House O' Sullivans

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...

Tonight we staged our annual Winter Solstice Celebration. The menu included Reindeer Meat Pie, Snow-Drift Fruit Salad and Winter Greens  followed by homemade Doughnuts and Eggnog. We lit all of the candles that we could find and feasted according to Sullivan family tradition. Over dinner we each shared our thoughts about LIGHT!!!   Sophie and Hallee arranged this amazing (and well-lit) centerpiece. The incredible evening menu! Happy Solstice 2016!! We look forward to the increasing light in days to come and sit with gratitude for the light we find in our family, our friends, and the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Time to break the Sullivan blog silence. It's been 4 months since I updated our family blog. That's a LONG time and so many things have happened. In a coming post I will attempt a penance and post a few photos and stories from the last 4 months. As a short explanation for the 4 month silence, I offer the following: We are pregnant with #5, and those first few months are mostly about survival. This week is #24, so we are getting there! I only vomit occasionally these days. We gutted the entire basement starting in June. The kids and I moved out to Casey's parent's house for most of July and August to avoid the asbestos fallout (gotta love those sparkly cottage cheese ceilings) from the basement. We worried friends and neighbors whenever we told them we were "separated" during that time. Casey was called to be our ward bishop in July, hence, I am learning the ways of the single mom. That new bishop has some sense of humor. He called me to be one of ...

Zeke's birthday request was to go camping, so camp we did. (We went camping in Maple Canyon last year for his birthday with the Paynes and the Bellinis and had so much fun that Zeke called for a repeat.) Last week--the week after we got back from Nauvoo--we headed up to Redman in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We actually went up on reconnaissance the Tuesday of that week (and for some hiking at Brighton with my friend Kim) to see if we could finagle the camphost into letting us come up a day before the site officially opened (which was allegedly on Friday that week). We didn't ever locate the camphost, but some U.S. Forestry people that we found in the woods told us Redman opened on Wednesday, so no problemo. We showed up at Redman on Thursday morning and the gate was locked with a "Site Closed" sign hanging ominously before us, but this was a celebration of Zeke's birthday and we couldn't be deterred. (Fie on those misinformed forest service people!!) Thankfull...

Several months ago I challenged my sister, Mary, to get off the couch and run a half-marathon with me. She didn't disappoint, even though she'd only trained up to a 3 mile run. I'm still amazed by that incidental fact.  The race (Drop 13) starts near Solitude up Big Cottonwood Canyon and we'd hatched an epic plan to stay the night before at the Silver Fork Lodge, just a few blocks form the starting line, thus avoiding ridiculously early wake up times, obnoxious busing up the canyon, and freezing at the starting line for hours. The night before we leisurely dined at on of our favorite restaurants, the Kathmandu, then ditched Mary's car at the finish line. From there, we put our things on our backs and walked a couple of miles to the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon and proceeded to hitch-hike up to the lodge. Give it up for the Cottonwood High School girl's basketball team for giving the ladies a ride. Three middle-aged women must have looked intimidating beca...

We've been planning this epic trip since Casey's parents left on their mission to Nauvoo over a year ago. We knew with nearly 4 days of driving alone and considering Casey's limited time off that this would be our big trip for the summer--a week and a half of road tripping and Nauvoo.  We started the epic after Casey got home from work the Friday before Memorial Day. We stopped at this historic fort along our travel route--Fort Fred Steele--built in 1868 (located near Sinclair, Wyoming on the west bank of the North Platte River) to guard against Indian attacks during the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad.  Casey worked to restore the old stone building behind him in the picture, literally putting it back together. What a guy! They had closed up the building just before we arrived, but the kind curator let us in when she found out that Casey had put those pieces back together. That Friday we drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming and stayed the night at the Radisson H...