Our Most Successful Festival Yet!

On Tuesday, Alyssa and Austin performed at the Lethbridge Piano Teachers' Festival. Video of their performances is below. Amazingly enough, every performance won first place! Austin competed in a class of 7 kids. In Alyssa's solo class there were only two people and in the duet class there were 6 duets and trios. We just got a call tonight inviting them to play all their pieces as the final concert tomorrow night. That is an honor we have never before received. Unfortunately, we just booked a hotel for tomorrow night to be in Medicine Hat for Alyssa's basketball tournament. Alyssa is also supposed to be in Red Deer with her school band for the provincial music festival. Why does everything have to happen all at once?

Sock folding in the new laundry room

Preston is trying to earn money to buy a video game and so he has been asking for extra jobs. His favorite is folding socks. I had folded all the other laundry and left the socks special for him. He folded 30 pair for $3.00. I love that he climbs up on the counter in the laundry room to do his work. I love how functional the room is and I love that Preston likes jobs that put things in order!

Little People Conference

This past weekend we went to the Little People of Alberta conference. This was the first event of its kind. There were over 200 registrants and little people came from all over Alberta as well as Saskatchewan and British Columbia. There were even a few people there from Ontario. The conference was held at the Calgary Sheraton Cavalier hotel. The hotel has a pool with waterslides as well as conference rooms and banquet services. The conference went Friday night and Saturday. On Friday there was a family pool party. On Saturday three doctors who are on the LPA medical advisory board were there and gave presentations. They were also available for individual appointments. Saturday afternoon there were sessions for parents, and for teens. There was also a session on adaptive equipment and a session where they organized the Dwarf Athletic Association of Canada. Later they took a group photo of all the little people. On Saturday evening there was a banquet and a dance. In addition to all that, there was a clothing exchange and a raffle.  

Our family went down Friday afternoon and stayed two nights at the hotel. We went to the pool party and visited there with a few people we knew and met some new people. There Austin made friends with two boys, Max and Ethan who both have achondroplasia like Austin. They are both from the lower mainland in BC. Max is 14 and Ethan is 11. The three were pretty much inseparable at the pool on Friday night. On Saturday when Rob and I were at sessions, we gave Austin a room key and he was free to roam around with his new friends. They went swimming some more on Saturday, too. Alyssa and Preston had a half-way good time too. Alyssa was Preston's babysitter on Saturday. They watched tv in the hotel room most of the morning and then went to the pool in the afternoon.

I went to one session (not quite necessary yet) on family planning and pregnancies for little people. It was really interesting. I also went to a session on skeletal dysplasias in life's phases. I enjoyed the session for parents and the session on adaptive equipment was taught by the tiniest little lady, about 2 1/2 ' tall. She has her house all adapted to her size. She loves it when her 6'2" brother comes to her house and has to use her bathroom or kitchen. She thinks it is poetic justice! 

The banquet and the dance were pretty fun. The little kids were so cute dancing!

Max, Austin and Ethan. Notice who's tallest!

With Alyssa. Alyssa thinks Ethan is a super good-looking little person!

Some kids dancing.

These two kids were soooooo cute! They are seriously about 15" tall. I'd guess about 3 or 4 years old. The girl and the boy have the same type of dwarfism, I think. They were dancing together quite a bit.  I watched this little boy's parents. They are young, good-looking, fit, and presumably well-educated. I imagined that they never thought they would have a child like this. It seemed he was their only child. But, they were so loving and mindful of him. It was the sweetest thing I have ever seen.

This is Austin, partying down!

Easter Egg Hunt

We took a little break from renovating on Easter Monday morning, or at least I did (Rob kept working) for an Easter Egg hunt for the kids. We hid 95 eggs with candy inside as well as chocolate bunnies. Each kids got to find 30 eggs then then the especially hard ones were anyone's find. We staggered the kids' start times. Preston started first then Austin and last Alyssa. This allowed them each to find eggs most appropriate in difficulty to their age. 

We invited Shari, Mark's former caregiver to come to the Easter Egg hunt. She helped keep Mark entertained.

After we were done all the candy went in a big bowl and I'm afraid I ate more than my share!

Preston's birthday party

On the Saturday after Preston's birthday, in March, we had several of his friends over for a Spy themed birthday party. It was super fun. Thank you to Alyssa and her friend, Teesha for helping a lot with the party.

The first things the kids had to do was "spy training." This involved seeing how fast they could get through an obstacle course we set up in the garage. The course involved balance beam walking along boards, jumping through tires, shooting a hockey puck in the net, rolling a tire, riding a scooter and putting a golf ball.

Once they had passed their training, the kids all made spy identity cards. Alyssa and her friend took pictures of the kids and they put their pictures in the cards and filled in their information, etc. These cards were pretty special because they look the a credit card, but if you open it up there is a spy identity card  hiding inside.

One of the activities was to pass through a zone of "Laser trip wire" The kids had to contort their bodies and try to get through without touching any of the "lasers." They loved this and wanted to do it again and again.

Preston's cake was a 60s style black bomb. 

I guess I got too busy to take pictures of their secret mission. They listened to a voice recording of Austin with his voice modulated so that it was really low. He called himself "Agent X" and told them they had a special mission. They had to look for one clue to the next, each in a manilla envelope labelled "top secret" Each clue led to the next, but each had something to solve--a cypher, or decoding the invisible ink, or figuring out a picture that was taken super close up, etc. Finally at the end of the clue trail they found their gift bags which included invisible ink pens, magnifying glasses, a notebook, disguise glasses with nose and mustache, etc.

I think the kids had a great time.I am discovering that parties are so much easier and better since the invention of the internet. We found so many cool spy party ideas online and Alyssa helped implement them. The kids were very well-behaved because they loved the activities.

The New Bathroom!

This is my video tour of our new ensuite bathroom which Rob and I built over the last couple of weeks.

And some pictures too! I just love how everything worked together--the colors and the use of the space. I am so delighted to have this wonderful bathroom! Thank you, Rob for your amazing work. Isn't he handy?

This angle lets you see the position of the vanity, shower  and toilet in relation to each other. 

We re really happy with the prefab granite counter top and the dark wood cabinets. I love having so much cupboard space. I have a place for everything. This should really help us to be clean and organized.

This view shows the tile. I think it turned out beautiful.

Notice Rob has even installed the towel racks and toilet paper holder!

Sometimes when you see a finished product, it is hard to remember the work that went into it. So, lest we forget, here are some pictures of the process.

The first task, which we hired out, was to dig a trench through the concrete to build in drains for the toilet and shower. This involved removing the wall between the bathroom and mechanical room. They also had to temporarily move the hot water tank.

Rob had to rewire the bathroom as it had been previously wired for  other use. This required removing all the walls that had previously been drywalled to have the necessary access in the wall to rewire.

Starting on the second coat of mud. I helped quite a bit with mudding and sanding. It is one of the most terrible jobs I know, but we are getting better at it. Our walls look pretty good.

This is the tile after it was laid, but before it was cleaned up, grouted and sealed.  I laid the tile, with Rob cutting the tiles and mixing the mortar. We used the same tile for around the shower as on the floor. Rob cut the 18" floor tiles into 6" squares, 9 per big tile, to use around the shower. He did this will a little table top wet saw. It took him about 4 hours straight to cut the 50 some odd tiles bent over in the garage with chalky water spraying at him the whole time.

The new and improved laundry room!

These are the before pictures. I can't find  a picture of our original laundry room. It was 11x13 with brown linoleum and a window when we first moved in. At Christmas time in 2009, we took a square out of that room and built a walk through closet. You can see that square in the first picture below. The door on the left of that picture goes from the L-shaped laundry room into the closet.

 This picture (above) is taken from sitting on top of the dryer. It shows the door to the family room on the right and you can just catch a glimpse on the left of the picture of the corner where the room Ls.

 In this picture you can see where the washer and dryer were. You can also tell that the ceiling in this room had not been finished.

In this picture taken from the door into the old laundry room you can see how the wall in front of you is the back side of the closet and how what was left of the room was L-shaped.

It was never our intention to leave an L-shaped laundry room. Now, finally, this spring break we undertook part 2 of the renovation. Basically what we did  was to put a wall in separating the long part of the L, which is our new bathroom and has access through the closet and the short part of the L to become the laundry room with a door into the family room.

Even just the laundry room portion of this project was a big job. Before drywalling, Rob had to move the plumbing and electrical. He had to also move the vent for the dryer and connect the new vent to where in the ceiling the vent ducts went to the outside. This was not as easy as you would think since the vent hose could not go straight up as directly above the dryer in the ceiling is the main heating duct for the house. Rob had to use flexible hose and cut holes in his 2x6 framed wall to get the dryer vent connected how it needed to be.

We also had another terrifying adventure with the dryer electrical. Our electrical panel is not well-labelled. We thought we knew which breaker was for the dryer and it was turned off. Rob started working on dismantling the plug when all of a sudden it sparked and actually melted the ground wire. Luckily Rob was not holding the wires at the time which were hot as it turned out. This was a miracle, because those 220 V plugs have enough power to kill someone. Later we hired our friend, an electrician to put the plug together. He had tools that helped him figure out which breaker did in fact control the dryer. I feel grateful to Heavenly Father for protecting Rob and am reassured that our Heavenly Father looks out for us.

Our new laundry room is only 66" x 87' or 5.5 ft x 7.25 ft, but I believe we have made the best possible use of the space. We stacked the washer and dryer, and Rob built shelves (inspired by my sister Liz's laundry room) which are the right size for laundry baskets. On top of the shelves is an arborite counter top. As you can see from the first picture below, I can take the laundry from the dryer and throw it on the counter top to fold. Then, I can put the clean laundry in the appropriate basket below. There is also room on the shelves for detergents and a garbage can. I love that Rob built a bottom shelf and that there is a kick plate under it so that no little socks or garbage or anything will fall back in under the shelves. This should help with the unmatched sock problem and make the room easy to keep clean. 

 The biggest down side of the smaller laundry room, or so I thought, was that I would not have a place to iron or to store my iron. It turns out that the iron fits, for storage, behind the door. And today I did all the ironing--three weeks worth--by setting the iron up so that I was standing in the laundry room and the ironing board came partly out the door. It actually worked perfectly and the counter top was a good place to stand up the iron when not in use. Perhaps I will put in a curtain rod above the dryer and across the 5.5 ft. wall of the room to hang the ironed shirts until I am done and put them away.

 Here is what it looks like now with the ironing and laundry all done. I am thinking about putting my world map on the wall above the counter top. Might as well be educated as we fold!

Another view where you can see the machines and the corner of the counter top.

Our new laundry room is quite small, but it is awesome!