Changes, chaos, craziness.....

This last week (two weeks before the wedding) has been nothing short of chaos.  We had all sorts of plans for things to get done, and then found out Monday that Nelson would be leaving Wednesday for a three day business trip to New Jersey.  Sigh..... not a great way to start the week!

Because Morgan and Solomon's insurance situation after the wedding is still a bit unknown, we decided it would be a good idea to just hurry up and get a good dental cleaning, get three months' worth of any prescriptions filled, maybe an eye exam -- just get all the bases covered.  On Monday, I took her to the dentist.  Now, Morgan is the kind of kid who's always been pretty meticulous about her teeth.  She brushes, she flosses, she drinks more water than probably the rest of the family put together, and she very much limits soda, coffee and tea intake, so her teeth are usually better than anybody else's.  She hasn't had a cavity in YEARS -- until this visit...... sigh....... there were THREE of them!!  How?  We don't know -- very strange to us -- but there they were.  So we made an appointment on Wednesday to come back and get all three fillings done at once.  By Wednesday night, she was hurting; by Thursday AM, she was in agony.  Yikes -- please don't tell me she's going to need a root canal!!  So we made ANOTHER appointment for Friday AM, and went in to the dentist with fear and trepidation.  Thankfully, THANKFULLY, it appears that the filling on the bottom tooth was just too high and when she would bite down, it would cause extra pressure.  The dentist was able to grind off a portion of the filling, and thus far, it seems like the pain is gone!  YAY!!

I forgot to mention, though, that on the way to the dentist on Friday, I was sitting at a stop light in front of a police car.  As I pulled forward, on came the police woman's lights to pull me over!!  Huh??  What did I do?  I certainly wasn't speeding -- I was stopped at the light!!  Quick mental check -- I know the license plate is current; maybe somebody stole them overnight?  What else could it be?  After doing the mandatory "License and registration, please, ma'am", she says "Do you know that your rear brake light is burned out?"  Uh, no -- how would I know that unless somebody TOLD me??  Thankfully, she only wrote a warning, then sent us on our merry way to the dentist.  We had to call them and tell them we'd be a few minutes late since I'd been pulled over -- I got a fair amount of good-natured teasing about that at the dentist's office!

Additionally, one of the prescriptions we tried to fill was rejected.  Turns out it's been almost a year since Morgan had visited the allergist, so they wouldn't refill it without an office visit.  That ended up being Thursday's errand.  That was an easy in-and-out visit, which was good, because I don't think either she or I could've stood one more complication this week!!

I was able to find a kennel to board the dogs for the days surrounding the wedding.  There will just be too many people and too much chaos to have the underfoot for those days -- not to mention that we really don't want to deal with dog hair and dog drool on wedding dresses!!

The one thing I HAVEN'T been able to come up with is a full-sized passenger van.  I was really hoping to rent one, since we'll have so many extra people to be moving around next week.  But it appears they are all rented out.  Hertz, Alamo, Enterprise, Avis, Thrifty, Budget -- you name it, I called it -- and there are just none available!!  Maybe we'll rent a mini-van instead??

The guy who's been working on our wood floors came out this week to finish the installation of the trim and the last three stair treads.  He needed to complete the trim around the floor edges as well.  He got the trim done; unfortunately, the stair treads we needed were not available for him to pick up -- so we've still got one set of stairs only halfway done!!  But the flight of stairs that goes from the foyer up to the first floor look great.  Nelson was able to stain those this week and put the first coat of polyurethane on them.  It makes me feel good to know that I don't have to be so worried now about those steps getting wet or stained; they're at least partially protected now.  After the wedding's over, we'll try to get a few more coats on there, but for now, it's good enough.

And the bachelorette party -- which is all the girls getting together for food, talk and "chick-flicks" somehow mysteriously ended up being held in MY HOUSE today -- and I didn't find out about this until YESTERDAY???  Uh, seriously, ladies??  You think I don't have enough to do already??  OK..... what's a bit more chaos when you're already completely upside-down???

Bryanna flies in from Texas tonight.  Originally, she told me she'd be in around 8:30 or so; yesterday she realized her flight actually arrives around 4:45 -- and the party starts here around 3:30.......  It's gonna be interesting -- how many places can I be at once??

This is going to be a long, long week!!!!

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The renovations begin!

Well, the installation of the laminate floors and new foyer linoleum has begun. We didn't get quite as far along as we'd hoped to today, but we definitely got a really good start. We ended up having to do a lot of the cutting indoors because of the heat, so there was a LOT of sawdust generated, necessitating a lot of cleaning up. Here are some pictures from the day:

The first boards being placed

The piano was put in the corner just to keep it out of the way, but I kind of like it there -- it just might stay there!

We decided to let everybody sign the plywood before we covered it with the laminate.  Who knows?  Maybe in 20 or 30 years, the next owner will tear up the floor and "find" us!!

Nelson signed for himself and his wife, Sarah.....

Morgan signed for herself and soon-to-be-husband Solomon.....

We signed for Bryanna and Mike, since they weren't part of this project today......

Mackenzie not only signed, she traced her hand!!

And then Morgan decided we couldn't leave the dogs out, so she "drew" their signatures, too!

A look down the hallway as Josh works on the flooring.....

......and a view down the stairs before work on them began.

Nelson works to set the last planks in the dining room while Morgan supervises!

A view down the nearly-finished hallway.  We still need to do all the trim work and the closet doors still need to be re-hung, but it looks SO much better!

Josh is working on the stairs -- the only part of the project that will be hardwood.  Here's the hard part of all this -- he's putting in oak boards, which still need to be stained and polyurethaned.  This means they need to be kept dry and stain-free until then.  Uh...... with two dogs in the house???  And a rainstorm predicted for tomorrow?  Now THIS ought to be fun....... hah.......  I think we'll be putting plastic over the stairs for the next few days.

Hope you enjoyed looking at our renovations!!  And hopefully, more pictures to follow in the next few days!

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They're "lost" in their own house!

We have been on a major clean-up/remodeling kick here for the last two weeks, and Taylor and Cody are beside themselves. They can't figure out the chaos, the furniture being moved around, the dog crates in a new place, the carpeting being ripped out........ Yes, the world as they knew it is being totally disrupted, and they are NOT happy.

Poor Cody is probably taking it the worst. His crate has always been in Mackenzie's room, from day one. However, he's soooo big that he's now got this ENORMOUS crate, and it was entirely too big to keep in her bedroom -- not to mention the fact that we just re-arranged and re-decorated her room (while she was at camp!!) into a more early-teen appropriate style.

We've moved Cody's crate downstairs to the family room, and you would've thought we were exiling him to Siberia!! The only time he's ever in the crate is when we're going somewhere or when he's trying to escape from Taylor -- so it's not like he spends a great deal of time in there. But he does not like it being downstairs -- I hope he'll get used to it soon.

Taylor -- well, she's just freaking out about everything. The vacuum cleaner has ALWAYS been her enemy, and now it's running all the time. The carpeting being ripped up and carried out apparently is very frightening as well!! All the huge bags of trash accumulating from carpet padding -- those must be barked at and kept under control!! And all the tools and hammering -- she's just jumping out of her skin half the time. Wish the poor thing could settle down and just RELAX!!

So finally, tomorrow, we've got a guy coming to help us install the new wood laminate in the living room, dining room, stairs, foyer and hallway. I'll have to get pictures and post them after the floor's done. I can't WAIT to get rid of the carpeting -- I'm hoping it will make dog hair clean-up much easier!

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