Wonderful weekend

We had a GREAT weekend around here. Eric called last week and said he needed to take a class here in Pueblo so he was going to come stay a night with us. In the 2 1/2 years we've lived here he had never seen our house! He got here Friday afternoon and then had class that night and again on Saturday morning. Amelia and I met up with him (he?) and Jonathan for the Saturday Taco Bell lunch ritual. After that I got in touch with Chrystal (from Grand Junction) who was in town for the Colorado State Fair. We met up at 1:30 to walk around the Fair, which was a really bad idea becuase it was 95 degrees out and lugging a baby around in that kind of heat is not my idea of fun. But, she invited me back that night to go to the Blake Shelton concert with her family because they happened to have an extra ticket. I got to go back that night babyless, in the cool night air. Wonderful. The next morning we met up with her family for a Cracker Barrell breakfast, went to church, and then got our house ready to have a BBQ for the Bed Bath and Beyond management. That lasted from about 4-8:30 on Sunday night and the weekend was over! Whew. This week I have something planned with friends every day, including Kirsta and Joe coming to stay for Labor Day weekend on Friday! The fun just never stops around here... Until it gets cold again and I become a shut-in. :)

August

First, my apologizes for not blogging in so long. It's not that I forget, and actually my guilt for not blogging grows with each passing day. It just seems to me that 99% of my readers are at any activity worth blogging about, and then I just feel like I'm being redundant. I think what I need to do is start writing about the "small" things in life, and trying to capture more day-to-day things on camera.


Anyway~ the month of August has had it's ups and downs around here. On the 4th Amelia turned 1!! I of course knew that it was coming, but on that day I finally realized that I am the Mom of a 1 year old! Seriously, where did the time go?? I feel like it was yesterday when my mom was here visiting and she told me to just make it through the first 6 weeks and then it would get better. Well, 6 weeks have passed, and then another 46 weeks! Wow. We had a BBQ at our house for our Pueblo/Springs friends and family on her birthday, and then that weekend we went to Denver for a celebration with the Gustavson side (and Joe's Mom) at Water World and Kirsta's house.

This is the cake I made her This is the new swimsuit we bought her for Water World That was a great week/weekend. The following Wednesday was her 1 year Dr. appointment. She woke up that morning with a fever, so we found it pretty handy that we were on our way to the Dr. When we got there they checked her all out and couldn't find anything wrong, assumed it was just teething and we decided to give her her shots. I wouldn't say that giving her shots that day was a mistake, but the teething combined with a stomach bug (which we found out later that night, which is what was causing the fever), combined with the shots, whose effects didn't show up for 7-10 days, has made this a LONG week and a half for us. There's been high fevers, low fevers, never-ending fevers, throwing up, crying (on both our parts after the throw up:) ), LOTS of whining and therefore lots of Tylenol, skin rashes and the worst diaper rash I've seen, and many sleepless nights. I guess these are the joys of parenthood.

Today seems to be the start of things looking up. The fever is gone and she seems to be getting back to her normal, happy self. Please cross your fingers for me that she stays this way, at least until her next tooth. :)

On a happier note, Amelia LOVES fruit. Such as:
Watermelon And peaches, fresh off our tree! She also signed "all done" for about a week and now she just wants to say it. Any time of the day you say it to her, this is what she does: Mostly it just sounds like "Aaaaaaa daaaa."


I guess that's all for today. :)

My favorite Bear Lake memories

Since everyone was there, and I believe we all have the same pictures, I'm just going to post a few of my favorites.

Amelia eating cookies

Ba and Na-Na
Food for the birds!
A walk along the beach
Sam, Haley and Jonathan catching some air
By far the most funny play I have Ever seen! I wish they would've had it on DVD.
World's largest pizza
What a doll

This one makes me laugh because it looks like she is thinking, "HOT!"

Family photo

I love this picture of Mom
Aw, Gee.
What a wonderful vacation! If I could wake up every morning to that view, it would be a wonderful world. Can't wait until next year!

The bathroom so far...

I know you are all DYING to see pictures of how the bathroom is coming along. :) Although we are trucking right along, we laugh at ourselves for thinking this was going to be a weekend project. We are SOOO grateful that Joe was able to come help Jonathan with the hard stuff, like re-wiring the lights and building new walls, and it has been really fun for me to be able to get in there and help with the not-to-hard stuff like painting. This past weekend Jonathan's Aunt Rhonda volunteered to come help us lay the tile, so things are starting to really fall into place and look amazing. I will start the pictures in order from the VERY beginning of the bathroom, even though I think most of you have seen the bathroom in person. Just a refresher.

This is standing outside the door to the whole room. The chunk that's missing out of the wall was from when Jonathan moved our couches downstairs. Oops.

How the washer and dryer were placed

Standing at the washer/dryer looking at the bathroom door

How the toilet looked


The old floor


Starting over..

After lots of demo, Joe lays concrete for the new shower base.


Floor is gone, toilet is gone, lots of tools.

Joe built 2 new small walls to install bi-fold doors, (as seen on the middle right) and they installed "green-board" drywall, which is mold resistant, for the ceiling, along with new can lights and a fan.

After lots and lots of drywall patches and mudding, there was a small hang-up when we realized that you have to texture new drywall. We cleared the place out, Jonathan textured and we painted!

This is the new room for the washer and dryer, which will be closed off by bi-fold doors.

On to tiling..

Laying it down.. these were about the only full tiles that were laid. The rest had be cut.. poor Rhonda having to measure and cut them all! I got the easy job of laying them down :)

All done setting the tiles

Grouting

Here I am, grouting away

The tile as it looks right this very minute.. I'm going to clean it off a few more times and then we're going to seal it.


There it is folks! I hope you can even understand what is going on in these pictures. Definitely more to come. I'll even do a fun Before and After blog of all the different key elements. Ta ta for now!

4th of July

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! I know we did! We (Jonathan, Melody and Tom) worked some more on the bathroom remodel, (pictures soon to come) and then we went to Jonathan's Aunt Sue's house for a barbecue. Not to forget, of course, the reason for the holiday, and remembering all of our service men and women, but especially Karl.

I laid Amelia down in the grass, expecting her to roll right over and hop right up. She stayed there for about 15 minutes!

Playing with Grandpa!

Year #2

Tomorrow is our 2 year anniversary! Time sure flies when you're having fun! Jonathan took the weekend off so we could relax together, and today we drove to Denver for our annual tradition of going to the botanic gardens. We got a new Dyson vacuum for our gift to ourselves, then we had a wonderful lunch at Red Robin, which we don't have the pleasure of having in Pueblo. We then spent the afternoon walking around the gardens reminiscing about our wedding. What a wonderful life.

Here's a look back:
2008

2009

2010


Here are some more cute shots from today:

Happy Baby Lady

Daddy explaining the flowers and the trees


Beautiful flowers

Ouchies

There's a first time for everything, and with kids, firsts are happening all the time. This post isn't about a first that we're proud of, or one that we're even happy about. It's about Amelia's first owie. We went to a Memorial Day BBQ at my friend Stevie's house and she had set up a little kiddie pool. Amelia wasn't too fond of it because it was cold, but she liked to walk around the edge of it so only her feet were wet. Well, her foot slipped out from under her and she did a nose-dive onto the cement. :( It was sad. She only cried for about 30 seconds though, until I got her the sippy cup and then she was good. Here's the aftermath:



It was very sad when it happened, but now she just looks like the trashy kid when we go out because she's all banged up.. Ahh, kids. :)