Museums and Messes

Museums -

March 1st was our son Micah's birthday. As birthdays should be a day to celebrate, that is exactly what we do each year on that day. No matter what is going on, we drop everything and spend the whole day, just as a family, doing something fun and celebrating Micah's life. We always talk to the boys about what the day is and why we are doing something fun together. It has become something they look forward to every year. We have already come up with many different things to do over the last few years. This year we headed down to Bismark and ate at the Texas Roadhouse for lunch (yummmm!), then went to the Heritage Center which is basically a museum of North Dakota. From there we made a quick stop at the mall then on to McDonalds and the playland. It was a great day and we had tons of fun! The boys loved the Heritage Center and there was a whole section for kids to play. Here are some pics of our good time there.

The buffalo outside the museum.

The boys got a little horse riding in.

Here was a place you could design your own car. This is the car Caleb made.

Here they are making the car.

The little man woke up and thought he should have a ride too.

Messes -

We have been doing some demolition and new construction in our basement. It is coming along very well and we are extremely excited about how it is turning out! Here are the different phases of the basement so you can see what has been done. I was just down looking at it because Todd just finished gutting the last nasty room down there and everything is open now. It looks so much better! I will show pix of that end later.

Here is part of the laundry room area when we first bought the house. It doesn't quite show the nastiness of it and all the junk that was in there. The shelves to the left were loaded with stuff!

Here is what will be part of the family room and a store room on the end. You can kind of tell here that the cement is very heaved. Todd was jackhammering here.

Here is the same view after some walls have been framed, all the cement hauled out and a trench dug for the drain tile. Also, to the right is the forced air furnace, that is new as well.

Here is the first area again and you can see the one window Todd did and all the lumber waiting.

Here is the new cement just poured and the wall to the right has been torn down.

Here is that first area again with missing wall and all the shelves gone, but huge mess from doing the cement. This was definitely the worse before it gets better stage.

Here the cement is dry and the rooms to the right are framed up. Now there is also a wall at the end of this room for a store room.

Here is part of that first room. This endwill be the laundry room.

Here are the boys' bedrooms. This was the other part of that first area you saw.