Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Swimming, Swimming, in the swimming pool

It seems that Wyatt has overcome his hesitations concerning water, so we have taken full advantage of every opportunity to play in the water this summer. Yesterday, we went to the town pool for the first time, and we were quite impressed.
Wheatland is a small town, and it's an outdoor pool, so we didn't expect much. The pool was awesome! They have three water slides (not huge, buy hey, they're water slides!), a regular diving board and a high dive, and a LARGE wading pool for the little ones. Wyatt was so excited! We played in the wading pool for a while... until Wyatt saw the waterslides. He ran straight to the smallest one, and climbed up while William and I were jumping into the pool to try and get to the end of the slide to catch him! We thought for sure he wouldn't like it after he went under water, but he loved it! Of course, William did his best to keep Wyatt's head from going under. We spent over an hour playing on that slide... and then Wyatt spied the diving boards.

No, I did not allow my three-year-old to jump from the diving board, but it took some MAJOR convincing! He wanted to jump off the high dive (groan)... of course. Sometimes his fearlessness frightens me. Okay, MOST of the time it frightens me!
Anyway, we had a great time! Here are a few pics of my little man having a blast in the water!




Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Back in the saddle, er, computer chair again!

I know you've all been waiting patiently (i.e. complaining incessantly), so I'll do my best to bring you up to date!





The House





We've been working hard on lots of projects throughout our new home, doing our best to respect the history of this house while making it a functional home for our family. We finally got the floors refinished (pictures to come later), and we have decided we don't ever want to buy a home with hardwood floors again! We did some research, and seriously planned on a three day weekend to get the floors done. HAHAHAHAHA! I would like to find whoever touched these floors last (it's not the people we're buying from), and choke them with the cord of the floor sander! We knew the floors looked bad, but HOLY CRAP! WHAT WERE THESE PEOPLE THINKING?! The floors had been waxed, AND THEN gallons upon gallons of lacquer were put over the top. This resulted in the lacquer and wax simply melting to the sanding pad, rendering each one unusable after just a few minutes. 150 sanding pads and 5 weeks later we finished! Our $150-$200 dollar project became a $500 BEAST!





We are still working on the kitchen. The walls have been painted, as well as (most of) the cabinet doors. We plan to redo the counters, put in different appliances (including a dishwasher! Yay!), lay down new floors (forget pulling up what's there to refinish the wood!), and put in a few new cabinets. Oh yeah, and we also have to rework some wiring. Good thing we have an electrician who unwittingly offered to help us!





The Job





William's job is going well. He is in his second phase of FTO, and has been doing very well. In about 5 weeks he'll be completely on his own, and hopefully working a little more predictable schedule. The shift work hasn't been bad thus far, and the people at the department have been great!




This was William's first day in uniform. He REALLY didn't want to take the picture, but I reminded him that Dad wanted one! And we all know the answer to a request from Dad... "Okay, Kurt!" (And yes, Dad, you know it's true!)

Church

Our new ward is wonderful! They have been very welcoming and helpful. I have already been assigned visiting teachers and have been visited. I haven't had visiting teachers come visit me in a LONG time (Tia and Nikki, you were the last!), so I was impressed with and grateful for their efforts!

Our ward is small but full of wonderful people. Wyatt doubled the nursery size (literally) when he began attending. However, we have a very active ward with lots going on. It's a good place for us.


Overall, things are going very well for us! We LOVE Wheatland, and feel right at home here. I'll post further details (along with more photos) soon.