March was massively, way too busy. We officially started our huge home remodel in March, after countless hours of Simon and I having to spend in February designing our kitchen and master bathroom. It was exhausting but Larry (the kitchen and bathroom designer) was patient and helped us finalize our new look. It's going to be a long, but exciting next couple of months.
Starting off with the 1st of March, Dylan gave a big reptile presentation on the python snake.
Dylan did such a great job! However, Ava and I were surprised that he didn't speak louder considering he is one of the loudest kids we know but, he still did amazing.
He put in lots of hard work in molding his python out of clay, painting it with all the right colors and patterns, building the snake's habitat, labeling the diorama, and then writing out and practicing his presentation.
Ava was excited that she was able to sneak out of class for a few minutes to watch her little brother's first presentation.
It was another weekend full of basketball for Ava, up in Berthud that following Sunday (three games in all) but, first we celebrated the marriage of Kattie and Emily on Saturday March 5th.
We're so happy for Emily and Kattie and for Ava L. too.
It was a fun evening celebrating with their friends...
...and family (brother Tristan to Emily).
Ava came to the reception with us to celebrate with Ava L. who has always been one of her dearest friends.
Random photo but, it was cute catching Hanky (Hank the hamster) in action as he tried to escape on March 8th. He's a funny little hamster that provides us entertainment and laughs.
It was hard to spot Ava but, on Thursday the 10th we enjoyed an evening at Twain listening to Ava's 5th grade musical performance called Rats.
The next day, it was time to celebrate Simon's 38th birthday.
Happy birthday Simon! This was a great picture of one of the rooms on the main floor before the big remodel began and..
...here was on of our first completed home remodel projects on March 11th. We were thrilled with our new, beautiful and much needed master bedroom fireplace.
Another project currently underway was our master bathroom which had now been fully demoed (pictures from March 14th). Simon and I toted our toiletry bags around as we had to use either the kid's or Cathie's bathrooms for months.
Simon Renecle (our contractor) and his brother Nick had also started the demo work of our kitchen wall. What a mess but...
...nothing compared to the mess in our family room. Ahhh. If you look closely you will see that everything that was in our family room was stuff that actually belonged in our garage and our garage...
...was now empty. We received notice earlier than expected, from our concrete guy, that the a storm was moving in fast so his crew needed to get started pouring concrete on March 15th, in order for our driveway, garage and patio to be cured before the freezing weather came. So, being that we were caught off guard and with no other place available (we put the big items under tarps in the yard), the only other option was to move the garage inside... our house. I was trying to breath and remain calm at this point.
Also, on March 14th, Ava brought some good news home from school that out of all her classmates she was able to memorize the most numbers in a row (101 to be exact) in the number Pi and for doing so, she won a pie. We have an amazing video of her reciting all 101 numbers. Amazing job Ava.
Tuesday, March 15th, we all woke up early from the sounds of the concrete crew breaking up all the old concrete at 6:45 am and prepping to pour all our new concrete.
The crew broke up and removed the old patio and here was a picture of the size and shape of the new patio.
On day one, the crew of Cushman's Concrete, broke up the back patio, garage, and driveway and re-poured the back patio and garage. Wow. they move fast and work hard to get a lot done in one day.
Here was our level (finally) and un-crakced, newly pour garage floor.
While all the work was being done outside, Simon Renecle and Nick were also inside finishing the work of tearing down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. What were we thinking having three huge projects going on all at once. Everywhere we walked there was chaos both inside and outside of the house.
At this point I was already loving the wall being gone. What a big difference it made. We weren't be able to remove the entire wall as originally planned because it was a load bearing wall, it also had all the electrical, plumbing/sewer drain out, hot and cold water pipes and two heating and air ducts all in one wall. So we had to leave an additional pillar to fit everything in.
A picture of the cured, dry patio.
It was looking like the perfect size to fit the new hot tub. Eeeek.
The next morning Bill Cushman and crew were back bright and early to pour our gorgeous and HUGE new driveway. It was now draining storm water away from the house, there were no more crakes and Simon had a big enough space to park both his truck and work vehicle. Woohoo.
I didn't think I'd ever be so excited about concrete. The driveway was done and dried before the first of two snow storms had arrived with freezing cold temps. Later in the week we're expected to get even more snow.
Back to some good news again during the crazy remodel, Dylan received an amazing award on March 17th, and was recognized for his empathy and caring personality that he shows towards his friends and classmates. We are so proud of him.
Another random March photo of Dylan and his new bunk bed tent that he received from Sharona.
He loved it!
Spring break was soon upon us and we were so happy to kick-it-off with some family time and skiing fun with the DeBourcy's while they were in CO on their spring break. Plus...
... it was a great get-away from the home remodel mess.
We loved our great lunch in the sunshine with family during a wonderful day of skiing.
We were back home from a very fun ski weekend as well as time with family but, we returned to more home projects. On Monday the 21st all the insulation and drywall were completed in the garage. Simon was thrilled for his garage makeover and...
...our kitchen has arrived too. Ahh everything was happening so fast but, I was thrilled our kitchen and master bathroom arrived on time.
Thank you Kate for inviting Ava to spend a full day with you celebrating your birthday on March 22nd. Starting off with a fun morning of swimming and letting Dylan join the crew too!
Up next was some pottery and painting time, just for the two girls to spend time together followed by...
...dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.
So happy I was able to join in on the fun with you ladies for dinner too.
So thankful for our friendships with Kate and Lori. What a fun evening together with just us girls. Things even got a little goofy with the silverware (hehe) even without the boys around. When we left the Cheesecake Factory the cold weather was setting in again and by the morning we woke up to...
...a ton of snow on Wednesday the 23rd. Lucky both the driveway and back patio had cured (set). Normally, school definitely would have been cancelled, had it not already been for the kids being out of school for spring break.
It was the biggest storm of the year.
There was lots of playing in the snow and...
...on the trampoline of course, and...
...a lot of snow blowing too. Simon even had to make a path in the back yard for Marley.
This was a view from when we opened the garage. I think we measured 14 inches. Wow! In this photo Dylan was in the middle of our brand new driveway. Which was now quite a bit bigger than our old one so in order for it to be cleared and look like the photo below...
...it took Simon and I almost 2 hours to clear the driveway by shovel. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to use the snow blower on the freshly poured concrete yet. Therefore, it was quite a workout to shovel 14 inches of snow by hand on a very large driveway.
With all the fallen snow the kids and I made sure to head up to the mountains for some P.O.W.D.E.R skiing on Friday the 25th. It was amazing and tons of fun.
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