The Longmire Remodel: In Progress

Oh man guys, this month has been a poor showing at best on the blogging front.  Wow.  I think this month can be summed up on one great sentence: "You simply can't do it all." September rolled in like a lion and hasn't let up.  It's honestly going to take me a few blogs to get you all caught up, but truly between mothering my children, being a photographer (favorite gig after Mom), becoming an officer in the AZ TRI Club (yeah...more on that later), training for the ever looming IRONMAN season (2016 here I come!), running my Jamberry business (which is so fun), being a wife and trying to have friends we have also decided to take on the enormous project of changing out our floors (we just might be nuts). I pulled up my blog today and saw that I have written 2 blogs this month and sat here going....."yup, that makes sense."

Our awesome neighbors came over the other night to see our "House in Progress."  Upon seeing the state in which we are living, Kim turns to me and says, "Man Bethany, I hope you are blogging about this.  When it's finished you are really going to want to see the transformation."  I want to blog....I really do, but I also want to get it done.  Alas, I figure I should sit down and tell the story.....rather the journey of our endeavors.

It all started about 3 weeks ago.  I was in Colorado when I got a phone call that our cat Bryce had once again peed on our carpet.  We had been dealing with his behavior for a few weeks and I was completely and entirely grossed out.  Our carpet was already covered in previous owners pet stains so the addition of our cat just brought to light the disgust.  So I told Bob to rip out the carpet.  At that point concrete was better than that.  Yuck.

So we got the carpet out.  It kind of triggered an avalanche of project and we decided to tackle our floors.  All our floors.  Well, everything but the bedrooms and bathrooms.  Its about 1000 square feet of space.  It's big.

We ventured the removal of the kitchen tile first.  Unfortunately the previous owners installed the tile over laminate so it made the removal more challenging.  Sheer brute force was required to break the tiles and then we swept up the shards.  My house is covered with a layer of tile dust, and we only had 2 minor kid cuts, but hey.....the tile is gone.

Then came the wood.  Oh the wood.  I am sure you are all wondering, why would we remove wood from our house.  2 fold: It was laid in opposing directions throughout the house and it literally breaks up the house.  The wood was laid in the office and down the hallway.  Somewhat nonsensical.  It had to go.  We got one tiny piece off and realized that the previous installers had industrially glued down every inch of every piece of wood.  Every inch.  Nightmare.  Before we perfected our chisel, hammer and crowbar method, it was taking us on average 5-10 minutes per wood piece.  The task at hand felt nearly impossible.  Thankfully, my husband is resourceful and he figured to use chisels to get under the wood.  Its been a slow, arduous process.  Everything hurts, we have blisters, but we now only have a few more square feet before we are done.

And Yes.....we are even changing the fireplace.  We are contemplating going really big and changing the fireplace from an indoor one to an outdoor one.  The other side of that wall is our patio.  That won't happen for a while.  If at all.  I may just give up and drywall over the thing.  Go big or go home I guess....I am confident that the finished product will look great.  Stay tuned.....its gonna take a while, but at least we are in progress.

4th Place

Our spunky Miss Lily had her very first swim meet here recently and I could not wait to blog about it.  After all I am guessing this will be the first of many for the Longmire home.  Both of our little girls are fish in the water so the pool is starting to feel like home away from home.

This is Lily's latest instructor.  Her name is Dani.  Lily had a blast in her class for the past 6 weeks.  She was the youngest by far, but Dani saw her potential and was always encouraging her.  

After a lot of laps and practice Lily decided she wanted to take part in the meet that happened.  We all went together to cheer on our Lily.  Evie even wore a Lily dress to show her support.  It was hot with a lot of down time, but Evie did great.  She and Daniel Tiger enjoyed their time together on the bench.....and under it.

Lily led out the pack of swimmers without hesitation.  They warmed up all of their strokes and got ready for each heat.

Here is Lily working her backstrokes.

Lily decided that she only wanted to compete in 1 event, the freestyle, which is her favorite.  The buzzer when off and she trucked on down the line with the other kids in the line up. We are working on big arms and keeping her head down.  She took off in the lead, but soon got distracted by the other swimmers and her little legs got tired.  She got to the finish line, jumped out of the pool and claimed her 4th place ribbon with pride.

Lily's first swim meet was a huge success for all of us.  She was so proud of her accomplishment and Bob and I were so happy for her.  She may be the youngest, but she rocked it!

Way to go Lily!

One Kid

So I spent the majority of the first part of September traveling back to CO with my little Evie Bee.  Since I had 2 weekends of back to back weddings, we decided to send me out there for the whole week and I got to take one little Bumblebee with me while her sissy stayed home with Daddy.  Man, one kid is so much easier :)  Sure, she is still 2, but its amazing how much simpler it is to take care of yourself and 1 kiddo.

Evie had been looking forward to this trip ever since I told her about it.  She was so excited to see Memaw and ride the horses.  And the horses did not disappoint.  From the moment she woke up to the moment she laid her little head down she was talking Bon Bon, Helmets and going riding.  Oh how I am praying Memaw and Papa get closer and soon!

We took a little walk to visit the neighbors one morning and Evie had a ball in the wagon.  She wanted to pull it down the steep incline so Memaw got her workout making sure it didn't trample her.

Evie and I also had a GREAT time visiting Sarah and her boys.  Elijah and Evie are so cute together.  We went for a nice long walk and got caught up on all our family news.  I am really looking forward to next month when we meet together for a half marathon in Denver.  

The highlight of the week was going up to Breckenridge for a couple of nights before a wedding I had to shoot.  We stayed at the neatest little inn and Mom and Dad had charge of the little Bee plus the doggies.  They found parks and dog parks and kept everyone busy while I was working.

Speaking of working, what a great experience I had on the day of the wedding.  The fabulous couple wanted to run to the top of Hoosier Pass on the morning of their wedding, a mere 9 miles from their locale.  Of course I went with them and the run was great!  I am now in the process of editing all of my weddings and catching up where we left off back here in AZ.  Evie and I had a good time and while I missed Lily, I loved having my one charge.