used to be red now nearly dead

bought the provo house with my money from my inheritance from g'ma ellen and mom. mom told me one time that she liked how i spent the money i had earned from working at lagoon. i had just got back from a trip with weber state to mexico for 6 weeks. we earned college credit and it was a gri beat experience. she told me that she thought it was good that i spent my money on education and travel. g'ma had helped me with a couple of semesters of school so i thought it would be a good idea to buy a home in provo to help our kids out with school and so they would have the opportunity to meet and date some lds kids. i thought it would be a fitting to buy "the school house" in their memory. i think what a absolute hole it was. elly see if you can put the pictures on the blog that the realtor took. she made it look good.
i remember:
mike standing in the middle of the front room the day we bought it and pulling the carpet up, man, was strong! it was so gross!
how many layers we had to sand down the floor before we got to "dry" wood because the previous renters had let their dogs use the front room for a litter box.
the millions of staples we had to pry out with pliers or knives before we could sand it. we wouldn't even eat inside for the longest time. sleeping at beechers while we were working on it.
alicia's splinter, poor baby!
the rigby girls all coming down to help clean it up between renters and all of us going out to rodegeos--however you spell it. watching you all eat till we were ready to burst. cheap labor.
the time i sent rhett and meagan to the dump in rhett's truck pulling the trailer--both filled to capacity and no hook ups to the brake lights or turn signals. my instructions to rhett were if the police pulled him over to hurry and trade places with meags and she was supposed to play the part of a dumb blonde. "you mean it's not working? i tried to get the two plugs together and when they didn't match up exactly (one was round and the other one was square--i'm not lying) i thought if i taped them with that black tape it would work!" luckily no one rear ended them and no one caught them, but i know she could have played the part well and if her smile didn't get them off the hook rhett's would.
busting out the arched wall in the kitchen where the fridge is now and rhett and geof. building a closet with about 50 nails. and the cupboards--same story.
pulling up the floor boards in the bathroom twice to the floor joists and replacing the subfloor and linoleum. making all the fine cuts holding on to the plywood with one hand and sawing away with the sawsall in the other. man i love that thing. it's the greatest tool ever.
geof. telling me the stackable washer and dryer was too wide for the back bedroom closet and me handing him the sawsall and telling him to cut it till it was wide enough. he was all of 15.
elly and i pulling the toilet in the bathroom and hauling it out to the garbage can. bet they were surprised when they dumped that. elly how many toilets have you helped pull and set in that little house? how can you ever forget "HELPING PAPA LES" i know how much fun that was. and laying tile until 3 in the morning. it was so beautiful. we were so tired and hysterical.
christmas after cole was born. the christmas tree we bought and decorated. singing christmas carols with darla. so nice to have another soprano in the family.
completely redoing the backyard and laying sod. i think that was the last time i saw adam do any yard work--no wait he put in the sprinkling system.
and my favorite white trash story. you had inherited a really ugly couch and i wasn't too pleased. i wanted to get rid of it and since rhett wasn't available with his truck i had the great idea that after it got dark we would put the cushions in all the neighbors garbage cans because the garbage truck usually came really early and they would get dumped and no one would ever know. well for some strange reason they didn't dump the garbages that day until the afternoon. so all day long there are these garbages lined up and down the street with our garbage hanging out the tops of them because i think i remember adding a few items to everyones so they wouldn't feel left out. tell me how cool is that? ah the memories and the money that have gone into that little house. we learned a lot like i'm never going to be successful as landlord. i realize there are people out there that make money on renting out homes, but i am not one of them.
pray for brooke's safe return with the kids. her return trip to germany makes mindi's look like a picnic. which gives you an idea. love you all, le anne



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