Matt went back to work and my kitchen is far from done.

Can you replace counters and flooring and walls in one week? You sure could! We could have easily if we didn't have the kinks and surprises that ALWAYS come up with every project anyone will ever choose to do. Ours usually seem to stem from the last owner, or the last few owners, who couldn't just do something right. Like not preping walls before placing wallpaper on them in the bedrooms. That would have made the bedroom easier. The problem in the kitchen, one of the problems that is, was the window that led to nowhere. They added a room onto the kitchen and therefor covered the window that would now look into the living room. The blocked it off with sheetrock but only until it met with the wood paneling. We assume the wood paneling was here when the house was built and unless they wanted to take it out when the did the addition, they just left a rectangle of a window with a back on it.

And sheetrock comes in sheets with one side backed with cardboard. You want the cardboard to face inside so the white stuff is on the outside. You can not paint over the cardboard and you SHOULD NOT wallpaper it either. And they of course put the sheetrock in backwards. The only piece they had to put in the kitchen after the addition and they did that wrong. IDIOTS!

So Matt tried his best to cover the window hole and fix their window job withough having to remove the sheetrock. He covered it up with the spackle stuff and sanded it down. That is where we are at now. he has to do many many coats if we want to hide the window. We could just put wallpaper over it but, we choose not to. So he has spent the last few days using the spackle and waiting for it to dry completely, and then sanding it and using the spackle again. He has a few more coats to go before it is done.

We did pick colors and will paint a few things soon. Matt also needs to tile the floor. He ordered our dishwasher from a store online and we are waiting for it to come in. He wants to wait for that in order to see if he needs to tile under it, or just around it. And our microwave and trim kit should be here soon.

Our counter tops look amazing!! But our sink was a big problem. We needed a sink to go over the dishwasher. So we went to home depot and got the most shallow sink they sold. A 6in deep sink for $50, on sale for $42. Cheaper than we could have asked for! So we brought it home and learned that we needed a 5 1/2 in deep sink. Oops! And then after looking online, Matt found that if we wanted a new sink it would cost at least $270. WOW. So my mom took my old sink home and cleaned it all nice and shinny and it is now stuck in my counter tops.

Replacing the paneling with sheetrock:

Spackling the wall and patching the window:

Can't even tell there was paneling on the bottem half of that wall!!:

Matt making the corner in the wall look good with the countertop stuff you buy for that purpose:

Our countertop with the cleaned sink and new faucet. (Speaking of faucet... We spent 80 bucks on that and we should have spent more. The ceapest was 15 and we knew that was too cheap. And the more expensive ones were 300+. We should have spent more because even the $80 one seems cheap. Word of advice if you need one, spend more money on it because it will be worth it and last a long time.) :

day 2

Goodbye countertop and flooring.

More Simon!

Is getting bigger by the day!
Lazy day! All 3 animals chillin by the window.

Next project: Kitchen

We painted the hallway yellow. I have pictures. But they are kind of boring.

Now we do the Kitchen!

We don't need a new fridge or oven.

We went to sears one night to look at stovetops and microwaves. No one even tried to talk to us and they make only commision! Their loss. We were going to order online and figured we would stop at Mannys just to look. Sears had the best prices from all my researcher on everything we needed. But! Mannys found a better stove top in their back room for us to take home and gave us the scratch and dent price even though we looked it over and it was beautiful. $240.00 off sticker price! So we have our stove top.

Our dishwasher goes under the sink. Only GE makes it. We have no choice but to order the only one out there we need. We need a new one because ours is crappy and its the only white appliance. Matt ordered that online.

New countertops are prelaminated and Matt just has to cut them down to size. Hope its as easy as it sounds. Floors will be tiled. And a wall may come down, or a whole may get cut, or not. We shall see when I get home from work tomorrow. Matt has next week off to get this done.

We started tonight. We took the REAL paneling off the walls and got rid of the stove top.

When we bought the house, a new electrical box was installed and labeled. We trusted those labels. Matt turned off the one marked stove. Took the stove out and it poped and flashed. Wrong fuse. Jerks.

the end of vacation

We drove to Ohio Sunday and left Thursday. Thursday we headed to Watkins Glen for the race on Sunday. We had to stop at the grocery store before we got to the camping area. We located a walmart on the gps and drove for it. 5 mins before we got there I heard a noise that sounded like something kicked up and hit the windshield. I didn't see anything as I looked it over real quick and when I looked straight again I could see it. (I was driving of course.) A line in my glass was slowly growing in front of my eyes. Matt yelled at me of course since it was somehow my fault. Idiot. After we got food at Walmart, we went to the racetrack for camping where Matts parents were already there and set up.
We chilled and read books and at yummy food and walked around some.
Friday night was Grand Am's racing. Saturday we watched the Nationwide Series and Sunday was NASCAR race time!

Sunday we got to our seats at 12:45. Race was for 2. At 1:30 they did intoduction and the anthums and prayer and were ready to start engines. If you looked into the sky though, you could tell it was over.
My view and when I notices the race was not starting on time: The next announcement was fallowed by the announcer say there were some severe storms in the vacinity but they would not effect the race as of yet. No sooner than he was done, we all heard the thunder. I looked at Matt who laughed at me. I asked him to walk down underneath the bleachers with me. He said no way. Then I saw lightning and ran down. The mountains were covered with rain and it was getting windy. It was coming. Matt and his parents joined just in time for the rain to start. We stayed dry because we were under solid concrete bleachers. Thank goodness cause it poured. Matts father listened to the weather on his scanner. Severe thunderstorms with the potenial to produce strong winds, hail and the possibility of tornados were moving on through.
So im on a mountain under bleachers and we have tornado potential??? My worst nightmare would have come through if there indeed was a tornado. My goodness I was getting sick.

You can see the metel see though bleachers. Glad ours kept us dry! Those people were soaked.

After being down there for 2 hours, the race was cancelled because it was still raining. But look at the view! It was dark though fpr 4pm and still some good lightning and rumbles as we walked to our car about a mile away.

Matt and I decided to go home instead of stay through to Monday for the race. He needed to go to work and I just think we needed to get home. He drove 6 hours with no breaks to his moms house. We missed Snickers. Snickers was so excited to see us! It was awsome to recieve his greating. We came home and the cat missed us too. It feels good to be home. But now that im watching the race on tv, it would be cool to be there. And tonight Matt plans on making the 5 hour round trip to get Simon.

OH!!! and the crack in the window keeps getting bigger!

Cleveland Metro Zoo

We had an extra day on tuesday and went to the Zoo!! I decided as soon as I saw the Koala on the brochure. It was an hour drive but worth it. We were there for almost 6 hours. There was a lot of walking on our already very tired legs. We would have stayed a bit longer to see a bit more but they closed a section with an hour to go because of a chemical spill in the lab nearby with the potential to be explosive.

Ceder point!

This was a coaster and I have no clue how Matt managed to get me to go on it! Im still scared just looking at it. Top Thrill Dragster

We drove to Sandusky Ohio to go to Ceder Point. It took us about 10ish hours with 4 stops. Matt will tell you that I didn't drive. Not true! I drove for about an hour and half first. Hitting a huge pot hole before even hitting the highway and noticed a small bulge in my tire. That will need to be replaced soon im sure. We took our first stop and he took over. He drove for many many hours. We stoped and ate dinner at TGIFridays and I drove for the last hour. See! I drove :P

We got to our Econo Lodge around 9pm. We left that day around 10:30 and ran an erand or 2 first. Not bad! We checked the weather and noticed that we had some nice hot days! So Monday and Wednessday we went to the park. We did a lot of walking! That place is huge. And after going on 6 coasters in 7 hours the first day, and 4 coaster in 6 hours the second day, we had enough. There was more to do but we did what we wanted and waiting in lines that were getting to be anywhere from 1 hour at the earliest, to some being 2+ we had enough. 2 days was plenty.