Six long months ago the kids and I evacuated to South Jordan for two months while Casey demolished Wayne's Bar (aka our basement). That crazy looking mask allegedly offered protection from the asbestos fallout that was our sparkly, cottage cheese textured ceiling. June 2016--Casey Bert ripping into the bar. Many moons have passed. The basement was literally gutted. Completely. All of the electrical, HVAC, and plumbing were redone. Walls reconfigured and framed, insulation installed (there was none before), windows replaced, and walls sheet rocked and painted. Below is the same view of our basement as the one above. Still a mess, but looking like a place you might want to inhabit. Basement--December 2016 My favorite part of the basement (pictured below) is what will become the kids reading and creating room. Casey and I painted the walls and ceiling to look like the stratosphere. The kids also have a playhouse under the stairs accessed from that same room. I'v...
Yesterday, as you may have observed, was Valentine's Day, one day removed from a lesser known if slightly warmer holiday--the Ides of February--which I am celebrating today by contributing to our family blog--a rarity I know. Yesterday turned out to be a very special Valentine's for the Sullivans, as we all really wanted to make a mark on the day. In preparation, everyone came up with their own treasure hunt for the other members of the family, complete with written clues that lead you incrementally closer to the treasure. In Sophie and Hallee's cases these were hand wrapped toys from their own collection. How many of you have ever been given a draft horse for Valentines? Hallee gave me this one. Hope I can keep it in the back yard (smile). Earless draft horse?--everyone should have one I got Helen a new olive oil decanter. No, serious it's really cool! Okay, it's just a plain old bottle with rubber stopper and metal spout, bu...
For the past few years, we've had private health insurance. Back in the day when I was teaching school, we had amazing insurance and it cost me nothing . After I had Sophie and quit my day job (in favor of my current 24-7 job), we signed up for a policy through Select Health at a fairly decent price. Every year, however, they'd raise the rate and we'd have to downgrade to a slightly more generic plan to be able to keep it affordable. Somehow in the years of downgrading, we ended up with a policy that had a separate maternity deductible, so although our yearly family deductible is $1,500, we have a $7,500 maternity deductible. Honestly, who came up with that idea? I didn't even realize that we had a separate maternity deductible until this year. Bummer. After paying nearly $7,000 in premiums this year, we paid another $9,000 to have a baby with no complications, no medications, totally natural birth and the shortest possible hospital stay that we could get away with. ...
haha cute. Rumpelstiltskin looks like a rousing and epic game.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely charming! Who made up this leafy game?
ReplyDelete