and now it's gone..

I feel so guilty for not keeping up my blog. Where do I start?! We bought the house. Settlement was easy and fairly quick. We started cleaning up the house the next day, all the carpets were ripped out and we began TSP-ing the walls. I love the house, despite all the work that still needs to be done! After only a week of trying to clean her up we accomplished tearing out all the rugs and staples and cleaning 80% of the walls and ceilings. Then came vacation on August 23. We had a great week at the beach. Great weather even when poor weather had been for casted! Evie had a great time and loved the beach! She was so good all week. Asa had a hard time because his eczema flared up terribly and caused him to be irritable, I felt so bad for him. In fact, next year we are going to break our 6-year streak of beach going because of how Asa reacts to the sun, sand and salt water :(.


On the third night of being there we went out on the beach at around dusk. My brother Andrew and Dad and brother Ben were all fishing. I was watching them when all of the sudden far out over the water appeared this bright cluster of star-like lights--maybe 10 of them. They didn't move and didn't fade for 15 seconds or so. It was bizarre! They vanished just as quickly as they appeared. I ran to everyone around me asking them if they had seen it. Most had, and then it happened again, just slightly to the south. WEIRD! We were thinking it could have been an emergency flare. Unfortunately after the second set of light disappeared we pulled the camera out and they never came back. A while afterwards we saw the coast guard fly out to where we saw the lights. They hovered there for a while and then kept going.
In the midst of all of that Andrew caught a shark! It was amazing to see! It was about 3.5 feet long over 20lbs in weight. I got a bunch of pictures. A cool experience!

So vacation was great, and we got home and started working on the house again. We picked up the flooring, all 6000 lbs of it. It looks beautiful, I can't wait till it's all laid out.Mark's parents have been working at the house a lot, replacing floor boards, cleaning and spackling. All we have left to do is, finish cleaning the kitchen ceiling and walls, and the upstairs bath as well. Some more wall paper needs to come out of the eating area and Evie's room(quite a chore). Tonight we are going to start painting the ceilings upstairs, because we have to start the floors this Saturday! I think we are also going purchase the appliances for the kitchen!

Asa turned 3 on August 12th. We took him to Chuck E Cheese with his brother and cousin, grandparents, and some uncles :) I took all of the pictures on his grandma's camera so I haven't gotten them yet.
I have a sore throat again, very strange and Evie and Asa have colds!
Tyler turns 8 today! We will have to have a party for him this weekend.
Lots of pics for you!: Living room