Before and After

It has been nearly one year since we bought this house. It is slowly transforming. Our yard used to look like a dump. Now it is looking much better. We planted a garden. It is the tallest corn we have ever grown.

Some people might think we are crazy for buying trashed houses and fixing them. But we have had a lot of adventures together, and we've been able to build equity. I work with Dan as much as possible on the projects. We still laugh about tearing out the ceiling on our old house a few years ago. We only laughed and sang, while we worked because it was so horrible. The kitchen had a drop ceiling. The ceiling was tiled with ugly tiles, like the kind our schools had when we were in school. I don't know how long the drop ceiling had been in, or if it was original with the house. The house was over 50 years old. When we would pull out the ceiling tiles, dirt, gravel insulation, and mouse poop would start raining down in the kitchen. It seems like we yelled when it first started falling all over. Then we got to where we were singing, instead of "Raindrops keep falling on my head" we were singing about all the crap falling on our heads. The kitchen looked a lot better after we tore out the hideous ceiling.

Now at our current house, Dan started tearing apart the downstairs bathroom (aka the disgusting bathroom) on Saturday. I don't know what the former owners wer thinking, but the put sheet-rock up over the window in the bathroom. And they made the bathroom smaller, with just a shower. The bedroom next to it has an oversized closet. So, we are taking part of the closet from the bedroom, and make a regular, full-sized bathroom. I can't wait to get the whole house finished. That's gonna take a few more years though. We were hoping to add on a garage. But a few weeks ago, the transmission went out on our van. So, we used part of the garage money and bought another minivan instead.

A few years ago, back before I had this many kids, I swore that I would never drive a mini-van. But here I am, driving a mini-van, just like a typical soccer mom.

Caleb and Rachel started school last week. They are on year-round school. Caleb is in first grade, and Rachel is in third grade. Caleb gave himself a haircut on the second day of school. Now he has a buzz.