It's Walkin Time

Holiday Hell- Kid's Room

Here are a few pics of our 'other' home:

Our room consisted of a mattress and clothes in the closet

The kids room- beds, chair, books.

Moving on to the kid's room upstairs-

This is the offending water stain on the ceiling. It may look harmless but water seeped all throughout the wall below it.

December 26th- furniture moved aside

Demo began

Yet another tent in the house

construction

drywall repair

This would have been the end of it right here if the walls in the kid's room were white. Since they are NOT white, and have green stripes, we were responsible to re-create them. That's right, the restorers were not responsible to do anything other than repair the wall and paint it the original color. Errr.

Thus our work began

It turned out good as new though

Holiday Hell- Master Bedroom

Holiday Hell- it's when you have heavy rain just before Christmas, and it leaks into your bedroom wall creating a huge nasty mold spot on the wall. I found the nastiness behind a painting about 3 days before Christmas. Since I manage the apartments here, I have seen what it takes to fix this, and I got sick to my stomach. Two weeks of demolition, dehumidifying, air testing, mold testing, drywall repair, paint, re-carpeting, etc.

The night after Christmas we had to move everything out of the bedrooms (the kid's room had a smaller leak) and basically move into a vacant apartment downstairs. During the process we would use apartment #3 for sleeping and bathroom purposes, and apartment #2 for eating and living room purposes. Some people have 2 homes because they are wealthy. Other people have 2 homes because of rain damage.

Anyhow, I was wrong about the whole 2 week thing. It did not take 14 days to get us back in our rooms, but 27! 27 days of strangers coming in and out all day. 27 days of loud machines running, hammers hammering, roofers stomping on the roof. 27 days of up and down the stairs every time we needed to go to our other 'home' for something. Every time someone needed to be put down for a nap, it was downstairs. Food, upstairs.

I know what you are thinking -why didn't we stay in a hotel or go away somewhere? I had to be here to meet with everyone each day because of the whole Manager thing.

It was rough with the 2 little ones, but it's over now so I can blog about it and go sleep in MY OWN ROOM! Yay!

This is the evil mold on the wall

This is the night after Christmas when we had to 'move' out

They had to tent off the infected area so they could run enormous dehumidifiers in there for days at a time

This is inside the tent where the wall, floor, and ceiling was ripped out

So so many days later the wall was repaired and painted. We had about 36 hours between the time the wall was repaired and when the new carpet would be laid. Aaron had the bright idea to take advantage of the fact that the furniture was all moved anyway, so we should use that 36 hours and finally paint the room. So we did.

Gray on bottom, white on top with a black border around the room. We are colorful people.

This is the offending wall that started it all

I don't mean to be a downer, but it was the WORST. I think it turned out nicely in the end though. New carpet, new paint, clean room.

The Diaper Pail

The other day I left the diaper pail out after cleaning it, and the kids took up an obsession with it. It was as though this diaper was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to them. They played with it all morning, and although it grossed me out a little, it was hilarious.

Okay this last video is just to showcase the abuse that Griffey puts up with on a daily basis.

Birthday Spoils

So I usually don't blog about all the sweet things that Aaron does for me because I don't want to nauseate you, but it's time you all know how I get spoiled. It's gross.

My birthday was on Saturday and Aaron told me nothing accept that the kids were being babysat for the whole evening. We left the house and he drove me to the beach where he arranged to have my gifts, cake, and ice cream laid out on a picnic table overlooking the ocean. Real Sweet. He explained that this year's gifts had an overall theme to them. The theme was 'Tanya Beach Time.' I've been telling Aaron for months that this summer is my beach summer because the last 3 summers I either had newborn babies, or was pregnant and nauseous a lot of the time, and wasn't able to beach it up as much as I would like to have. This summer, however, there will be no newborns or pregnancies that I am aware of, and I will have two children who will hopefully know how to walk in the sand on their own. Therefore, Tanya Beach Time will be in full force.

Some of my many (yes, many) gifts included beach sandals, a beach parking pass, a beach towel, a voucher for a new swim suit, and my favorite of all- my reinvented beach chair. He took my beach chair, drilled straps into it, fastened a beach bag to the back of it, and made it the ULTIMATE beach chair. Now I can still use my favorite chair, and carry it on my back (which frees up my hands for kids), and even load up the bag with stuff. Genius.

Along with the swimsuit voucher, was a little card informing me that we would next be on our way to be fitted for new bras, now that I am not nursing and had no idea what size I was. Nice touch.

There were more gifts. Yes, more. A new CD to listen to on the way to the beach, and a custom lighting job in my car. This is not beach related but I love it anyhow. The one complaint about our car is that there is very little overhead lights in the cabin. Thanks to aaron- there are now more lights. Woo hoo!

After the bra fitting, there was Cafe Rio for dinner and True Grit at the Theater. What an awesome birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!