Day to Day with the Dea's

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Fun at the Morton Park

Today the kids and I went to a park in Morton to just get used to the neighborhood...we had lots of fun!

Friday, October 14, 2011

A big day for making some decisions for the interior of the house. Kevin and I went this morning to finalize our cabinet plans at Ehler's. We didn't realize all the extra little decisions we had to make along with picking out hardware. The lighter square sample is our kitchen cabinet color and the darker one is our master bathroom vanity color. That afternoon I sent Kevin off to finalize some some appliance questions we had and then he came home with some flooring samples....needless to say we finally found exactly what we wanted for wood flooring. It's a solid wood flooring called Golden Bronze Acacia (it's an exotic walnut).

Oct 6 -

Still working on the roof...the guy told me that we had a huge roof -66 square. I don't know what that means but I took his word for it.

Oct 7 - My mom and dad come out so that Dad can help us start wiring the house. Yep, we are wiring our own house with the help of my lovely daddy-o. We started out by making a trip to Menard's and I bought loads of wire, breaker boxes, PVC piping and more and this was only the first trip to be made.

Oct 8 -9

Dad got Kevin and I started by nailing up electrical boxes in all the rooms where we wanted them. I had kind of come up with some plans, but Dad got us filled in on national code as well to where and how many we legally needed as well. Dad and Kevin did most of the physical labor and I was used as design and functional consulting...I had to tell them where I wanted everything. Here's the whole crew taking a lunch break in our garage. We spent two days setting up junction boxes, breaker boxes, electric boxes, can lighting and lighting fixture placement and then mom and dad headed home.

Oct 10 - HVAC guys got the venting installed down in the basement.

Oct 11 - the roofers finally finish up the last of the shingles today.

Oct 12-13

Dad came back with Mike (my dad-in-law) to help pull wires and finalize ALL of the crazy little stuff that just pops up on you as you

go. One of the last few things that my dad asked me was, "Do you want a door bell?" I was like, "yeah"...it's just one of those things that you assume is sorted out but when you are doing it yourself you've got to think of it on your own or you are out of luck.

(the only pic I got of my dad working in the house...too busy either working myself or watching my kiddos)

Mike hanging up some can lights in our front porch

It was totally amazing knowing what went into our house with all the wiring. The kitchen is an electrical sink hole if you don't know with all it's lights, switches, appliances, internet, speakers, etc it's crazy.

Here are all of our "homeruns" heading down to the basement's breaker box. It's so amazing to see all the spider web of wires zig zagging all above us in the rafters and through the walls.

Oct 14 - Electrical inspection done today and we passed!!! Only had to move the low voltage wire for the furnace thermostat, but otherwise the inspector was quite impressed with all of our work.

Friday, September 30, 2011

House Building Sept 26 - 30

September 27, 2011 - Stairs built, arches built in door ways

September 29, 2011 - Back garage door is on and they've started shingling! Tub shows up and plumber is cutting holes for pipes and setting up venting tubing.

September 30, 2011 - HVAC guys in to cut the floor vents, plumber getting my laundry room pipes set up, front door hearth set in place and front door made off limits. Still shingling...almost have the front done. Kitchen arch finished after the wall was extended to fit my kitchen cabinet plans.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Our First Morton Pumpkin Fest

Today we went to our first ever Morton Pumpkin Fest with my friend Emily and her kiddos.

Addie and Madeline had so much fun riding on the motorcycles together.

Then we had to try some pumpkin ice cream.

Emily and I loved all the displays made out of pumpkins...someday I'll have to enter this competition.

A couple days later our whole family came back to watch the parade. People start lining up their lawn chairs on the parade route a week before hand...it's hilarious to see as you drive down Jefferson the week of the Pumpkin Fest.

The parade is amazing and lasted over 1 1/2 hours!!! The kids got loads of candy to share with mom and dad of course. Can't wait until next year when we can just walk up to the parade route from our new house!!!

Family Day at the CAT Tech Center

After the Pumpkinfest parade, we made our way up to Mossville to the 50 year celebration of the CAT Tech Center. They had loads of family activities and open house so we could finally see where daddy works all day long. We got to see inside the tech center, tour the virtual reality lab, and play with all the fun carnival stuff on the quad.

There were no picture taking allowed inside the Tech center itself but we did manage to take one of Kevin's desk...looks like he just moved in...but he's been back in the US for 6 months...we need to make him some pictures to hang up.

Outside they had loads of kid's games and activities. Harrison loved blowing up balloons and letting them pop.

Addison got her face painted.

They had lots of equipment out to look at. Here is a really old Caterpillar tractor.

Here is one of the newest CAT vehicles...CAT got out of the over the road engine business, but now they have a venture with another company to actually make a whole truck. This is one of the new CAT dump trucks.

We got our family picture taken on the CAT D11 (I think that's what it is). We just got the snap shot so I took a picture of our picture to show it to you.

We tried for another family picture, but I think we just had too much excitement for the day which ended with a big breakdown by little Harry. All in all it was a wonderful day and we are so glad Daddy got to show us around where he works.