One more house project, Dates and Bike rides (SF mug story)

One other project that has been on our list for a good while was to have our septic tank pumped.  Definitely not a glamorous project but a necessary one.  We had a company come out a few weeks ago to try to find it but they couldn't and we weren't prepared to pay the crazy cost of using the snake camera that day.  So we had another company come out to see if they could find it.  They could not so out came the camera.  They found it and were able to get it all pumped.  We have been in this house almost 6 years and kind of assumed the previous owners had done it sometime recently but no they had not.  Based on what they saw and how full it was the guy estimated it had been 20 years since it had been pumped.  They recommend every 3-5 years, it was crazy.  We are so glad nothing happened. I asked if he thought the tank looked to be in good shape, that there were not any roots and he said it looked good so that was good to hear.  I took a picture of it so we can have a record of where it is and not have to pay the ridiculous camera fee ever again. 

We had a very open Saturday last week so to make it more exciting Mark and I took Jared and Lydia on dates. Lydia and I went to the mall, it is really empty now, so many stores are gone so I wasn't worried about crowds at all and rightly so.  We stopped by Claires to look for something fun for Lydia and when I asked her if she wanted a milkshake from Chick Fil A in the food court, hoping they still had Peppermint Chocolate Chip milkshakes she was not interested because she really wanted a frosty and french fries from Wendy's. We stopped by anyway because I would have loved another seasonal milkshake but they were out.  We drove over to Wendy's and had our snack in the parking lot. As we were sitting there chatting we kept hearing car horns honking.  Its a busier intersection but this was an abnormal amount of honking.  This Wendy's happens to be across the street from the County building and as we made our turn we saw the corner lined with people holding signs.  There was a large group of people holding signs protesting the events of Wednesday, January 06th.  We drove by and honked our horn in solidarity because that was a crazy day and should not have happened. I was surprised at how angry I felt when I saw what was going on.  I could hardly talk about it with Jared and Lydia without getting fired up. 

For their date Mark and Jared played disc golf and then got Moo Thru ice cream at the new location downtown.  They had a really nice time.  I am excited to check out the market it is located in with Mark on our own date soon.  We always want to have regular dates with Jared and Lydia and are never particularly successful.  Maybe 2021 will be the year we really make it happen.  Dates are such a good way to connect with Jared and Lydia and it doesn't have to be in a big thing just get out together, one on one. 

Always happy to find a new Virginia "Love" sign. 

I had the chance to go on a new bike ride route with Laura and two other girls from our ward.  We rode out on Ridge Road and had a nice time together.  I really appreciate the amount of distance I can travel on bike rides and the things you can see.  It has been such a great alternative for exercise. My foot is doing much better this week which is really exciting!  Last week it was slightly better but not much this week feels a whole lot better which is encouraging.  Yesterday was the three week mark. I am grateful these ladies are willing to bike with such a beginner.  Its fun to visit and ride. 

I had seen pictures like this on Laura's Strava and was really looking forward to trying out this road.  Sadly most of the road was not like this.  It was actually a packed gravel road that looked a lot like my road.  Just woods on both sides. So I was a bit disappointed in the scenery but only because I had imagined a whole ride like this. We biked 8 miles and didn't freeze too much, it was pretty comfortable.

Becca, Jacqueline, Laura, April

Laura and I also biked Dickerson Road together twice.  The second time we rode farther, down to Spring Hill Baptist church and found a pretty picture spot.  Laura is all about epic Strava pictures so she is always on the lookout.  We live in a beautiful world and its nice to take a minute to appreciate it. I made a goal to bike twice a week and am doing 2-3 rides a week.  It has basically replaced running.  I hope to run again but it is just so hard on your body.  Its odd how I am about done running, its been a solid 10 years of regular weekly running (minus Summers) and Mark is picking it up like crazy!  But I am happy he is enjoying it.  He made a goal to run 75 miles a month so he has big plans. 

First ride

Second Ride:  

I'm always happy to get a glimpse of the Mountains here

This ride was the coldest ride I've done so far so after a hot shower I made myself a nice cup of cinnamon hot chocolate. I've had this mug since I was a teenager.  My Dad bought it for me on a special trip just he and I took to San Francisco.  We went to the Oakland Temple and then spent some time in the city at Pier 39 something he did not enjoy much but knew I would love. He did it to make a special memory for me and I so appreciate having it.  I will be so sad the day this mug breaks. So to be safe I took this picture of it so I can always have it and the memory reminder. 

Home projects

 About a month before the pandemic really hit the United States we refinanced our house. Because of that we got a lot of home repair projects done in 2020.  We got 5 trees taken out, a new roof installed, new windows on the main level, renovated both upstairs bathrooms and last weekend we put a new roof on our shed.  It feels good to have these projects taken care of. There is still a lot we could do; repaint trim/baseboards, refinish wood floors and change out door knobs comes to mind but I think we are about done for the time being. 

Main Bath: 
Before:

 

We did new paint, flooring, lighting, toilet and bathtub, basically the whole thing was gutted.

After: 

My biggest requirement was that the vanity have a drawer.  Neither of these bathroom vanities had drawers and it was so annoying all these years. 

Master:  This is a very small bathroom so my biggest objection was to make it feel bigger. It does feel bigger to me which is really nice.  I rarely used this bathroom before, preferring the downstairs one we renovated 3 or so years ago but now this one is my favorite. To help make it feel less crowded we decided to install a barn door, I love it.  I would never go so far as to describe myself with a good design sense but this idea to switch out the doors was so good. We found a vanity with three drawers, a cute barn door and shelves inside.  The previous two didn't have shelves and they help so much with organizing. 
No before pictures. It was pretty similar to other bathroom, old and ugly and felt dirty no matter how frequently I cleaned it and now its fresh and light and happy. 

The Shed We could see the rotting wood on the trim but were surprised at how rotted the wood under the shingles was.  Both Mark and I accidentally put holes in the plywood while we were taking out nails/old shingles.  We were starting to feel overwhelmed and then Mark texted Mike Struble (who offered to help us redo the roof a few months ago, he did his this past Spring) and he came with his adult son and we were able to get most of the work done in one day. We got the old stuff off and the new plywood on.  Mark is slowly working on the new shingles in between classes this week. While we waited for Mark to pick up the plywood and shingles I cleaned out the shed. I used our leaf blower to get the leaves/dust out and it was a huge mess.  It's a powerful blower and you are basically in a box so after I finished I was a sneezing mess. We will also be patching up the floor with some of the leftover plywood. 

Our friend Julee happened to stop by to drop something off and took these pictures for us. 
Poor old shed. 

Last events of 2020

 Mark ran his second half marathon in 2020 on the 30th.  Mark is a really good runner and very committed to getting his runs in.  This was an unexpected outcome of 2020.  I don't think he had any huge running plans last January.  We had my half marathon and he and Jared's 10K planned for Budapest (which we are still sad about not getting to do) but he really took his running to the next level.  After he completed his 10k he thought why stop now?  So he didn't and he ran an impressive amount of miles this year.  He drove over to a trail we biked on previously and did his run by himself.  We greeted him at home with signs and fancy chocolate milk.  Lydia made the sweetest sign. A little Hamilton inspired and then she taped a gold gel pen on it and added slips of tear away papers that he could sign and then hand out his autograph to his fans  So cute. He enjoyed running and tracking his miles on Strava.

Tendinitis:  Last week I went on a 4 mile run and halfway through my right foot, mostly near my heel really started to hurt. I finished the run and then took it easy the rest of the week. When I went out to run on Monday I got about a mile in and felt the pain come back.  I planned to run 8 miles but headed home after 5.  The rest of the day I was in so much pain.  I could barely walk it hurt so much.  Shooting pain went up through my leg when I put any pressure on it.  So I went to the Doctor and she said I have tendinitis.  It was so weird because I didn't even do anything on that 4 mile run, nothing happened, no tripping or rolling ankles.  It just started hurting. She said at best it would feel better in 2 weeks but will likely take up to 4 and just keep lingering. This was very unexpected.  I have been running regularly the last 10 years and now I think I am mostly done.  I think its time to move on.  I started this a bit with jump roping this Summer but was not planning on giving up running entirely.  We will see but this make me lose about a month of my most favorite running weather and it hurts! Its weird how Mark has stepped up/began his running game and I am likely ending mine. 

Enter cycling!  So, for years now taking up cycling has been on my mind.  I have had quite a few friends here who cycle and love it.  Over the years they have invited me to try it with them but I have always been intimidated by it and happy with running.  So with this injury I reached out to one of those friends and she took me on a training ride and I had a great time.  My Doctor suggested it as a low impact alternative and I think it is worth trying out. I am scared about flat tires, impatient drivers and all the hills here but also excited to try it out. 

Super grateful for Laura helping me learn about gears.  They are so confusing just like I thought they would be but with practice I will get the hang of it. 

"Priesthood Talks"
Jared is being ordained to the priesthood Sunday. I knew it was coming but now its really here. He and Mark have been reading a book by John Bytheway about the priesthood which has been good for them both. Last Sunday Mark interviewed him for the priesthood and today he had his first yearly interview with the Bishop and temple recommend interview.  I think its kind of neat that Mark got to be the one to do these things for Jared and the baptism interviews for both Lydia and Jared. In all honestly Lydia is about done with Mark being bishop but she is not quite the one to determine the end date.  She just seems to be more irritated when he is busy with Bishop stuff then she was a year or so ago. 

Jared seems prepared for and is looking forward to having the priesthood, trying to learn about it and use it and eventually going to the temple.  With Mark's flight benefits the idea was to plan a special trip for his first time but now we won't even be going local for awhile still I think. Either way works and he will get to experience it eventually. 

New Deacon with Bishop Spencer. 

There are 6 boys moving up with Jared (7 total) so that is fun.  There are 3 or 4 boys a year ahead of him so its a large group of boys.  There will not be a lot of in person activities at this point but maybe in a few months. I never had 11 girls in my YW group except maybe my senior year when they redid ward boundaries.  It was a good phase for our ward if there were 10 YW total.  It was so irritating growing up because the ward we shared the building with (and that all my closest church member friends were in) had so many more YW and plenty of YM too and we had 10 total. I still have strong feelings about ward boundaries to this day.  Jared was asked to serve as the Secretary for his quorum which he is excited about.

 
Jared and Parker.  

The Hendrick's moved into our ward about 18 months ago and Jared and Parker have become good friends.  I love the argyle sweaters and the hands in the pockets. They are good kids. 

New Years Eve

 We gave 2020 a proper sendoff last night.  It was one of our best New Years Eve's.  New Years Eve has steadily been moving up the ladder as a favorite holiday of mine as Jared and Lydia have gotten older.  A few days before New Years Eve Jared and Lydia asked if they could stay up until Midnight this year.  We decided to go for it and it was great.  I was worried that we would get bored but we actually felt rushed for time to do all the activities we planned to do. 

We played some classic silly games like M&M transfer, the flour game, and marshmallow toss and introduced a new dice game.  The dice game was great because it had you think about events from the prior year and things you hope to do differently in the upcoming year. Each number on the die matched up with a question about 2020 or 2021.  And candy, you either got, gave back or passed pieces of candy.  We were in Target the day before and saw all the Christmas M&M's on sale and decided to use those.  We had plain, peanut, fudge brownie, and sugar cookie. The brownie ones were ok but the sugar cookie flavor was not received well. The games were fun and in between those we had our traditional silly string fight, made pizza in the shape of the first letter of our name, looked at ALL the pictures we took in 2020 and had our traditional chocolate fondue.  We watched firework displays from Dubai and Sydney and learned about the NYC crystal ball that gets dropped each year.  Its been happening since 1907 (minus 2 years for wars I believe).  Lydia was fascinated by it and could not wait to see it drop at midnight. It was pretty weird to see Times Square so empty.  I think it was really nice that the invited guests were all essential workers.

I think this sweater will not make it to 2021

A game of Monopoly was played to help pass some time and we blew up our glow in the dark balloons for our dance party earlier in the night so we could enjoy them longer.  I did not play Monopoly, Lydia made an attempt but it was mostly Jared and Mark and Mark won soundly.  Around 9:30 Mark suggested we go on one last family walk for the year so we headed over to UVA Research Park.  This ended up being my favorite activity of the night.  It was fun to be out walking together late at night, somewhere we went a lot the middle part of 2020.  The glow in the dark balloons and Pop Its helped.  Jared and Lydia were just so happy to be out late doing something different. Once we got back we lit the sparklers we had left over from the 04th of July then got our fancy drinks ready for the ball drop and had our glow in the dark dance party.  

About a month ago I started hearing the song "Bang" on the radio a lot and I really enjoy the beat it has.  It felt like a good ending song for the dance party/year. 

We are looking forward to 2021. 2020 was such a different year and hard in lots of different ways for different people.  We are beyond fortunate the year played out as it did for us.