A Busy Week!

Matt and I were hoping we'd be farther along by now, but, alas, things are still coming along. Our friend Blake got the soffit and fascia finished last week and I love having the porch finished! We put in the rest of the lights and are working on finishing up the rock. Hopefully tomorrow we will have all the rock grouted, cleaned, and sealed!

The gas company FINALLY came out and connected our gas!

Blake finished the siding too (he is awesome). Now we can call Dan to come over to paint the outside of the house. It will really start looking finished when it is painted!

Now that the electrical is all tied up, the power company needs to come over and officially connect the power to the house. We have been running on temporary power since January.

Doesn't it look great! Not! I can't wait until this hideous thing is gone!

BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK! THE CABINETS WERE INSTALLED! Honestly the pictures do not do justice to the cabinets. I am so glad we went through Timber Wolf (Matt works for the owner Jon Call sometimes). Everything is such high quality. The detail is incredible. I'll have to take some close up pictures. The pictures don't really do justice to the color either. The flash on my camera made them look more yellow than they really are. You'll have to just come over for the full effect!

Kitchen cabinets. We love them!

Desk. Such a great decision. We were originally going to put in a railing, and then thought about a half bookshelf, and finally landed on the desk. Thank you Todd for the great idea.

Guest bathroom.

Master bath.

Mudroom. The washer and dryer will go below the cabinets.

As you can see, it's been a very good week for us.

*Update! Our power has now been connected! Almost everything works... All the outlets are wired right, and so are all the lights, except for the lights in the bedrooms. For some reason, there is a weird problem tripping the power in that circuit. Hopefully Matt can get it figured out soon. Pictures to come!

The Hardest Part

I just sat through our last faculty meeting for the year, and had a lot of thoughts racing through my mind about this job. About what I come to work to do every day. To everyone who wants to be a teacher, and to everyone who has kids, please read:

The hardest part about being a teacher is that I can never do enough. No matter what I do, I don't prepare all my kids for every situation they face in life. I will never teach them everything they need to know. I will never help them feel safe every day, and I will never make sure they are happy every day. I will never teach them to always make good choices. My job is literally never done. Every night I think about what I could have done better that day. How I could have handled the situation better. How I could have taught the lesson better. How I could have been better. The day's regret is often a long list. Even in the summer, when I don't have to work every day, I think all day about what I'm going to do for my kids next year that I didn't do last year. How am I going to be more efficient so I can teach more, and the kids can learn more. But we are literally never done. Ever.

My principal mentioned that he sees miracles performed every day in our classrooms. I never feel that way. No teacher ever feels like they performed a miracle. They sigh and think, "Wow, we just made it through something tough. But did I do everything right? What will I do better next time?" So please, if you are thinking about becoming a teacher, think about all this. This isn't a job. It is really my life. I dream about my class often. And to all the parents with kids in school, please tell your kids' teachers about those miracles that they perform, because they will never recognize them. Every time they look at your child, they see all the things they could have done better.

Just so you know.

Baby Clayton Lance Fischer

I absolutely love being an aunt! And now I have another new nephew to love and buy presents for!

Clayton Lance Fischer was born to Lance and Kendra on May 3, 2014 at 2:35 AM. He was a TINY 5 pounds, 12 ounces, and 19 inches long.

Kendra is my hero. She has had two wild deliveries in the past 15 months. I pray every day that my babies will be as healthy as hers, but that I won't have her deliveries! Love you Ken!

I love all that dark hair! Kendra sent us this picture on their way home from the hospital.

We didn't get to see Clayton until Mother's Day, a week after he was born, and he was still sooooo small!  He actually only weighed 5 pounds, 5 ounces then!

Our friends Nate and Kim Christensen live next to Diet and Myrna. Kim had her first baby within a few days of Regan being born, and had her second baby within a week or so of Kendra's new baby. They brought baby Hopelyn (I'm not sure if I spelled that right) over to compare tiny baby sizes. Clayton has a little smaller features, but weight and length are almost the same! Aren't they soooo cute!?

The Real Update

Ok, so my post a few days ago was really not the most recent update. Here is the real update, current as of today!

We finished the mudroom! I LOVE IT! As you can see, I'm already using it. We have one outlet to put in and the vent cover on this side left. On the other side, we just need the cabinets to be installed (this week!) and put in the washer and dryer (in the basement) and then we're done!

My crown shelf Matt made me. More places to put our crap.

Matt put in the fans and my mom put in all the light casings! My mom is a freaking champ! A week or so ago, she came up and saved my life! I was super stressed about our room and car and everything being a total disaster and she came up and cleaned my disgusting bathroom, did all of our dishes and cleaned the kitchen, washed my sheets on our bed, and cleaned out my car! AND THEN she came over to the house and put in a billion light casings! We got so much done that day and it was sooo nice to go home to a clean room and drive a clean car! THANK YOU MOM!

All the trim (except where we will have cabinets) is in! Doesn't it make a difference?

The closets are all officially done too! Matt and I installed all the hanging bars, so we are ready to go! Matt worked on a house that is just getting finished (in fact, the people have already started moving in) and they have NOTHING in their closets. No shelves, bars, nothing. I am so happy that ours are done and ready to go.

Smoke detectors and light fixtures are all installed inside (we still have to do the outside lights, but we are waiting for the house to get painted).

Our tool closet! Actually, this is our pantry. It is going to be a battle to get Matt's tools out of there so I can fill it with food sometime soon!

Matt and I worked like crazy on Saturday to get all the rock finished. When I say finished, I mean put on the house. We still need to grout, clean, and seal, but it's all on.

The garage got fire-taped and mudded today! Yay! Now we can paint in there and then we can put in the finish electrical and the garage door!

Holy crap! The panel is all tied in! Remember what it used to look like?

February

Last week!! We had our inspection on Friday and passed, so now we can get our power connected TOMORROW! I can't wait to turn all the lights on and see everything the way it is supposed to look!

We are getting ready to finish up all the tile. I talked Matt into doing some glass tile accents in the showers and am happy to finally get my way! This is what $500 dollars looks like:

I got the joyous job of painting on the "Aqua Guard" where Matt will put tile. I had to do three coats, and I ended up with splashes of the stuff all over me! This is the guest bathroom:

Master tub (or as Reagan and Harrison say, "Towie's tub")

Master shower

This is what the grout looks like wet... we'll see what it looks like tomorrow when it's dry.

Our new friend and neighbor, Blake, is doing our soffit and facia. He has been working Saturdays and nights at the house with us to finish, but here's a sneak peek at the porch! He will be done tomorrow!

Phew! We've been super busy, but we're starting to get to the part that other people will finish for us! We can call the painter to come back and paint the outside, we can call someone to come and start building the rock wall and leveling the lot, we already have the insulation guy coming to insulate the attic, the power is getting turned on tomorrow, the CABINETS ARE GETTING INSTALLED THIS WEEK, and we can start doing tile in the showers and then we can carpet and oh my gosh we are getting so close! There is still a lot to do, but we are soooo close! I'm not going to count down (like I am at school- 8 more days if anyone's counting), but it is so nice to have stuff getting done and to know that there aren't too many things that will be really time consuming! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!

Flooring!

Matt and I have been working so hard and we are getting so close to the end! Everyone who comes in always says that we are so close! I wish! It still feels forever away. There are so many little things left, but I do have to celebrate the little things we get done!

The hardwood floor looks more beautiful that I could have imagined. It is soooo filthy and I can't wait for all the carpet to go in so we stop kicking up dust! Matt was a champion. He put most of the flooring down in one day. He was a major perfectionist too! All the seams had to be just right and if the piece chipped when he cut it, he would cut another. I am glad though because it really looks so amazing!

The mudroom is sooo close to being done! We got the tile done in the mudroom and just need to finish the shelving and put on the baseboard and finish electrical.

View from mudroom into the kitchen. Matt chipped one tile while he was putting in the hardwood and had to rip it out. He'll fix it when we start doing shower tile.

Finished tile in the guest bathroom.

Finished tile in the master bathroom.

Now that flooring is done, we can get the cabinets installed! Hopefully they get finished soon! We can also finish the baseboard, start finish electrical, get the power tied up and turned on, finish the tile in the two showers, finish the rock outside, get the outside painted after the soffit and facia get done... and so on and so on and so on. Really we are close! Keep posted for more!

Turkey Success!

Matt has been turkey hunting for four years now. He started right after we got married and has increasingly become more and more obsessed with turkey hunting each year. He has also had NO SUCCESS. Finally, this year, the busiest we have ever been and with the least amount of scouting, Matt finally shot his turkey! He sent me this picture when I got to work. He got up soooo early every day to go hunt and then would go to work after hunting. On this day, he was hunting alone. He was sad that no one was there to give him a high-five, but he said everyone on the mountain could hear him whooping and hollering after he shot it!

 

That night, Matt and Jenny (okay, mostly Jenny) cooked Matt's turkey and they had a Thanksgiving dinner! I was at my class so I missed the whole thing. However, I did hear that the turkey meat was "the best turkey" Matt had ever eaten. He said it was super moist and didn't taste gamey at all.

A few days later, Brad's youth hunt started. On opening morning, Matt, Randy, Nate and Brad went up to look for turkeys. Matt had pretty much figured out where the turkeys were roosting, so he got them all into the right spot. Matt said Brad was super loud walking around, which is bad because turkeys have really good hearing and eyesight. Matt was worried Brad was going to scare all the turkeys away. Once they got settled, Matt started calling the turkeys and three walked right up to them! To Brad's credit, he took this tom with a single shot! Matt said he threw his gun on the ground and ran down to see his prize! He was one happy camper! They picked up Jenny, Jenni and the little kids and all went out to breakfast at L.D.s in Richmond. Of course, I was at work! I miss everything!