2017 Training Camp

At the end of July we went to Kansas City for Chiefs training camp. We were down there a day early, so we took the girls for some mini golf in Independence. 

They had lots of fun. It was a hot hot afternoon. We tried to choose the course that had the most shade, but there really wasn't a lot of shade to be had. 

Kara bear kicked my sorry butt. 

Evie has improved a lot, and Ben helped her out with her swing. Afterward we headed over to Minsky's for some tasty pizza. We try to kid ourselves that we're going to eat somewhere else, but that's where we always end up. 

We were early risers the next day so we could get to the camp. Breakfast was part of our ticket, so the kids got some nummy pancakes and sausage. 

Evie really wanted to wear this little pink hat. I'm not sure where she found it, and I tried to convince her it was a baby hat, but she got it onto her head anyway. The chin strap was too tight, but it worked out otherwise. 

Watching the guys practice. 

The girls got a little tuckered out sitting in the hot sun. It is a challenge to sit on this hill. If you don't sit just right, you start to slide down. We got out ab workout in trying not to go for a ride down the hill. 

Ben took Evie with him to the gift shop, and let her spend her allowance on this Kelce doll. She less obsessed with the real guy now that she has her own version. 

I took the girls to the kids area when they started to get bored. Kiersten got some butterfly wings. 

Evie got a cat. 

Kara waited in line FOREVER to climb the rock wall. She did easy, medium, and hard, all rather quickly. 

Evie wanted to climb too. She got to the top of the easy side, and then didn't care to try the others. I was glad, because I was done with the kids area. 

We headed back over into the autograph mayhem.

Kara spotted Eric Berry (Ben's favorite player) in the VIP section. She stood by the fence for a long time trying to get an autograph for daddy. Berry finally spotted her, and motioned for her to be lifted over the fence. She was so proud to get that autograph for Ben. He was so appreciative and super happy to get it. A few weeks later, he found out that he won a drawing for an autographed, game worn Eric Berry Jersey. So now we have 2, haha. Funny how that kind of thing happens. 

Evie was disappointed not to get doll Kelce signed by real life Kelce. But I'm sure she'll get it someday if she keeps trying. He did sign her jersey and call her "sweetheart" last year, so she's got that. 

Kiersten had to get Dustin Colquitt's autograph for like the 1 millionth time. A special twist this time, he asked her to sign his hat, and said he's going to keep it in his basement for good luck. She thought that was pretty cool. She asked if he got his birthday letter from her, and he did. 

We were done by mid day and ready to get on the road for home. 

GO CHIEFS

Dining Room Update

We have wanted to redo our dining room since we moved into our house in 2012. We finally got to it this spring. Here is a before and after.

This is what it looked like just after we moved in. We never loved the idea of carpet in the dining room, and the longer we've lived here, the worse it has looked. 

One of the first things we changed was the light fixture, and then it has been pretty much the same for a few years. I never really loved the curtains either. Here are a few pictures of the room in use, mainly because I like looking back at how cute the girls were at different ages. 

On a Wednesday night in March, Ben pulled up the carpet, and I sat and pried out all of the staples and nails. We had a guy come in to get the rest of the tacks out and get started replacing the floor. 

Ben came up with a tile design, and worked on that and tweaked it for ages until he got it the way he wanted. He ordered the marble he wanted and the delivery driver had a crazy time trying to drop it off. At first he refused to bring the pallet up, and was going to leave it in front of the driveway, where we wouldn't be able to pull our cars in and out of the garage to get around it. Also, it was pouring rain, so I insisted he move it. I don't know if he was new to the job or not, but he was pretty young, and didn't seem to know how to use the pallet jack very well. I helped him get the pallet lifted back on, and then he pulled it over to the side, but tried to say it would be to heavy to get it up the driveway. I pointed out that if he pulled and I pushed, it would not be that hard, and he eventually agreed, reluctantly. Every time I went to push, he would scream to get out of the way. He kept thinking the pallet would slip off the jack, and I'd be run over. I tried to convince him I was fine, and it wasn't going anywhere, but he would not pull it with me there. Finally, 2 neighbors that were waiting for him to move the truck so they could get out of the neighborhood jumped out of their cars and said they would help push the pallet. He said fine, and sure enough the pallet jack worked like it was supposed to, and the tile made it up to the garage in mere moments. He then pulled his truck up into the driveway so the neighbors could get by, and then tried to back out, which was a whole other fiasco. We had road work going on, and a section in front of my neighbor's house had been done the day before, with traffic cones surrounding it. He could not get around those cones, and after an 18-point turn, they were all smashed up and blackened. He got out of the truck because one of the cones was stuck up under his truck. We could not get it out, it was pretty wedged. I went to pick up the remaining cones, and he got a little huffy. He said, "I'll take care of it", and snatched them away from me and put them in his truck. Then he got the truck straightened out and then put the smashed up cones back on the road. He refused his tip and drove off. I stood in the rain for a minute just laughing in disbelief, poor guy. 

Once the marble was delivered, we were ready to get started, and the tile guy came back out. He worked by himself, and super fast. I can not believe how quickly he got it laid, and he was a true perfectionist. He called me in several times to make sure I was ok with the way he made the seams match up etc. I didn't mention that I couldn't even see a difference, and never would have noticed the seams. Ben's measurements ended up being slightly off, and he made adjustments as needed so that the design would come out right and look perfect. 

Ben kept on asking me for updates, so I have plenty of pictures of the progress as it all came together. 

Because of the measurements being off, we ended up short 3 of the 18X18 tiles. Apparently you can't just go out and buy more white carerra marble. When I finally tracked down a box, it didn't not quite match up, so we returned those, and had to order again from the original supplier so it could be from the same slab as what we started with. Of course that took more than a week to get here, and our tile guy, Daniel agreed to come back to finish up once it was here. He wouldn't even let us pay him for the work he'd already completed. 

The week of Easter the tile was delivered. I guess it made sense to someone to put a small box of 6 tiles onto and entire pallet. It was taped securely into place, and then wrapped all up. It looked like an empty pallet with nothing on it. When the delivery driver showed up (a different driver), he got back into his truck to grab the pallet, and as he pulled it out, we made eye contact, and then both just started laughing. It seemed so ridiculous. I had to get a picture to show Ben the empty looking pallet sitting in the driveway. Ben has made use of the pallet as a bike rack, ball bin, and swim toys bin in the garage, so I guess it's ok that they sent it this way, though I'm sure we could have paid less shipping if they had found a different way to send it. 

The new tiles matched up perfectly when Daniel came back. 

All finished up. It's amazing to me that Ben just sat down and drew this out, and now it's on our floor looking spectacular. I am not a visualizer, so it's extremely impressive to me. One of the guys that came out to give us a tile quote tried to talk us out of the medallion. Ben insisted on having it, and I'm glad because I think it turned out beautifully. 

The tile came out the exact same height as the wood floor, just as promised. 

I wanted to repaint the lower half of the wall, and leave the beige stripes above. I was going to do black or charcoal gray, but when we went to get paint, Ben talked me into this lovely blue, and I am very pleased with it. I think the room feels happier. 

You'd think I would have painted before the tile went in, but nope, I did it after the perfect, really expensive floor was installed. It's the most nervous I've ever been about painting. 

The new table was a bit of an adventure as well. The table arrived with pieces broken off, and all scratched up, so we requested a replacement. We waited weeks and it finally arrived. It was round. They replaced a rectangle dining table with a round table, so we refused the shipment and had them re send a new table. We were also missing a few pieces for assembly. When Ben started putting together the chairs, we were missing pieces and some of those were damaged as well. We were able to get the 6 side chairs put together, and just needed the pieces for the arm chairs. So a whole new set of chairs was sent, and I told the guys just to bring in the 2 arm chairs, and send the rest back. One of the chairs was all smashed, but we were able to take the parts we needed to put together the original ones. We boxed all the broken stuff up, and sent it back. When the replacement table came, they sent a whole set of chairs again. Luckily I caught them when they had only brought in 2 chair boxes, and told them we didn't want any more chairs, just the table. Then they tried to not take the other damaged table, but I talked them into it. They also weren't going to unbox anything, but I begged them to unbox and take all the packaging away. I guess they felt badly for me when I told them the whole story. Long story short, I don't recommend purchasing furniture from Overstock.com. Lesson learned. Ben went to leave a review on their website, and saw a complaint from the end of last year. It sounded like all of the exact same damage as the furniture we received. We are 90% sure that they sent us a set that had been returned damaged. In our multiple communications with them, we learned that we should have received brand new items, not someone's refused crap. We eventually had our furniture all in tact after 2 months of phone calls, emails, refunds, and credits. 

One of the things we used our credit for was these white curtains. Imagine our surprise when they arrived with a giant black smudge on the front of one of the panels. UGH! We were fairly annoyed to have to return those for replacement and more credit. It's hard to want to use the credit for anything because who knows what condition it will arrive in?

Ben took me to the store to pic out decor, but he didn't really need me. We ended up going with everything he picked out. I got a picture today, with the fall decorations, but normally there is a different table runner, and a nice sculpture. I'll have to get a picture of that another time. 

It's Your Happy Happy Birthday Day!

Ma belle Evangeline turned 7 on the 13th. I reused the decorations from her birthday party and some balloons to snazz up the gift counter. 

Her door was a success!

I'm open to suggestions of fun things like this I can do in the future that they won't be expecting. I feel like I've started doing the same thing all the time, and they are never genuinely surprised. 

But they do love it!

She had girl scout camp the week of her birthday, so she didn't have time to open her gifts in the morning, as we needed to be there by 8AM, and I don't think Ben was even awake when I left to take her. She just loved this camp and had a great time every day. Her camp nickname was "Sprinkles". (Just like Kara's pet hamster.)

She was a little sad not to get dressed up on her birthday, but needed to wear shorts and a t-shirt for camp. When I picked her up, she was so excited and had an amazing time being the birthday girl at camp. 

While she was gone I decorated her cake. I had tried to talk her into birthday pie or brownies, since we had cake at her party, but she really wanted her own cake on her special day. She came home from camp with some papers and crafts. One of the papers had them list their favorite things, and hers were, pink, sprinkles, and cake. So I think I know what she was thinking about all day!

After camp we went to Six Flags with friends. We have never seen Marvin the Martian's dog there before. I don't even know his name.

Of course they made us go on the dreaded ferris wheel. I couldn't say no to the birthday buddies! We had a fun time and it was a hot one. I was definitely ready to get home to a nice, cool house. 

It was hard to wait for Daddy to get home so she could open her gifts, but wait she did. She passed the time by changing into several different dresses before settling on one that felt birthday appropriate. No more shorts and t-shirt for this little queen. Daddy came home with the requested ribs from Daly's BBQ, and after dinner we let her open her gifts from us. 

If there is one thing she probably doesn't need, it's more dresses. We got her this anyway. 

Kara and Kiersten got crafty. They did buy her gifts that they gave her at the pool party, but they wanted to make her something as well. 

They worked together to sew her a pillow and blanket from fabric I had sitting around. I noted that I should probably show them how easy it is to sew a pillow correctly. She loved it though. 

They also gave her a box of rocks that they had painted. It was weird, but Ben and I did our best not to laugh. They actually spent a lot of time painting them all and tried to think of her favorite things to paint on them. We do tease them occasionally about giving her a box of rocks for her birthday. 

When I was cleaning out the closet in my craft room I found a lap desk that was Kara's when she was little. Around age 7/8 she said it was for babies, and she didn't want it anymore, and I stashed it away in the closet. She let Evie have it for about 9 seconds before deciding she actually wanted it back. So we got Evie her own for her birthday. 

New suitcase!

Everyone loves cake/singing time. 

The cake turned out just as she had wanted it. 

Making a wish...

A successful extinguishing of the flame.

I hope all of her wishes always come true.

Here is another picture from girl scout camp. She loved the different themes they had for what to wear each day. She also loved that I let her stand on her booster seat and stick her head out the sunroof in the drop-off line to giggle at her friends with their heads poking out of sunroofs and windows. 

The following weekend the girls had swim conference. 11 and up were on Friday night, so I just took Kara as it was at our neighborhood pool. She did a great job, and I loved how quickly the meet ran with just the older kids. I was on lane loader duty, making sure the right kid is in the right lane for each race. With the older kids I didn't need to do too much except stand around listening to all the gossip, haha. 

The younger kids swam on Saturday. Evie brought her new favorite doll, and only had 4 races to swim. I didn't catch Kiersten for a picture because the meet ran so fast she was always swimming or lining up to swim it seemed. They had a great time, and Evie got several ribbons!

Later that night she lost a tooth. They are falling out like crazy, but taking FOREVER to come back in. I love my little toothless wonder!