Painting Shana's New House
My little sister Shana and her husband Kyle just bought their first house. It's a gorgeous 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 story, 100-year-old house in downtown Columbus, WI. You could say I have lots of experience painting houses (not by my choice!), so I was thrilled to go help my sister paint her beautiful new house! My sister Megan went along for the ride--it was so nice to not have to make the trip with the kids by myself! We stopped in Racine on the way up to drop off the kids (thanks for watching them, Grandpa and Grandma Palmer!!). On our way up to Columbus we had quite an adventure with my van. We bought the van in August 2007. Last fall the engine blew up. (We weren't even done paying it off yet!...so much for NOT buying a new van!...). Needless to say, we have a love-hate relationship with it. 10 miles out from Tom and Connie's house my check engine light went on. So we drove back to Racine so Tom could check everything he could think might be wrong. Nothing turned the light off, so we drove up to Milwaukee, (stopped for lunch at Kopps...yum!), and headed over to a nearby Auto Zone so they could interpret the meaning of the check engine light. Turns out I just hadn't properly put on the gas cap. We checked that...several times. Funny thing was that the last time I had filled up was in Springfield, IL, which is at least FOUR hours away from Tom and Connie's house. AND we stopped once in between Springfield and Racine. Why it did that is beyond me, but I was so happy to hear that's all it was, I could have given the Auto Zone guy a hug. But I didn't. I just breathed a huge sigh of relief and said thank you!
We were relieved to make it to Columbus, even if we were a couple of hours behind schedule. We had quite the group of people staying over night to paint up a storm. We got so much accomplished in just 2 days!...1/2 of her main level got at least 2 coats of paint, we totally painted over the wood paneling (yuck!) in her gi-normous stairwell, both spare bedrooms were completely painted, the laundry room was completely painted, the wall paper in the master bedroom was removed, the carpeting in the entire upstairs was pulled up, and one coat of paint got put on all the trim in the guest bedroom that was painted brown. Whew! We enjoyed some delicious food (thanks, Shana, Connie, and Katie!), great fellowship, and some memorable laughs (like freezing our buns off in the middle of the night!).
Many blessings to you, Kyle and Shana, as you build your family and many memories in your first home! I can't wait to come see it all put together! :)
