I Love To See The Temple . . . . . Deer

I was asked to come in to the temple this morning to help with some work that needed to be done while it is closed.  I never knew so many people work at the temple on Monday.  Mostly maintenance folks keeping it running well.  There are lessons for all of us I am sure in this, related to maintaining our own temples, those of our spirits, on a regular basis.  A bonus was to arrive early in the morning and see all of the wildlife in the park next to the temple.  Lots and lots of turkeys, some geese, and a few deer.  Here are some photos.

The end of October

Lots happening around here as we moved from October into November.  For starters, one of us passed that all-important milestone marked 60.  It was a pretty calm day, marked by some rain we have been praying for.  My sweetheart took me out to breakfast at IHOP for some yummy pancakes, then it was off to the temple as I was working the "late shift" that day.  I got some nice gifts too, including a compressor and nail gun, and those shown below.

 60 delicious circus peanuts from Uncle Peter.

Yummmmmmmmm!

60 memories of Papi from Rebecca & Family.

By the way, they are all attached to one of my favorite treats - 

Hershey's Nuggets of Dark Chocolate with Almond

Just to show that an old dog can learn new tricks, I used my newly acquired knowledge and skill at laying floors to replace the carpet and tile in the dining room/kitchen area of a family I home teach. Thanks to the expert teaching abilities of Uncle Don, and the added muscle of Bro. Tafua, not to mention the artistic flare of my sweetheart, I did a passable job.

 This shows the color of the floor more accurately.

But this shows better how well it all came together.

And then there was Halloween.  We were blessed to have one little pirate princess staying at our place, so we got to take her around to a few places before she wanted to get back to the pirate cave and count the loot.  We were in no position to argue as it was raining pretty good.

But even though we were not able to be with all of our beautiful grandchildren, the texts were flying with all the news and photos of how they all dressed up.

 "The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat."

 Now here is an eclectic trio.  Gotta love those boots.

 The fairy princess (George MacDonald would have been pleased with her) and the Cisco Kid.

I suppose that these two could pass for The Princess & Curdie.

And, of course, the family book worm.  Well, the latest edition at least.

And of course one last event of importance . . . . the World Series.

As won by Mr. Bumgarner and the Giants.

GO GIANTS.

Yes, we have been busy

We have been blessed with some great visitors lately, including those who live close by.  It is always a joy to have company.  But in the meantime, we have been busy with more final touches to the house.  Today I replaced the weatherstripping on a couple of the doors and installed base board in mom's office.  For some reason there has never been base board in that room.  It really looks nice.  Perhaps tomorrow I'll post a photo, as well as a photo of another floor I installed - this time for some friends.  In the meantime, here are a couple of photos showing that we are moving along . . . we have cleaned out and abandoned our storage shed. It was nice to have it, but I am glad to be rid of the expense.

The storage unit at the beginning of the month.

The storage unit as it looks today.

Ecclesiastes 7:8

Time for another update.  The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy around here, but we have lots to show for it.  Here are some photos documenting the hard work of many folks, to whom we are deeply indebted.  There is no top of the list, but we'll begin with Don & Jana, who came to visit us and brought a load of wood with them.  We had a lot of fun last weekend with them, and they lead the way with their work.  In addition, James and Peter O. were here joining in the festivities.  We never could have gotten it all done in 3 days if we hadn't had all that wonderful - and fun - help.  I did the kitchen plumbing on Thursday, and the electrician came a couple of days and got most all of that work done.  So we feel like we are finally not living in a construction zone (although, granted, it still looks that way out back, and in a few selected spots).  But the carpet is on its way this Thursday, so Friday we'll go over and start moving back selected items of furniture.  What a joy it is to be coming to the end of a great project (see subject line).

 All the floors are hickory.  The floor in this office is 3/4" solid wood with a walnut finish.

It was nailed down by Don & Peter O. and I owe them big time.  It is beautiful

I wanted a wood floor so I could wheel around between my desks.

One can never have too many desks y'know.

 The Hallway.  AKA the Christmas Day line up place.   New AKA = Grandpa's Bowling Alley.

This is a 5" plank hickory with a natural finish.  Unlike the office, this is an engineered floor.

That means that it is stapled down in the tongue & groove, but only with 18 gauge staples, not nails.

James and I put this down, and it went pretty smoothly actually - we only miscut one board, and I did that before James came on Monday, so you can see how essential he was to the successful execution of the project.  Although smaller in area, this took quite a while to complete as there was more prep work involved, and a lot more cutting.  And the cutting had to be precision, as opposed to the other floor we worked on (see below).

 One view of the dining room.  In the foreground is the 5" plank that is in the entry way.

Don came up with the ingenious idea of putting a border of darker boards around the entry way to set it off and to allow for an interface with the 3" strip flooring in the dining room.

 Another shot of the entry way, showing the interface with the hallway and the dining room.

I really love the contrast between the two styles, and especially the variation in color hues in the entry way.  The boards were hand picked by the only two on the job with any taste:

mom & Jana.

 Looking back at the front door from the dining room so that you can see the entire entry way.

Don came up with this idea and installed it with help from Peter O., Jana and mom.  But Don did most of the work, which involved a whole bunch of high accuracy cutting.  He is incredible.

Carpet will be installed this Thursday - 

we cannot wait to get some of our furniture back from the storage place.

 The SE corner of the kitchen, where we expanded into where the old passage way was.

The cooktop is new, and is gas.  You can see on the right the same double ovens we had before, but in a brand new home.  Also note the cannister lighting, the island, and the beautiful wood floor.

 Here is a good shot of the flooring in the kitchen.  This is the north wall, with the same refrigerator and dishwasher as we had before.  But the dishwasher is now on the other side of the sink, and the fridge is in the corner next to where it used to be, with the back to the north wall.

And right there in the middle of the photo is my pride and joy - the sink.

 Last Thursday I spent all day under the sink and various other places on this wall as I installed all of the plumbing.  All my years of fighting the plumbing in this house paid off.  I put in new everything, valves, drain pipes, etc., plus hooked up the dishwasher and the ice maker, and installed a new garbage disposal, and of course our way-cool faucet.  The hardest part was having to carefully rework the threading on the outfall pipe going into the wall so that I could hook up the new piping.  The sink came free with the counter tops, so they installed it.  It is really deep, which I love, and it is mounted under the counter so you just wipe stuff off of the counter right into the sink - no little lip in the way.

I amazed even myself by how few trips to the hardware store this part of the project took.

In this photo you can see that we put the same flooring in the family room, kitchen, and into the dining room.  It is engineered flooring that went down really easy and nicely - once James & I figured out some secrets.  It was pretty frustrating at first.  It is a "floating floor" that is neither glued down nor nailed/stapled.  It just snaps together.  Quite amazing acutally.  I would install another one of these in a heartbeat, now that I know some of the secrets.  James was the brains of this part of the job, reminding me of measurements and making sure that I didn't cut off the wrong end of the board. 

You may also notice in this photo the missing microwave.  Since we have a functioning microwave, the installation of the new one continues to be a low priority.  But when installed it will have an exhaust fan shooting up to existing ductwork and out the roof.  Installation will be a bit more tricky due to the need to drill some holes in the cabinetry - which my experience with the hose for the ice maker in the fridge tells me is going to require some skill and patience.  I also have to get some parts to connect the exhaust fan to the existing ductwork.

Our "cavernous chicken", which we love!

(No, the old stools are not staying, that one somehow wandered back in.  They are on the way out.)

One Room Coming Right Along

As you can see, there is still some finish work to do, but here is a pretty good idea of the new look for the bathroom.  We still have to put up the tile, install a couple of new outlets, and put on the finish trim, but it is really shaping up.

This project is pretty much all the work of the angel of the house.  But on this particular project Peter came by to see if he could help just at the right time.  And help he did!  After a few practice runs on scraps of sheetrock he did a fantastic job with the texturing machine.  He got it everywhere (but that's the idea).