M.I.A.

Wow. I completely fell off the wagon. It's been over a month since I posted. Woops!

Let me explain. Back in July, I was prepping for my parents' mid-August arrival. My brother Rob with wife Crystal and son Asher were coming too. I had been keeping a running list of projects to do while they were here, but then realized some of them I could just do myself. So I tried to get as many of those smaller projects done before they came so that I wouldn't feel like the list was overwhelming. Here are a few teasers:

That, on top of cleaning everything.

Basically, I got so busy doing projects, cleaning, hosting parties, hosting family, etc that I stopped blogging about it. And the day my parents left, my computer's hard drived died. Completely. ...I wonder if it had anything to do with Jason squirting about a tablespoon of hand soap on the keyboard last month.... Luckily Dave had made a backup image a few months ago, so most of my stuff was saved. PHEW! He put the image on my new hard drive about a week ago. And here I am. Writing this catch-up post. And here you are. Reading it. Much obliged.

It was so great to have them all here. We went from 2 in this small house to 7! Mom & Dad slept in my room, I slept on the futon in the playroom/front room, Rob & Crystal slept in the living room on a big air matress, and Asher slept in a borrowed pack-n-play in the office/craft room. In other words, there was someone sleeping in every room of the house. Except the kitchen, of course.

Jason and Asher had a great time together and even took their regular naps, despite all the extra activity and noise in the house.

Even though these aren't good pictures, I love some of their expressions.

 

Trying to give each other a high five:

It was about 10 days of projects, projects, projects - taking down my dangerously precarious wood fence, installing a vinyl fence, replacing two light fixtures, making a third light fixture, a couple trips to Ikea, several to Lowe's and Home Depot, putting together two more chairs (so everyone could sit around the dinner table), and hanging a mirror. Wow. On top of that, Rob, Crystal, and Asher took a trip in the middle of those 10 days to visit some of Crystal's family a few hours away in Roosevelt/Vernal. And while in the Vernal area, he also did some concrete work for Crystal's grandparents - repairing a concrete slab in front of their house. And on top of that, Rob was trying to study for a final that he had to take during their stay. An engineering final. Not just some easy-peasy class final. 

This is what my garage looked like at the height of project-ing.

But being the amazing brother that he is, he even squoze (that's the new "squeezed" - it's better, don't you think?) in a game of Zilch. That was probably the highlight of the whole visit. We all played (even Mom!) and had so much fun teasing each other and laughing laughing laughing. Mom and Crystal laughed so hard that they started to cry! It's a great feeling to make people laugh that hard. And my brother's agree - there's something sooo great about being able to make your parents laugh. I have the best family!!

Oh, and we also went out to dinner with the cousins for my birthday (Ashton & Jen, me & Jason, Tiffany & Peter, Dad & Mom, Crystal & Asher) ...

... and met up with some old friends from Toledo for ice cream another night. Yuuuum. (LtoR: Brandon & Lisa Jastel, Jason, me, Ashlynn Jastel, Mom, Ashley & Dan Reyes-Cairo.)

Double Oh! The night my parents were coming in, I hosted a birthday/going away party for Brandon & Lisa and their little girl Ashlynn (she was turning 3). That was a lot of fun too. A few other old Toledo friends showed up for that - Dan & Ashley, Tom and Lovetta Reyes-Cairo, Mike & Rachel Benner. And Jason made sure to walk by the huge double chocolate Costco cake as much as possible so he could swipe the frosting as he passed.