House O' Sullivans

I took the kids to the Utah State Fair earlier this month.  It was opening day and since it was a Thursday morning (most kids were in school and most adults were working), the masses hadn't yet arrived, which made it so much more enjoyable.  My kids all got in free and it only cost ME 5 bucks.  What a deal!  Karen, my sister-in-law, was taking her daughter (Maya), and her dad (Marcial) and invited us to come along.  I convinced my mom to come (that was easy since she is up for ANYTHING) and we had a fabulous time gallivanting around the fairgrounds.  Perusing the cows, pigs, sheep, goats, bunnies, birds, and horses is usually the main event for us.  This year we went to the "Utah's Own" tasting tent and enjoyed an all-you-can-eat, Costco-on-steroids sampling of lots of yummy locally made foods that equated to a free lunch.  My mom and I also found a perfectly ripe nectarine tree near the horse stables that we raided.  So ...

This week was a good one.  Casey captured two gigantic rats in the mongo rat traps that I picked up at the local Home Depot.  Somehow the fellows decided that our yard was the goods and moved in a couple of months back.  When I do the dishes (which is often since we no longer have a dishwasher) I look out the window above the sink and survey the backyard.  I usually spot at least one a day running along the back fence.  Totally disgusting.  Unfortunately, they like our composter and the chicken feed.  I first borrowed my sister Mary's raccoon trap to try to capture them.  Casey and I set it a few times and caught a bird, then a cat, then gave that idea up.  Casey has stealthily opened the back window, pushed out the barrel of a shotgun, and tried to snipe them several times to no avail.  We are totally redneck, I know.  Our last ditch effort was the giant old-school traps.  The first day we caught...

While I was talking with a neighbor, Sophie, Hallee, and Zeke escaped the confines of the Sullivan compound and ran out to the just emptied recycling bin and took up residence.  They begged me to haul them (in the can) around the house and to the side yard where we keep these sorts of things.  Much laughter ensued. On Tuesday, partnerless as I was, I took Sophie with me visiting teaching.  We walked to each appointment and on the way to the last one, Sophie spotted a dead quail laying on the side of the road.  She was still talking about it when we returned back the same way, heading home.  She REALLY wanted Hallee, Zeke, and Casey to see it.  I told her that when Casey got home from work the next day, she could take them all over to see it.  Remembering all of the random animal carcasses that I hauled home as a kid, and with Sophie worried sick that her specimen would be GONE the next day, we back-tracked and retrieved the bird.  I let ...

Life at the Sullivans has been CRAZY this week.  Our kitchen is TOTALLY gutted.  Not only are there no cabinets on the walls or flooring on the floor, but there are gaping holes in the walls exposing the wiring and exposed floor joists.  (We ripped the floor out down to the joists.)  This whole thing started back in April when during a Saturday session of conference, Newel, Karen, Arden, and Maya came over and helped us tear out the wall between the kitchen and the living room.  Mary's father-in-law, John Goebel, an engineer, did the math and then our neighbor, Hayden, helped us put up a beam to support the house.  We had some guys come do the sheet rock work and our friend Dave helped us re-route the electrical from the removed wall.  The next step was the kitchen.  The more we removed from the kitchen, the more it became evident that we needed to rip it all out and start over--replacing old wiring, corroded pipes, rotten layers of sub floo...