Labor and Play Weekend

 Friday of Labor day weekend, we decided we wanted to install a backsplash in our kitchen.  We had been thinking about it since we moved in but just haven't had a good chunk of time to do it.

 Some friends of ours Jessica and Justin came over to help us since Jessica said Justin had done tile and would be a big help.  Turns out Justin had never done a back splash, only floor tiling, but it was still nice to have the extra help and encouragement as I think the first few hours were the worst and hardest part of the project. Not to mention Justin getting stuck with the cutting and piecing around the outlets-the worst part.

 Saturday morning we were up early and went to family function that I will write about later.  Then seeing that it was the last day for swimming we went over to the pool with my parents and my brother and his family.

 We all had a great time.  Even Jane gets really brave after a little while and jumped in over and over again.  She even went under the water many times and loved it.  (click play to see her in action)

 In Jersey Kate went to a preschool that had "specials" each day that she attended.  One of which was swimming every Tuesday.  She spent a lot of time in the pool over the year so she is quite confident in the water and even jumps off the diving board.  She can jump in without a life jacket but I prefer it to be on.

 After watching all the kids jumping off the diving boards I decided that I wanted to too!  I decided that I'm not going to let my weight inhibit me from doing the things I want to do.  So I first jumped off the low dive, then the high dive.  Apparently Jane was so excited and yelled over and over "Mom did it"!  I was glad I had done it, and as I was leaving the pool a man told me that I was my children's heroine.  That made me feel really good about not letting dumb things like me in a bathing suit keep me from doing what I want to do.

 Monday we also finished up the back splash.  Grouting was much easier and faster than tiling, but boy was it exhausting.  The grout was heavy and thick and hard to squish around.  After a short space of me doing the grouting I passed that task over to Randall.

 Since Randall knows me so well and knows what a perfectionist I am he basically told me before we even started, that I would be doing all the tiling.  Justin did some piecing work on Friday but other than that I literally laid all the tile.  We have had too many projects in the past where I could find little details that weren't just right and it would make me crazy and I may have even been a bit upset at Randall, so this time he was wise enough to leave the detail work to me.  I guess I need to chill out a bit, BUT the end result really looks nice so maybe being a perfectionist isn't always bad :)

I'm amazed at how much the tile changes the look of the whole kitchen.  The cabinets look nicer, the appliances look nicer the counter tops etc.  It was worth all the effort it took and really looking back, not a bad project at all.   I would do it over again in a heart beat.  Now that I know what to expect I could see some more tiling in our future....  A great weekend for a little labor and some play time.