The Keyes!: Mother's Day and When Grandma and Grandpa Come to Visit We Put them to Work!

Mason's soccer game a few weeks ago went well

I took him out for a Slurpee after his game and while he liked it, it was not as good as the Canadian Slurpees

Lyza got her ears pierced! Here is a before

During

And after

Check out those beautiful blossoms

Grandma and Grandpa Bullock came to visit the Friday before Mother's Day. The boys put Grandma to work with their Lego

The next day they came to watch soccer games. Nixon's game was epic! He scored 4 goals in the first half (I didn't get pictures or videos of any of them unfortunately) and after that his coach sat him out a lot and when he was in he passed as much as possible to get his team mates involved

Maybe the exception performance was because of his cheering squad

Henry also had a great game

And he was so happy when he got a goal!

After the games we went out for ice cream

That evening we cooked hot dogs and roasted marshmallows

We were also treated to a beautiful sunset

Watching some Drawn In before church on Sunday

We got to celebrate Kim and Norma

We took a walk together

Then we did some gifts for the mothers

There were some big emotions

Then there was some crib

The next morning we put Grandma and Grandpa to work tearing out flooring

Don't let those smiles fool you, it was miserable work. The lino was glued to particle board. The particle board was generously stapled to the OSB subfloor AND generously glued to the subfloor. We literally had no idea what we were getting ourselves into and by the time we realized, it was too late.

After a dump run on the first day we picked up Lyza from school and found her sitting in the grass waiting with one of her friends.

We eventually purchased a pneumatic air scraper to help us with the flooring removal, which really helped, but it was still a slow moving and difficult process. There was also lots of sanding down particle board and glue. It was difficult to remove enough while not damaging the OSB underneath.

The house was such a mess and it was so noisy that Henry ate dinner on the front steps.

We removed flooring for two days straight

We had to cut all around cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms because they were on top of the particle board

We were so noisy that Lyza had to practice her clarinet outside :)

The kids played in the backyard with some friends

Tuesday night we decided we needed a break and had dinner at Texas Roadhouse

Wednesday was more of the same, but there was also an end to the lino removal

Then it was time for the carpet, which was much easier

The front entrance tile wasn't too bad

When it came time to sand down the mortar on the subfloor they tarped me in to try and minimize the dust throughout the hosue

We also had to unload 65 boxes of flooring that was delivered that afternoon

That evening all three boys attended a primary activity at a bike pump track

It was a big track and the boys all had so much fun

Henry was a champ

It was raining a little bit so they all got some streaking on their backsides

Henry also took a fall but got back up and was tough about it

Looks like Nixon was able to get some air

Here is a video of the riding

We had to live on exposed subfloors for several days before our new flooring got installed (about a week until it was all done)

There was also lots of patching to be done where we removed the lino

Nixon helped me sand down some of the patches

Lyza had a Hawaiian themed dance at school

Nixon out for a meal with his mom

For the last soccer game Mason got to play goalie and had a great time

The lady who lives next door is overseas visiting her grandkids so her son who lives in CDA is housesitting with his family. They have a 6 year old boy that Henry has made friends with and it has been so nice to have a friend living next door

Henry also had his final soccer game of the season. His team was sponsored by Dairy Queen and they called themselves the Blizzards. After the game I took Henry to DQ for a blizzard but the line was long and very slow moving so he said it would be OK if instead I made him a chocolate Oreo Creami.

Saturday night Lyza had another dance, this time a church dance, with a masquerade theme

She had so much fun

Kim and Nixon practicing with the dolly

Lyza and Kim are working on a piano duet together

Our flooring installer came on Monday and we started to see some slow progress

This is what he had done by the end of the first day

End of the second day

The end of the third day he had finished most of the common areas and just needed to finish a bathroom, the pantry, and our bathroom/closet. That all got finished on day 4 and we are happy with the results