Lots of house progress and pictures from our vacation

As some of you may know, I was gone for two weeks on a road trip with the kiddos. We left on Friday, May 13, and returned home on Memorial Day. We visited:
Grandma and Grandpa at the mountain house
Laura, John and Alex in Milwaukee, WI
Karen, Andy and Brunson in Chicago, IL
Michael, Rachel, Everett and Rory in La Crosse, WI

We also visited to:
the Betty Brinn Children's Musuem
Safe House restaurant
Milwaukee County Zoo
Chicago Children's Museum
Shedd Aquarium
and the Rainforest Cafe in Chicago with my friend, Pete
Chicago Nature Museum
River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, IA

It was a very busy two weeks to say the least. We spent one week in Galena, IL at a rental house with my parents, brother's, sisters-in-law, niece's and nephew as well as my aunt Karen. The kids loved seeing their cousins, aunts/uncles and of course, Grammy and Grampy. There are lots of pictures of our adventure in the slideshow this week.

Keith stayed in Maryland and worked on the new house. In those two weeks, he finished the majority of the siding, had the septic installed, finished the soffit, trimmed out the porches and dug out the corner of the basement foundation to fix a leak.

A wonderful weekend

Well, we had another very busy, and productive, weekend at the Merranko house. It all started on Friday with a wonderful Mother's Day celebration at the kid's school for mommy. The kids were very excited to give me their homemade gifts as well as eat the cookies that they made for mommy :) Then, it was home for Andrew's third birthday celebration. He had a great birthday filled with lots of loud toys and cake and ice cream. Perfect for a three year old boy! Saturday was spent playing with lots of new toys while Keith, Ronnie and Craig worked on finishing the siding on the north end of the house by the kids bedrooms. Sunday again filled with more tractors for Andrew during a special birthday outing with Grandma and Grandpa where he managed to bring home another toy tractor :) While he was busy testing out the merchandise at Tractor Supply, Julia and I went to survey the progress at the new house. The three men made great progress on the siding today and finished all the plank on the west side of the house. Next weekend will be spent putting up the shake on the gable and moving to the next side of the house. Finally, we had a wonderful Mother's Day celebration at Lorraine and Bob's house, made even more wonderful because I didn't have to do a darn thing!

Garage doors-check, porch celling-check, siding and trim...in progress

Well, we now have spiffy garage doors where we used to have plywood! That sure does make life easier for my husband. He can now open them up with a handle, rather than screwing and unscrewing the panels when he needs to get in the garage. As you will see in the slideshow, Andrew would also like to open them-or at least hang on the hardware for awhile. In addition to the drywall that was finished this week, Keith and Craig also got the screened-in porch celling up. I think it looks great and I look forward to many afternoons lounging on my chair staring at that celling before I take a nap! :)

They also worked on putting-up more siding, trim, and freize board(and yes, "freize" is actually spelled that way). The siding and trim is taking more time than Keith is used to since vinyl goes up so quickly. That being said, we like the way the finished product is turning out. For those of you who are wondering why there are white spots on parts of the lap siding-do not fear. It is just the cement residue dust and it will be washed-off when this is all installed.