A few days before we left Laramie, we saw on Wyoweb that someone was selling a deep freezer. I've been looking for one, so we went over to look at it. When we got there, we found out they were selling a couch too, which is also something we've been looking for. Our old couch was really starting to come apart. We didn't want to have to pay to take it to the dump. So I took my frustrations out on it.
Who knew a couch could fit in one big box? Here's our new couch. It's really comfortable. Just ask Charlie. He's taken a nap on it every day since we got it :)
Christmas was a hectic day. Luckily we were able to open presents at Charlie's parents' house a couple days earlier, which was one less thing to do on Christmas. It didn't help that Sam didn't want to sleep the night before. It started at my parents' house. Sam opened up his presents, and he was actually interested in opening them.
After opening presents, we headed over to my Grandma Savage's for breakfast. As always, it was delicious. Sam zonked out for a nap after that. He didn't even open any of his presents. Next we headed to Charlie's grandma's in Powell. There were quite a few people visiting, and Christmas was the only day that everyone could get together. By this point, I was getting really exhausted, but we weren't done yet. We headed to my Grandma Allred's for a while, but didn't stay too long. I was feeling sick. I got home and went straight to bed. I spent the next 2 days sick in bed. Not too fun, but it did give me a chance to finish The Work and the Glory series. I found the first 6 volumes at a yard sale really cheap. I started reading them sometime in November and got through the first 6 a couple days before we left for Christmas. Luckily, my Grandma Allred had the whole set, so I borrowed the last 3 volumes from her and read all of them in about 3 weeks. That's over 5,500 pages in a little less than 2 months. I think I read too much. It's a great series though, and I had a lot of fun reading them.Charlie and I went ice fishing one day--I should say attempted to fish. Charlie wanted to go to Buffalo Bill reservoir, so we headed over to Cody. We had Charlie's dad's new truck. When we got to Cody, we realized we didn't have much gas in the truck, so we stopped at a gas station outside of town and filled up. We got over to the south end of Buffalo Bill and saw that there wasn't enough ice, so we decided to head over to Sunshine reservoir, near Meeteetse. By this time, it was close to lunch time, so we decided to get some lunch. That's when Charlie realized he didn't have his wallet anymore. We searched the truck, but it wasn't there, so we headed back across town to the gas station, hoping he left it on the gas pump. He didn't. Apparently, he left it on the truck's running board. We headed back up on our way to Buffalo Bill, searching the road for anything that might be his wallet on the side of the road. Fortunately, we found the wallet. Unfortunately, it had been run over at least once and everything was scattered. We scoured the ditches for credit cards, ID's, and cash for probably about an hour. We found everything except some of the cash and the Discover card. And if you're thinking about going to find it so you can use it, don't bother. We already canceled it :) And as far as the cash goes, I guess whoever adopted that highway will get a treat if they ever find the cash. It was a pretty windy day, so I'm sure it's miles away. By the time we got up to Sunshine, it was probably close to 2 pm. So we only got about 2 hours of fishing before it got dark, which is fine by me. It didn't help that we got skunked, but another group about 100 yards from us caught quite a few. Oh well.
Sometime around the 30th of January, we went over to Charlie's parents' to help them move their old entertainment center. Long story short, we talked them into completely redoing their family room. We headed up to Billings and found wood flooring and paint. We started ripping up the carpet that night. It was tons of fun for me. I love doing renovations, especially when I get to break things :) We didn't get any "before" pictures, but we got a few "during" pictures.
I got to use power tools I love it when I get to do that :) We had a lot of scrap left over. I probably could have saved a lot of it if I would have thought ahead a little better and started laying it out at a different length. The first part of the floor was the exact right length so that the planks went from one end of the room to the other without them needing to be cut. But when the "hallway" part of the room ended, I had to cut about a foot off of each plank that went on each end to keep the pattern of the floor. If I would have started at a different length, I could have made half as many cuts and just used the leftover piece of the plank to start the next row. We thought we would have 3 boxes left over, but we ended up having less that 1 box. It's a good thing we bought a lot of extra.
Here's Gil putting the wood flooring in. It was the kind that just clicks together, so no glue or nails. I got to a certain point that I couldn't get the pieces to click together, and the only way to get them in was if Gil used some force and pounded his hand against the edge of the piece of wood.
Here's Charlie holding up the underlayment. He was a great help with bringing boxes in and handing planks to me and holding the planks steady while I cut. Plus he was sympathetic when things would go wrong and I would start getting frustrated. He even did the very last cut for the plank :)Here's the end product. This is the little hallway that leads into the room.
This is the wood floor with the new trim.
We didn't get the trim nailed down before we had to leave. It was being really difficult. I could just nail the nails in. I had to drill a hole first, and then nail the nails in. We had to stop after a short time because the drill bits kept breaking, and we didn't have any more. I think when I do this in my own house, I'm buying a nail gun.Here's the curtains that we bought. They're an olive green color, and the match the green in the couch perfectly. I didn't even mean to do that.
Hopefully by the time we come back to the Big Horn Basin, the rest of the trim will be nailed in. If not, I'm going to ground Gilbert and Cindy for not doing their work :) And if they'll let me, I'll start on redoing their bathroom...
We're trying to decide whose fault it was that we did this. I said it was Charlie's fault because he was the one that suggested that we might as well rip up the carpet if we were going to take the furniture anyway. Charlie said it was my fault because I was the one that said we needed to go over and help them move the entertainment center.
We left Lovell on Thursday, and stopped in to see Dave and Jean (the people Charlie worked with at Shell Falls over the summer) on the way. We came at exactly the right time. They were getting a new fridge put in, and they needed Charlie's help. It was good to see them again. They're such good people. We got to Laramie around 7 pm. Our apartment was 44 degrees. We kept the heater on all night, and it finally warmed up to 70 around 9 in the morning. Too Cold!
Well, I think that's all for now. I'll try not to procrastinate so much next time and get more than one post done in a month and a half.
1 comment:
Wow! Gil and Cindy's house looks SO nice. Remind me to invite you over this summer! :) lol.
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