Raise the Roof

Timmy and Gideon went to Disney with Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig this week from Monday through Thursday. We were sad that they were gone, however, we were very excited that they got to see all of the things at Disneyland. 

They loved so many things about Disneyland. Gideon's favorite part was the Ferris Wheel and Timmy really liked the Car's ride. They got a wheelchair for Timmy; however, he also sometimes walked on his boot.

While they were gone, we made smaller meals and Alison, and the girls went out most days to the library or somewhere like that. The result is that we had much less cleanup to do around the house. We can't say that that was a direct result of the boys being gone, however, it was certainly funny that that was what happened.

Elsa missed the boys most of the kids, since she loves playing with her brothers so much. We are all glad that they came back.

Wednesday for YW Rea and Sara walked to the temple. Rea said, "It was pretty cool", Sara said "It wasn't worth it".

After getting home from Disney, on Friday Morning Gideon threw up four times, however, he has acted 100% healthy other than that, so we think that it was probably an after effect of a long car ride with lots of snacks instead of actual sickness.

That evening Timmy went to the foot doctor and the doctor says that his foot was healing very well and that he should be better in a few weeks. He told Timmy that he can walk on the cast, and to not jump, but otherwise he can do what he wants.

The kids have been playing with the Water's kids a lot this weekend. They are good friends, and we are really looking forward to moving back in so that we can spend more time with them.

This week the progress on the house has been very good. Despite bad weather the second story went up and Saturday the trusses went up as well. They are still working on putting on the final touches into the roof, and they still have to remove and rebuild the stairs and add in the final staircase too. They say that they will be done with the framing mid next week, so it is moving along pretty well.

Grandpa Mike has also been back from his trips, so he has been doing a lot of work around the broken house. Saturday Mike went to help him, and they were able to remove all of the old aluminum siding, and corkboard exterior walls, and then replace them all with proper pressboard walls, which should work much better.

We also got given some free flooring by the Waters, which looks like it will cover the vast majority of the house, which is really nice of them. When Mike told Grandpa Mike about it, Grandpa Mike told him that we could have some tiles that he has laying around, which should cover all the bathrooms. Between those two things we will have wonderful flooring in our house for free, which is really nice, since we have been worrying about money recently.

On that same note - Mike and Alison have also made a new budget, with the goal of trying to finish the house without having to dip any more into our retirement fund to do it. We want to spend as little money as possible until we can get the house finished, and Mike also wants to see if he can make some side money if it is possible.

Before this trade war that has caused the whole stock market to crash Mike pulled out some money, which should have covered a lot of the cost of building it, but we really don't want to sell any more stock with the stock market so low (for those that don't remember, the rule is buy low and sell high, so with it being so low we don't want to sell at all if we can avoid it.)

Mike has also been given a new calling in the ward: Elders Quorum First Councilor, which seems like a big calling to him, however, he is going to do his best. 

During church Alison was in the primary (as that is her calling), and the music teacher asked the kids "How are mothers like flowers?" One of our kids said, "Flowers are the plant's reproductive organs, and mothers have babies". I am not sure if I am allowed to report which kid said this, however, it was a funny idea.

Rea has been working all week on trying to get her Etsy shop set up and is hoping to launch it next week some time. She knows about all of her prices and the things that she is going to sell, so it is really close to being a reality. Rea also made a cool SandWing dragon out of material that she found at the thrift store. It looks really cute! Some people have been calling it Fluttershy, but if you look at its barbed tail it is obviously not Fluttershy.