Garage – Phase 1

When Jesse and I first got married we moved to Oregon (two weeks after the wedding) and moved into an apartment we had never seen.  We had dimensions of the apartment – so I had my dad draw it out on the driveway for me, so I could see how big it was going to be.  I remember standing in the space going… how in the world are we going to fit in this?  It was about 500 square feet!  No joke!  Then we get to Oregon and we get our keys and we go see our apartment and I clearly remember fighting back the tears.  We were never going to fit.  We did though and we lived there for 6 months.  Then we upgraded to the next step up which was like 900 square feet and that place felt huge.  : ) 

Now we live in a house.   With two levels.  With 3 bedrooms.  With a double car garage.  With closets.  And yet – we still have no room!  How does this happen?  I guess it happens to everyone.  : ) 

But really, we are running out of space.  FreyMoto has taken over our garage.  We bought a bigger truck a few months back and it doesn’t fit in the garage with FreyMoto.  When you live in Wisconsin you really want your vehicle in the garage for the winter.

I grew up in construction.  It seemed that my parents were constantly remolding, building, painting, rearranging… yet all this seems so big to me.  It is a lot of work!  Granted my only job is to feed the workers lunch and sometimes supper and make sure everyone has enough to drink… but these guys have a lot of work to do!

Before:  The backyard where the garage/shop is going.

Before:  The side yard – where the driveway will go and the front of the garage/shop.

Now I missed a day of work – cutting down 5 trees.  I was working the full day and it was nuts and I didn’t even have a moment to step away and get pictures.  And now that I think about it, I was so busy I never heard chainsaws… but they must of used them because the trees are gone.  : )

Trees are cut down and now we have to remove the stump and roots.

Grandpa Frey piling firewood from the trees that were cut down.  This guy is either mid-80s or late-80s… he is always willing to help out.

Removing a stump.

Shooting the breeze.

Mallory discovered the doggy door.

Grandpa Frey has had it with these young punks taking a break and not telling him that he tossed his hat on the ground and yelled “I QUIT!” and left the job scene and went to take a nap in the truck ; )

Once all the stumps were removed they then had to dig out the area.

Oh and we had one mean tree stump left to get rid of.  They hooked up two winches and tugged and tugged… and nothing. 

They called it a night and went home.  It stormed and rained inches of water during the night.  We woke up to this…

and decided to call the whole garage/shop off and put in a pool instead.  ; )

There has been two more full days of work since these photos – however I have been incredibly busy (my job, my baby, FreyMoto, feeding the workers) that I haven’t gotten out there to take pictures and right now it is raining (AGAIN) and it is dark and I’m not going out there.  Sorry.

We have had 5 dump trucks full of gravel brought in to make the base.  The mean tree stump has been removed.  They have measured out and staked where the garage will go.

I’m going to end with a little video of Mallory helping Grandpa dig.

Jesse-isms

*I love my husband to pieces – please remember that when reading this post.  There are just moments where I get the giggles and I think another Jesse-ism.  Plus someday our children will go… Mom can you tell me a story about Daddy – and I can just send them here.  : )

There are many many many Jesse-isms but I’m just going to give you two tonight.

#1 – While we were landscaping the yard earlier this summer we were hauling dirt and rocks in the bed of our truck.  After the project was complete Jesse wanted to give the truck a good bath.  He backed the truck out into the field to sweep out all the yuck that was in the bed.  All the yuck then got stuck between the tailgate and the bed of the truck… so he decided he was going to remove the tailgate.  I came outside the neighbor was here helping him and when the neighbor sees me he instantly says “I didn’t do it!”  Hmm… what happened?  They were having problems getting the tailgate off and got the rubber mallet out to hit it.  They forgot we have tailgate assist… which helps weak mommy’s like me get the tailgate up and down when loading strollers.  : )  Anyway, the tailgate assist was preventing them for getting it off… and while Jesse was hitting it with the rubber mallet – he hit the tail light and broke it!  Ouch!  Did I mention we probably only had the truck for month.  It’s not new, but new to us. 

#2 – Back in the very beginning of the summer when it was only upper 70s and low 80s – we were using our little AC unit that is in a horrible spot mounted in the front of the house.  They even taped off the inside around the unit with cameo duck tape!  We realized that it wasn’t leaking water like it should be.  We then realized that the water was running down the inside of our walls.  Jesse thinks… why don’t I just drill a hole here in the back that sticks out from the house and then the water can run out.  However… the AC unit is still running while he is drilling his hole and all of a sudden we hear a horrible crunching sound followed by a few curse words and water starts running out.  The neighbor was outside (the same one as in Jesse-ism #1) and he yells, “Uh-Oh what did you do Jess?”  He had broken the fan blades because the drill bit went up too far and got the blades.  Now our AC unit is done.

Fast forward to this week.  It is HOT.  I swear our heat index is in the 100s.  Still no AC.  Mallory is really fussy with this heat and is refusing to go to bed at nights.  Jesse decided to take a look at the AC unit and see how bad it was broken.  3 of the 6 fan blades were broken.  Lets gorilla glue them back together!  That stuff is suppose to be awesome!  I agree and get very giddy because this heat is making for a fussy Lynn as well.  Tuesday night he is glueing and glueing and glueing.  It has to cure for 24 hours.  We follow the rules!  Well until about 3pm when our house really starts to heat up – we decided lets turn this bad boy on and see how awesome this gorilla glue is.  15 minutes in we hear that all too familiar horrible crunching sound.  Gorilla glue = not so awesome.  One of the fan blades blew off.

Now we have finally decided enough is enough – lets just order a fan blade and be done with it.  Jesse hops online looking for the best deal.  He finds one and gets it ordered – however after he checks out he notices that it now shows 2 fan blades are being shipped and it is being sent economy service (2-11 days) when he actually selected express and paid for express.  We may see that fan blade by the time we have to turn the furnace on.  : )

To stay cool at night – we go to the neighbor’s house (who has AC) and drink rootbeer floats.  We go to the pool.  I take Mally for car rides with the AC on - to which she yells (pretty much at the top of her lungs) BU-BYE! BU-BYE! waving her arms for 15 minutes into the drive.  She loved the cool car ride.

Like I said these are just a few of Jesse-isms.  He could tell you so many more from when he was kid driving tractor on the farm.  From when he was a teenager helping his dad with his construction business.  I always joke that someday we are going to be blessed with a little Jesse that will have the same Jesse-isms.  Heck we may have a little Mallory with Jesse-isms… she seems to already be taking on Jesse’s personality.

Auntie’s House

Last Friday I had to work the whole day.  Which meant I needed to find a babysitter.  I was just going to call the neighbor girl to see if she could come over for the day, but my sister caught wind and wanted Mally instead.  Now, my sister lives almost 50 miles away… so I was hesitant… but she really wanted her to come stay for the day.  Off Mally went to spend the day with Auntie and the kids!

That morning while I was packing Mallory’s stuff up I threw my little camera in her bag.  I texted Shannon and said, I’m sending the camera… I know it is geeky… but I’m sending it.  She replied back, I would only expect you to send your camera.  Hahaha.  She loves me! 

My sister also likes to make life harder then what it is… not only did she have her two kids plus mine.  She decided to invite my brother’s girlfriend over with her three boys that she takes care of in the summer.  So they had 6 kids!!!  Whew!

They went outside to swim.  However, I completely forgot Mally’s suit.  I packed her swim dress cover-up, swim diapers, her bathrobe to dry off… no swimsuit! 

I ended up being caught in a crisis at work and couldn’t get out of there and was an hour late picking up Mallory.  Thankfully my sister didn’t put her on the front step with a free sign.

Garrett was running around with Mally’s leggings on when I got there.  Mally doesn’t look too thrilled about this.

My sister even took some videos and they make me giggle.  My sister is way more relaxed then I am and here is proof.

For the record – Mallory did not eat supper.  : )