I apologize...

I'm sorry that I haven't blogged in a long time, but we have been WAY TOO busy! Most of our time has been dedicated to trying to figure out the kitchen remodel. The structural engineer said that the best way to fix the wall/foundation was to replace it completely. Well, that got us thinking that the best idea was to go ahead and replace the garage then while we're at it (the attached garage shares that same wall), which we had been planning on for next year anyway. Doing that required many more detailed plans to draw up (a new garage, laundry room, and half-bath with new exterior elevations for the city) and getting a survey done (ouch, expensive!) because the county plat map claims our property was eight feet shorter than it actually is. And trying to work with a busy contractor to get his bid done as quickly as possible. The contractor had given us a ballpark estimate on the new garage based on a standard cost per square foot. We figured twice that would cover fixing the two walls and floor in the kitchen and the driveway. And then add in the roof, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and finish work. It would be expensive, but within our budget. We finally got the contractors bid and it was FOUR times the ballpark for the garage (the garage alone was twice the ballpark)! That made the building alone exceeded our estimate by $10,000 to $20,000! And didn't include the other professionals-- electrician, etc! ARGH! So we went back to the drawing board and hopefully we've figured out something that we could possibly afford. We'll let you know if it works....

Also, my camera suddenly corrupted my memory card so I think I've lost all my pictures of our various activities from the last month! That includes the ward campout, my brother Nate's (and his family, Allison, Owen, and Olivia) visit, my mother-in-law, Gayle's visit, and all the fun that went with those visits! Plus all the other little things that have been taking up all our free-time. So I hope that you have some forgiveness for my lack of blogging lately. I actually need to get busy now because I have new plans to draw up and new contractors to try to get bids from! Wish me luck!