Changes Around the House

In addition to everything else going on right now, our community is in the middle of getting a major face lift. The houses are all getting painted. As part of the LP Siding Lawsuit from 5 or 6 years ago, one of the stipulations was that our houses have to be repainted every 5-7 years. Sooooo...it's that time again! We have a great paint crew that is working their tails off painting the houses in our neighborhood. I love the colors, they are very earthy and really make our landscaping (or lack there of) really stand out. I need to do a little repotting and get some plants out next to the garage along the walk to our door.

Before the painting project began, this is what we saw from the street looking at our house. How boring and drab!

Now, is what our house looks like. I absolutely positively LOVE it. They aren't completely done with our trim (notice the drop cloths still on the roof), but they're close enough to post a picture. Don't you just love it?!

I was also finally motivated and finally finished painting our upstairs bathroom. I finished the walls and then painted the cabinets white. I still have some things that I would like to do in there, paint the baseboards, redo the flooring, make a new fabric shower curtain, replace the hinges throughout, however we have some other things that we need to get done around the house ASAP, so those might wait a bit. We'll see. I will, however, get the handles on the drawers soon, we have them, we just had to get some longer screws as the ones that came with the handles weren't long enough. No biggie!

More Than Just a Trip to the Fabric Store

On Wednesday Eli and I ran to JoAnn Fabric to get some fabric for my cousin's new baby. While we were there we ran into our own little piece of excitement(?).

It all started as I was pulling some fleece off the shelf. The fabric was stuffed in so tighly, it was quite difficult to pull it out. Apparently, as I was pulling it, the top of the bolt must have caught on their signage that extends the length of the wall. There wasn't much space between the top of the bolts of fabric and the sign-apparently! The entire sign crashed to the floor, nailing me on the top of the head, and bounced down Eli's back! I'm not sure how long the sign truly was, but it was pretty long, at least 10 feet and the crash was not quiet. It was pretty loud. If any of the employees missed the banging coming from where we were, Eli's reaction sure wasn't something one could miss. He rarely screams or cries that hard, but I had to work to calm him down. If you know our Eli, he is so easy going and moves on quickly. Not this time. At no point did anyone come over to see what was going on or why there was such a ruckus where we were. I finally got the other bolts of fabric pushed back in and went LOOKING for an employee to pick up their sign - it wasn't my responsibility to do so. As Eli and I were looking for someone, I kept checking the top of my head because it felt like I was bleeding, thankfully I wasn't. Upon finding an employee, it took a while before she actually acknoledged me and when I told her what had happened she, and the other gal who was near her, simply responded with "Oh. Huh. Ok. Where was that again?" Not once was I asked if either one of us was hurt. They stayed right where they were and continued what they were doing. We walked back to the fleece section and got the fabric we needed, as this was the only place I knew had what we were looking for and I had a coupon to use. We headed back to the cutting counter, where we reported the whole incident in the first place. FINALLY the gal I reported it to moseyed over and looked where I walk talking about and came back with the sign. Since nothing was said to us up to this point, I thought maybe they would ask if either one of us had gotten hurt, still nothing! I couldn't believe it. When I got home, I looked up their corporate office number and called to report the incident. Not because Eli and I got hurt, but because there was so little concern on the employees behalf. Something much more serious could have happened and having worked in a retail store, there are protocols that should have been followed, or at least ask if we were ok! Today's day in age, too many people are sue happy, I would like to think they'd like to cover their behinds just in case. Apparently I have the wrong idea.

2 days later, I still have a small bump on the top of my head and it is still quite sore to the touch. Eli has one long and one short bruise down the back of his shoulder (yesterday it was 3 distinct bruises down his back, but today the top two have combined making one long one).

I am still amazed we didn't even get a simple "are you ok?" Is that too much to ask?


On a side note, Eli and I made banana bread today! It is so yummy! I don't think I've made banana bread since well before Jess and I got married. Maybe I'll have to do this more often!

Painting with the Hulk & Contractor Update

I tried everything to get the slideshow in my own post, but I can't. I even opened the previous post to try to combine them, but it won't repost it. UGH - so you have to deal with one posting of the text and one with the pictures! :)



Today we pulled out the paint and let Eli do some painting. His favorite part was rubbing it all over his hands and making hand prints. As the reminiscent mother that I am, I love this and kept trying to get the perfect hand prints. We got a few! :)

Before the painting, Ron, our contractor came out and assessed the damage caused by our infestation of Damp Wood Termites. A portion of the beam will need to be replaced. As he put it, "it is going to be a joy for this one." Yes, it is going to be a tough job, our interpretation is that it will also be a pretty expensive job, also. Thankfully, our CC&Rs/HOA cover this job because it is a structural problem and our dues go toward these types of things (similar to the pressure washing and house painting occurring over the next few weeks!). Ron didn't even have a rough estimate as to how much the repair was going to be yet, he is still deciding what the most effective and best way to complete the job is. Our house will have to have supports brought in, raised a few inches to be able to remove and replace the beam, etc. We'll update when we know more!

Exterminators?!

Well, both Terminix and Orkin came out yesterday and gave us the same news.

What we have are called Damp Wood Termites. Thankfully they are the least troublesome and neither company does anything to treat for them. Once the damp wood has been removed, the termites will disappear. This is good news for the most part. We have pulled off the boards that were damp, although now we are going to pull off more decking to check the rest of the perimeter of our deck to make sure those boards aren't damp as well. Unfortunately, when our house was built the slider to the backyard was not installed correctly, no caulking was used between the slider itself and the board below it. Water was able to seep between these and slowly moisten any boards there. In addition we have the LP siding which had it's own problems, but the house we are in was not included in that lawsuit so nothing was done to rectify that problem as well. THEN when our deck was added - I am guessing the people who owned the house before us put in the deck - they didn't use any dividers/backsplash type things (I don't know what they're called) between the deck and house. So....you take all of these individual mistakes and have a big problem.

There will be a contractor coming out today or tomorrow to take a look at the damage and to assess the problem. The board behind the damp one happens to be a structural beam running the length of the house, so if there is damage to that (which we can see a little, but don't know the full extent of it) we will have to have a portion of the beam replaced! Sooo, at this point we're at a standstill until we know more. It is highly probable we'll be having that beam replaced very shortly! CRAZY!

We are thanking our lucky stars that the damage really wasn't any worse and that they are one of the mildest and easiest kinds of termites to treat. Our Terminix and Orkin friends said there are the subterranean termites in our area which are the worst to get. The come up through the soil and start devouring your house. Very difficult to treat and they are very aggressive.

Ahhh the joys

Yesterday my parents came over to help us replace a board on our house. Everyone thought this would be a pretty easy project. Remove 3 deck boards, take off said broken board, prime new board, nail new board on, caulk, wha-lah! Finished. Well, as projects tend to go, this is not how the morning went.

After Jess and Dad pulled off this board, they found another that had evidence of bug activity - but not recent activity. We thought, oh thank goodness, at least it's from a long time ago, we'll take that out too, and move on. Unfortunately, once they got farther into the project, it was no longer previous activity, but a nest of termites was found. What ugly little vile creatures.

After calls to Orkin and Terminex, we have people coming out tomorrow to give us estimates on damage and exterminating them. Another aspect of owning a home, right?! Of course, the neighborhood is being pressure washed and painted starting when?! TOMORROW!


On a side note, we went to the Enumclaw King County Fair last night, what a blast! Oddly, I didn't take our camera, so ended up with pictures off my cell. We went with friends, Brad, Bonnie, and Isabelle. The kids, and the adults, loved walking around and seeing all the animals. People watching is always amusing at the fair too. Sometimes I wonder where people come from. Amazing. Brad got Eli and Isabelle tickets to go on the little boat and to ride the cars. Oh my gosh! They both loved it. I couldn't believe the smile on Eli's little face. Those handsome brown eyes were gleaming when he got off. So cute! I'll try to remember to upload pictures later. After the boat and cars, we went down the huge blowup slide. Of course we all had fun on this. Eli and I got to go down twice, and Jess and Eli went down once before leaving. FUN!

The Winkey's Go On Vacation Part II

Ok, we've been home now for a week and I promised that I would update the second half of our trip. I am finally sitting down to do that. I couldn't write about our whole trip during in my first post because we hadn't lived the second half of our trip yet! I wrote that while Daryl and Jess were at a movie, Eli was sleeping, and I was having some "me" time in Magnolia. Here goes!



Day Five (July 6th): Early in the morning, we woke up to the sound of serious thunder, flashes of lightning, and the biggest downpour I had ever seen. We had been told that the rain in Texas was different than ours, but there is simply no comprehension of this until you experience it yourself. Oh my goodness. I can now say that 99% of the time, the Pacific Northwest does not experience rain. It sprinkles. If you want to see rain, go to Houston during a thunderstorm! Back to our trip...we ventured into Houston and visited the Houston Zoo. Eli absolutely loved all the animals and enjoyed being able to run around. We typically don't let him just run around, but there was hardly anyone at the zoo on this day. Granted, the Houston area was continuing to meet and beat the record heat for the day, then add on the extra humidity from the morning thunderstorm and the day was HOT and MUGGY. This is not an understatement by any means. It was muggier than all get out. We tried to alternate visiting outdoor exhibits and those in a building where the temperature was much cooler than outside. As we were continuing around the zoo, we found a fan blowing with a cool mist - talk about heaven! Jess, Eli, and I were surrounding the thing taking in as much as possible. Unfortunately, but this point in our visit, there weren't a lot of indoor exhibits left to see, but there was still a lot of zoo left. By the time we got to the end, we were all drained, Eli was tuckered out and didn't want to leave the stroller and had even pulled the sun shade down and was "hiding." FUNNY!



Eli's favorite animals from the zoo were the American Alligator and the Gorilla. When we entered the Reptile House, he kept asking for the "Adigator" so when we finally got to it, we had one happy happy kid! The gorilla was one of the last exhibits we got to. One of the older gorillas was sitting right next to the window, Eli sat down next to him and I think they had their own little bonding moment. It was adorable!

Day Six: Sadly, this was our last full day in Texas. By this point, we were all exhausted, but still had things that we wanted to do. We decided not to do any sightseeing things in the morning. Instead, we thought it would be fun to take Eli and Uncle Daryl to go see Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It was cute. Not the best of the Ice Age movies, but cute none-the-less. After lunch, and resting at Daryl's house, we ventured back down into Houston and went to an Astros game. This was Eli's first Major League Baseball game and had a great time. We all did. The Astros lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, but fun was had by all!

Ringing the bells outside Minute Maid Ballpark.

Day Seven: Our morning started with a really early wake up call. The adults got up at 4:45am (2:45 Pacific time!) so we could load the car and throw the last of our stuff in suitcases and backpacks. We let Eli sleep and only woke him with enough time to change his diaper, put shoes on, and get in the car - he was up about 3:05 our time. Poor kid! We got to the airport and got into the massively long line to drop off our bag, which was already checked in. Then we found out we were in the wrong terminal! Most Continental flights go through the C Concourse, however our flight home was boarding in the E terminal. We hurried through the airport and through the proper security checkpoint, and arrived at our gate with 15 minutes to spare prior to boarding. Talk about an early morning heart racer! Again, Eli LOVED flying on the plane and didn't sleep a wink the entire way home. We had a great airplane, a 737-900 that had gone though the factory since Jess had started working so it was within 3 years old! There is even a chance that it was one that he had scheduled! This time around, I did not take any pictures of the plane ride home. Eli stayed awake the entire time until he went down for a nap, at home, at 1:30.



We had such a good time visiting Daryl in Texas. We can't wait for the next trip down!

Proof we were there...photos take 1

Well, we're home now and have well over 800 pictures to sift through of our trip to Houston to visit my brother. To put it mildly, we had a blast visiting with Daryl and doing all of the sight-seeing things in the area. By no means am I going to post all of the pictures, but will choose a few from each day of our trip to try to give a glimpse of the fun we had in Texas.

Day One: Flying to Houston

Eli really liked both the airport and flying on the plane. Here he is watching the construction of the runway at Seatac and him and Jess on the plane.

Day Two: NASA's Johnson Space Center

Jess, Eli and C3-PO

Headed to the tram for our tour of the rockets and Mission Control.

Checking out the rocket - it really was there and it is HUGE!

Here's proof!

Daddy and Eli

Uncle Daryl and Eli

A very tired boy on the way back to Uncle Daryl's house

Day Three: Relax and hang out

Day Four: Downtown Aquarium

Daryl, Eli, and Jess checking out the fish

Our own little shark

Look at that one!

The Winkey's Go On Vacation Part I

We finally took a vacation. A real vacation. The kind where you fly 2300 miles away and do all the touristy types of things. What an adventure!!!

To begin our trip, we dropped Oliver, the dog, off at Grandma and Papa's house (that would be my parents) to spend time with them and their two beagles, Marco and Maya. After a "why am I still here" incident and a few days warming up to the idea of playing with dogs, he settled in and actually started being a dog.

Our trip really began when we boarded the plane, the very first people on mind you. They were still cleaning when they had us board! Eli absolutely loved the plane trip. He giggled during take off and the landing and was great through the whole thing. He was strapped into his car seat so couldn't go anywhere even if he wanted to.

The first thing we noticed about being in Texas, besides the major construction IN the airport causing some confusion on our part, was the heat. It was 7pm by the time we made it outside and holy heck on wheels. It was STILL 95+ degrees out. We were hot and sweaty by the time we made it in the car (you know how it goes, loading luggage and putting in car seats to pass my high car seat standards: if it moves at all, it's too much). After grabbing something to eat, we headed to my brother's house in Magnolia. We drove. And drove. And drove. Houston is like Seattle. It just keeps going, and going, and going. Only bigger. Eli took to the "pretty car" in Uncle Daryl's garage. The pretty car is his 1970 Ford Galaxie. It's really cute, Eli loved it then I got to tell him that it used to be his Great-Grandpa's car, but that it was Daryl's now. Eli's response? "Ohhhhhhh," with very wide eyes. Every time we have set foot in the garage, he comments on the pretty car. Cute!

Day One: On our first full day in town, we headed south to NASA's Johnson Space Center and went to the space museum. We did a tram ride that took us to the Rocket Center and Mission Control. It was amazing seeing the actual mission control where every space mission has been through since the 1980s. While we were there, they had live footage from mission control for the International Space Station. Unfortunately, they were in another room that we were not allowed in. Still, it was amazing! Eli really enjoyed the tram ride, or the Choo-Choo as seen from the eyes of a two-year old. It was very hot this day (100* when we arrived!), so after the tram ride, and visiting the rockets, we spent some more time inside, then headed back out to the car. By the time we got home, and had some dinner, it was already time for Eli to go to bed. It was a busy, but fun day!

Day Two: We decided that it was time to have a relaxing, non-touristy day and let Eli do a little catching up on rest and have some fun playing. We went to the mall and walked around for a bit, played at the park for a few minutes, yes, I am not kidding when I say a few minutes here. We walked there, about 2 blocks away, played for maybe 15-20 minutes, then headed back. During our trip, the Houston area had record setting heat - you can only imagine what it was like for our little family from Seattle! We were hot and sticky! After slathering the sunblock on and making sure we had plenty of water handy, we went out and endured it for as long as we could - without pushing it! Eli loved the slides and throwing rocks in the water at the park. It was great letting Eli catch up a little on sleep. Thank goodness for a nap!

Day Three: Downtown Aquarium here we come! OK, we went! Upon seeing it from the freeway, my initial thought was, "Are you serious? It's one measly little building. We're going to be in and out in a matter of minutes." However, when you walk up to it, it was much larger and exciting in person! To be honest, it didn't take too long to walk through the whole thing, the Seattle Aquarium is much larger, but I think I have to say, this one was so much better! I haven't been in our aquarium since they finished the updating and whatever else they did, but this aquarium was completely decked out, decorated, and made you feel like you were really part of the exhibit. We loved it! In addition to fish and the typical aquarium type things, there were a few birds and even white tigers. Eli loved this exhibit! After scoping out the aquarium and having lunch at the Aquarium Restaurant, we went out did the only ride Eli would go on, the Shark Voyage. This consisted of boarding a train and riding it through a shark tunnel (wow! What a thrill! Sharks were all around us) and through shark infested waters (robotic sharks). It was a little cheezy, but watching the excitement through our child's eyes was totally worth it! Eli loved it. By this point we had spent as much time outside as we dared and headed back to the car. Eli actually fell asleep in the car (an amazing feat in itself these days) and even continued napping when we got home.

Day Four: Fossils, shells, gems and science, oh my! This day brought us to the Houston Museum of Natural History. There was so much to see and do here, a person could go broke! We decided that because of Eli's lack of napping and considerate amount of running we've been making him do since arriving in Houston we would not do any of the extra things - that and they were horribly expensive! As it was, we were bombarded with 3 floors of exhibits to meander through. The favorites of a two-year-old you ask? The dinosaurs and any of the animals. At one point he was blowing kisses to the zebras and attacking lionesses. "Toooooooo funny" as he liked to put it. After napping upon arrival back at the house, another trip to the park was in store. We managed to stay out roughly the same amount of time as before - maybe a tad longer as there was a slight breeze, shade, and slightly milder temperatures (when I say slight, I mean slight. At one point late in the afternoon, it was only 97*).

Keep your eyes out for more to come on the remainder of the trip! One can only write so much at a time. Pictures will come eventually too!!