Soccer game

Courtney had a soccer game. It was cold and windy for the game, but we bundled up and got through it. She did well and they played hard. We love watching her play!

Phoenix Tournament

 Courtney's 7-Elite team had a tournament in Phoenix.  They flew out of Las Vegas into Phoenix (which is the "worst airport" according to Courtney).  The team did okay.  They had fun but didn't win everything.  It was a good experience for them.

Courtney got a pretty bad sunburn on one of the days.  She sent me a pic to show the burn, but it doesn't look bad in the photo.

The team:

The mirrors are in!

 We were able to get the mirrors installed.  We did these ourselves.  I had purchased mirrors from Lowe's but they ended up being too small.  We returned one to the store but the other one...I broke.  After getting better measurements, we ordered the mirrors from Jones Paint & Glass.  They called us when they were ready, we picked them up, we applied a ton of glue to the backs, and then we installed them.  I think they turned out really well!

Turf in the bag

Courtney is flying to Phoenix on Thursday for a soccer tournament.  Her 7 Elite soccer bag is disgusting (it smells and there is a ton of turf balls in the bottom).  She decided to wash it and asked if I would help her get the turf out of the bag.  I took it outside and shook it upside down.  I couldn't believe how many little black balls came out!

It looked like our mat was full of small black bugs.  I ended up having to clean the front porch off because it looked so bad.  But now her bag is clean and smells nice.

Day 3 of flooring

This day the flooring went a lot faster.  I helped install and cut them so it went a lot quicker having 2 people doing the installation at once.  It took 2 1/2 days but the flooring is all done!  Bryan took the extra time to do the storage area under the stairs where we will keep the backpacking equipment.  I wanted to just leave it cement but we had extra boxes of planks so he did it.  It looks really nice and I think we did a great job.  I don't want to do it again for a while but it wasn't too hard a process, just time consuming.

This is when we just had the last pieces to finish up.

Here's a video if you want to see it all done.

Day 2 of flooring

Day 2 of flooring started off kind of crazy. We had this hallway that was tricky.  The flooring is only installed in one direction but this bit had to be installed to the long hallway part.  Bryan had to do a bunch of math to figure out how much to cut off the first board so it would all link together without a gap.  It was crazy and a bit frustrating but he got it figured out and it worked perfectly.

This is a look down the hallway that shows where the smaller bit met the large planks that were coming from the main room.

Here is the main room that we got about halfway finished on day 2.

The mirrors didn't fall down overnight and we took the painters tape off them. The bathroom is ready to have the vanity lights installed.

Grouting, mirrors, and day 1 of flooring

I had ordered mirrors from Jones Paint & Glass.  I called this morning and they were in so we made plans to go get them from the store.

First, we grouted the backsplash tile and installed the ledge that the glass would sit in. 

Then we went to pick up the mirrors. We took back a pair of mirrors I had purchased from Lowe's that ended up being too short.  Then the man at JP&G loaded the big mirrors in the van.

That afternoon, we installed them.  It was nerve racking because they were so large and all that was holding them up was max strength Gorilla Glue but it seemed to work.  The youtube video I watched said to hold it up for 24 hours with painters tape.  When we went to install the second mirror, Bryan had Courtney stay and watch the first one to make sure it wouldn't fall.  It stressed her out but nothing happened.

Then we began the installation of the wood planking floor.  It was interlocking planks of laminate wood that fit together and install tightly.  It took a bit to figure out but Bryan got the hang of it pretty quickly.  I would get him the plank, move the knee mats we were using because the concrete is hard, make sure he had the mallot, and help things go smoothly.  Bryan put the pieces together and hammered them.  We cut them (except for the corners that were tricky) with an xacto knife and then snapped really easily.  It was a smooth process but was slow going.

Courtney was happy to have floors instead of concrete.

Hoepfully we can get it finished soon.

Cleats

It has been a saga trying to find new cleats for Courtney.  She has ordered 5 or 6 pairs and none of them have worked.  The new Nike cleats have an insert that brings up the arch which hurts Courtney's feet. Some of them weren't the right size.  It has just been a pain.  Luckily all were returnable so we weren't out any money, just a lot of time and frustration.

Courtney had ordered cleats back in January from Nike that were perfect.  However, Nike sold more than they had so they refunded our money and she didn't get the cleats.  She was so sad because they looked perfect, were the newest model, and weren't too expensive.  They even had shown availability in her size so she was excited.  But they didn't work out.

Fast forward 2 months and one day Courtney noticed (because she is on the Nike website daily) that the perfect pair of cleats was back in stock in her size.  She hurriedly bought some and then watched her email to see if they would ship this time or if they would oversell like last time.  She got a shipping confirmation and was thrilled.  But at the same time she was a bit nervous.  If they didn't work then she would really be bummed.  If they did work then she would be mad that Nike had cancelled the first order because it would have saved her a lot of trouble. 

The cleats finally came and...they are prefect!  All that aggregation would have been avoided if they hadn't oversold the first time but she now has bought her last pair of cleats.  Kind of a sad day but she was thrilled they work!

We won't have any problems finding her on the field if we just look for the bright orange cleats!

Backsplash and prepping floor

Bryan is taking Thursday and Friday off this week so we can get things done in the basement.  I started working on the backsplash to the 2 vanity sinks. I was having a rough time but Bryan got home and helped out.  We got it taken care of.  The tile is the same accent tile we used in the shower.

Bryan worked on getting the floor cleaned so we could lay the flooring down while I pulled up the little landing of carpet below the stairs.  They had nailed it to the cement so there was a lot to pull up and clean.  We are hoping to get the flooring laid over the next couple of days while Bryan is home from work.

Mini-golfing

Courtney's favorite thing to do is play mini-golf.  Since it's Spring Break, we decided to do something fun with her.  We went to dinner and then to Fiesta Fun (where Ethan worked one summer) to play golf.  It's been a while since we were there and they had a second mini-golf course.  Most people were on the new course so we went on the old one.  They had made a few changes to it and it was fun.

Courtney and I aren't very good at golfing.  Bryan, luckily, has a lot of patience and is happy to help us figure out what we are doing.  He even let us redo the first hole when we lost count after 8 strokes. We had a great time and the weather was beautiful.  There weren't too many people either so it was a fun night playing together.

Grumpy Courtney

It is Spring Break but Courtney still got up to talk to Ethan when he called on Tuesday morning.  She was pretty tired when she came out.  Ethan likes to take screen shots of Courtney when she is being silly or tired.  He sent these to us.  Even being a state away, Ethan still has the gift for teasing Courtney.  You can tell how much he is enjoying teasing her by the smile on his face.

Plumbing is done!

The plumbers came to finish the hook up for us.  I was so excited.  We had finished installing the vanities over the weekend so we were ready for them to come in.  They put in the shower kit, the faucets, and the toilet.  They also did the initial hook up for the kitchenette sink and the washer/dryer.  We haven't finished those things yet but they are preliminarily hooked up.

Here is the sink.

They used a really stinky glue and Courtney was not impressed with the smell.

You can see the shower (nothing too fancy).

An oval toilet, at Courtney's request.

Things are moving along in the basement!

Just another beautiful day

 Another view of the beautiful Red Mountain in Ivins.

We hung a door!

Months ago I went to HomeDepot to find out prices for doors.  They told me that the doors were one price and another price if we wanted the installed.  It wasn't much more so we figured we could have them install the doors and save ourselves some work.  I went today to order the doors and was told that the second price doesn't include the doors.  So there is one price for the doors and another price (that is about 1 1/2 times the price of the door) for installation.  That was going to be way too much money.

We had one door with the frame in the basement so Bryan and I decided to see how hard it would be to hang the door.  He watched a bunch of youtube videos (that's been a life saver through this process) and then we were ready.  We decided to hang the old door in the exercise room.  After a few adjustments and some trial and error, we hung the door and it works great.

We now feel comfortable with hanging all the other doors in the basement when it comes time to do them.  No, the door will not remain this color.  We will be painting it but we will do them all at once.

Tiling the bathroom floor

We tiled the bathroom floor in the basement! We laid the tile out to see the pattern and figure out where cuts needed to be made (luckily, the room with the vanities was perfect so we just had to cut tiles in half to make the pattern work). Then I spent one day laying half of them and Bryan and I spent another day laying the rest.  It turned out really well.

I then spent another day grouting the tiles.  It turned out really well and I am proud of us!

We are going to put carpeting in the bedrooms and wood laminate flooring on the rest of the floors.  Courtney decided to draw on the floors before we put them down.  She designed and worked on something in her bedroom floor.  We think it will be fun to for someone to find a drawing if they ever change the carpet out.

She planned it, drew it, and then started painting it in.  What a fun idea!

The middle will have the word "Courtania" in it.  That's the name of the country Courtney invented when she was little.  She printed money and everything.  It was fun!