Heather Goes to Florida

It was approaching the time of the year for Heather's trip with her dad. The problem we were facing was James' schedule. He recently added quite a few new clients to his growing business and needed to fly out and set up their offices. This meant that most of his weekends were booking up and he was heading into Tithing Settlement season. When James realized he would have to go to Florida he asked Heather if she would like to meet him there. This plan meant that Heather would have to fly by herself to Florida. I was a nervous wreck putting Heather on a plane by herself. I told James I would never do it again. I learned a lot from Heather though. I asked her if she was nervous. She told me she was that morning but she had learned that if you think about something to much, or tell yourself something too much, your brain will start to believe it, therefore, she had decided to tell herself she wasn't nervous and she would quit thinking about being nervous. I was very proud of her. She was quite grown up about the whole thing. Everything went off without a hitch. Of course, I was calling James constantly to make sure he was OK and would be at the airport in time to meet her. He went to the airport three hours early just to calm me down.

They had a great time together. I've heard the high point was visiting the new Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. James informs me he couldn't get enough of the Butter Beer. He brought back mugs for all of us. I had a suspicion to how he'd gotten the mugs. Upon inquiry, he confirmed my suspicion. He had drunk that many mugs of Butter Beer. He said he didn't want to leave anyone out from having a mug. I'm sure we all agree it was an excuse to have more Butter Beer.

Heather told me she liked the Wet 'N Wild waterpark best because there weren't any lines and they got to go on whatever rides they wanted. They also made it to SeaWorld. The two "kids" had a lot of fun together and came home a little bit tanner.

Pictures of the House

Our remodel project is slowly but surely moving along. Most of the upstairs is framed and the electrician is working so we can get to the four way inspection. I've been told that as soon as the inspection is over, the other sub contractors are ready to jump right in and finish the project. I've decided I'm just happy when anyone shows up and progress is made. The outside of the house is nearly done. For those who may not have heard, when they started pulling the brick off our house to knock out the side, they discovered that when the house was originally built a weather barrier wasn't placed between the brick, stucco, and the wood. When you leave out the weather barrier you end up with rotted wood on the other side. We were lucky to discover this problem because we have been told that in 7-10 years we would have had seepage into the insulation and a huge mold problem. The downside of discovering this problem was that it needed to be fixed. This meant pulling the brick and stucco off of the entire house and replacing it while adding a weather barrier. I look on the bright side that you won't be able to tell where the new part is because all the brick will definitely match!

This is my new pantry, my favorite part of the whole thing!

A view of the kitchen area.

The stairs are getting a face-lift.

A view into the dining area, through the arches.

Looking inside the arches.