JoeandRachel08: Quick Takes 7-26-2013

Linking up with Jen and the gang...

I promised more on the house and travels last post so that's what I'll do:

1. My parents, sister, J, B and I all went to the Children's Museum on July 4th. We had a blast even with only one kid in tow. We were there from 11-5... no joke. We went from basement to 4th floor and even had lunch there. Serious fun...

Dinosaur exhibit, hands on part

looking up at the blown glass sculpture

And of course my camera battery died shortly after this moment, at the beginning of our visit. Hmm, perhaps my sis has some pics I could have...

2. B was up all day on the 4th and still did fireworks, I don't know how he pulled that off but he was great throughout. The rest of the week was spent with my family...

sudden rainshower = puddle splashing

"well for starters, you have to understand that..."

Dancing after chocolate ice cream? Why yes, don't mind if we groove. One of my fav pics evah.

BTW, B's dancing reminded me of this scene from Psych, one of my favorite shows, if you haven't seen it, you should:

3. My grandmother turned 80 and I really enjoyed seeing all of my extended family. Every time I get some time with family I realize just how utterly blessed I am to have these wonderful people in my life.

One of the highlights was my uncle "interviewing" Grandma about her life. She told us about finding work at 11 years old to help out financially, living with rations during WWII, walking to Church, her first experience of Adoration as a young girl and, of course, the love story of her and my grandfather. The interview was videotaped. I'm tearing up again just thinking about how much I was able to learn about this amazing woman that I wouldn't have learned without that opportunity. Everyone should hear from their grandparents like this.

Listening intently

She even pulled out some things... this is her high school cheerleading sweater!
She was in the class of 1941 :)

4. Summer at home has been full of house projects, gardening and such. I lost all my romaine lettuce because I didn't know when to harvest and it bolted. Chalk that one up to a learning experience. I have more tomato plants than I thought I would because so many volunteers came up from tomatoes that dropped last year. I have 2 little icebox watermelons out there that I'm curious to watch grow.

5. Stripping dining room/playroom wallpaper and washing walls... teeeeeedious!
Before:

B photobombing the before pic :)

Pulling off the paper... thinking, "oh my, this is pretty easy for once!!!"

Something's not right here... that's not some kind of design...

And as I realized that there was a wallpaper mural under the glue and a coat of primer
I may or may not have cussed in German... ok, I did. B was in bed.

I played with the filters on the last picture in hopes you would see what I was seeing... THIS MURAL UNDER A COAT OF PAINT... AAAAAACK!!! (yes, I searched for it online because I was that mad that the least they could have done is not painted over it so that I could see the mural in all it's 1950's glory before I tediously scraped it off of the plaster walls... grr.)

Yup, it's under there alright.

A week and a half later we finally finished scraping and steaming and scraping some more. Now we're washing, washing and washing the walls. Wallpaper is my nemesis and it has now been completely erradicated from my home. WAHOO!

6. Speaking of stubbornness (wallpaper), a little boy is really exercising his independence lately :) But we're learning to adapt to a big boy bed, drinking from real cups, doing things all by ourselves...