as noticeable. This was an easy project that made a big difference in my opinion but I was also up on the ladders with all those paint spots in my face. 🙂
