Rough Week

Its really been a rough week for us. After an accident on Tuesday night, we found out that our wonderful brother in law lost his battle with cancer after an amazing fight. He will be more missed than he will ever know. Chris and I spent the holiday in Bloomington, enjoying some quality family time. Hope you are having a great and safe holiday season.

The Weather Stinks!

Remember a couple blogs ago when I said it was cold, but thank goodness the roads weren't bad. Well... I take it back. This afternoon I got freezing rain & sleet for my 70 mile drive home, the entire way. It was like an ice rink every where, then add a nice 20 mile per hour wind against the Expedition... and I had a little accident. The Expedition just has a small ding in the back and a tail light broke. The Suburban that ran into me got it a little worse, but no bad. No injuries. Needless to say it took me nearly 3 hours to get home. Then once I pulled into our road, I couldn't even make it into the drive way and we live on a completely flat street. Ugh. This stuff was the worse I have ever seen. They were shutting down parts of the highway all over the place.

A little yoga when I got home helped. I'm thinking I'll hit the bottle next.

Hope you are all safe and sound! And not on the roads.

Brrrrr... Its Cold Outside

Current outside temperature is a whopping 3 degrees. Wind is whipping through to create wind chill temps in the negative teens. Wishing we were some place much warmer right now. I went out shopping today and my nose hairs were starting to freeze. On the bright side, at least the roads are clear.

Had a nice dinner with Kim's work mates on Saturday night. Good food, great games, and wonderful company. Wish you could have all been here.

Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. And I do hope its much warmer where ever you happen to be!

Day 7 Bathroom remodel

stage 4 on shower redo

So this is day 7, I never knew how much there was to do some of this stuff, first they had to move the drain to the center of the floor, then they had to put the slope in so that water funnels to the drain then put this plastic like coating down and this is before the do the shower pan.  No other good pictures today.

Day 6 Bathroom Remodel

All the stuff is on top of our new corner tub area

The floors got poured today with heating coil inserted

Another big day this was day 5, with the floors being poured it starts to take shape more and more.  The coil was weaved and cover in the pour so we will have heated tile floors when it is complete.

Day 5 Bathroom remodel

The hole where the tub used to be

The walls stripped to the stud

The tile below

This whole process has been very exciting and interesting, before the remodel there was a step up in our bathroom to get to the tub, toilet and shower area, they did this because this area was not intended to be bathroom area in the original design.  This room used to be a closet with a tile rug design which you can see in the picture above.  They raised it up a step to hide all the plumbing, they also hid all the scrap stuff from construction in there instead of throwing it away.  This is day 4 Monday.

Bathroom Remodel - Day 3

So far so good on the bathroom remodel. First three days have been deconstruction. Its amazing what you find under the floors when you start pulling them up. Under the tub there was a whole other level 12 inches under the current level with some really cool tile that was in pretty great condition. No clue why they found it necessary to put pink & green decor over the very nice white marble.

Updated bathroom will have black travertine floors with light brown travertine walls. I can't wait to see the finished product.

Attaching a couple pictures of deconstruction thus far.

Inside the shower:

In the tub area:
Location where the old vanity was (and new one will be)

Sugar Cookies at Break Neak Speed!

Yes, Chris is now officially the best (and quickest) sugar cookie decorator ever. He did four batches of Aunt Janice's sugar cookie batches in a mere 1.5 hours. We also got a batch of cranberry orange biscotti and chocolate rice krispie treats complete.

Weekend Plans

We're off to Illinois this weekend. A little last minute, but something we really want to do. Got some cookie dough chilling this morning after an early morning workout. Will finish the cookies off on Sunday night. Everyone at work loves the sugar cookies of course. Going to try a new chocolate rice krispie cookie recipe.

Oh, and we get to go pick out new cabinets and tile for our master bath remodel. Looking forward to the finished product. I can honestly say that I'm glad I didn't tackle this project myself.

Hope you are all having a great holiday season.

Remember When

As the holidays approach... Kim starts missing her family even more than normal.  Thought I would share a little nostalgic picture of the family.  I believe this is taken in 1985 in front of Aunt Thelma's house at a family reunion.  I'm in the very front in the nice purple shorts that were a little to short for my own good.  Check out the long hair on my uncles Dave & LeRoy.  Wow.

Back Drama Continued

This is starting to feel a bit like a saga.  Chris had #2 back surgery about 10 days ago.  And... we found out this week that it might not have worked.  His disc may be hierniated once again.  So, he is trying a round of steroids (maybe it will bulk up his muscles too).  Then if that doesn't work we are on for surgery #3 which will be full disc removal and fusion of the bones.  Keep your fingers crossed with us that the steroids work so we can avoid another surgery.

On a happy note, Kim had a great trip to South Carolina for work this week.  Off to Cincinnati for meetings tomorrow.  Oh, and we are remodeling our master bathroom.  Should I say, we are paying someone this time to break their back instead of us.  We get to pick out new cabinets and tile on Saturday which will be fun.  

Recovery

Chris is on the road to recovery. Surgery #2 went a lot harder than planned, but day 2 & 3 were better than expected. He is back working 8 hours a day and is managing some off his feet time as well. Work is a little crazy for Kim, but managing. We are working on our thoughts are prayers for Steve, Jodi and Karli now who are dealing with things families should just shouldn't have to deal with. This morning it was 15 degrees on the thermometer. Definitely cold, but the at least the roads are still drive so I have a safe commute.

Hope the holidays are going well for all of you.

Surgery #2 for Chris

Chris went in Monday for the second surgery in the last two months to repair a hierniated disc. Surgery #2 was much more painful than #1. He had a few more of the negative side affects this time as well. But hopefully it will heal properly this time and it will be his last back surgery forever.

Its snowing in Indianapolis. Looks pretty, until you get out on the road with all the crazy drivers. Probably won't stop now until about March. Good thing we got the Christmas lights up already.