It's (Temporary) Island Time!

The island construction begins

 Concrete's all ready!

Charis is interning as "Extra Weight."  She's not quite as effective as me.  :-) 

Our $10 FB (temporary) sink!  

 And it has this really cool trick! :-)

 Fancy "counter" courtesy of Poppy means we're ready to do dishes!

Starting to take shape

Fill 'er up!

The time has come to fill the trench in. The girls wanted pics first with the "picture frame" that Daddy built (to protect the plumbing). 

 Sand first...

The girls and I killed time in Sam's, where I found this helpful magazine. If only we had seen this earlier!!! :-)

Uncle Dane came to help (again)

And they made quite a team. 

They had the concrete in place within hours

And we set up for dinner in the playroom.

The girls got tired of being holed up in their room, and it was too cold to play inside, so they found refuge in Daddy's truck. :-)

Thankful for our sweet friend who joined us for dinner despite the house being a mess!

Now to keep Darcy out of the wet concrete... 

Expanding the Resume`

Time to plumb the island...

 Darcy's standing by with the foam

 Done!

And after all was said and done, I got to add another thing to my resume: extra weight for tamping dirt.  LOL!!

Time to Dig!

Well, the cuts have been made, and oh, let's throw in a karate tournament this morning.

HA!  James and Gwyn did great! But no rest for the weary!

James proceeded to pull up every slab he had cut (while we dusted -- thank you, Mom and Haley!-- and watched in amazement)

Sweet girls helping out

And with the concrete gone, it's digging time! (That's 10pm on Saturday night, for those of you who were wondering)

All closed up for the night (so no one falls into the trench in the dark). :-)

The Dustiest Day That Ever Lived

Time to cut a trench through the kitchen to put in the plumbing and electricity for the island.  A BIG DAY!  And we're ready to go!!! LOL. 

We hooked the rental saw up to our shop vac for the promised "dust-free" experience. Um...

Within seconds, the house was covered in dust, and we were just starting...

About 2 hours in, I called Mom in a panic -- can the girls please come to your house???  The noise. The dust. I just couldn't do it to them.  So Granbee and Poppy saved the day. And we had another glorious date day. HA!

SEVEN HOURS (and one replacement blade and nearly 70 feet of cuts) LATER.  Done.

Here we go...

The kitchen. It's time.  And the first step? Plumbing. Of course.
Which means the hammer drill, of course...

So.much.noise.

All for that little hole.  LOL.  

The Clean-Up Crew

James spends most weekends working on the house, and in the process, makes a few messes. :-) He is GREAT about cleaning up!  But on Monday mornings, we girls get to work finishing up -- putting things back in place (sometimes new places), dusting...

 And everyone's favorite: removing sheet rock mud from the carpet

This Monday, we emptied and bookshelves to rearrange the living room. 

And then spent time putting everything back in place in the playroom!