Summertime Again

Annnnnnnnnnnddd today is officially the first day of summer break!  I can't begin to tell you how excited we are about it!  Usually we're not done as early as we are this year, but I sure am glad about it.

As usual, the rest of May is pretty stinkin' busy.  I think when the beginning of May comes and the end of school is in sight, we sort of over-book ourselves for the end of May out of excitement.  The next week and a half will consist of birthday parties, graduation parties, having people over for dinner, garage saling, doctor appointments, taking the cats to the groomer (EVERYONE is getting a haircut this time!), and of course, upstairs demolition.  

I was just looking back at some of my blog posts from last year from the beginning of summer and realized how excited I was to remodel our upstairs.  We planned to do it all ourselves.  Well...that didn't happen!  We did begin the remodel by having a plumber out to check out the upstairs bathroom.  Which needed to be completely re-plumbed and leaks fixed under the shower (which meant putting a hole in the ceiling in the floor below).  And boy, let me tell ya, plumbers turn out to be awfully expensive.  This week's worth of plumbing adventures turned out to eat up our entire renovation budget that we had last summer.  Couple that with it being too hot to move because of the lack of rain, and not much got done upstairs last summer.

But guess what's going on up there this summer?

We're going to begin AND finish the remodel.  Except we've changed our minds on one thing--we're not going to do it ourselves anymore.  Well, not completely.  We're having an Amish crew come out to help with dry walling and mudding the walls.  But we're involved in doing everything else!  So far we've moved everything downstairs (we have too much stuff) and Kyle is going to use pizza to lure some friends over to begin tear-down of the old, ugly paneling.  After tear-down is complete, Kyle and my dad are going to oversee minimal installation of insulation.  Then the Amish come out at the beginning of June and will be done about half-way through the month.  Then we paint.  Then Kyle and his dad (and probably mine too) will come help lay a floor.  Then PRESTO!  Done!  Just in time to move everything back upstairs and begin working on converting our downstairs office into a baby's room.  In the meantime, this is the perfect opportunity to get rid of stuff we don't need/want anymore...just in time for my mom's garage sale in June!

I know we're not going to flake out this time!  Every time I even pause to consider it, I get a nice kick in the bladder to remind me exactly why the renovation is necessary.

So I keep telling myself...just get through May, then let the Amish take care of the walls.  Just get through May, just get through May.  We've gotten so much accomplished, but it still seems there's a TON more to do before that point! 

In the meantime, we will be enjoying the summer weather!  It might involve a little bit of rain here and there, but after last summer, that sounds heavenly :)