If It's Not One Thing......It's Another

The past two days Garrett and I have been trying to get caught up on dirty laundry and we noticed the dryer hasn't been working well. Each load took about 3 hours to dry. We were starting to think another dryer broke on us (we just replaced it about 6months ago). The weird thing was that the dryer was getting warm, it just wasn't drying the clothes. So I called my genius of a dad and he said "check the vent outside to make sure air is coming out." Well, sure enough Garrett went up on the ladder and he could see a bunch of grass-looking stuff stuck in there. Right away we knew there was a birds nest. It was actually stuffed so far up the vent that we had to get the nest out from inside the laundry room. The sad thing is that there was eggs in the nest that are probably not going to make it now. We removed the nest from the vent and brought it outside to a safe place (away from the dogs). Hopefully the birds will survive, but I am sure the chance is not good. I am just glad the heat and the dry grass/straw didn't start a fire.

This is the dryer vent on the outside of the house where they were hiding.


Here is the nest that was inside the vent. Just so you can get an idea of how big it was......this is a regular size screw driver next to the nest. I can't believe all that was stuffed up in the vent.

Our Vacation and Home Improvements

Garrett and I are at home enjoying our last day of our week of vacation. We spent our whole time off doing numerous projects around the house that we have wanted to do for a long time, but never had the time to get them done. We still are not finished with everything, but we were able to get a bunch accomplished. Here are some pictures of the work we did this week. Aren't vacations supposed to be relaxing??


PROJECT #1-Repairing the side of the house.
When we had the repairs done to our house a year ago after the master bathroom was leaking, they removed the window that was in our shower. Ever since then there has been a piece of wood covering the hole. This week, Garrett and my dad did the siding repair.

Taking the piece of siding off




Thumbs up! the temporary board is off the house!






All done


Just a cute picture of Rusty


All the babies


PROJECT #2-Painting the guest room, bathroom, and throwing out all the junk!
We still had boxes that had never been unpacked when we moved in our house almost 2 years ago. So this vacation, it was my goal to get rid of the stuff we don't need. We also have always wanted to paint our two spare bedrooms because they still had the paint colors from the kids who previously lived in our house. As far as the junk removal....I was able to empty one room completely and we turned the other room into a guest room. The red paint job took us 12 hours, but we finished it and I think it looks pretty good.

Guest room that we re-painted from blue and white to red and white.


Casey thinks this is her bed! She likes to sleep here sometimes!


The guest bathroom that we re-painted. It used to have lime green walls.


PROJECT #3-Build a new deck/porch for the back door.
We have always wanted to replace our old stairs going outside in the backyard. The old one was high and not very wide. The babies always fall off the sides when they are trying to push through all at the same time. So we needed to expand the area a little bit. My dad came over and he and Garrett spent one day building a new one.

Old stairs


No stairs


New stairs


Completed with stain


Casey made the biggest mess chewing up all the scrap pieces of wood




PROJECT #4-Replace our play set with a fire pit.
We decided to sell the play set that came with our house and what better to replace it with than a outdoor fire pit. Once the play set was gone, we had quite a bit of tough labor to finish this project. In the one place we chose to dig the pit, we came across a gigantic boulder in the ground. Instead of changing our spot to dig, we thought it would be fun to dig out the boulder and make it a seat at the fire pit. Well an hour later, we finally uncovered the boulder.

The old play set


Once the play set was gone


This is boulder we discovered while digging


Casey helping us dig






Casey taking a break from digging


Rusty hard at work


The huge boulder


The finished fire pit and the new boulder seat (we named it Rocky)


My cousin Nikki and her fiance Justin came over to help try out our new fire pit. It was so much fun. It felt like I was camping, but we were still in our backyard!!

Here is the first fire!


Making smores


Nikki


Justin


The girls were begging for a smore


Here are some random pictures that I took this week......

Casey pooped out from all the projects this week


Garrett solved a 4x4 rubik's cube. (3x3 rubix is the common one). He is getting better!! Next he wants to solve the 5x5.


Princess Lola


Casey


Casey Again


Rusty


Swimming at the lake


The girls cuddling and naping together


Last weekend after Garrett cut the grass, I come home and Casey's paws are bright green. It was so cute!