Expanding the shoe

It has been a very busy week. We are not only preparing for the wedding on Thursday but also preparing for more toes in our shoe! Greg and Carinna will be joining us while they go to school in the Sacramento area so we are having to do some remodeling and adjusting around here. After spending the first 23 years of our married life living in fixer uppers and doing all the work ourselves I begged Joe to buy a house that did not need any work when we moved to Las Vegas. I was tired of living in construction zones and just wanted to have a home we could live in as it was. Two years ago when we moved back to CA we bought a brand new home that only needed to have the walls painted. Now after a 6 year reprive the construction signs are back. Joe, Brian and Tyler (yes Tyler!)are in heaven.

We have a tandem garage that has now been converted into an office/den/schoolroom. This required the building of a wall in the garage to divide the space from the cars and the removing of a wall in the house to access the new room. When it is finished we will move all the computers and the "schoolroom" into it. We are then building a new wall to turn the "old" loft/schoolroom into a bedroom. Kevin will move into the new bedroom, while Riley, Kelly, and Kaitlin will move back upstairs into the room Kelly & Kaitlin used to share. That will give Greg & Carinna a private bedroom & bath, but it will also mean that the other four kids will be sharing one bath again. So wall number three will be built to subdivide the bathroom. That way someone can shower (or potty) while others use the sink and mirror - hopefully preventing the rioting and banging in the hallway when someone else needs the room.

Part of the fun has been watching them teach the next generation. Tyler loves nothing more than being with his daddy. He already knows the difference between real tools and plastic ones and he'll take the real ones thank you very much! He has been a constant fixture in the garage and the den as they have been working. At any given moment he can be found hammering (this takes some supervision so he doesn't hammer holes in the walls where we don't want them), or "drilling" (he hasn't caught on yet that the drill & saw are not plugged in when he has them). It takes great effort but he tries to pick up the saw, and even climbs the ladder to give Papa Joe the tools he needs. Needless to say Mommy & Gran watch with laughter and some trepidation as he learns new skills. Despite once again having everything in my house coated with drywall dust, I am so grateful to have men in my life that can do all the work themselves. I am even more grateful that they enjoy doing it.

Life in the shoe is good!