This is Bethany at four months old, helping rip up the floor….

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This week we have obligations at our Home Church. Brenda has the flu that had a firm grip on the Hill children last week. I so far have dodged it… I look forward to Sunday school and worshipping this morning with some of our church family. In the mean while, I need your opinion. Above there are two logos for our Church Adventure. I was just playing around with paint.net this morning and came up with the one on the right. I like it better, but wondered if you, the readers had any input. So I would love it if you would vote now by leaving a comment here, on twitter,  or on facebook. 

It’s simple, a 1 for the logo on the left, or a 2 for the logo on the right.

Thanks for visiting and have a blessed Sunday and week!!

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Not cooperating but sneaking a kiss. Bridget does not look happy or comfortable.

  I have to start this post with a little history of how the end of last week and weekend transpired.

   So while I rented the sander, Bethany was sent home Thursday from school due to the flu…It figures, time is money when you’re renting equipment. On a positive note, she was not throwing up all over, she was mainly really tired. Thank god the family room/attic has a separate heating system, she in no way needed to by inhaling the little dust that was emitted by the sander. I was able to get the floors sanded in the amount of time I originally figured. I rented it on Thursday morning and returned it on Saturday morning.

  Our original plans were to go as a family to Lowes on Saturday to get the remaining supplies to finish this phase. These supplies included the stain and blinds that neither Brenda and I had looked at. It was something that we needed to do together. Well with one kid being sick, that was not going to happen, as a family. Brenda went to Lowes and looked at the stain, and ended up at Home Depot to look at their blinds, Lowes blinds were not what we were looking for. She verified what she liked and came home with her list.

  Sunday morning, Bridget was suffering from the same flu, so I, went supply shopping alone after church and picked up all of the stuff from the two stores.

Now onto Monday, this was going to be a day of staining. Well with two kids home for Presidents day, Bethany was coughing quite a bit and Bridget with the flu and a cough. I didn’t know how strong the fumes would be from the stain, I had to refrain from staining. I’m glad, because later we found out Bethany had a slight case of pneumonia. I decided that the majority of the dust creating phase was complete, I would move on to doing blinds.  We went with Faux Wood 2 inch blinds. I would apologize for the picture quality, but these were taken with my phone. I am having technical difficulties with the old canon. It’s consuming batteries like I consume cookies…I guess we need a new one. *sigh* We just spent all of our money on these…

When we moved in our house it had curtains, see through, lacy curtains all through out the first floor and some valances in the kitchen. This equaled, no privacy. We blinded all of the 1st floor windows except the entry way door with sidelights and transom. So here are the pictures with captions.

 

 

Above, is the living room, with leaded glass above the slider, we were not sure if this would look okay, but I like it.

This is the dining room entry door, with transom. This door/window would let the sun shine right on the same wall as the thermostat during the morning hours, and thus the furnace would not turn on, because that one wall was 75 degrees resulting in the rest of the house being 60 degrees. I know I could have moved it, but I didn’t. The house is now very comfortable throughout the day.

These are the windows in the dining room.

This is one of the windows in the kitchen. I can honestly say that I did not realize how much it bothered me, that our neighbors could just look right in on us at night and see me doing dishes, cooking or just talking while we ate dinner. I like having our privacy.

Curtains are one of the finishing touches, we will probably use the lacy things for now, until maybe we hit the lottery, or start accepting donations…..I kid!

Thanks for visiting and have great weekend.

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Beautiful. At Martha Rivers Park again.

"Get that dog away from the table" is what I said after I snapped this shot. I know, but I have to blog about something. My kid and dog seemed to fall right into place. Happy Friday!

If you are thinking about restoring your hardwood floors. There is something you should know. If you are going to rent one of these random orbit sander or a Usand sander.

You will paying about the same amount for this…

…sandpaper, as you did to rent the machine.

I knew this going into it, and it’s all good. I still saved about $1300-$1500 doing it myself, and it was easy. Very time consuming, but easy. A definite DIY project I would recommend.

I have made some great progress staining, I will update again once the poly urethane is on. Then I have to install all of the baseboard….I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yay…

Ruling the baby swing at our local park when we lived in Gastonia, NC. Martha Rivers Park was an awesome place to hang out with the kiddos.

She looks ready to work out, doesn’t she?

I took this yesterday morning with my phone as I was shoveling a path to Brenda’s side of the garage. It always amazes me how it can be snowing and blowing when we are falling asleep, the snow can be piling up and then we awake to the sun rising upon a beautiful landscape. A new day comes. Hope is alive! God is Good!!

Adorable…

Taken on February 1, 2003.

This week our Church Adventure began, unfortunately I had to fly solo, because of another illness in the Hill household.

I feel the need to repeat something I think I may have glossed over in my previous post. Valencia Presbyterian Church (VPC) will most likely always be our home church. This adventure we are taking, is about showing the girls the diversity of Christ’s followers, experiencing other denominations and there different traditions in worship service. We are not dissatisfied with our church, nor are we looking to change churches. We just wanted to mix things up and educate the girls. This will not be a sounding board, to criticize these churches we visit. Who am I, to say anything negative about a church when visiting for just one or two times. I also will refrain from naming the churches we visit, for obvious reasons. This is not about the particular churches we are visiting, its about what we as a family of Christ’s followers, experience during this adventure. (Of course if you ask in a private message, email or or in person I will gladly disclose the information.) Lastly, as sticking to my one word for 2011, Positive, I want to keep this positive and encouraging.

I know Brenda has a few churches in particular that she wants to visit, but as for me on this Sunday morning, my decision was determined greatly by the fact that I needed to shop at the two big box home improvement stores within a mile from the church. So the one I chose was a non denominational, large church. Did I say LARGE? It had a ton of stuff to offer families, including a play area for the kiddos, resembling the play areas in Chuck E. Cheese or Fun for All, they also had lots of classrooms, a book store, a coffee shop and a very modern sanctuary/auditorium with a stage and all of the state of the art technology as well. The music/Praise Band was great and had me clapping along and moving a bit in my personal space. Being a Presbyterian, this was quite different from our worship style. We are referred to as "The Frozen Chosen" for a reason. I left humming the last tune we sang and it also was stuck in my head while I shopped for my supplies. The other thing I thought was amazing, was the pastor encouraged us to use our cell phones by doing a poll via text votes. We watched live as the results came in. Being the technology junkie I am, that was amazing!!Overall I believe we as a family will return there, for the girls to experience the BIG church atmosphere. It was a great first day of our Church Adventure.

Thanks for visiting.

Everyone have a blessed week!

She is thinking about something….

No explanation needed.

Here are some pictures of the hardwood floors after they have been sanded. I'm pretty stoked about how they turned out. I can't wait to get some stain and poly urethane on them. My back and hips are very sore, but I guess thats what I should have expected, after an old guy dances with a sander for 18 hours. We have made some positive progress this week. ++ 

Here is Bridget sitting in the Barney chair.

Here she is in our back yard in North Carolina. She is almost one year old.

Here is a photo of four generations. Brenda, Brenda’s Grandmother, Brenda’s Father, and Bethany(5 months old).

A Family portrait. Here we are with Lady Bug that would not ever look at a camera and me with quite the serious look. Oh and of course, my always beautiful girls Brenda and Bethany.

Happy Valentines Day!

This my niece Rachel (Lisa’s daughter) holding Bethany at 1 month old.

Here is Great Grandpa (my Mom’s father) with Bethany at almost 4 months old.

Yes, another self portrait. I know, I do this a lot. This taken in the Sequoia National Park. I really enjoyed that trip.

This was taken on March 3rd, 2003. Makes me excited just looking at it….

Bethany’s first Christmas. She looks so tired, like we were keeping her up or something. The snowman was a gift from Great Grandma Whittington.

Here is Bridget at 9 months old. She also has a great smile!!

This is Peter, Lynette’s husband, and my Dad. A favorite shot of them together.

Trying to keep the test post interesting for you the reader. I created this with www.picnik.com.

Before he got groomed by me. I'm testing out a few things in my rss feed.

Superbowl ad that is:

I missed an opportunity yesterday to post. So here it goes:

• Pray for Bakerstown’s Mission Team traveling to Honduras on Thursday. A family friend, Cathy and our retired, Pastor Gary will be going. Please pray for safe travels and God’s work to be done during this trip. The mission travels to Honduras and provides medical care and other support to the poor and needy.
• Please pray for our family’s health. We have had a string of illness from the common cold, conjunctivitis, the stomach bug, to overall having some of those winter blues. If you follow me on twitter or on Facebook you know that Bridget is home with the stomach thing. Poor little girls was up most of the night throwing up like her sister, Bethany was last Thursday night. Although it is nice to see the sun shining through our windows I would like the temps to be spring like as well. I can’t wait to do some camping. I guess I got a little bit of cabin fever.
• Pray for those that have lost loved ones. My brother-in-law’s girlfriend has lost her father to cancer Monday evening. Pray for peace during this difficult time for Holly and her family. Also,  an acquaintance of mine via Twitter has lost his Grandma this week. Pray for Ben Davis and his family as they mourn this loss and will be traveling.
Thanks for all the prayers.

Peace and Grace,

Bryan

Her  Here is Bethany smiling at the pumpkin after we carved it together, in 2002.

Bethany at seven days old. The day she was released from the hospital. She had her own tanning bed at an early age. She came home with a biliblanket, to treat her mild because she had a mild case of jaundice.

This was Lori and Gary’s first time seeing there first grandchild, Bethany. Here she is just 10 days old. They are gleaming with joy!!!

Fireplace, Cabinets, Closet and more...

I know it’s been a while since my last update, but I didn't think it was way back in September. Click here to see part 2 if you missed it. I try to make these videos short, but it is hard. This one tally’s up to almost 6 minutes. I know for myself I am lucky if I get through a 3 minute video online. So if for some reason you don’t have time nor the energy to last through the video jump below it. I posted some pictures there of our progress. There are some outtakes at the end of this episode. Enjoy!!

 

Above, is what the fireplace looked like once we opened up the fireplace.

This is a close up of the firebox floor. It was actually cracked right down the middle where the gas line was. I imagine that the gas line most likely fueled some sort of parlor heater. I also imagine that every room in the house has a similar set up. All of our rooms have what looks like fireplaces. Most of them are closed up but it would probably be how they heated the rooms back in the day.

This is after we installed the slate tile but before I grouted. I have to mention that our intention is not to use this fireplace conventionally. We will never set fire inside of it. I capped off the inside and insulated where the flew would be so our heat stays in our house. A reminder that the only reason we touched this was because the floor was patched in front of it. Brenda will probably use it for some sort of decorations.

Here is the surround unpainted and with out the embellishment/accessory under the mantle.

The mantle up close. I used several different pieces of moulding/molding to build up to the depth and detail that we desired. Then capped it of with a board of poplar. Both Brenda and I were amazed at how much the material just for this little project cost. I give Brenda all of the credit for design, she is amazing!

 

  

Here is the finished product.

Notice where the piano is, below it is gone and there is the closet we built.

I rebuilt the lower portion of this cabinet to lower the original doors to the hard wood floor. Once the carpet was lifted an inch gap was left under each side.

Just one of the forty some pieces of hardware that I wire brushed all of the coats of paint off of. We love the old vintage metal finish.