In the second half of February and throughout all of March and April, Simon and I had made so many trips to Lowes, Home Depot and Floor and Decor. At times it was very fun and we enjoyed designing our home together but, it was also confusing and exhausting. Simon and I were also pretty quick to get things done so hopefully we didn't make too many quick, bad decisions.
For the most part the remodel has gone well with a few bumps in the road and with some visions having to be changed on the fly but, overall it turned out amazing when it was finished. There was a lot of noise and more dust than I could even keep up with. I tried to swifter, dust and vacuum multiple times a day around all opsticals and madness of the kitchen, living room, family room and our master and master bathroom remodel but, really it was pointless. Simon Renecle and his brother Nick were great guys to have had working in our home. We trusted them and we had become good friends with them so it was nice to have people in our house almost EVERY SINGL DAY for months that we enjoyed being around and had many laughs with. April put us through our second full month of the actual remodel (February was spent designing and planning) and we still had lots more to go.
Among the many hours of picking out tile and flooring and hardware and colors etc... and stepping over nails, holes and having had exposed electrical and plumbing, we also tried to stick to some normalcy as best as we possibly could. Thankfully, the kids rooms were un-touched at this point, as well as a little space available in the basement, for the kids to retreat to.
The season of basketball for both kids, had ended by now which meant no more Friday night games for Dylan and no more 3-4 game tournaments on the weekends for Ava but, they were both looking forward to 1) Ava starting back up with soccer and 2) Dylan playing flag football again and trying out lacrosse too. Luckily, the kids were at school every day on their normal routines which allowed Simon and I to spend way too many hours at Home Depot, Lowes and Floor and Decor without them.
We kept some normalcy by heading to DQ on April 2nd with the team after their soccer game and..
...going out for a girls night on the 7th.
By April 8th we had to move the delivered kitchen and master bathroom into the house and...
...out of the garage because...
...we painted the garage gray and were ready for...
...all our new beautiful, sturdy, Monkey Bar shelving to be installed.
We were getting things organized in the garage and at least something was looking normal again, just in time for...
...Grampa Jack to arrive on April 9th. Cathie left town for a couple of weeks during the mess, noise and disorder of the remodel so it was a great time for Jack to come out to visit us.
Grampa Jack was able to head out to Boulder with us for Ava's soccer tournament.
Then Sunday, the 9th we were all up early for Ava and her friend Ava L. and Ella to run the Platte River Half Marathon as a relay team.
I was lucky enough for the girls to let me run along with them in the half marathon. Ava started off the relay team first by running the first 5 mile stretch then tagging Ava L. who ran the second 5 miles and then Ella finished the relay with the last 3.1 miles. The girls had a blast and did so well placing 3rd out of all 40 relay teams of which I'm sure were all made of adults. At 10 years old, our girls were for sure the youngest team running and they ran a half marathon time of 1:46:16. Amazing!
Post race party.
A picture of the whole Runcolo training crew who were out running the race too.
Before Grandpa Jack left town, he was able to watch Dylan practice some flag football on Sunday afternoon. We were very thankful Jack was able to make it out to CO for a nice visit.
Dylan was so excited to start up lacrosse with his first practice being on Tuesday, April 12th.
In fact, he was so excited that he even kept his gear on to do his homework in.
One of the many joys of working from home is being able to head to the kids school when they have school events during the middle of the day. On April 14th, I was able to see Dylan's 1st grade singing performance. He was so darn cute.
On Friday, the 15th we (or our contractors I should say) were trying to beat the weather once again, with a snow storm on the front. This time it was a bigger deal because it meant a cold, wet home if the guys didn't get the hole cute, the support beams put in place, a new, three panel sliding door installed, and the door weather proofed before the snow started to fall.
A crew of 4 guys worked hard and finished our beautiful door before the snow started to fall.
By the 17th of April we were hit hard again with a big snow storm.
Spring storms bring heavy, wet snow and this year we had a few big branches brake.
The kids were thrilled to have a snow day on Thursday to play with their friends and make...
...snow angels in the deep snow.
Back to more of the remodel... here was a picture of the kitchen (with the wall down and new drywall up) before...
...the kitchen was ripped out and hauled away. Ahh... we no longer had a kitchen.
By April 20th, our refrigerator was now in the family room and...
...we had set up our kitchen in the basement.
I was still able to organize the dishes on tables and find all the kids lunch tupperware and water bottles and...
...I had even set up a coffee and microwave station, but...
... I was doing dishes in the basement bathroom and wasn't sure how long that was going to last. I went about a week doing dishes in the bathroom while Cathie was still out of town but, then had to cave in and resort to paper and plastic. Sorry environment but, I needed to stay somewhat sane.
Shortly after we had no where to relax (we had no living room or dinning room to sit in, no family room, no kitchen, no master bath, only half a master bedroom and the stairs leading to our mater bedroom had been torn apart) our hot tub was installed and all the new electrical stuff was set up for the electrical box so that we could finally have a place to just relax and...
...escape from the madness of the house remodel. Our new hot tub was our saving grace. There were many nights during the rest of the remodel that Simon and I would sit in the hot tub and drink wine after the kids went to bed. It was really the only place to be in the house and we were so thankful for it.
Saturday, April 23rd rolled around quickly and we were all happy to run off some steam at the Rock'n On The River 5k at Hudson Gardens.
Ava ran an awesome 5K time of 22:29. Nice work Ava!
Dylan ran a very strong race too running a 24:10. Super fantastic race Dylan!
I was happy with my race as well placing first female overall, running a 20:11!
Sunday, was time for some fun flag football touch downs ran by Dylan. The pictures show his progression of running through the defense for a touch down.
He made it past the first line of defense and..
...through the second line and onto...
...TOUCH DOWN!
Dylan got the ball again and ran...
... a great cut move...
...past the defense for another...
...TOUCH DOWN!
Dylan was also great a playing defense and pulling...
...lots of flags.
Boom. Dylan pulled another Flag. In this photo Dylan was right behind the player with the ball, pulling his flag off.
We enjoyed all the activity of April even though the remodel had started to take its toll on us (and it had only been two full months with lots more to go).
We enjoyed all the activity of April even though the remodel had started to take its toll on us (and it had only been two full months with lots more to go).
No comments:
Post a Comment