Big Project

About 3-4 months ago we ripped the old, crappy blue carpet out of our living/dining room. It was there when we bought the house and after almost 17 years and 5 cats it was pretty worn out and gross! 

Every time I had to clean that room the carpet caused me stress, and since I am trying to eliminate some of the stress in my life, we decided to rip the carpet up. I have no pictures of that process but here is the room after the carpet was gone and we had it painted. 

That was several weeks before we went on vacation!

After we got back we needed to get serious about doing something with the floor. 

We decided on  laminate and we also decided to install it ourselves. The color we picked is called Hometown Hickory Sable.  We tried to match it as closely as we could to the wood floor that is in the kitchen and front foyer.  After we measured the floor so we knew how much we would need,  I ordered it online and in a few days we were picking it up from H⥁me Depot. 

It took us a while and several youtube videos to figure out how to start, where to start and how to actually install the floor. We started on Sunday and worked all day. By the time we were done for the day we had about 1/3 of the floor installed. We were taking our time and trying to do a good job.

I went to work in Monday but Rich took the day off and continued to work on the floor. By the time I got home he had the floor abut 2/3 done.  Then we worked on it together on Tuesday, Wednesday (except I dropped my phone and shattered it so I spent a few hours at the phone store getting a new one!), Thursday Friday and part of Saturday! 

Believe it or not we were having 20+ people over for Easter Sunday! Here it is with the floor laid and set up for Easter. There is no shoe molding yet but it wasn't very noticeable. 

Here you can see the wood floor (bottom right) that is in the front foyer. I think we did a pretty good job matching the color, although the light shining on the wood floor makes it look a lot lighter.  Also the boards go in opposite directions but it looks fine. 

Last weekend we finally finished the shoe molding. We had to buy it on Friday night, Rich cut it  and I stained it on Saturday and Rich installed it on Sunday.  Believe it or not we still have the thresholds to go but we're having a hard time finding the right transition molding that will work between the two floors.

It was a lot of hard work but totally worth it!

 I'll leave you with a picture of Maxwell getting a bath before making his first family holiday debut at our house on Easter.

He was a hit!!

Until the next time.....

Anniversary Trip part 4 Primm Nevada and A Bullet Ridden Car

I've had this draft sitting here since April 2nd! This poor neglected blog!! 

On Tuesday of our trip we decided to drive to Primm, Nevada.

Our drive there took us in and out of California, where there was no state line signs, and we only knew when we crossed the border because our navigator would say, Welcome to California or Welcome to Nevada"

Our destination was a casino called Whiskey Pete's.

This is a statue of Whisky Pete! People throw money at him.,,apparently for luck!

But the real reason we wanted to come here is that they have this car there:

Yep, it's the real one (so the sign says)

Can't imagine dying in a hail of bullets but I guess they deserved it!

We had a great vacation celebrating our anniversary. In the airport on our flight home Delt@ airlines was offering $1,200 per person flight credit for anyone wanting to give up their seats!

We would have taken advantage of it but we wanted to get home.

Shauna had asked us to babysit Maxwell the next day.

We have our priorities, you know!

Until the next time!

Aniversary Trip Part 3-Cousin time and Oatman AZ

I have a cousin who has lived in Arizona for the last 30 years. She actually is my dad's first cousin so my first cousin once removed or something like that.


Anyway, when my dad passed away she flew in for his funeral. It was the first time I had seen her since she moved! In fact,  I had completely lost touch with her until we reconnected by the miracle called Facebook!


When we planned this trip, we knew we would only be about 4 hours from Phoenix so I messaged her to see if she wanted to meet us somewhere half way between Laughlin NV and Phoenix AZ and she did us one better. Her and her son drove to Laughlin and spent the day with us before heading on to Las Vegas.

It was sure great to see her again!

The next day we drove about 45 minutes to Oatman, AZ.

Oatman is a abandoned government controlled  gold mining town on old Route 66 that was shut down when the government needed other metals for the WWII. When the miners left town they left their burros and they have been wild there ever since,  That is the attraction to that town. When we first got there there was not a burro to be seen, though!

Another attraction is the Oatman Hotel and Bar,  Here is the reason why:

Everyone who visits signs a dollar bill and staples it on the wall! The whole place is coated with them! I don't know how thick they are but there must be thousands of them!

Here is the one we left with the pink lettering. We put it in a particular spot so my brother and sister-in-law can find it when they go there at the end of May!

There was a small gun-fight show in the street while we were there so we watched that, walked around a little, bought a few souviniers and then decided to head back to Laughlin! It was hot and crowded and there were no burros anyway!


Until we started driving out of town and look who was headed down the street!

So we pulled over for some pictures!

They were looking for food and walked away if you didn't immediately offer any!

The were so cute!

There was probably 10 or 12 of them!

So we got to see the burros after all!

Next time: Primm Nevada and bullet-ridden car.