Our July & August Staycation

It's been a busy couple of months, but low-key and not as exciting as June so I couldn't get motivated to post. We have enjoyed many fun times connecting with family and friends here at home. We did make it into the city one time for lunch at Cantina Laredo for a taste of AZ and spent some time along the lake; the weather was ideal for being on the lake that day.

Lake Michigan at Belmont Harbor

Chicago from Northerly Island

Later in July we spent a few days down home. Marianne kept the girls which meant we could drive the van and stay in a hotel at Litchfield. We took advantage of that situation to also stop in Springfield and visit the Lincoln Museum for the first time on our way to Carlinville.

I met my high school BFF for lunch in Litchfield...

When we got to Wayne's and Mary's house, our niece Amber and her family were there enjoying all the fun things that Grandma & Grandpa have for Riley, Braden, and Tanner to do.

Amber, Braden, Riley

Tanner, Ross

That evening we all drove to Virden to meet Uncle Don, Aunt Audrey, Macie, and Kathy for dinner and some Cosmic Bowling.

Wayne, Uncle Don

Mary, Kathy

Rich, Aunt Audrey

Cosmic Bowling

Macie, Aunt Audrey

Much of our time this summer though was spent at Lowe's, Home Depot, and Menard's because we renovated our master bath. The scope of the project changed and changed again. Selection of lighting, mirrors, faucets,shelves, etc. changed and changed again. Selection of cabinets, lavatory countertops, and shower base were changed and changed again before they could even be ordered. This simple project took two months because it took a lot of thought and shopping for us to finally settle on all of the components.

Rather than fill this space regularly with our indecision and then all the hard work and all the drywall dust and oh-yeah the roofing issue that was discovered too...yawn...here is the reveal.

Before

After

In addition to the changes you can see here, we added a three drawer section to our existing base cabinets enabling us to extended the lavatory countertop by that much. We removed the doorway and surrounding wall going into the narrow linen closet then dry-walled the corners so that we now have a linen alcove with base cabinet and counter that match the ones you see above. The shower renovation required the removal of the shower base and some tiles so those tiles and the floor tiles at the linen alcove had to be replaced.

When we weren't focused on that project, we were catching up on doctors, dentist, endodontist, orthopedist, optometrist, imaging centers, etc etc. We have good reports on most everything, thank goodness!

I wrote this post days ago and am just now getting back to sign off and click on "Publish". I'll hopefully post again soon to let you know what continues to keep us so busy.

Lovin' Life ~~ Back Home