They finally came yesterday and re-tacked our carpet next to all the new tile. Now that the extra carpet is cut away, we can finally see what the transition from kitchen to family room looks like. It wasn't exactly how I wanted it, but it's all right. Here's a picture. The table is acutally pushed way further toward the family room than it will be because they are working today. 
Sam has had a loose tooth for quite awhile. He was always a little hesitant to have me wiggle it (I think he was afraid I would pull it out). While we were in Utah, he was wrestling with Dan (surprise) and he bumped it. Even though it was really loose, it still took awhile to come out. He was afraid the dentist would pull it at our appointments on Tuesday, but he didn't. On Wednesday, it finally came out while he was eating and the swallowed it! He was so worried that the tooth fairy wouldn't leave him any money, that he drew her a picture so she would know what happened to the tooth. What a cute, toothless grin he has! 
Photos taken at the Stowell family BBQ on the 5th of July. 
The grandkids lined up by age. Interesting, isn't it?
I finally feel like I have recovered from a couple of very busy weeks. Here are some pictures of Olivia and her team at Nationals in New York. We stayed at this really cool house--four stories, seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, and lots of room to spread out in. It was great! 
I was only home for a day before Olivia and I flew to Salt Lake to be with the rest of the family, but here is a photo of the current state of the kitchen. I'll post some more pictures next week when we get home. 
Olivia and her team competed in Age Group Nationals in Binghamton NY last week. After a nightmare trip getting there including five different flights, five different states, three rental cars and almost 24 hours, we finally made it! The girls swam their hearts out and finished the semi-finals in 10th place out of 43! We then went on to the finals, where the girls swam figures (Olivia finished 107 out of 118, but she was swimming against 13-15 year olds. She was the youngest competitor there in that age group, and she totally held her own). After finals, we were still in 10th place, but we were thrilled with that! Their coaches were actually hoping for a top 25 finish, so top 10 was way above their expectations. Congratulations Arizona Desert Dolphins!
They delivered the cabinets even before I was done painting. Steve (the install guy) spent all day Wednesday working and he will be back today. Of course, nothing can go smoothly, so he ran into all sorts of problems--especially with my "mud room" cabinets in the hallway. Most of the pieces for it are wrong (doors instead of drawers, center dividers where there aren't supposed to be, wrong size, etc.). I'm a little frustrated! I know they will make it right, but it will take several weeks to get it right and I so wanted to be done with this. 
Brandon and I painted on Monday and Tuesday. Ugh! What a thankless job. I had forgotten just how hot it gets at the top of the walls in the summertime. We painted most of the kitchen red (same color as the fireplace), the hallway tan (same as the living room and entry), and the new arch brown to match the rest of the family room. We also repainted all the baseboards (way to go Brandon!) and the entire inside of the new pantry. Everything looks so nice! However, my whole body hurts and I hope to never see another gallon of paint again!
Here are some pictures...
With the column gone.
This is where one of the kitchen windows used to be. Now we will have cabinets over the sink. They also installed a bunch of recessed lights in the kitchen. We could do surgery in the kitchen now, it's so bright!
Yeah! Today they finally started demolishing our kitchen! Workers showed up bright and early (6:30) to tear out the cabinets and countertops, then the tile guys came to start tearing out the tile. What a mess!
Before. Aren't those lovely pink countertops? So '80's! 
So yesterday, we were enjoying a little family time (okay Brandon and I were watching golf) and the power went out. We didn't think much of it, we occasionally get a short outage. When 20 minutes or so went by, we decided we better find some flashlights and candles in case it got dark before we had power back. It turns out that a transformer blew and left only about 7 houses without power on our street. Unfortunately, it was 110 yesterday and this happened just before 6:00. It was pretty darn hot! After a couple of hours, we managed to get the kids to bed (although Sam and Julia just couldn't understand why we couldn't plug in a fan because they were hot). We played a game with the older kids until it was too dark and too hot, then we sent them to bed. Brandon and I went outside, where it was still 100 degrees, but at least it wasn't as stuffy as inside. The power FINALLY came back on just after midnight. I've never been so thankful for air conditioning and fans! It makes me very grateful that I live now and not a hundred years ago. Brandon likes to point out that I would have died crossing the plains and I happily agree with him. There's no shame in enjoying some modern comforts. Here's to a nice, cool house!
Julia officially tried synchro for the first time today (she has been pretending in our pool for 2 years). Olivia's team had a "Desert Dolphin for a Day" clinic, and Julia was finally old enough (almost) to participate. She was so excited to be a "synchro girl". She stuck close to Alex (one of Olivia's teammates) and had a great time. This is their little routine they learned today. How cute is that?
Silly Sam--he wanted a "mountain" cake (aka bundt cake). Unfortunately, the mountain had an earthquake (it stuck to the pan) and it was a little deformed. At least it still tasted good! Sam helped mix it all up--in fact, he got me up early in the morning by bringing in the recipe and then proceeding to gather all of the ingredients (mostly by running to my bed and showing me something: is this flour, mom?) I think he was a bit excited. 
A couple of you have asked about the new Gilbert Temple. It will be 7 miles from our house, across the freeway from the Costco I shop at. It's also across the street from a really cool park. Right now it is just farmland, but we can't wait until it starts to look like a temple. How exciting for our kids to see one built right around the corner. What a blessing.
So, my sister Allison came down for a visit last weekend. Thank you, thank you, thank you to her husband, Thao, for giving up his weekend with her so she could spend it with me. And thank you, thank you, thank you to my husband, Brandon, for giving up one of his frequent flier tickets so she could come. We had a great time! The whole point of the weekend was to catch up on our scrapbooking. We didn't quite accomplish that, but we made a good dent. Ali says she got 66 pages done and I got 51 pages done. It still doesn't even make a dent in what we have left to do, but it was lots of fun! It was so nice to spend quality sister time together without kids (almost--but I did a good job of ignoring mine). Now, when can we do it again? Thao, Brandon, how soon is too soon?!? Next weekend?!?
