Living the Soggy Life

Oh the rain. It rains rains rains. I looked out at the grey sky and the pooling backyard and thought "oh yeah, I remember now why I didn't like the weather here". On the other hand, you really really appreciate sunshine when it does make an appearance. In all fairness, even the normal Idahoans are starting to get really annoyed with the weather. Sun broke through today and we were outside. Griffin figured out how to climb the tree with Laney. I'm sure that Kenna isn't far behind. He had a couple mad dangling episodes, but all in all a successful first tree climb. They all woke up at 5:30 this morning because K woke up and started yelling. We moved the twins into their big kid beds on Father's day. Kenna's is so tall that she has no hope of climbing into it on her own. Griffin got a captain's bed and he was soooo excited about it all. He loves going to bed in his big boy bed. I think his excitement at getting a bed totally made Charles father's day (which up to that point had been quite literally crappy). He just beamed.
Father's day was wet and cold. We went to the hardware store together in the morning to pick up the BBQ we bought for Dad. Charles was grouchy. Then he drove the BBQ home in the truck and I stayed at Lowes so that I could drink some coffee (since I still don't have a coffee pot!!) and the kids could ride the lawnmowers in the exit foyer. Griffin gets really excited now when he sees we're at Lowes, since his newest love is pretending to drive lawn tractors. The girls get in on it too. Charles dumped the bbq over on the ride home and it's a little tweaked but ok. Then he got home and decided to fix a very majorly blocked toilet (a plunger was on the shopping list). The toilet overflowed and made a massive gross mess and he paniced and tried to clean up --which led to a massive quantity of filthy towels in the bathtub, a toilet brush in the sink (no I don't understand why), tracked excrement water all over and of course, a filthy toilet. I came home with the kids and immediately started cleaning. It was just that kind of day.
We got the trim completed in the kids rooms and part of the doors in the hall. So we were able to get their furniture into their rooms and that was nice. That evening we had dinner at Mom and Dad's and I grilled the burgers. I haven't grilled burgers in a long time and we got the less lean burger. It was the towering inferno, but they were tasty.
My furniture refinishing is coming right along. I've got the dresser for Charles almost finished, the dining table almost finished, a chair almost done (including recovering the seat), a table for the girls' room done, and a few other things started. All in very bright colors. I don't know what it is, but I'm tired of brown. Anything brown. So I have a lime green dining table and a dark aqua chair and dresser for the bedroom. And a hot pink table for the girls room. I guess I'm treating this house as a play house and coloring things appropriately. It's really fun. I wish I'd done the before pictures. Darn it. Oh well. I'll get picts posted eventually.

The Shack is Shakin'

Ok, finally back in business with internet access again. I can't ever connect to my parents wireless. It's been busy busy. We moved in to the house on Sunday, though it's still in a work in progress state. I have a feeling that it will be that way for a while. I went on a furniture buying spree and need to start refinishing things, but it was raining and cold all week. We had to turn the heat on and guess what? That smell got worse. So we live in a stinky house and it bugs the crap out of me, but I guess eventually it will improve.
The kids are loving it here (mostly--except the rain thing). Laney biked over to my parents house earlier in the week and was super proud of herself. All three blocks. They've been biking and running around in the yard. Or they did anyway until the weather went crappy and we filled the garage with furniture. They were mad about that one. G thinks we should bring his trike in and he could ride inside (technically true). He hauled it in himself this evening and was furious when we sent it back outside.
I pruned the trees out front this afternoon since we had a break in the weather. The branches were so low over the sidewalks that you had to duck and still got wet every time you went down the walk.
Tomorrow we paint and install trim. And take back a blind to have it recut so that we can finally stop living in a fish bowl. I didn't realize how bad it was until I came home later on Wednesday night. You can see everything in the house from the street.
I need to get some sort of furniture (like a table or something!) that allows me to sit more comfortably while I use the computer. My back is killing me. So I'll go now and try to post more this weekend.

Laying Seige to the Shackteau

We had a pretty good trip up to Idaho. The weather was decent and the kids were good. It was tiring of course, but all in all not too bad. It was crazy getting things ready to go and honestly, our packing job was such a mess I have no idea where anything is.
But the real news happened when we were about an hour outside of Missoula. I called our agent because she hadn't dropped of the key the day before. Turns out that was because the woman was still in our house. We did a rent back to her for a couple days because she said that she needed some extra time. I guess she decided she needed more. We tried everything to get her removed, but the cops couldn't do it because they said it was a "paperwork issue" and not trespass and since she had been our renter, technically rental law would apply. It was amazingly irritating. Eventually, after lots of aggravation she had to pay us an extra $60 and be out by noon today. Whoopee. The house was a complete sty and the yard hadn't been weeded or mowed since we did the contract. She took our curtains but left her junk. And she padlocked both back gates and did not leave keys. We're behind on our renovation schedule and Charles leaves tomorrow. When we finally got possession, we went at it. Changed the locks, started prepping to paint, and took down the awful curtains. We made an extremely spendy trip to Lowe's, got the Uhaul unloaded, took down one giant ceiling fan and ripped up the carpet. All of it in the entire house. It was DISGUSTING. Like one of the grossest jobs ever. Both her dog and cat have continuously peed all over it, some of it very very recently. Like today. Huge wet stains in the subfloor. Dana, Jeff, and Dad helped unload the Lowe's booty and we all toasted the new house with champagne. I'm taking picts, just didn't download today.