Christmas!

Can you tell Noelle was excited about everything this Christmas?

Words with Noelle

Noelle has a vocabulary that is all her own. At some point she'll learn how to actually say these words so I decided I needed to capture it before she figures them out.

Thanksgiving

Happy Halloween!

Cash Makes the Play

 

Football has come to an end and Cash's team didn't win a game all year. It's not the best angle, but here was one of my favorite plays of the year. Cash shoots the gap and gets their RB in the backfield for a loss. His team didn't have a lot of highlights - they only scored one touchdown all year - so this was a pretty great play.

Noelle's Latest

Noelle has had a very busy fall. She is loving being a big sister and has also started pre-school and dance classes this year. She's doing really great and is so fun.

Skyline Football

Football season has begun and both Cash and Beau are playing tackle football for the first time. So far, they're both loving it, and have great coaches.

Cash is playing a lot at Full Back and Linebacker.

Beau is playing some Tight End, Outside Linebacker, and is the team's backup Quarterback.

First Smiles

Eclipse 2017

At our house we saw something like 95% of totality for the eclipse. These little crescent shapes from the leaves was one of my favorite things. On a side note, everyone I know who traveled to make it into the path of totality said it was totally worth it despite the hours of traffic coming home.

First Day of School

Beau: first day of Junior High 7th grade.

Pierce & Cash: first day of 4th grade.

Growing Baby

High Adventure Trip: Shoshone Lake

I've got one of the best callings right now as a Priest's Quorum Advisor. It does mean some leaf raking and snow shoveling for old ladies, but it also means a bunch of fun stuff that I'd probably never do otherwise. Each summer we have a couple of big events for the youth, a High Adventure trip with the boys and also a Youth Conference with everybody. Last year we hiked Angel's Landing, explored Zion National Park, and ran the Snake River in Jackson Hole, WY. This year we took a trip into the back country of Yellowstone National Park to canoe the isolated Shoshone Lake. We knew it'd be a challenging trip - and it was - but it we had a great time. I put together a video to remember the trip (and make the couple of guys who couldn't go jealous). 

Breezeway to Mudroom

When we bought the house there was a little breezeway between the garage and the kitchen. It had windows but was a bit of a weird space. We had plans from the beginning to turn the windows into doors and turn the space into a mudroom.

With so many little people around here we're overflowing with shoes, backpacks, jackets, hats, and gloves. It all has a home now.

I had to take some pics because this space will never look like this again!

Vivian

 This little girl has been so sweet. Her brothers and sister are still fighting over who gets to hold her or help feed her, but she knows when it's mom holding her and it knocks her right out.

Feeling Funky

Noelle and I were on a little daddy-daughter lunch and when you feel it you just gotta go for it.

New Baby Girl!

 We're so happy to announce the birth of our second daughter - Vivian Grace Grandon! Viv and mom are doing great. She was born at 5:35pm yesterday - 5/16/2017 weighing 7 lbs and 19 inches long.

Kitchen is Finally Done!

The last project keeping us down in the basement was the kitchen, and we've finally wrapped it up.

Everything in here has its own story behind it from having to figure out how to install drawer slides and lazy-susans, to how to cut and polish marble for the little glasses shelf,  to how to cut stainless steel

for the hood blower.

That one in particular was a mini adventure. After I'd tried everything I could think of over one weekend and given up, thinking instead I'd find a welder, I was at work on Monday morning and Marta called to tell me that she had it all cut out.

She'd used a metal blade on the angle grinder to cut it out. So imagine prego Marta outside, sparks flying everywhere, cutting a big hole in the back of our hood. Don't mess with her, that's how she rolls.

Santa will finally have an easier time finding our stockings.

ALOHA!

The whole Hawaii Crew

Haunama Bay

Laie Point

Pearl Harbor

Shark's Cove snorkeling

Haunama Bay snorkeling

H

Honolulu

Nu'uanu Poli

The Basketball Team is Complete

Here we go again!

Ready for Counter Tops

Everything is set

In October, we had a kitchen cabinet guy all lined up. We drew out plans and talked with him about the different options. We choose materials and discussed a lot of the small things that we'd do to finish the kitchen. He told us he would provide the CAD drawings so we could get counter tops ordered and then he'd be ready to install the week of Thanksgiving.

Whole new appreciation for guys who do this

First boxes built

As Thanksgiving approached we reached out to see how things were progressing. We still hadn't received the drawings nor heard from anyone. No answer. Try again, still no answer or call back. Come to find out our cabinet guy was out of state working on a job in Seattle with no end date.

Marta had done a ton of research into options so it was time for option 2. She found a company out of Kentucky called Cabinotch that custom buids cabinet boxes for you and ships them right to your door. It meant more work for us, and a ton more research time for Marta learning about drawers, slides, and doors, but when did that ever deter us?

Unboxed

We took our face frames to the best finisher around at Judkins Custom Finishing who also happens to ber my brother in-law.

In the end, it has been a lot of work, but we saved a ton of money and are ending up with the nicest cabinets we could have. Dove-tailed drawers, custom lazy-susans, all birch insides, soft close doors - there's no kidding around in this kitchen.