He Fought a Good Fight

This week we had the sad opportunity to say goodbye to one of Mike's best friends, Ryan Hess by attending his funeral in Star Valley, WY on Thursday. You might remember the post A Friend in Need I wrote last summer after Ryan was diagnosed with cancer. He fought a good fight, but after fighting it for almost 1 year, he finally succumbed to the disease and peacefully passed away last week. Ryan was 30 years old. He left behind a very brave and sweet wife, Margie, and 2 cute little kids. Margie has kept up his blog Team Ryan Hess since his diagnosis.

Ryan was one of the 5 or so best friends Mike grew up with in Star Valley. Mike is so lucky to have grown up with friends who are as close as brothers to him.

Here are a few pictures that I went digging for on our computer that I found of Mike and Ryan.

A happy, successful fishing trip the 2 took together when they were about 18.

High School hunks. 1998.

L to R: Mike Gleue, James Barnes, Bryan Jensen, Levi Scott, Ryan Hess

On a drive with Ryan up the canyon in SV. And getting successfully stuck in the snow. Spring 2007?

Have you ever seen 2 guys so happy to be stuck?

James Barnes and Mike took a trip to Tucson, AZ to visit Ryan shortly after starting his first round of Chemo. August 2009.

A final goodbye. March 2010.

Mike served as a pallbearer along with 3 friends, Ryan's brother, and bro-in laws.

L to R: Bryan Jensen, Levi Scott, Mike Gleue, James Barnes, Ben Barnes, Jason Porter

A Splash of Paint

Things are moving right along in the kitchen department. I finally have some progress to show at least!

There was a time when our kitchen walls were painted like this. A simple light beige color.

Awhile ago I was reading in an interior decorating magazine about painting your house. The advice when choosing paint was: "Be brave, not beige". The magazine was trying to encourage its readers to be bold when choosing colors for your house. Bright, fun colors to brighten up a room, not boring beige colors that won't stand out or show personality. I've had that in the back of my mind when thinking about decorating our house, and most recently our kitchen. Well, about 2 months ago when we started this project we went to the store and picked out some paint (this was before our decision to tear out the cabinets). I decided I wanted a mustard-yellow color for my walls.

To give you an idea of what I was thinking:

Well this what it turned out looking like:

It turned out SCHOOL BUS ORANGE. It was hideous. So much for bravery. (and if your're in the market for orange paint I have a full can waiting for you for free!)

So we went back to Lowe's and decided to go in a different direction and got this color:

This time we actually painted the whole kitchen, not just 1/2 a wall. You might think its a lot like the original but its actually much darker. I thought my walls looked like chocolate pudding. I was disappointed once again. (ditto on free chocolate paint!)

Now lets fast forward to the next chain of events with our walls.

And here they are finished!

Yes, call me crazy, but for paint color I went back to the original! It just so happened to go perfectly with my new countertops and cabinets we picked out.

You'll notice the bottom isn't painted, thats because the cabinets are going to cover it up.

I know it doesn't look like much, but progress is being made! Mike is working on the kitchen every spare minute of every day. He cleared the floors down to the bare bottom, and we hope to tile this weekend!

Kitchen Update, or Lack Thereof

I wish I had a lot of new stuff to show this week of our kitchen. Unfortunately though, the only thing I have to show is the misery that it entails.

We demolished our kitchen 12 days ago. We thought for sure we'd be finished painting and starting on tiling the floor by now. But as most house projects go, it always takes a lot longer than you think. Part of that is because Mike is doing ALL the work himself. And he is learning a lot of it as he goes. One of those is electric work. He refuses to pay someone to do work that his two hands are perfectly capable of doing. I appreciate his Mr. Fix-It talents however one thing neither of us anticipated was how long it would take to learn it and maneuver around the maze and struggles of a 60 year old house. We are re-wiring all sorts of new things. Light switches, moving the oven to an opposite wall, moving the sink-disposal switch to the wall, instead of inside the cabinet where it used to be, ect. All in all it will be much more functional, however its a pain to have to do it. It still isn't quite finished yet (almost!) but in the meantime, he has started working on the walls. Mudding and sanding every night until its smooth and ready to paint. This is something Mike knows how to do well, as he did the walls in Emmett's room, and also the walls in the hallway project. Both look great. So if our lights don't turn on, and our tiled floor is mis-matched at least we'll have great looking walls!

Its been an interesting 12 days. Going into it I said the one thing that will keep me sane is by keeping the rest of the house clean and organized all the time. I'm the kindof person that gets stressed and uncomfortable when my space is neither of those. I don't think I would say I'm a neat freak, because my house gets messy plenty. But it doesn't mean I like it. Here's the problem that I didn't realize would occur: ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP CLEAN. Dust and dirt fly everywhere. I dust it up, and the next day its back again (after an evenings worth of work in the kitchen). Also, walking in the kitchen adds dirt and debris to your feet, then it gets tracked into the carpet and the rest of the house as you go, and since our dining table is still in the kitchen right now, it gets tracked a lot. I vacuum every single day. If I didn't I think we'd need to replace our 2 year old carpet by the time we're done, its that dirty. And since the dining table is still in the kitchen, it also gets covered with dirt, dust, tools, and everything else you can imagine. Not exactly sanitary for food. Emmetts high chair gets a nightly wash instead of a wash after every meal. And the few dishes that we use get stacked up in the bathroom and washed every other day. (We are using mostly paper products). I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

Here's some pictures of the house. I'm only posting these because no one is allowed in our home until the project is over. That is unless your a kind neighbor that is coming to help my husband (thanks Grant!), or coming to offer us dinner. Because you know not much cooking is going on around here.

Our meals come from either the fridge, outside BBQ, or the microwave. The oven is not plugged in.

Clean dishes drying off.

This is our half-bath. (We have 2 bathrooms upstairs) Instead of Mike running up and down stairs into the basement to his real shop, he's adopted this as easy access to keep his tools, and other various work supplies. Obviously it isn't getting much use other than that.

As you can see not much cleanliness is going on around here. Mike is already promising this is the grand finale project in this house. (Stay tuned on that one...)

And here is one thing that does keep us happy around here. Chocolate cake.

Emmett had a little bit of a rough day yesterday.

We had to go to the doctor for his 18 month well check. Emmett is completely terrified of the doctor. I tried to prep him as much as you can prep an 18 month old by saying "the nice doctor is going to come in and look at your eyes, ears, teeth..." and so on, and Emmett proceeded to point to all of his body parts. But as soon as the doctor walked in and put his cold stethoscope on his back, he lost all composure. He was hysterical through the entire 4 minute exam, and when he was finished and the doctor sat back down in his chair, Emmett lost it again. This time his lunch, all over my hands and floor. It is very common of Emmett to throw up when he gets REALLY upset, however this was a first at the doctors office. I'll have to remember next time not to feed him lunch right before his appointment. The doctor was super nice though and didn't even flinch as he helped me clean it up.

And to make matters worse he had to get 2 shots, one of them was done by the nurse, the other however, was done by a shy high school student who looked like she was doing an internship of some sort and was helping the nurse out. I was thinking "greeeaaat, she gets to practice on my son after he just threw up all over the floor". He didn't throw up again, but the shot that she gave him is super tender and there's a bump underneath the skin. I hope this is normal.

When we got home he was back to his normal self. Playing with his cars in the windowsill.

As far as the kitchen goes, not much new to show. Mike has been working on electrical stuff for the past 2 days, we are rewiring a few areas for our new layout. After electrical is finished though we will start on walls!

Ready or Not....Here We Go

Its been a long time coming. I knew it when we bought our house that this day might arrive. I secretly hoped it would, and yet I dreaded it too. Our house was built in 1955, you see. And it had the original counters, sink, and cabinets to go with it. They are old...dead old. I've managed for 3 years to live in my kitchen happily. Okay that's a lie. I've pretty much had a hate-hate relationship with it. Yeah, I pretty much hate it. But we asked ourselves: Would it be worth it? Would we get our money back when we sell the house someday? How long will we live here anyways?

About 6 weeks ago we decided it was time to replace the counters and the sink, but that the cabinets weren't too bad (ha!) and that maybe with a splash of new paint and hardware they would look just fine. We even went out to Lowe's and bought some pretty new counters, and a new sink.

Well, it didn't turn out exactly as we had hoped. This is what we found when the counters were removed:

Rotting wood.

Need a closer look? Here ya go, this is the part around the sink.

This was our turning point when we decided the cabinets just weren't worth keeping. Mike's heart sunk when he realized how much this would cost our savings account. And mine leaped for joy at the fact that we basically had no choice in the matter. (I was getting a new kitchen!!).

So fast forward a month. Our Korea trip is over, we finally are at a point where we have time to do this highly anticipated project. (I can say that because I'm not the one doing all the work). And I hope you don't mind that I'm going to keep this blog frequently updated on our Kitchen Project for the next 3 weeks! So stay tuned!

And for enjoyment's sake, here are a few pictures of our kitchen 6 weeks ago:

And here it was this afternoon:

Yes, it has our new counters temporarily placed on top (which is how we've been living ever since the rotten wood discovery). We won't be able to use the counters since they won't fit our new layout. Its a loss, but not a huge one. We are going to see if we can sell them on the classified ads and maybe get some money back out of them.

Tomorrow is demolition day. Mike is ripping all the cabinets, sink and linoleum out. And we'll be left with 4 walls and a subfloor. The appliances will be moved to my living room, and I'll be cleaning Emmett's dirty bibs and dishes in the bathtub. Here we go!

Korea

Here's my very brief recap of our trip to Korea. Considering we took over 300 pictures there's no way I can show them all. So here are the highlights! If you are friends with me on Facebook some of these pictures might be a repeat, but I've tried to add different ones to my blog just for the sake of something different to look at.

We were gone 9 days, 2 of which were traveling. We knew it would be really hard to take Emmett with us on such a big trip so we decided to leave him at home with Grandma (Mike's mom). I had a lot of anxiety leaving Emmett for the first time. We booked tickets 1 month in advance and I swear I didn't sleep well the entire month leading up to the trip. He did great though and it ended up being nice to have a break for a week!

For those of you who don't know, about a year and 1/2 ago my dad got recruited to work for a company in Korea called Woongjin. They are there for at least 2 years and he is working for them as a chemical engineer and helping/consulting for the company as they build a new polysilicon plant. Which is what he has done most of his career in the states. They live in a town (population about 70,000) in the middle of Korea called Sangju. We got the tour from my mom while we were there and they are the only Americans in the town. Lots of people stared at us while we walked down the streets as towns like this don't get tourists. Most people do not speak English there. And if we really needed help getting directions or something we tried to snag a teenager or young adult as usually they were the only ones who could pick out a few English words for us.

We took a bus into Seoul and spent 2 days there. There's a temple in Seoul, and it has dormitories in the basement for people to stay overnight if they are traveling from far away. So we did a session there and slept at the temple too. Other than the fact that men and women were separated in their own "dorm" it was a rather cozy hotel for the night.

While in Seoul we did a lot of shopping, road lots of subways, and sightseeing. Its a huge city (about 11 million) so there was lots to do and we probably only saw a smidgen of it.

We got to go on lots of hikes to see various Buddhist temples. Buddhism is the main religion in Korea and there are temples everywhere. They are always on mountainsides and its very remote and actually quite peaceful and beautiful. Monks live in them and people go there to worship and say their hundreds of prayers.

This guy was banging the drums as part of the monks sunset ritual.

If you saw shoes outside the door then that probably meant someone was inside praying....(or sleeping, not sure which)

This picture was probably a little inappropriate of me to take, but the lady on the far right is doing her prayers to Buddha. Shortly after taking the photo a woman came up to me and shooed me away saying "no picture".

Kimchee pots. A type of Korean food that they serve at every meal. They sit in these pots and get "ripe" or rot. One of the two.

The rock wall on either side of us was made by people stacking rocks one on top of another. There was no mud or cement holding them together. Supposedly it means good luck when someone makes a "rock stack" (sorry don't know the real term).

The food...oh the food. It was really hard to eat. Koreans eat the weirdest food. The boys (Mike and Nate) loved it. Krista and I on the other hand had a harder time. I don't like fish, and I don't like spicy. Both of which are very popular in Korea. There were moments when I thought I was going to starve and then there were times when I thought I was going to lose whatever food was left in my stomach. But mostly I ate out of my mom's cupboards as she had quite a bit of American food. But there were SOME edible Korean dishes that I tried as well. So I can't say it was all bad.

And I have to throw this picture in. Here's a picture of a funky little squirrel we saw on one of our hikes. It had really tall furry ears.

It was an awesome trip and when we got back we were so glad to see Emmett again! For the first 2 days he kept repeating "momma" "dadda" and pointing at us like he couldn't believe we were actually there. So I think he'll forgive us for abandoning him for a week, however he refused to go to nursery on Sunday without Mike in plain sight. I think he's a little nervous now. :)

My Husband, The Food Snob

The other day I was talking to Mike about how I scored 2 free packages of Bar-S hot dogs at the grocery store that day. Emmett likes hot dogs and I was happy with myself. He was not that impressed however and replied to me how gross Bar-S hot dogs were. He said, "They're made of scraps and junk." And I responded, "Sorry, but all hot dogs are made that way". He said "Not the ones we buy." I was confused, "Which ones are those?" He said, "You know, brats".

I got a good chuckle out of that. I never ate a bratwurst in my life until I met Mike. Mike is the type of guy that loves to eat good food. Not just tasty, but good for you food, too.

One Sunday a couple weeks ago it was time for dinner and there was not much in our cupboards since I hadn't been grocery shopping that week. Mike was tired and hungry after he got home from his Sunday meetings. I suggested making some grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup (something that requires a whole 3 ingredients that we had on hand). Mike went on to say how he wasn't in the mood for "that kindof food", and I didn't feel like waiting for something else. So we decided to make our own separate thing. Sometimes we do this if we're in the mood for different food. So I proceeded to make Emmett and I some grilled cheese sandwiches and Mike miraculously wound up making beef and bulgur pilaf with mint. After that day I have since dubbed him "The Food Snob"

Mike loves to cook. Not just your regular old mom-type recipes (which is my specialty) but gourmet food. Recipes that includes various ingredients like falafel, bulgur wheat, Asafoetida, chickpea flour, or garam masala. He really enjoyed the movie Julie & Julia, and even contemplated buying her cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" but instead he decided to purchase a cookbook online called "Savoring India".

His latest adventure is cooking Indian food. He bought a bunch of Indian spices and one of them was stinking up the house so bad I made him take it downstairs. In the basement. In the unfinished cement storage room, just to get away from it. Sunday night we ate Aloo Tikki (potato patties with spicy pea filling). Monday night we had Makhanni Murgh (buttered chicken) with basmati rice. Then on Tuesday I cooked, and we had Tuna Noodle Casserole.

Thankfully, my husband enjoys any simple thing I cook and eats it gladly, as long as its not Bar S hot dogs. Which is now in the freezer and will wait to pull them out until the summer BBQing months arrive. We'll see if I can surprise him with a hot dog on the 4th of July and if he'll really know what it is.

Pic taken about a year ago. Mike busy making granola.