Surprise Stop!

On Friday, in the midst of our basement cleaning, I got message from my brother-in-law.


I didn't realize I had a message until a few hours after he left it, but it said something to the effect of "We camped in Rocky Mountain National park last night and got rained on and since we are so close we were thinking of dropping by for a visit."


I called and said that hopefully I wasn't responding too late, and that I hoped they know they are always welcome and still planning to come. Ed said that they were still planning on it....YAY!!!!


They called when they made it to town and got to our house a little after 4. We came inside so they could relax a little and then my niece asked to go to the park. We usually take the kids to a big park in town, but it is a few miles away and requires driving. I suggested a small park a couple blocks away so they wouldn't have to get back in the car :)


It was a nice little walk to the park and ended up being a great spot! There were swings, slides and plenty of nice grass. I even snapped a few pictures with my phone:

James called saying that he was done working and almost home, just and we were getting ready to head back so we didn't get rained on. He beat us home by a couple minutes and Cordelia wasted no time running inside to surprise him!

Ed made steaks and corn for dinner and we had smores (made over the grill) for dessert! The kiddos got baths and everyone had nice dry beds! Ed and James played video games a bit and Rachel and I hung out talking.

It was a nice visit, and we are so glad that they were able to come by....such a great surprise!!!!!

Vacation?!?!?!

So we had been planning for a few months to go camping at Arches with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and were really looking forward to it! Fortunately James got work with both Boulder County and the City of Fort Collins for the summer (yay work!!!) unfortunately this also meant that he had too much work to be able to take the time off needed to go on this vacation. So although we are happy for the work and subsequent income, we were really bummed not to go camping with family.


I decided to still take Thursday and Friday off and tackle some of our basement cleaning. Once I mentioned this intent, my wonderful mother (aka. the cleaning and organizing Queen) offered to come up to help me. She promised to be nice since I take after my dad in regard to "stuff" as in I am a complete pack-rat! I like to do a lot of different projects and have all sorts of supplies and things to help me accomplish them all...even if it won't happen for 10 years :) I like knowing that if I need something that I have it and don't have to go out and buy something new.


So, my mom came on Thursday afternoon and we went to lunch and then worked downstairs for about 2 hours before calling it a day and making dinner. We then started up again on Friday morning and worked for most of the day. It turned out great, we threw some stuff away, made a trip to the thrift store with stuff to donate, found a couple things my brother could use and mostly just organized all of our (mostly my) stuff. Here's the result:

Isn't it great! Now we just have to finish the other half :) Which is not near as bad as this half was. We've worked on the other side before and it is mostly books that we are going through (we have ALOT of books, even double-stacked they don't fit onto our bookshelves). We've turned in several boxes to the used bookstore and have several more that will be going that route as well. Hopefully we can manage to cut down enough that they fit on the shelves we have. Ultimately I want to build floor to ceiling bookcases and make a library, but that will be sometime in the not so immediate future.

Thanks Mom for your help, you were GREAT!

It's been a busy few days, cleaning downstairs was just the start. I'll update more soon!