Football season is HERE! And Western Branch is rockin!

Football season is here and I am jazzed!  Ricky is starting on the Western Branch JV team and is doing great!  Their first game was against Nansemond River and it was a complete domination.  Western Branch scored and never looked back.  The score was 39 to 0 with one of those touchdowns belonging to Ricky.  He scooped the ball on a fumble and ran it into the end zone.  Ricky said "one of the only touchdowns I may get in my career as a defensive lineman..."

Last week the Bruins played Kings Fork.  That was a little tougher game.  The offensive line was being rather offensive and pretty much shut Ricky down.  Between chop blocks and holding, Ricky was barely able to get through the line into the offensive backfield.  They were keying on him, double teaming and moving some of their biggest linemen in front of  him.

Nice shot of King's Fork throwing a chop block at Ricky's knees.  He's in the right 1/3 of the photo.

The next photo shows that same lineman clearly holding Ricky and keeping him from getting into the backfield.  I sure wish the officials would have been doing their job.  This continued throughout the game.

Over all Western Branch did a good job against a tough opponent.  They came out on top 15 to 14 in a hard fought battle against the officials and the King's Fork players.

This week is another home game and should be equally as tough, hopefully only against the football team.

Moved...

Have you noticed how many people volunteer to help you move but come moving day are no where to be found? Just observations from an exhausted "mover".

Just Another Day in Purgatory!!

Well tonight we are exhausted again, Scott more than anyone. He's been at the house ALL day laying the floor by himself in the dining room. He did a spectacular job!!


Billy came over earlier in the afternoon to finish the skim coat on the beam and wall frame. I didn't take the camera but it doesn't look much different than the pictures below, just more white than gray and white. In two days we can paint it. He has done such a great job and we are soo pleased. He's such a sweet guy and we are really enjoying getting to know him.

Editor's Note:  If you need ANY construction or reconstruction work done, fencing, decks, interior work, Billy is the man to do it.  He takes a great deal of personal pride in his work and goes the extra mile to make sure it's done right and to YOUR liking.  We can't recommend him high enough. 

Call him at 757-295-1360.

Matt came over to help finish the flooring in the hallway and hall closet and coat closet in the living room. :) The hallway didn't take as long as I thought, but I was next door with the neighbor looking around her house and talking so it may have been longer.

We have very nice neighbors. :) We've met quite a few already and one even brought us brownies. We each got one before ants came in and started carrying them away. BAH!!! Next on the list is to spray spray spray... ants are a huge problem anywhere in Hampton Roads because we sit on the water.

And glory-be the electricity is back in place!!! All the lights work the way they are supposed to. We have an electrician in our church, Mark, and he came and rerouted everything for us. He and Scott work closely on stage for filming and getting all the wires junk run for when the praise team sings. Mark said it was a really complicated set up even for him and he's been doing this stuff for 20 years.

Tomorrow we put the quarter-round all the way around the baseboards, closets, etc... basically anywhere that wall meets floor. This way we don't see the edges of the flooring. There is a 1/4 inch space between the end of the flooring and the wall to allow for expansion as the weather changes...otherwise it would swell in the heat and crack the walls. I sure don't want that happening. The thresholds will also be nailed into place.

So really that's about it on the house front.

We have another sick wee one in daycare. He went to ER today with 106.0 temperature. Very scary. The gave him antibiotic via IV and some saline and he's feeling much better. Little brother was well and spent the day with us. With only two of our other kiddos here today we took a trip to Chuck E Cheese to burn off some rainy day energy. Had a great time. :)

Paige was really feeling sick at school... no fever thank goodness but an extremely upset stomach. She stuck it out at school, but I wasn't sure what was wrong with her. I figured she was trying to come down with the virus that's been going around, but we realized shortly after she got home the problem is.... you'll probably laugh.... she's teething. haha. Her wisdom tooth is popping through in the bottom right of her gums. She feels better now after some prescription NSAIDS and should be able to manage the rest of the week. She'll unfortunately have to wait until school is out for the summer to have them removed. Their high school has extremely rigid attendance rules. That and exams are coming up the next two weeks before school is out for the year. Our little Paigey-baby is going to be a senior. I still can't believe it sometimes.

We'll post some pics tomorrow after we get some of the wreckage cleaned up from today's work.

2 days and a wake up until moving day!!!

love to all and God bless.

Gone Baby Gone

Well the wall is GONE!!! It really opens up the house a lot... the photos just don't do it justice. Construction guy and friend, Billy, came over this morning and he and Scott just started whaling away on everything. I played Girl Friday and got food, drinks, carried this and that to here and there. All in all a good time once we got going. We've got on hiccup and that's the electrical work. We're having a hard time getting it re-routed where it needs to go. Scott has been just amazing and I know he's soooo frustrated. He'll lose some sleep tonight I'm sure running the configs through his head trying to figure out what went wrong. It's in the wall the right way but something is twisted with the wires. He is going back over in the morning with Billy to finish the mudding on the support beams and see what can be done with the electricity. In the evening the rest of the flooring is going in so there should be some more great pics tomorrow night.

Much kudos to my awesome husband for his patience while I forced him to take down a wall. :) love you baby!!!

Before pic

Just the bones

Ceiling Support

Dang Wires

Pounding the new beam into place.

Ceiling Support?? We don't need no stinkin ceiling support!!!

Moment of truth. (we actually heard the ceiling settle when this support came down...scary)

Billy mudding the seams.

Looking into the dining room.

Looking into the living room

Please continue in your prayers for this endeavour as well pull it all together. love to you all!!!!

General Info (not house related) :)

I just thought I would give a quickie update on everyone here on the non-house front.

Paige is doing great. She's spent the weekend with her best bud Victorya and family. She is looking for a new job at the mall which is within walking distance of the new house, almost a mile. Great because gas just went over $4 a gallon.... aaarrrgghhhhh!!!!! No boyfriend on the horizon which is fine with me and fine with her which is great. School is her main focus at this point which makes us VERY happy. She is playing softball again and loving it. They extended the cut off age to 18 so she can play this year and next year.

Kourtney is in NagsHead with her best bud Heather and family. She is learning to crutch through sand and swimming a lot in the ocean. Good thing she has the removable boot now. She's called a couple of times to let me know that she is having a great time. She and Heather slept on the screened in porch last night on the beach which she was really excited about. I'm sure they will have tons of pics to share when they get home.

Ricky has been helping on the house while the girls have been gone. He's spending a lot of his time with his best bud, Tyler. Tyler just got off a 2-month groundation so they are happy to be able to hang out together outside of football practice. Football practice is going well. He comes home every afternoon with updates on how much weight he lifted that day or how far they ran etc etc. Technically at this point it's conditioning.... practice with pads and contact will happen in the summer when they go to tryouts. I pray he makes the team again. He never misses a conditioning practice and his heart and love for the game is HUGE!!!

Scott and I are doing great. Our 6 year anniversary is tomorrow!! And our gift to each other is.... (drum roll please) yes you guessed it... A NEW HOUSE!!! haha. We crawl into bed each night with a kiss an I love you and we're off to sandman land. We're running ourselves ragged and thank the Lord I haven't picked up the virus that's been running rampant around here. One of our daycare tykes has it awful bad... high fever and throwing up for a couple of days now... mom is pregnant (our second pregnant mom due in july) and really worried about him. Two other wee ones came down with the fever but not as high and they, at this point, are faring better.

Our newest addition to the daycare arrived Friday afternoon at 12:42 pm. Brady Rhinehold. Weighing in at 7lbs 6oz. I can't wait to meet him. I planned to go to the hospital Friday evening but am waiting until tomorrow so I don't bring any lingering viral germies with me. Brady's Daddy, Kourtney's ankle doc, called to tell me that I had another addition to my family. That brought tears to my eyes. I love my families so much. Mom and little guy are doing great and big sister Berkley, all of 2 years old, was there at the birth and I hear she enjoyed it tremendously.

So that's about it for now. I am sorry I don't have pics of the kids up yet, with the exception of Ricky's back and legs in the post below. We've just been at different places at different times recently.

Take care and check back often for more pics and such. Love to all.

Taping, Painting and Lighting...Oh My!!

Today was another day of loads of little work. We need to buy stock at Lowe's. We got new blinds for the living room window. The old ones were two panels of vinyl mini blinds of which one panel had been cut away by the previous occupants and the other panel chewed by their dog. Not pleasant to look at from the curb. We put in the 2" white faux wood blinds which were custom cut to go across the entire window in one full length. MUCH better. We will do those throughout eventually, but right now just the front windows. There is a peek in this pic of the new blinds.

(Ricky and Tyler taping baseboards)

We replaced the chandelier in the dining room with another light fixture type of chandelier and finished painting the walls. I wish the color showed on the pics it's wonderful. We primed all the baseboards throughout and will do the final coat tomorrow.

This morning our construction guy was supposed to come out at 7:30am to tear down the wall between the living room and dining room and he didn't show!!! Miscommunication or something...hmmmm. He promised he would be there tomorrow morning bright and early at 7:30am. I sure hope so we really need this done tomorrow. Tuesday evening the rest of the flooring is going in. If this wall doesn't come down now it's not coming down at all and that will be really disappointing. We'll post an update tomorrow evening. Please pray this goes well because at this point there is a HUGE amount of stress regarding this wall.

There are just a few pics tonight. This is a lot of fun but soooo much work. Our to-do list is getting so long and I am impatient and have to remember a little at a time. The bedrooms and bathrooms are staying as is at this point and the garage to daycare conversion with have to wait just a while too. Next big project will be fencing in the backyard and finding a ride-on mower...pushing a lawn mower across an acre of land is not anyone's idea of fun.

Old lighting fixture (yuck a duck)

New lighting fixture (much better!!!)

Scott taping the ceiling (Ladder rodeo!!!)

Status Update

We took yesterday off. Just lazed around the house a little. Tonight I am going over to measure for trim for the wood floors and baseboards. I heard Katie mention the "P" word (painting).

Other than that, not much progress.

Floors will hopefully be completed on Tuesday and the painting will be done by then.

More updates later on.