John and Christine's Adventures: November 15th through November 21st:

November 15^th through November 21^st: I’ll give you the update on the kitchen first. On Friday the 15^th I spent all day installing all the full piece tiles and then on Saturday I rented a tile saw and cut all the edge tiles and toe kick pieces. 110 cut tiles to 106 full tiles. John B. came over and helped me for a couple of hours--he would measure and I would cut. Charlotte and Alex wanted to take me to dinner for all my work. So I stopped at 6:00pm and we went to dinner. We were going to go to Chuck-a-Rama, but alas, it was too busy, so we ended up at Pei Wei. Her kids were disappointed, but I wasn’t. After church on Sunday, we had our early Thanksgiving dinner, turkey and all the trimmings. It was delicious. All our kids are going to their in-laws for Thanksgiving, but we will all be together for Christmas.

Early Thanksgiving Dinner.

Family games. I won.

Monday I returned the tile saw and started grouting. I forgot to put on gloves and after one bag of grout and 3 hours of grouting, some of my fingertips were bleeding. I stopped and got cleaned up and went to lunch with my brother Van and his son and his son-in-law. We went to a Chinese restaurant and most of the staff spoke very little English. It was fun to practice my Chinese and see their surprise at my attempt to communicate. I finished off the day making some molding and installing it on the new pantry doors so they matched the cabinet doors. I also picked up the cabinet doors from the painters.

Tile floor done just a little more grouting.

Then it was off to work. I only got about half of the floor tiles grouted, but my fingers were too sore to continue, so I installed the rollout fronts on the rollouts in the pantry and sanded and primed the molding. Tuesday I wired all the plugs and yes and they are all GFIC and they all work. I finished caulking and started to clean out cabinets and install the cover caps.

Cleaned cabinet with no screw holes.

I took the doors to the company that had milled the cabinet parts so they could bore the back of the doors for the hinges. I noticed a funny spot on one of my knuckles on my left hand and for the life of me I could not figure out what it could be. It was about the size of a dime and then all red around it and my hand looked like I had a glove on. It was really swollen. Wednesday I installed the hooks and closet rod in the pantry and some molding at the end of the cabinets so there would be something to die the back splash tiles into. All the finish carpentry is done and the list is getting shorter.

Pantry, hooks and closet rod done.

At work everyone looked at my hand and convinced me I had better go to the doctor. They all had their smart phones out and had googled spider bites and I have to admit it looked like one. So I left work early and went to instacare. Guess who was the doctor on duty? Lenny Portacarro, from our old ward on 17^th Ave. He agreed that it looked like a spider bite. He cut it open and took a culture of the puss to find out what kind of bacteria was causing the infection. He was worried that if it was staff, it could be the kind that is flesh eating. He had the nurse give me a shot of antibiotics. I have never had a shot that hurt so much. I was limping home. I started on some antibiotic pills on Thursday but he wanted to get a big dose in me right away. Thursday I helped the plumber install the sink and facet, disposal, refrigerator water line and the dishwasher. Hurray! We have a sink. I wired the dishwasher and disposal and installed ceiling cover plates on the places where there had been fixtures. We left these in case Charlotte wants to add a chandelier over her table or something like that.

Sink and plumbing done.

Then I went to Thanksgiving Dinner at the Elementary School with Charlotte and Miles, her kindergartner. What a fun thing to do for parents and grandparents. I was surprised the food was pretty good.

Thanksgiving Dinner at School with Miles.

Miles the thankful Indian.

I then picked up the doors, now they are ready to be installed.

Cabinet doors ready to be installed.

Then I folded laundry and got our room clean and went to pick up Chris at the airport. But first I had to exchange the backsplash tiles. Home Depot had received a new glass tile and I took one home to show Charlotte and she decided she liked it better than the one we had and it was a little cheaper, so I exchanged them at the Home Depot in SLC on my way to the airport. Mom’s plane was really late and I spent almost 2 hours waiting for her. I got to work late and so I didn’t get home till almost 11:00pm. It is great to have her home again. Three weeks is a long time to be apart. Mom wants to tell you about California so I guess I will let her.

Wow, I feel honored to write on the blog. I had a great visit with Genevieve and Sam and their two little girls, Xela and Willa, in Pasadena, California. Xela will tell anyone who asks, that she is three years old, but after Christmas, she will be four, and Willa already is one year old. It was fun to be part of their daily life (going to pre-school and play dates) and being together. Ginny (our family nickname for Genevieve) was getting ready for two different conferences, one in New York and one in Washington, D.C. She was traveling some of this time, so I had lots of time with Sam and the girls. We also went to music makers, the Zoo, Kid Space Museum and decorated their Christmas tree. We had so much fun and it reminded me AGAIN how much energy is required to parent young children. Love them lots.