Adam and Heather Hayes

Well the other day the bottom step of our front deck broke. It has been threatening to break for the past...umm..... 4 years, so I knew this day was coming. Heather and I have a bad habit of not being able to "just fix things". We normally say something like this:

1. You know, while we are at it, we should replace all of the stairs,
   
2. and if we are going to replace all of the stairs, why don't we extend the stairs to be the full length of the deck,
   
3. and since the new stairs are going to need stained, why don't we sand and stain the whole deck while we are at it.

So our simple fix a bottom step turns into quite a large project. However, we are always happy with the results, it just takes longer than a quick fix (just look at our bathroom project to see a similar pattern of just tearing out the carpet to a complete master bathroom makeover.

I just finished sanding the whole deck today and we'll probably be doing the stain tomorrow. The above picture was taken when we finished installing the new stairs but before any sanding began.

We've also done some modifications to our blog. Hopefully pictures from now on should be expandable (horizontal pictures that is) by hovering over them and clicking if a magnifying glass comes up. Let me know if you have any problems with the new feature. :)

Well, here comes another quick update for posterity sake on what I've been up to. 

Work has been going well and I'm scrambling to keep up. It feels like I just run and run. I just signed up with the new family search and I'm loving it. It is my escape now to search for people. We did a quick trial run and got 3 families ready for the temple and then Heather and I did a whirlwind day of everything for one family from baptisms all the way through to sealings. It was really fun to go through for people that I had gotten from family search and turned in. These next ones will be even cooler because I'll have done the research and finding myself.

I also helped out a buddy of mine that needed another player for his city league softball team. I went to 7 games and we won 5 of the 7. It was a lot of fun. We did a couple of games a week, so it seemed like a lot in a short amount of time. I got to play 1st base the whole time which brought back great memories from childhood.

I fixed the deck, (see the other post for in the middle picture). It seems to be holding up well and we'll see what happens after a year has gone by how they hold up.The stain seems to be working so that is great compared to our first attempt at protecting the deck (the paint wore off within weeks in some spots last time)

I also did a number of days over at another friend's house helping them move some trees (little trees from 1 1/2 feet to 7 feet tall. I'm guessing I helped out with 1500ish trees of the 7500+ they moved. It was fun even though I got sore fingers and a couple of blisters out of it. 

Erith and Tricity helped me the other day go get potatoes and deliver them to a bunch of people. One of the farmer's daughters in our stake did a young women's project and gave away a bunch of potatoes. All you had to do was show up, pick them up, and haul them off. Erith and Tric had fun picking potatoes with a little bit of dirt clod throwing (mostly at me).

All in all it has been a crazy summer and I think we've accomplished a bunch.

Last night at about 12:30 am I was in my living room reading a good book when I heard a loud crash noise.  It was soon followed by a strong scent that resembled a SKUNK!

I ran to the dining room window which was OPEN letting in cool night air and heard something crunching on cat food. I proceded to shut all the windows and turned on the back deck light.  This is what I saw.

I got Adam and he shot it with his paintball gun, but that just made it do a full handstand spray right at the house and it ran under the deck instead of AWAY from my property!

Let's just say it was a LONG REEKY night.  In the morning we found out that the outside smelled tons better than the inside of the house.  So we've been airing out the house all day. Marinating in skunk musk is SO DISGUSTING. REVOLTING EVEN!

AHHHHHHH!!!  I hate skunks!  Never leave catfood out at night! Or even dusk!

We were surprised to wake up to a snow covered yard yesterday. It was finally showing more grass than snow! We were also surprised to hear they closed school one day before spring break! (Some roads were closed.) So snow day #7 meant a longer spring break for us!

The girls were pretty excited about it. They made a snowman on the front deck of all places. You'd think it would be easier to leave it on the ground. They've been very into art projects as well.

Erith wanted to make a castle to show at show and tell. She took out the Popsicle sticks and glue and went to town. The longer we had it, the more embellished it became, paint, pom poms, stickers. Of course we couldn't leave Viola out of the fun!