House Color Dilemma

My front porch is gone! We will have to move our rose bushes before we get concrete poured. Don't mind the dead grass. Hopefully we can get our lawn back in shape with the fall rain.

House color Cocoa, trim color Muslin

(to the left of the cocoa by the door)

What do you think? Is the house color

to dark?

Siding is about a 1/3 done today.

Like my new garage doors?

The old ones crumbled in their hand

when they were removed them after 30 years.

My new front door. Trying to go with a red tone. This one is called Cabernet.
Picture of house color in Cocoa, trim color in Muslin (Ivory) and front door color Cabernet (red)

I only have about a week to decide. Drop me a line and let me know what you think. You can make the pictures larger by clicking on them. Please check out my previous posts. I have all kinds of new pictures on here.

Summer fun

Evan drinking water from the water sand table.
Grace got into Mommy's lipstick.
Dorothy and David on the waterfront.
Ryan, David, Dorothy and Kristen at the Oregon Brew Festival.
Grace and her cousin Elliot busting a move at the Washington County Fair.

Big Rog

Rogers bonnet
Rogers stitches and drain tube
During our busy July month, right after we got started on our house project, Roger somehow impaled himself on something. I didn't take before shots, since I was in a hurry to get him to the vet. He had a hole in his stomach that had other holes inside the hole. He had to have several stitches and a drain tube. Grace named his green cone a bonnet. Roger has recovered just fine.....$600 later.

Evan's casts

Evan with his new casts. He is adjusting well!

His night casts look similiar with a hinge on the side to

tighten once a month.

House stuff

House Before
Backyard before
Siding off front yard
Siding off front yard
Yeah! New windows!

Here are some before shots and after shots (siding off) of our house. More to come as they get near completion. Now is the hard part, deciding on a paint color in the next week!

Been awhile

So much has happened in the past few weeks, I am not sure where to begin. We have come off a few weeks of heavy appointments, friends being in town, remodeling, David being out of town again...you name it, it has most likely happened this month.

To start off, Evan had his teeth taken care of at Emanuel hospital a couple of weeks ago. He ended up getting 5 sealants and only had 3 cavities, which was a huge blessing. He came out of the anesthesia pretty well for the first time. (4th time being under) We are hoping this will protect his teeth for awhile since he is plagued with bad enamel. He also went to his bi-yearly ear exam and hearing test, and this is the best his ears have ever looked since seeing this ear nose and throat Dr. who suspected VCFS in Evan. I was so pleased with his report, and pray we can get through the winter with very few colds to keep his ears as healthy as possible. Evan also got his leg casts. I will take some picturess and get some posted on here, I promise. He is really adjusting well. For the first hour of having them on, he found it a little cumbersome, but figured them out real quick. He was running later in the afternoon wuith them on. When getting fitted at Striderite, he told me he didn't like them and cried and cried. I of course handled it like I always have to with him, which is..."Buddy, you don't have a choice, you need to wear them. Someday you will appreciate the fact that Mommy and Daddy take care of you the way we do." And that really has been the majority of the complaining about it. Once in awhile he takes his night casts off, but I usually catch him, and get them back on. As soon as I take them off during the day to do his physical therapy stretches with him, he is right on his toes again. We are only a little over a week into it, and I know this process may take several years. He is progressing in speech and getting 5 syllable words out, even if you don't understand it, he keeping the pressure he needs to sustain a word. I am so proud of how hard he is working.

Our house remodel is coming along. They have all the windows in, our new front door in, and about a 1/3 of the siding on. It is so fun to see it come together, but I will be happy to have my house back. It is not easy to have young kids home when you hear the banging of a hammer all day. They like to call them Bob the Builders.

This past weekend we had our great friend Ryan in town with his girlfriend Kristen. Ryan's Mom, sister, brother-in-law and nephews came to visit over the weekend from the Bend area. Needless to say, we were up too late every night, and ate way too much food all week. Kristen has family in Cottage Grove that came up to see them as well. We didn't do anything overly exciting, but did have some outings, including downtown Portland, Zoo, the Washington County Fair and the Oregon Brew Festival. I was even able to see my sister at our old stomping ground (the Washington County Fair) It was fun to spend the evening with her family, and of course the kids had fun seeing their cousins. The most fun we had this week was just catching up and hanging out. The kids loved the extra attention, and I loved having people to cook for and take care of for a few days. It was also nice to have some quality time with Daddy being home, and not working.

David left on a business trip today and will be back on Thursday. Work is busy as usual for him, and school starts early for him this year on September 11th, the same week Grace starts preschool again. So we are getting some playdates in, a day trip to the beach in and some dinner parties in before the fall grind starts all over. I don't know about you, but this summer has gone by so fast for us.

Well, I think that is the majority of our life in a nutshell. I do hope to post again soon, with some new pictures to share. Until then....enjoy the sunshine.

Honey Bucket

The kids and I had a great 4th of July with my family in Eastern Washington. My brother Alex surprised us all from Alaska, which was a lot of fun. It had been 15 months since we had seen him last. My kiddos were a little turned off by fireworks this year, so I put them to bed at their normal time, and enjoyed the firework show that my brothers put on every year. My parents live basically in the middle of a huge field area, so they have a beautiful view and a great area to do fireworks. The whole Rupprecht family was together except for David, and my sister in law Allison, Alex's wife. My brother Kevin and sister in law Marianne announced they are having a little girl in November, so we are excited about the new addition to the family. We came home on Saturday and had some down time on Sunday. We were back to the normal routine on Monday, and Daddy came home Tuesday night. Grace was so excited to see her Daddy, that she was almost in tears. Evan was excited too, but I don't think he realized how long he was really gone for. Tonight Grace went to swimming lessons and was thrilled that Daddy came to watch her. David had a wonderful time in China, and I am excited to see all of his pictures.

Today, we started our outside remodel. We are getting new siding, windows, gutters, garage doors, front door, paint, concrete pad in the backyard and concrete stairs in the front. We are ready to see 1978 go. So much of it is just so weathered, we really needed to get this started. (Be looking for the before and after pictures in a future blog.) What strikes me as funny is the port-o-potty in the front of the house...the honey bucket. Seriously, why would you ever call that a honey bucket? It's not like there is honey inside....far from it I'm afraid! Honey bucket was a manure spreader type thing we had on the farm back in the day. This must have been a huge joke to someone who thought of the name for these things. There is always humor around every corner.