The Wedding

This is Kalen and Harper

This is nephew Jeff and his wife Sarah and my great niece Harper Joy. Harper is 11 weeks old in this picture. She was born on August 28, 2008

Along with Kaleb and Kalen this is my nephew's Wes & Jeff and my niece Lacey. Wes and Lacey are brother and sister. Jeff's sister Rhonda was unable to make it to the wedding.












This is my nephew Wes and his new wife Nikki on at their
wedding on November 15, 2008 in Waco, TX.









The kids and I went to my nephew Wes's wedding in Waco on November 15, 2008. Mom flew down with us and we hooked up with my sister Sue (from Oregon) in Denver and went on to Dallas together. We rented a car and successfully made it to Waco without too many wrong turns.

We arrived on Thursday evening so we were able to spend most Friday with my sister Jeannette (Wes's mom) and Lacey and Wyatt. The wedding took place on Saturday afternoon. My other nephew Jeff and his wife Sarah and their new baby Harper only live 2 1/2 hrs away. They came down and spent most of Saturday with us.

The weather had been warm until Saturday and it turned out to be a little chilly. The wedding was held at a beautiful old mansion that had a huge yard with gazebo (where the wedding took place) and then a big cement area that was covered with a tent for the reception. Do to the chilly weather the ceremony went quite quickly. It is the only wedding that I have been to that was shorter than mine and Marks (ours was 19:56). It was all over in 9 minutes. We were afraid the wind was going to blow over the glass around the unity candle. It was to windy for them to even try and light it.

The reception was true Texas style. Nikki's family did the whole thing. Her dad and uncle started at 3 that morning putting meat on the bbq pit. Her mom and aunt made slaw, potato salad and beans. It was some of the best bbq I have ever had. It was a great. Then one of Nikki's bridesmaids made the cake and not only was it beautiful but it was delicious. All in all we had a wonderful time.

The trip home was something else. Kalen ate a little to much bbq and too much cake and made herself sick. Of course she didn't start throwing up until we were on the road Sunday morning headed to Dallas. I don't recommend flying with a vomiting child. It was kind of rough.

This is my great nephew Wyatt, he just turned two and he was one of the ring bearers in my nephew Wes's wedding.

Mark & Annie

Back to blogging

Well, I kind of dropped the ball of my blogging. Life gets away from me at times. We had the house torn up, school started which meant soccer started and dance started, soccer ended and Kaleb went right to basketball, plus I go to the school to volunteer every Tuesday and some Thursday and I could just keep going.

We have most of the remodeling done. The living room/dining room area is completely finished and so in the bathroom on the main floor. It turned out very nice and we are happy with it. I already had quite a few western painting hung up (I'm a big Tim Cox fan) but with the remodel we decided to go total western decor. I even made horse curtains for the bathroom.

When we got that finished with that we took a break so Mark could get ready for the WRCHA (Wyoming Reined Cow Horse Assn.) Futurity and Derby in mid October. He rode his mare Annie in the derby. He did really well in the reining part, but not as good as he hoped in the cow work.

So, we are finally getting the momentum back to finish the laundry room. Part of the problem in getting the laundry room done is that we aren't really sure what we want to do with it as far as organizing it. We need storage room plus a place to hang coats and put shoes. We have made several trips to Home Depot and have come up with several ideas but haven't figured out the magic combo of cabinets and what not. So far everything is stripped out of there except the washer and dryer. It needed some drywall patches and Mark has that done. He had to put a partial coat of texture to make things blend so he did that and has primed. It is ready for paint, which will probably happen tomorrow. Then the carpet needs to be pulled up. We are putting that off because it is glued to the floor. The last carpet that we pulled up that was glued was a nightmare. So we are not looking forward dealing with it.

The kid started back to school last Tuesday. Kalen is in the 5th grade and Kaleb is in the 2nd grade. I'm just shocked that Kalen is in the 5th grade and has pimples. It seems like only yesterday she was a baby.

Kaleb was great help using a wonder bar and hammer to get the tack strip up that held the carpet done.

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This is a before picture of the gray carpet and white walls.

3 Day Weekend Fun

We started ripping our living room/dining room apart today. We talked all spring about painting and new flooring in the main level of the house. So on Memorial Day Weekend we hit Home Depot and bought 8 gallons of paint and 40 boxes of Pergo flooring. Three days later I broke a bone in my foot. A lot of things got put on hold while I spent the summer laid up. Now that I'm able to get around some we are going to try and get the painting and flooring done. We tore out the carpet in the living room/dining and all the trim (the trim will be replaced with oak trim) today. We will get the flooring out of the upstairs hallway in the morning and start painting. This is stage 1.

In stage 2 we will tear out the carpet in the laundry room. There is some dry wall repairs that need to be done there and we will replace both the doors. Then paint and put in new flooring.

Stage 3 - I will do on my own. And it will be to paint the bathroom. It will take me two hours to tape it off and 30 minutes to paint it. We will leave the ceramic tile flooring in there. Here are some before pictures.

I decided I would join the blog world. So, I'm just getting started. Here are some recent pictures of the fam.

Kaleb & his friend Luke being cowboys

Mark and Jay (aka Jay Bob)