05/24/2003 Newsletter

James tearing up the old room
What goes up must come down (our mantra for this house)
Kitchen finished
We finally put up the molding and painted...
View more pictures from the office remodel
View pictures from memorial day

05-24-03

Here we are again, late as usual. It's been 3 weeks since we last wrote luckily not too much has happened since we last updated you, so this shouldn't be too long.

Most of our free time has been spent down in the basement tearing out drywall and insulation. We finally got the room completely gutted and realized that my grandfather had furred out the ceiling joists to cover up a poorly done plumbing job. We debated for a few days about how to best overcome the problem. James tired several solutions, which included using a chisel to make space in the joist for the pipe that was hanging down and then pushing the pipe up into the spaces. This didn't work too well because the chisel was fairly inaccurate and the joists are old and brittle. The second try involved using a small hacksaw and then the chisel, this worked fairly well, but when we got all the holes cut the pipe didn't have enough give to fit up in the slots. Finally James got brave (I was a little worried that we were getting in over our heads) he went to Lowes and bought new pipe and fittings and some solder. I was at work when he started so I'm not sure how smoothly it all went together, but when I got home he was mostly done and had solved our problem. He can now add "Plumber" to his growing list of handyman titles. If you check out the pictures of the office remodel, you'll see one of the pipes that he fixed. He added the elbow joint and all the straight joiners.

We have studded up two of the walls down there and only have one more to go before we start on the wiring. James has all sorts of plans for making the office as technically cool as it can be. We are excited to have this project progress, so that it will be done in time for the baby's room to be complete.

My sister Marrisse gave birth to a beautiful little girl this last Thursday. Her doctor offered to induce labor for her since her husband, Aaron, travels for his job and they didn't know when he would be home. She was induced Thursday morning and Sophia Nell Abbott was born around 2:00 pm. She was 6 lbs 10 oz., a little bit small, but not bad for being born a week early. We went to the hospital that night to see the new addition. I am always amazed at how small babies are when they are newborn. It's very strange to think that James and I will have someone that small in our own home in two months. There are a bunch of pictures of Sophia on the website (we took most of them so Marrisse and Aaron could email them out to their friends and family). She's ultra cute!

Yesterday was Memorial Day and we spent the day divided between the Crooks and the Hendersons. We went to my grandparent's gravesite in Murray in the morning, and then headed up to Heber for a Crook gathering. It was very windy in Heber, but we managed to eat our hamburgers without too many incidents. Jenni ended up with a ketchupy plate plastered to her shoulder by the wind, but the damage wasn't too bad. We talked for several hours with various members of the Crook family, there were a lot of people that I didn't know and a lot of people that James didn't even know, I guess they were from another branch of the Crook family tree. After getting slightly sun and wind burned we headed back down to Draper for a BBQ at my parents house. We had an enjoyable time playing musical baby with Sophia and stuffing ourselves (again). After the sun went down we went inside and watched "Shanghi Noon." It was a peaceful end to a long day.

That brings us current for this letter. I hope that everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day. We love you all and pray for your welfare.

Love, Miekka and James

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This page contains a single entry by James published on May 24, 2003 5:00 PM.

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