End of 2013 - Unexpected Guests and Too Much OT

We are again behind on our blog entries for the house in Payson, but in reality we have not done any improvements and have not really been at the house much since July.  We are hoping to complete the interior of the house (with the exception of the kitchen) in 2014 and, more importantly, insulate our crawlspace area to help with winter heating bills.

After our annual 4th of July event with our friends from our MRKLUD group (and our son and new daughter-in-law), we had plans to work on the incomplete house items.  The major events from the first half of the year were completed and we were looking forward to focusing on the house.  The last activity we needed to do was to help our son move into house they were buying in Southern AZ at the end of July.  Just days before signing off on the house, Matt lost his job.  When he went a few months with no job offers, we convinced them to move to our Payson house while he continued to look.  By the end of September, they were moved into our place.  This put a hold on all improvements as the house was quite full with all of their extra items and we felt it might be a little awkward being at the house for long periods of time while they were living there.

In addition to all that, Mike had a work project that ramped up into full force in October and he had to spend extra hours working and we ended up canceling many of our planned weekends to Payson.  Then, at the beginning of December, he traveled to Hawaii (island of Oahu) to complete the project he was working on.  At the same time, we had planned a vacation to the Big Island and Kauai for almost three weeks during the Christmas/New Year holidays.  Mike's work schedule on Oahu got extended and, instead of coming home for a few days between work and vacation, he went straight to our vacation stop.  By the time it was all over, he had been away from home for 35 days.

Just before our vacation, our son found a job in North Las Vegas and, within one week, they moved all there stuff there, rented a house, and moved in.  Before the job came through, we had made plans with one of our contractors to install new gutters around the house.  Prior to moving, our son was able to help with that activity by taking down the old gutters and painting the trim since Mike could not get away from work to do it.  The gutters were done just before our vacation and Laurie was able to close up the house for the winter after the kids moved.  Then she met Mike in Hawaii for a wonderful multi-week vacation, part of which was spent with our friends.

Now we are back to the real world and have made two trips to the house since our return.  Laurie spent a few days during the week cleaning the house as there was not a lot of time to do that between Matt and Danielle moving out and her leaving for Hawaii.  Then the two of us went back up this weekend just to relax and finish some cleanup of things left from the gutter work and projects our son was working on.  As much as we loved having our son and daughter-in-law close, and are very thankful for God providing this wonderful house that they could use during this rough spot, it was wonderful to have the place to ourselves and back to normal.  We forgot to take pictures of the new gutter system for the blog, but will get them on the next trip.

Remodeling expense 7/8/13-1/20/14: $1,355
Remodeling expense to date: $39,406