Ames Summer Visit

My parents were here for a visit in June on their way up to Canada. Gavin loved studying rocks with Grandpa Ducky, and we all had fun playing croquet, hanging out at parks, reading stories, discovering beautiful areas around Heber Valley to explore, and more.

My mom was awesome at helping me weed the whole garden area and plant tomatoes!  They were great to have and I'm excited to add more to our garden next year.  Liam was a great helper digging holes with Grandpa Ducky in the garden.

Visit to see Aunt Rae

Stories

Beautiful area east of Heber

 

And of course more studying rocks!

Hanging hummingbird feeders

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..and more rocks!

Monte, monte, caballo rides at the park

Shakes at Dairy King

A close second to visiting family for my Mom, is visiting the Family History Museum in Salt Lake City when she comes to Utah. Gavin's been interested in Family History lately, so we took a trip down with the kids one day to check it out.

 My parents also helped us out with our home while they were here.  My dad built a new shelf for me in the laundry area, and painted the ceiling in the basement for us. At some point Jared and I are looking forward to having family visit us without having to put them to work on our home! But we've appreciated all the help from family over the past several months!

Life's a Roller Coaster

I really feel like as busy as this summer was, it was also somewhat of a dud. We didn't ride any fun roller coasters, or even go on any trips for that matter. But life is full of ups and downs, loops and turns. This wasn't our typical summer, but now looking back after it's (almost) all said and done, the sacrifices we made this summer to get our basement finished was worth it and we are loving our new home.

Because of the all the crazy I haven't kept up as much with the blog. I've been working on nine months of catch up, so once again brace yourselves for a picture overload here!

After finishing the drywall, painting, and cleaning in the basement I got to work installing vinyl flooring in the utility room/laundry area. We had the opening for the separate entrance cut in our foundation, and Juan got started framing the stair well footing/wall and poured the concrete. Eventually the steps were framed and poured. Jared worked on prepping the entrance and hanging the door. When Jared's parents were here (again) Mark helped Jared get the basement washer and dryer hooked up. We laid vinyl flooring in the basement entryway, and added baseboard. Through the process of all of this we found tenants for our basement and they moved in the beginning of September. For the first month they shared our entrance through the garage, but are now officially using the separate basement entrance!

Boys helping haul chunks of concrete out of the pit

Ready to pour the wall

Pouring the footing and wall

Laying flooring in the laundry area

Ready to frame the stairs & landing

Back filling & tamping down dirt

Pouring the stairs

Hand prints! 

Hanging the door 

It's the first of November, and all that is left to do is build the roofing over the separate entrance, hang the trim around the outside of the door, install a guardrail around the stairwell for safety, and add a railing in the stairwell. We've kind of taken a break from these projects for a while to slow down and just enjoy life for a while, but it's probably time we start getting back on top of these!