Night lighting

Brenden and I put in the night lights and got them all fired up. They turned out good and Brenden did a great job of wiring them up.

Putting down the sod

Last Friday my brother and some of his kids and some of my kids and my neighbor Jeff, helped put the sod down and finish building one of the garden boxes. It was a beautiful day and I got more color from the sun then I did when I was in Hawaii. Oregon Turf and Tree Farms donated 1500 square feet of sod. They are the company that I have been getting sod and trees from since the mid 80's. They were very excited to help out. My brother (Kevin) worked his tail off. He even final racked the soil better then he would normally do because he knows that that was my area of expertise, and I'm very picky. Way to go Kevin! You did a great job! I don't think I could have done any better.

Update 6/19/12

A few weeks ago a few guys from Home Depot came out and set some fence posts and some posts for some raised garden boxes. I waited to post this until now because they were going to come back and finish it up but they haven't made it back yet so I will post what I have.

Water feature

Last Saturday Rick Hooks and two of his employees from Waters Edge came out and put in a little water feature for us. It looks and sounds great. Rick did the whole project at no cost to us. Stone NW Inc. off of 192nd Ave. and Hwy. 14 donated the rock, and Horizon 3112 NE 112th Ave # F, Vancouver, WA gave us the rest of the supplies at cost. We really appreciate Rick and his workers taking time out of there weekend to help us out. This is something that we didn't really need but it will be nice to have.

Update 5-10-12

So it’s been a few months since I last updated you all. It’s been a slow time as most of the stuff is done but still when I sit down to recall all that happened and surprisingly there have been quite a few things that did go on here.

Sarkinen Plumbing came out and hooked up a water softener that we had picked up at Lowes.

 Jennie has been working on furnishing the areas of the house that are lacking and updating and trying to coordinate everything. That is proving to be a very big job. I will add some pictures of the things she has been getting. We picked up a nice dining room table that is high enough for me to get under with my wheelchair at Cascade Furniture. We picked up a head board and night stands at Ashley Furniture and they really worked out a good deal for us. We’ve never had a head board or matching night stands before, so Jennie is thrilled. Jennie has always wanted a china cabinet, but she hasn’t been able to justify spending the kind of money they want for them. Well she just happened to look on Craigslist and she found one in Battle Ground that she loved and was able to get it for $150. She is just thrilled. It seems like we did a lot more but just to get these things you drive all over the place and look at tons and tons of things till you head swims. Jennie is still working on a couch and some chairs and coffee table and end tables for the living room. We have always have miss matched hamydown stuff, so we’re really looking forward to getting some nice stuff.

My brother has spent several evening over hear putting my sprinkler system back together. I even got a demonstrator trackchair to try out to help my brother in the yard. It worked really well and now I just need to figure out how I can get one of these. I had a friend that managed the United Pipe store here in Vancouver that was donating me the irrigation stuff I needed, but when I when in with my list of stuff he had this sad look on his face and broke the news to me that the store was closing down and was in bank ownership now and all of their irrigation inventory was already gone. I did need some night lighting and he had everything I needed for that but he was heartbroken that he couldn’t donate it because it was in bank ownership. He was able to give it to me at cost, which is still a very good deal. While he was in the back room getting me the supplies, he was talking with a representative from Ewing Irrigation. They are looking at taking over that store front when United Pipe is gone. He was telling the rep about my situation and when they came in from the back room the rep asked to see my list of things I needed for irrigation, and he said he would get them and drop them by the store for me by the next day(And we’re not talking about a few cheep items either). My manager friend was thrilled that the rep would step in and do that for us. So you might keep an eye out for a new Ewing store to take the place of the United Pipe store located to the west of the Costco in Vancouver.

Some upcoming events are; Home Depot will be coming out the first two Saturdays to work on the landscaping. A friend of mine (Rick hooks) will have his company (Waters Edge) put in a water feature in the walkway island we have. I am so looking forward to that.

We are looking at sometime in July for the grand opening/ribbon cutting ceremony.

God has been so good through this whole process. Things have gone pretty smooth, and so many people and companies have stepped forward to help out. We are so blessed.

Update 3-12-12

I don't know why it is hard for me to keep current on updating this post when things are happening slowly on the remodel but for some strange reason I'm getting behind in posting when hardly anything is happening. I think part of my problem is that we are getting to the point that the inside is about done and now we need to get the landscaping and all the outside stuff done and I feel like I want to have more of a roll in doing that but I'm so limited in what I can do. So my brain has been preoccupied with trying to figure out how to make this all happen smoothly. There's one group that is going to do the landscaping but I have a bunch of other things that need to be done in the proper order before the landscaping and the weather is not cooperating very well either.

Back to the update, the tile in the shower was finished almost two weeks ago and it looks great. Steve Adkins did a wonderful job on it. We are just waiting for the faucets to come in so the granite counter guys can come back and drill the holes for them and then the plumbers can finish it all up. Then we can finish moving into the bedroom and bathroom. Diamond Concrete Cutting came out again and drilled a few holes through the foundation in the garage so we can hook up a water softener. Thanks Alex for your company's donation.

Last week we got the new pellet stove put in and I love it. It's nice to have the room nice and warm without the fear of the electric wall heater gobbling up power and costing a fortune to have the same amount heat. Morton's stove-pool-spa made us a very good deal on the stove we got and they were so nice to deal with.

It's like magic

Last Saturday was a very fun evening as we went to Union High School and got to see the great magic show that Jennie's brother put together. Jennie's side of the family really worked hard to make this a success. The magicians that preformed were Adam the Great (Charles Adam Johnson), Curtis Carlyle, Matthew Singleton, William Scott Anderson, and of course Tom and Dave. They were able to raise $7500.00 to help cover the finishing up of the addition. This is a big help. Thanks to all that helped and came out and supported us.