Surprise!

When I was at camp, I called home Tuesday night. Mark said, "You'll notice when you get here that our house is kind of......trashed." This surprised me, because Mark always keeps our house very clean when I am gone.

We are finishing our basement, and to get ready for that, Mark and the kids moved every single thing out of the basement and into the garage, our bedroom, and the boys's bedrooms upstairs. When we moved in 6 1/2 years ago, a lot of stuff got stashed in the basement. I had my foot-stomping, toe-smashing experience on the day we moved in, so I was flat on my back for a week while things just got taken to the basement. It will be good to finally go through the boxes and things from the basement, and toss the things we don't need (most of it, I'm sure). The toys are ALL in Joel's and Noah's room, the camping stuff is ALL in Abram's and Jake's room. Files pictures, and all my sewing stuff is in my bedroom.

The good news is that we were able to get good bids from drywall guys. Mark knew that we would probably get a cheaper bid if the basement was cleaned out already, rather than having someone come in and think they had to work around all that stuff. It's going to be so nice to finally have the basement finished after all of these years.

While I was in Utah last week, our backyard project also got underway. 1 bulldozer, 1 trackhoe, and a very different backyard. It's looking great--even though the grass is still a few weeks out. So basically inside and out our house is a construction zone right now. But in a couple of months, we'll have a backyard, and a 40% bigger house. I am so excited!