A little of this, a little of that

Justin found our camera!!! I was so excited, I knew I had left it in my hoodie but for the life of me I couldn't find it. I have been doing major spring cleaning and thought maybe it had made its way into one of the donation bags, but nope, it just ended up in Justin's side of the closet, I am glad he noticed it. Here are a few shots of putting the garden box together.

Helping load the wheel barrow:




And helping pack down the dirt:


While copying the pictures from the camera I found these I took one night Justin was bathing Katherine. We usually divide and conquer, one of us bathing her and the other cleaning up dinner and prepping lunch for the next day. This particular night Justin was giving the bath and when I was done and made it upstairs I was amazed at the bubbles, and asked what he used - well the baby shampoo of course because we were out of the baby soap - obviously!





We went out to the Fish and Wildlife Fair at Creamers Field and Katherine seemed quite interested in many of the booths and her vantage point:


She was roaring while pointing out the bear to us:


She was riveted by this falcon - we were too, but in case we hadn't noticed it she pointed it out to us as well:


This area was clever and hilarious, there were a bunch of spotting scopes set up and the older kids had a list of items they had to find, they were things like a stuffed toy moose on a stick, a stuffed toy goose in the grass, some rubber duckies in a row, etc:


Katherine listening as we listen toA littl of this the speech on radio tagging:


We tried our hand at some fishing and even though it isn't very good yet it was a nice day.It was a little chilly in the morning, so Katherine was bundled up, but very engaged with the discussion about where the fish may be and the like:




Seconds after I took this shot she jumped into the water. Justin's reaction time was amazing so she barely got wet, I was able to peel off the outer layer and she was still dry underneath. It didn't slow her down much:


In a parting shot, I had given Katherine some chocolate, but I didn't realized she hadn't eaten it by the time I loaded her up in the car. About 5 minutes into driving she starts repeating "hand" which usually means she wants to wash her hand, when I looked at her I couldn't help but laugh and think "that is all you want washed?"

We have been busy

There has been so much to do now that the snow is all gone. First and foremost was exploring puddles - a big pass time of Katherine's while they lasted:



When Katherine and I returned from Colorado Justin had been hard at work making a garden box for me- something I have wanted for a while, but house construction always took precedence. It was my birthday gift this year and I have been looking forward to it. Katherine wasted no time in helping out:



I took a bunch of great photos of her in the dirt while we filed it, her rolling in the dirt and just in general having fun in the garden box, but alas, I have lost another camera, so those pics are gone, so we jump right to filed with dirt and plants:



Justin made it nice and tall so that I wouldn't have to bend over to garden which has been super nice. I added the removable greenhouse as it will warm up soon enough that the plants won't need the heat boost. What a fun experiment this will be this summer!

The reason I will be dabbling in gardening is because all of the major house projects are done! The last one to be completed was the downstairs bathroom. We have been working on it this winter and it is done!!!! It originally was a 1/2 bath with the laundry:





I will admit, we hired some help to finish up the construction. Claudio who did our tile and deck came in and did a great job, but before he could do that we did all of the prep work, which took a while:

Emptied room:


Wall paper and linoleum flooring removed:


Once the room was empty Justin designed and fabricated some ducting that will connect our den where the wood stove is to the main floor. It has an in-line fan within the ducting that will be turned on by a thermostat in the den so when the wood stove heats up past what ever we set it to, say 72 degrees, the fan will turn on and pull the warm air up into the main floor which will make the wood stove work better and heat the house evenly. Getting this part figured out took some time and Justin did a bang-up job!

Once the design work was completed and the grunt work of prepping the room was done, Claudio got to work and put in the tub and its tile- a project both of us were dreading because it required cutting into the concrete slab:



The ducting in and framed out:



Tile floor, sheet rock and paining completed:





Vanity in:


At this point it was all us again, but we didn't mind, the really hard stuff was done, so Justin sanded and re-stained the big piece of trim and installed the regular trim as well while I finished painting the window sill:



Toilet area finished, Justin has teased me a lot about the fact there are three things total hanging up on the walls at our house and one is above the newest toilet. I told him I was so happy it was done without any blood, sweat or tears shed by us I felt the need to decorate it :)





I wil say, it is loads easier when there is more than two of you working on a house project! In looking for the before pictures of this bathroom I was shocked by what we have accomplished, I also wondered what on earth I was thinking! But I am so glad it is done! Just a bit of trim here and there and some effort into hanging stuff on the wall and it'll be done and it only took us 4 years :)

Slides

I realized I completely forgot to post my very favorite happenings from our trip to Colorado. Katherine followed Cooper everywhere, so of course she followed him up the big kid slide, poor Judy she said she watched the whole thing with great trepidation (to put it mildly):




Now, not all of her trips down the slide were without event, as you can hear Jill stating right before she comes down, sometimes her foot got stuck at the top with the following result - disclaimer *no Katherines were hurt in the making of this video*




Lauren had her share of slide action as well, Jill was giving Cooper lots of very important directions as he went down with his sister, the one that obviously stuck in his head was not to let go of Lauren and he did a great job of that:



What a good kid :)

I just don't know where the time goes....

It seems like yesterday I was heading out to my last village trip, most likely ever, to Ruby, but that was now over a month ago! I was originally planning on taking Katherine with me but plans changed at the last minute and she stayed home with Justin. I was gone a total of 2 weeks, and even though Justin has a new found appreciation of me, it was a bit much. Life sometimes is a double edged sword though, because even though I wasn't there for Katherine and Justin, I was able to finish all of the needs for the children in the village of Ruby and save them all some toothaches and the worry of coming up with the money to fly in for treatment. As usual, we arrived in style in the tiny plane: The village from the air: My chilly ride to and from the airport - I got the bed because the truck cab was full of much, much older adults: The amazing Yukon River: Once back I headed out to Colorado to spend some time with Jill, Cooper, Lauren and Grammie Love who came to have some grandbaby time. Here we wait for Jill and the gang to pick us up at the airport: Colorado was full of new adventures for Katherine, the pool we went to was awesome for so many reasons, it was warm, had a beach-like zero entry, fountains, water spouts and spigots and a great little slide. Pretty much if Cooper went to do anything Katherine was hot on his trail, so up the steps she went for the slide: The pool was a hit! The slides in general were a hit, she had a great time on the dry ones as well, here she and Lauren make their way up the steps: (Ignore my big fat finger:)) We met up with Sarah and Reese for dinner in Boulder and Katherine's inauguration to the play area: Everyone taking their turn to jump into a very patient Sarah's arms: We also had a go at Heil Ranch, Katherine and Cooper ran around: And did some sign interpretation for us: And Katherine picked up a stick, just like Cooper: And some animal print interpretation thrown in for good measure: We took Katherine to the Denver Zoo, which as Zoos go was a great first Zoo to go to. She loved it and was all into making lots of animal sounds and pointing and "oh wows", it was pretty darn cute. She crawled up into this viewing window to get a better look: Showing me the snake while hissing: Some eye contact with the puffer fish: The girls talk and share a snack with Grammie Love: We arrived to the measuring monkey and Cooper explained how to pose with it, I will paraphrase Cooper: 1. "This is where we measure how tall we are" 2. "Stand like this" 3. Y"ou have to back up to it" 4. "Now do big arms"