Jeenee Jeenee Jeenee

Jeannie's Welcome sign...courtesy of Caroline

Anyone who knows me (even just a little bit) knew we were anticipating April 15th for months. Not for the usual taxes are due reason, or the fact that it was Zac's 2nd birthday, though both these things are valid reasons to get excited. (OK, one more than the other.)

No, for me, April 15th was J-Day! I adore my sister-in-law Jeannie and in the last several years we have become close - our children are the best of friends, we laugh and play games all night during family get togethers, and have found over the years we share many things and email each other long and newsy emails several times a week. Jeannie is married to Steve's older brother Brad and they live outside of Atlanta. Last year I went to visit for her 40th birthday party and this year she wanted to come visit here. She had served part of her mission in Tucson and had wanted to come back to Arizona some day.

We have both started running in the past year and when looking for a weekend to come, I suggested she come the weekend of Pat's Run and we could do the event together. We would also be able to celebrate Kate & Zac's birthday as family.

Jeannie had 3 requests for her trip to Arizona:

Eat at Cafe Rio
Attend the Temple
Have a Pizookie

I promised her we would do all those things. (And probably then some.)

My camera in my phone is terrible...but I forgot my real camera and who could resist a picture of Jeannie eating a Cafe Rio Burrito AND salad...all while calling her sister Nikki to celebrate the landmark event. (OK - we shared both - she didn't eat it all by herself!) It was so good...and I had homemade Oreo's waiting for us when we got home.

We made it to the temple Friday for a little girls day out. The Atlanta Temple is closed for over a year for renovations so attending the Mesa Temple was a real treat. I love our temple - it has so much history and as Jeannie pointed out, it is quite large!

I planned a little GNO with some dear play group friends and my sisters Molly and Maddy. Pizza and Pizzookies at BJ's and some fun girl talk too.

New on the menu is Pizookie sampler - sometimes it is so hard to choose just one flavor.

Saturday everyone was up bright and early to go park and ride the light rail to ASU for Pat's Run.

We were there with plenty of time to spare because we knew traffic would be difficult. It was a huge crowd - 22,000 runners and assorted family members - but it was an upbeat positive atmosphere. Notice my arm - I had my iPod and my phone on my arm. Later, as we were running the race, Jeannie was to my left. Then she said she had to change sides because of all my "technology." I don't know if it was crashing into her or it was just unnerving but it was funny. That phone would be my downfall later on...

After the race, Jeannie and I finally found each other after about 10 nerve racking minutes. This is when we made it to the stands where Steve and my girls were waiting for us. We have different running styles - I was running a steady pace, Jeannie sprints and slows down. 6 of one, half a dozen of another! We ultimately finished within 20 seconds of each other. For the last stretch coming into the stadium, Jeannie and I were separated. I was trying to call Steve to tell him we were finishing but as I opened my phone it crashed (of course) and I was fumbling with the battery and trying to re-boot my phone which slowed me down. Jeannie was sprinting looking for me everywhere and I was working with my phone not looking for her. We took forever to find each other!! I was so proud of Jeannie - she had never run this distance, 4.2 miles, and did it like a champ.

The girls also did the Kid's Run - a .42 mile dash that was a sprint into the stadium and finished on the same finish line on the 42 yard line of Sun Devil Stadium. Caroline was hurting - she was fighting an ingrown toenail (which eventually required antibiotics, poor kiddo) and her running sneakers hurt her feet so she ran in her Uggs. Steve ran with Lindsay; I ran with Caroline. We ran into a friend from her school class too!

They didn't slow her down too much!

Afterward we went to Yodipity in Mesa for frozen yogurt - a yummy after race treat for everyone!

Jeannie from Georgia left a note on the Yodipity coloring wall.

And the day was not over yet. Caroline wanted to go out for a little shopping spree with a gift card she had and really wanted to do it with Aunt Jeannie. So off to Target we went. And later, we celebrated the little cousin's 2nd birthday at the Molly's house (Shelly's Pool) with Maddy and family and Grandpa Mike.

Let's just say we were pooped at the end of our 17 hour day.

Sunday we went to church and rested and ate yummy food.

Monday morning it was time to say good bye. I was looking forward to this weekend for months and I hope Jeannie had as much fun as I did! I love you Jeannie!!

April Fools..the Joke's on Kate!

It was time. I knew it was. But were also gutting our kitchen so I kept putting it off to save my sanity. But when your daughter chews her pacifiers into Swiss cheese, it is time to say "ba-bye!"

April 1st, I was at my Meeting of the Elite Literary Society (book club) and Steve called me in a panic. He couldn't find a pacifier anywhere. That is when I decided that tonight would be the night to start no pacifier. And she was Daddy's to deal with because I wouldn't be home until at least midnight. (I was secretly happy about this part. shhhhh.)

Well, guess what? The girl made it. In fact, it wasn't that hard at all. The pacifiers were just gone. And life marched on. She might have been a bit extra ornery for a day or two but she was over it pretty quick.

A couple last pics to remember her with the pacifier...



And now we enjoy this little turkey grin:



And in other turkey news, when Mommy really needs to clean house and needed to keep the almost 2 year old from dumping gravel on the carpet and stop coloring herself with markers, we did this:

Kitchen part 2

I know so many of you were on the edge of your seat waiting for Part 2!! Here you go! Part 3 will come in a couple weeks, no doubt, and will include all paneling, back splash, and painted cabinets.

While the counters were off, we took advantage of one dead corner. We had decided to convert the cabinet 90 degrees to the left of the sink into a "trash drawer" so we would lose quick access to this dead space. Trying to make the most of this space, we filled it with a ton of our long term food storage cans. Beans, wheat, that sort of thing.

We installed this trash/recycling cabinet/drawer conversion kit from Lowe's. Molly and Maddy both have this and I love it so it was a great little upgrade for us.

Built up this end of the peninsula to be the same flush level for paneling that will be added.

Installation Day

Finished installation of counters, sink, faucet, and dishwasher. We went with a timeless polished edge, no bullnose, bevel, or anything. Note the raw birch panels around the peninsula/bar. We were supposed to start on our decorative paneling but...


...this took priority. This is our sprinkler/dripper valves for the backyard. We ordered some new citrus to be planted this week and went back home to make sure our watering situation was in order for the new trees. We found the valve box full of water. We dug out the box and made a bigger hole so we could figure out what is going on. It is not supposed to be full of water. Nor are you supposed to have pooling water near your foundation. The ground has been saturated under the rocks for who knows how long. We have a guy coming Wednesday...


Back to better looking things. Back splash will happen same time as paneling.


This old view...

Now looks like this. Except I have purchased a new paper towel holder. Maddy so kindly let me know it looked like a wedding gift from 12 years ago. She was probably right.

We had a plumber over to put all the plumbing back together again and installed this beautiful new Frigidaire dishwasher with hidden controls, a sleek front handle. brushed stainless finish...

But the drawer next to it wouldn't open.

So back it went to Spencer's. They were so nice to work with us on this since they had no policy on this. Notice how 2/3'rds of the dishwashers have the front handle - this is the current trend in design of dishwashers. I am afraid they are now going to have a warning clause named after us when selling dishwashers - make sure the customer does not have a U-shaped kitchen when installing this style of dishwasher!!

So now we have this Kitchen Aid, installed by Moi last Saturday.

So the very next day, this is the whole place in action for our first gathering, General Conference brunch and Easter Sunday Dinner. We had 10 kids and 6 adults. It was definitely a casual day but so much easier to entertain such a large group.

Part 3 will be back splash, paneling, and painted cabinets!

Kitchen Mini Reno, part 1

FYI - my computer has been wigged out for uploading pictures so I have had no pictures to blog and what is a blog without pictures? OK, still a blog, but not as fun. But Steve got me going again. Thanks Steve!

Just think...a week from Sunday we will be hosting Easter Dinner.

Right now I am not so sure...

Tall breakfast bar. Dislike. It feels like a cubical. Things get knocked off and spilled all the time.

I practically have to lift Kate over my head to put her in her "rocket seat."

I dislike not being able see all the way into the family room. And this is the ledge where everyone piles their...crap.
(And that faucet is all kinds of broken. And so is the dishwasher.)

Steve and I decided to finally do something about all this - if we were replacing dishwashers and faucets, we may as well do all that has bothered us. We could change the levels but new counters would now be required to do this. I got 2 bids for laminate. Both around $1400. A friend suggested a granite fabricator that had a great reputation and their price was right. The bid for fabrication and installation was $1500. The two stone slabs would be another $450-$800. (In a certain price range - it could be way more if I had way expensive taste but I stuck to this price range to keep a reasonable budget.) This seemed like a no-brainer to us - go with the natural stone.

I looked several times over a few weeks and this is what I finally chose - Santa Cecelia. Warm tones of black, brown, cream and amber, but not too yellow. (this picture does it no justice.) Honestly, I love dark dark counters but we are so dusty here, being surrounded by a fair amount of farm land, I just couldn't deal with dark polished stone showing every speck of dust.

This one is closer. But still not accurate.

Months ago I found these bar stools at Goodwill (anticipating that some day we would do the kitchen) that were pretty close to what I wanted for the new bar height. For $15 bucks each I snatched them up and stored them in the garage. Our old bar stools were left here by the precious owner 8 years ago!!

Wednesday I started to rip up counters and Glen, our neighbor and a contractor, would come later that afternoon to cut down the bar and pony wall in preparation for the granite installation Friday. (which turned into a bigger job than anyone anticipated but more on that later.)

Glen comes over to help do the real job of cutting it down.

Turns out there is some unexpected plumbing in the part of the wall that is going bye bye and some weird electrical stuff. (This ends up getting fixed Friday night but causes more problems.)

That afternoon/evening I call the granite fabricator so I can confirm the time on Friday and so I can schedule my plumber.

"Oh, didn't I call you? We had some machinery break down in the shop and we are 2 days behind schedule. Did you make plans for Friday?"

"Yes, because that is the day you scheduled the installation. But, it is a good thing because we found some things that need extra tweaking during my demo. A later install day will be fine."

Glen agrees to jerry-rig the sink so I can keep it working for what looks to be another 6 days.

This left me Wednesday night with a kitchen that looks like this.

Which looks like this during a spring break day with friends over. But at least I have a sink and dishwasher!! I threw a piece of scrap wood over the top of the peninsula to give me a little prep space.

But then Friday night something goes terribly wrong. Turns out my faucet, which we knew was "all kinds of broken" really busted on us during the process of fixing the vent pipe on the reverse side and I had water everywhere.

Which meant Steve got sent to Home Depot for some parts and we had to temporarily install my new faucet on the old jerry rigged sink. With a fan trying to help dry it all out. I have a fair amount of water damage under there - turns out said crummy faucet has been leaking underneath for years and we didn't know. But look, it is such a pretty faucet. And it works properly which is more than I can say about my old one.


Here is the faucet. Final install will be with a stainless under mount 60/40 sink.
Delta
Leland Collection
Brilliance Stainless
I was having a hard time deciding which faucet I wanted but saw this one in Leslie's kitchen renovation and loved it.

Tomorrow we hope to start on a board and batten wainscot/paneling to wrap around the bar and peninsula, paint it, (and the cabinets too) and I hope to continue the panel treatment into the kitchen nook. Who knows...it may keep going and going. But for now we do the bar.

Here's to the new and improved kitchen!!! We spend a lot of time in there, it may as well function how we want!