The Zoo

We went to the zoo on wednesday. This was taken outside of the zoo by the waterfall.


The kids weren't as interested in the animals as they were in the playground. Levi's riding a caterpillar of some kind. Let's go find some leaves to eat!!

Emma the spider.

Cousin Spencer climbed on the statue. Which one's the monkey?

Levi's not as tall as Muke.

Emma's not as big as muke.

Cousins came with us too and we all got a picture in the boat. Front row, left to right: Sagan (almsot 3), Spencer (almost 8), Isaac (9). Back row, Left to right: Scott (6), Emma (5), Levi (3).

More work on the floor

Okay, as promised, here are some more pictures of the floor:


Levi sweeps, Emma scrapes, and Josh is momentarily amused by it all.



Here's one end of the kitchen almost done. The edges were the hardest. getting the cut just right is TOUGH.


FIrst you measure, then you measure again. and just to make sure you're not bored of it yet, you measure again. then you start your cut and measure again. And even sometimes still, you go to put down the tile and it doesn't fit. so just for a change of pace you measure again.




The tiles we bought come in strips of 3 sqares each and have a glue strip along all 4 sides. 2 sides have the glue facing down and 2 have the glue facing up. Until the glue attaches to another tile, you have to cover it up with some wax paper that comes in the box so it doesn't get dust and grit, etc. in it. It's also really tacky, so grabs anything that touches it (skin, clothes, shoes) tends to stick pretty well.




My Dad's so awesome. He has walking pneumonia and still came to help. he did most of the really tough cuts and measurements and made the job look professionally done. Thanks again, Dad!


This is a washed out, fuzzy picture of the old and the new. You can sort of make out one of the glue strip sections of the tile against the black nasty carpet glue we couldn't get off.



Josh plays on the new floor. Now all we have to do is replace the base board moulding.

Total Insanity

We got tired of the carpet in the kitchen that my grandma put in when she owned the house and peeled that back to find some older, uglier carpet.


When that was pulled up, we found what appeared to be carpet glue so old that we could just scratch it off and enjoy the very old linoleum underneath:


No such luck. some of that carpet glue has basically become part of the linoleum, so now we're going to lay some other stuff over the top. Once we buy it, that is. (pictures to follow of us installing it, I'm sure.)

To add to the fun, when I was scooting the oven out so that we could get the carpet off the floor under it, we heard a POP! and the power to the stove died:

The wire on the right had worked itself out of its bracket/plug and tripped to breaker. Boy were we lucky that was all it was! I got it back in place and everything's fine now.

Here's hoping we can get the floor in before friday when we have a fun BBQ planned with some cousins.