Our Long Weekend in Photos…..Memorial Weekend 2009

FRIDAY – the day full of errands and surprises!

The building inspector came over to inspect the doors and windows installed in our home. The inspection went ok, but we got a few surprises when I asked a couple of questions about our upcoming remodeling of the basement. The windows in the basement are not egress. So we will have to have another window put in on the side where we will be adding a new bedroom for Josh. The other bedroom down there was grandfathered in, but we have to meet all codes on the new construction. ARGH!!

I left a message for a friend of ours from church who is a contractor. We definitely need his assistance after the inspector told us of all the things we needed to have done. My one brother had said the heating would be enough on that side, but the inspector said no. So I was a bit freaked out after the inspector left as we have WAY more work to do than we thought. ARGH!!

Then to add to the surprises of the day, our garage door broke!! Yep it is stuck. Gotta love a day of surprises.

After all of our surprises, Josh and I decided to go run errands. We went to Walmart and Sam’s Club. We stopped at home and then I went to Aldi and Festival. I also picked up a movie from redbox for family movie night.

Josh and Amy joined us for Family Movie Night. We grilled out hotdogs. To have with our beans and had pasta salad while we watched the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop!. It was a pretty funny movie.

While we were watching the movie, Andy, our friend from church returned our call and came over to discuss the basement remodel with us. He pointed out a number of other things we didn’t know we needed to do. He had some really good ideas. We asked him to give us a estimate on completing the entire remodel job. I hope we will be able to afford to have him just do the job, it would really be a huge weight off our shoulders! We are leaning towards being broke, but experiencing less stress. We will see. Many things to think about and discuss for hubby and I.

SATURDAY – Our day of work……

Josh was over on Saturday as well to work on the basement. When he arrived, Hubby and I were just getting ready to leave to go to the bank, library and menards. Josh , Amy, Steve and Tommy stayed at home and worked on cleaning out the basement.

When hubby and I returned the basement was completely empty!! So our afternoon was spent cleaning the floor. We used vinegar and a electric scrubber to clean the floor. This took the rest of the day!

Tommy enjoyed the empty basement and roller bladed around and around the pole! It is hard to believe we finally have it all cleaned out. We ordered 6 pizzas for supper and enjoyed a picnic out on the porch. We contemplated camping out in the tent, but decided it was too cold and that Sunday would be a better night to do that.

We needed to get up for church on Sunday morning and didn’t want to be too tired.

SUNDAY – Our Day of work not related to the basement…….

We were up on time and attending church services. This week was MN Teen Challenge Sunday. A great rehab organization that shared their faith and testimonies with the congregation.

After Church I spent most of my afternoon avoiding washing dishes!! Josh and I went outside and split the hostas and worked in the shade garden while hubby mowed the lawn. Uncle Steven and Tommy played catch with the football. We all spent most of our day outside enjoying the nice weather!

I finally did wash the dishes and then went outside to harvest the rhubarb. I destroyed the plant!! LOL! Josh and I cut up alot of rhubarb. I mixed up 6 pans of strawberry-rhubarb crumble and made strawberry-rhubarb=raspberry jam.

The aroma in the house was just yummy!! We took a couple of the rhubarb crumble to the neighbors as well.

This is was time to make supper!! It is great having Josh around home more, but that always means I need to cook for extras! While we were making supper Charlie came over. We invited him to stay for supper as well so with Josh and AMy we had 7 for supper. Normal night at our house it seems!! I love looking around the table and see all these people enjoying my meals.

I tried two new recipes at supper and both were a big success. The first one was Cheddar Potato Strips – very good, but needed to cook longer than the recipe called for. I also make Green Beans Almondine, which was also a hit! Two new recipes to add to our online cookbook!

The rest of the evening was filled with bonfire and camping in the yard. Here are some various pictures from the night!!