Labor Day...

...I mean, Memorial Day, was spent in kitchen labor and we have progress!!

Eric and I had stripped the walls in the kitchen of the panelling and nasty old drywall over the last week. We'd taken down the cabinets and pulled up two layers of linoleum floor (found some pretty hardwood, but we'll probably cover it back up with tile, sniff, tear drop, sniff) so that I could work on the kitchen while he was in DC this week.

As many of you have probably seen, half of my kitchen ceiling had exposed beams and the insulation Eric installed the night that Nate was born (he was putting the last of it up when I told him it was time to go to the hospital). I wanted to suprise Eric by getting some priesthood power to drywall the ceiling this week. He must have heard me talking to Matt Dunahee (the power behind my priesthood project) because TA-DAH!! It's all done!! The walls and the ceiling are all drywalled as of 10:30 last night. Matt and Eric and Aaron Robinson started around 4ish and worked, with only a short dinner break, until 10:30. It hasn't been mudded, taped, or sanded, but it looks, to quote myself, "AWESOME!"

Tonight, Matt and Aaron are coming over from nine to elevenish to do more work. I think I'll ask them to drill the cabinets to the wall and put in the sink. I don't mind doing my dishes in the bathtub, but it really gets to my back and I would like to put my dishes away in a cabinet. I need to finish rinsing all the clean dishes that were exposed during the project. Drywall dust and the little bit of lath and plaster that had to be cut sent dust everywhere, but that's okay because I have a new kitchen!

To start the Memorial Day weekend, we had a cookout and swim at our house on Friday. We invited Patrice, Dunahees, Robinsons and five other families to eat and swim. Jayden wasn't too excited about swimming, so we'll have to have them over when it's just the cousins; help him adjust to the pool and people. Kids swam more than the adults, but all had a good time. The Sorensons were the last family to leave when we realized it was 10:30 and we were all going on a five mile hike at nine the next morning.

Dunahees, Sorensons, Robinsons, Scotts and Stacy with Calvin left for Turkey Run State Park at nine o'clock Saturday morning. It was about a 90 minute drive to the state park. In case you're wondering how many people that is, 20 kids and nine adults. Michelle Dunahee is six months pregnant (looks like maybe three), the oldest kid is 16 and the youngest is seven months. Three dads carried the three youngest (2, 23 months, 7 months) on their backs almost the entire trial, I mean trail. We were quite the crew on the trail.

For the first part of the trail we went along the river, which we played in afterwards. Then we went up and around in the woods. There was a part that was uphill with slippery rocks, with water and mud. Most of us managed to keep our feet dry and there were no injuries, which you might say is an accomplishment considering the crew we were. We stopped for lunch on the trail around one o'clock. Near the end there were two ladders we had to climb down, from one ledge to another, to the small stream below. It also slippery and muddy and made the younger ones, like nate and three year old Natalie, nervous. We were packing up back into vans around 3:00.

We decided that we'd order 11 $5 pizzas from Little Ceasars and meet at our house for a swim. The kids and the big boys (meaning Matt, Aaron, and Mike Sorenson) swam while the rest of us ate, visited and tried to recover. Everyone was on their way by eight o'clock and at church the next day, tired, but attending. Good thing there was a day of rest before yesterday's labors.

You know you've had a good time when your body expresses frustration with you the next day. I'm hoping one night this week I'll catch up on my sleep!

I realized how many more pictures I have on my camera. I'll have to do a little more blogging later this week to catch up!