August 2016

When we invited family to visit, we didn't know this was what would be greeting them.  Due to weather, our project has gotten behind, but our brave relatives came on in and faced the chaos of our home.  What we didn't know was that we would be discovering a major foundation issue while they were here. Or that I'd be in the ER for most of the day when they arrived.

Did I mention CHAOS?

My sweet brother-in-law, Dale, was kind enough to refer to the madness as "adventure."

And while there was a lot of that adventure going on, we did manage at least one excursion out on the lake

to enjoy the sunset, and we had lots of tasty, family gathering dinners together.

Behind the scenes of most of the dinners, it looked like this on the other side of the kitchen.  We had a slight snafu with the flooring guy, and to keep us from getting behind, my boy stepped in to do the job.  We have a very old home, and our floors had some kinda sinky spots, that were going to make the new floors need some adjusted threshholds to match up the difference in the levels between the two.

Adam is not one to adjust things if he can fix them instead, so he ripped up some of the old floor to look beneath and found out that one of our foundation walls was nothing but dust and falling rocks.

Which meant that he, and my poor claustrophobic husband spent hours and hours in the Hellhole righting the wrongs time had wrought in the stone work.

Twinkle was fascinated and never left her post as a watch out. I think that meant that there were interesting smells coming from under the house, of old rodents and who knows what.  I had some dreams about all of them coming up to visit us while the floor was opened up.

 ugh

It was very impressive to see one guy who hates creepy crawlies and another who hates enclosed spaces work together to repair what could have been a costly, and dangerous problem.  Before they started, there was over a 1" difference in floor heights, now the space is completely even and our home isn't going to fall into the pit of hell that lurks below it.

Plus, it is meaningful to have projects in my home that were done by family members. 

This was also happening while we had company.   

Which made for a lot of pounding, and dust, and  FLIES!!!!!!!

Doors open all day for workers let in flies by the billion or so.  Guncle Randy and I were on constant swatter patrol.  

It wasn't exactly the visit he had in mind, or the gathering that I had planned, but I was so happy to have them all here to see us.

And the evening on the lake was just what I needed.  The reunion was supposed to be Randy, Terry, and I in the studio all day, while the other guys played golf then boating every evening.  

We only managed one lake night, but they were all very kind about it.  And we did squeeze in some studio time.  

And of course, we can't have Grandma Joan here without throwing a tea party.

Since I was under the weather as well as busy as a bee, Sugarwings planned and set the party up in the gazebo for her.  

Although, I do feel bad that our short time together was interrupted by all the other things going on, I was sincerely glad to have them all here and I hope it wasn't too much turmoil for them all.

I'm feeling better now too, and everyone was helpful while I was down.

I just hope I get another shot at entertaining the bunch of them without all of the "adventure" happening around us.  I could use a do over.