We made grape juice last weekend, from the concord grape vines on our East fence!

Laying the tile with Mortar this time This one is a tricky piece!!! Jasper is so lazy, he didn't help at all. When he lays down his legs disappear!
Now on to the kitchen... Stairs took as long as the rest of the floors combined!
So dark, but you can kind of see the almost-finished product. Wow, so much work! Jasper trying out the new stairs
Finished bathroom

Maybe we should have blocked the doorway to the kitchen??
And now on to our Park City pictures... we went for a day while the tile was drying and had a ton of fun!
Watching the Ski Jumpers
Good timing!
Even though there's no snow, Mike decided to go skiing
Watching the bobsleds... that thing is coming sooo fast!
THE END of our Labor Day weekend!

Labor Day weekend we chose not to take our Idaho/Wyoming trip and stay home and tile. We did go to Park City for a day, which was fun. We went to the Olympic park and watched the ski jumpers and bobsleds, and went to the museum. It stormed really hard that night, which was great!

Also, here's an update on my previous post

Mike's phone - insurance covered it, his new phone is arriving today

Mike's classes - both are on his schedule now

Mike's financial aid - still don't have the funds yet, but things are at least processing now

House - tiling is all laid, grout is almost done in bathroom, and will be done in kitchen/stairs tonight. Then, on Saturday we will seal it and it will be DONE! Biggest project ever but worth it!!

Me - feeling much better even though my body is super sore from tiling!

Car - should get certificates and be registered today.

Small claims - Going down to courthouse to pick up forms today or tomorrow

So...... things are slowing down a little, but the basement is the next phase of the remodel, which will take a few months!

Do you ever feel like life is out of sorts and you're totally helpless??? Check this out:

Mike's phone - he waits months to get a new one since his screen was broken, finally gets a new one, and a week later the dogs chew it completely up. Hopefully insurance will cover it.

Mike's classes - one of his classes was full, so I spent 2 or 3 weeks emailing teachers trying to get him in the class. Classes have now started, and it still hasn't been taken care of.

Mike's financial aid - tuition still isn't paid, and he can't get his books. His loan has been processing for about a month now with no luck yet and no one seems to know the answer to anything.

House - the upstairs is torn up yet again, this time to tile... we've never done it before so there is a lot of uncertainty!

Me - I've been getting sick the last couple of days... great!

Car - Unbelievable. I take it in to get safety and emissions and windshield replaced in order to register it. $400 and 4 days later, it still didn't have safety and emissions and I couldn't get a straight answer out of these people. We're now going on about a week and a half, and still can't seem to get anything done. I'm taking it to a new place today, but I'm down to the last hope.

Small Claims - I've been working a lot on our small claims case against Gold's Gym, but haven't had time yet to run downtown and pay for the forms. Once I do that and serve the papers, there's just more waiting time.


To make matters worse, my house is a mess and laundry isn't being kept up.

How do people do all this stuff with kids?!?!? I don't know if I'd ever be able to!!

Left to right, it's Bandit, Mike, Jack, Sophie, Lindsay, and Jasper. This was taken in our super nice backyard (sarcasm?) but at least we have a good view of the mountains :) Missing from the photo is Hewie the hampster and Stinkie the fish. I got enough battle scars as it was from taking this picture, I don't know how we could have added them!

Thought I'd update on what we've been doing this summer...

In April/May we went on a cruise to Mexico with Stacey, Kyle, Julie, and Dave. That was where Julie and Dave fell in love! (and are now getting married)

For our anniversary, we luckily still had flight benefits, so we flew down to Costa Rica for 4 days, and it was amazing! We've never been anywhere like it. It was definitely an adventure and I did things I thought I'd never do--like fly on a super small propeller plane! It was scary, but I'm glad I did it.

The day after we got back, I started working at FranklinCovey as a meeting planner. It is a much better job for me and for the first time since we got married, we have the same work schedule, meaning we finally have nights and weekends off together! It has been really nice to have more time together, especially to play with the dogs and work on the house. We have been working on the house a lot, and have made a lot of progress. Within the next month we should be done with the upstairs and have the blinds installed. Then we can turn our attention to the basement, which will be like starting all over again! I have to sometimes think about how worth it it will be in the end. It's a lot of work.

Julie and I found a little homeless yorkie wandering around a few days ago, so we picked him up and took him home. He is a sweet little dog! We are keeping him until we find his owners... or if not, who knows?? We also got a hamster, Mike named him Hewie even though it's a girl. I won't touch the thing, but he loves to play with it (aka tease) a lot.

Other than that, we've been enjoying the HOT HOT weather, and getting a lot of sun!

The title says it all, I don't know where the time has all gone!

We got our little puppy, Sophie about a week and a half ago, she is so fun! A lot of work, but that's a given with puppies.

I'm doing well on my goals list, I have 6 done I think and have a few more planned. I'm also looking for another part time job for some extra money, so we can pay off some debt and get the house finished. I've gone to a few interviews so far, but as of yet, nothing has panned out.

Julie moved in with us this week (downstairs) and is looking for a job also and getting settled. Over spring break, the rest of the family was here and did a ton of work on our house! It is starting to be really organized and finally giving us space to finish remodeling the rest of it. Still a LOT of work to go though!

Other than that, we are just plugging along, looking forward to being on our cruise in Mexico in 4 weeks!