The KITCHEN

We are doing it again.  We are remodeling our house and putting in a new kitchen.  This project involved more work than we were initially anticipating.  We were not anticipating finding mold and ripping out the drywall and subfloor, but we did and now we have a working kitchen.  

I shudder a bit when I look back at these pictures.

It looks like we are done, but honestly, this is where the work got hard.  We ripped this floor out to build a new one.  

Someone approves of the soundness.  

And perhaps I made the mortar a little too thin so the tiles were sliding around.  That makes for a wonky floor, so we stopped.

It was REALLY STRESSFUL when all of the boxes were in the house waiting to be assembled.  There was a crew that came and installed our cabinets, and I am very thankful we paid the money to do that.  There is a strong probability that we would still not have cabinets if I had not done that.  

All assembled!  And this does not even document scraping the ceiling in the dining room and painting.  We did manage to come home to the the following one day.  The kids had knelt on the freezer too hard and broke the door off.  This was a very costly fix in that EVERYTHING in the refrigerator and freezer spoiled.  

Good times.  

We are still not done, but sometime soon...  say the next 7 years, we will be.  

Pope-tastic and other adventures

Here are some random pictures of the pope coming to DC, our Half Marathon in the wine country, and going to Richmond for the UCI championship.

Weekend of champions

Right before school let out we had a weekend of non stop going, which is not dissimilar from our normal weekends during the school year.

The soccer team that made both the coach and assistant coach lose a few inches of hair.  This season was a very rough season.  And unfortunately, it was the last season before BabyP's best friend moved away.  

We also prepped Peanut for her first week of sleep away camp.  This is the big one where the kids don't get any contact from their parents.  The separation was very hard, but we both did well.  It is hard to tell your baby bye for a week.  

And we picked Starwberries.

There was also a picture of Peanut doing her soccer.  She came out of no where on the last game and did fantastic.  She got super aggressive and went for it.  I am proud of her.  I really like seeing her try.  

My girlfriends and I did the Night Nation run.  This was more of a party than a 5K.  The run itself was a slog, but the whole night was a blast.

Spring Break

Our spring break started at the beach, like a good spring break should!  I had a half marathon to do in Virginia Beach, so some friends and I rented a house near the beach to celebrate.

Most people do not start their spring break with their mom, but since I get to see my mom so very little, I was very happy she came down to hang out with us.  

We did not do much during the day.  It was so cold and windy that it was really actually pretty terrible to be down by the beach. 

This is me and my BRF's (best running friends)  We had awesome skirts and hats to wear, but instead we wore a three piece snow suit to run.  Well, not really a snow suit, but I think if we had a snow suit with us, we would have worn it.  It was really cold and miserable.  The race was terrible and slow.  We couldn't find the start line, and our mojo was completely off.

And while we were gone, my husband and his friend tore down our kitchen wall to start our kitchen remodel.  This is the third kitchen we have remodeled together, so I have a pretty clear idea of how this project was going to go. 

Also on spring break, we happened to have the cherry blossom festival.  It was the first time since we moved to DC that we actually made it to the festival part.  It was beautiful and well worth the crowds that gather.  

We also managed to finally get the trailer we have been talking about for ages.   The rest of spring break was spent trying to figure out how to use it.



And fishing.

Because fishing is fishing....

Happy Easter!!

Basketball

I had the honor of coaching two VERY good teams this year.  They were both so good, that they BOTH went to the championships.

(note:  not our dog)

My Warriors got "Runner Up".  They were fierce all season, but they were just not able to pull it out in the end.  That is okay.  Two years as runner up is not bad.  They will hit them again next year.  We are only going to get better.  

My "Flying Bananas" were the perfect team.  They started off terrible, but they worked really hard and ended up winning the "b" bracket.  These kids barely won a game until they got to the championship.  Then they swept it.  These kids are what stories are written about.  They worked hard, and each kid had something fantastic to offer.  I am truly looking forward to seeing these great kids grow up.  Too bad our girls can't stay with us.  

I did not get a picture of both kids together, but they both really did well this year.  BabyP was the one of the best on his team, and he learned how to play his part while not trying to dribble.  Peanut really worked to improve her shot and her dribble.  She started to really own the defense and worked hard to keep her mind in the game.  It was a very successful, if not tiring, season.