Miracle Credit at the Spiral Jetty

In the middle of April, Romney approached us with a request to go visit the Spiral Jetty. It was an opportunity to get extra credit in her Art History class. Funny, she didn't need the extra credit, but she just loves road trips and really wanted to go. She had also been taking a photography class and has absolutely fallen in love with it, and thought that a photo shoot at the jetty would be extra fun. Because of her interest in photography, we thought that Troy would be a better companion for her than I would be.

They went on a Thursday evening, and when they returned, I got to hear all about how much fun they had. Aren't Troy and I the luckiest? It's so fun to do stuff with our kids. Troy just raved about how absolutely lovely the drive was, how beautiful the jetty was, how much fun he had with his daughter. It was just great. What a fun trip! 

Epilogue to the story - and not one we particularly want to remember because it really sucked - but I have to include it because I find it to be miraculous. As I said, Romney didn't need extra credit in this class, but really wanted to do the trip anyway. Then at the end of the semester, she had a total disaster. She was very pinched for time and very stressed out, and decided to place her final for this class as her last priority. She worked out everything she needed to do and fit it all in place, with the final coming late in the evening of the last possible day. Do you see where I'm going with this? She had a major learning experience when she had technical difficulties and was unable to take the final at all. It was devastating. And yet her final grade ended up above the line of where she had to be for the class to count towards her major, because of that little trip to the Spiral Jetty. Follow those promptings, people. 

A Floor to Stand On

A very miraculous thing happened. After weeks upon weeks of demolition, of tearing things apart and then digging in the dirt for EVER, we did something amazing. We finished the footings and foundations, we finished the ledger boards and the joists, and we put down subfloor. Did you hear me? WE PUT DOWN SUBFLOOR. Putting the last board down over that dirt felt amazing.

Actually, I have one little confession - Troy and I were both slightly sad to cover up our beautiful foundations. We worked so hard on those! And they were so neat and tidy! It was a bit of a shame to not see them anymore. But guess what. You can still see them from the basement. And no more clouds of dirt floating through the house! Well, not from the bedroom anyway. There's still plenty of dirt from other sources.

Here we are once again demonstrating the prowess of our minivan - this time hauling sheets of subfloor.

This was an extremely visually satisfying day. Some days you work so hard all day long and you just can't see much of what you did, and other days you get a big payback. A floor!!!

 

After that first layer of subfloor went in, we built a frame around the room that would be a support for the layer of insulation.

And then...the top layer of subfloor! It may not seem like it but it was quite a pain to put in. As always, things are not at all square so we had to do some cutting and fitting and it took a lot of time. However, walking around on that solid (and dirt-free) floor has been nothing short of joyful. 

 

Ultimate Symbol of Love: The Lobster

Oh my sweet Romney. She often gets ideas in her head and once there, there they stay. Sometimes she sees them through and sometimes she does not. 

During covid she started knitting. She was surprisingly good at it, really caught on quickly and taught herself a bunch of stitches as she made a scarf. She asked for the supplies to make a blanket. I of course immediately bought her several skeins of yarn in colors she had carefully selected. As soon as we got them home, she pretty much instantly took a 3 year hiatus from knitting. I'm still finding uses for that cute yarn. Yellows and grays...would have been darling.

Then last year she suddenly started knitting again, and made me a mug cozy for my birthday. Such a cute surprise. But that has been the full extent of her knitting experience. So when she showed me, with quivering glee, the pattern for a lobster complete with a sweater, I had some trepidation about moving forward on the project. But of course she won me over and we went yarn shopping. Picked out yarn for two lobsters - one orange and one blue.

Once I got her started, she was so quick at catching on! And it knitted up a lot faster than I expected. The final result is so freaking cute I can hardly stand it. 

It's so cute! I helped her out by making the sweater because she wanted to get it done in a hurry. This was because, of course, she wanted to give it to Nicholas as a gift. He was delighted, and soon sent her the below photo of his new lobster, who was keeping him company while he worked on lego kit.

A Taste of the Motab

This spring, Romney and I both had a really neat opportunity to sing in the venues where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir usually performs. 

First, in March, we had our Stake Conference. Normally we meet in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, but that lovely building is under renovation and restoration. From what I understand, it won't be available for us to use in the future at all, even when it's done getting all fixed up. This is pretty sad for us. Most stakes have one building that is their official stake center - it's big, can hold several hundred more people than a regular ward building can, and can host conferences. We don't have one. And when our ability to use the assembly hall got removed, we were in a pickle! (I'm acting like this was my problem. It wasn't. I heard about all of this after the fact.)

Well, our stake president occasionally gets to rub elbows with some general authorities, and he mentioned to one of them our predicament. That person suggested that we use the tabernacle. Wow! What a beautiful, historic building! And also very LARGE. Our stake leaders decided that if we were going to use this amazing building, we would need an equally amazing choir to go along with it. They started sending out the message to everyone in our stake and had us all invite friends and former stake members to join us. And more wonderful than that, our stake partnered with a local group called The Other Side Academy, which is a live-in program for rehabilitating people who would otherwise be facing long-term incarceration. It's amazing. And we had probably 50 people from the program join our choir. So we had maybe 250 people. 

I can't really describe the experience! Singing in that space with that many people...well, it was mind-blowing. The last song we sang was The Spirit of God, and we had the primary kids up front, singing along, and doing sign language along with it. The Hosannahs had them making them do this big clap...no matter how I describe it, it will never be enough. But folks were weeping, and talking about it for weeks. It was just incredible. Romney and I both got to sing and I'll never forget it!

Then in April something much cooler happened! Romney has been singing with her institute choir at UVU all year long, and they got invited to provide the music for the Saturday evening session of General Conference. If we thought filling up the choir stands at the tabernacle would be hard, can't imagine the pressure of filling up the choir seats in the conference center! That place is huge! 

Troy and I realized that neither of us had ever actually attended a session of General Conference before. We asked our stake executive secretary to try to track down tickets for us, and we were so grateful that he came through! We got four - one each for Troy, Emma, me, and Nicholas. It was very sweet of him to come along. 

It was quite an experience to attend an actual session of conference. Actually, I'll be totally honest, I really prefer watching from home. Much more comfy, I can knit all I want, plus you know...snacks. And also it's hard to focus on the speaker when you're in an incredibly huge room with thousands of people in it. But it was a neat experience. And Romney's choir was wonderful. They sang Amazing Grace, which was the first time that particular song has ever been sung in General Conference! I heard from a lot of people about how much they loved hearing it. 

The Room Project Continues: Ledgers and Joists, Heating and Ducts

This will be a post of many photos.

After the many weeks of digging and digging and digging, and pouring concrete and building forms and doing all that stuff, an amazing thing happened. We were ready to start building the floor. First step? Putting our minivan to the test once again. Troy treated us to a little slice of heaven by purchasing engineered lumber for the ledgers. This means that they were very straight and level. What a treat! But they were very long - 12 feet. No prob for el minivan! (Okay, it was a little problem. The first one fit fine but the second one needed a few inches trimmed off the end so we could close the back door.) I always feel cool driving around with a load of lumber that goes from the back hatch to the front windshield.

 

The ledger boards were actually such a pain to install - it will be almost impossible to explain why succinctly, but with the basement "hallway" running under the first couple feet of the bedroom, the ledger had to span the open space and get support at the base of the basement stairs. Oh and figuring out where they could be bolted in on the brick foundation - such a pain. And nerve-wracking too. Basically, nothing on this project is ever simple or straightforward. There may have been some cursing involved with getting these placed. Getting things level is just not the easiest task anyway, not to mention when not a single surface in our house is level or plumb.

 

These were my favorite finds while moving dirt around in the basement:

One is just an old wooden clothespin. I don't know why I love it but I do. The other item is a small metal handle that was actually nailed to the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Both Troy and I were quite surprised that we had never noticed it there before. We are going to put it to use somehow, but don't know just where yet. 

Finally it was time to remove the last little bit of the floor by the doorway - we had been lucky to have support under this little platform and could leave it there while working all this time. But...the time had come. Bring out the Sawzall!

Before we could install the joists, we (meaning Troy, 100%) had to figure out a couple of tricky things - heating ducts and vents, and some wiring. I know these issues really weighed on his mind and we were both dreading the time we finally had to face these issues. They don't seem like a big deal but they actually are. There is so much figuring to do, especially when you're working with less than ideal environments, like a crumbling dirt basement. But I'll say this. Toys is amazing. He goes into the room all the time when we weren't working on it, and just looks and thinks and thinks and ideas come. He figured out frames for both of the heating ducts that were affected, as well as the wiring. I'm so grateful for him and all that he knows, all that he figures out, and all that he does.

We framed up the vent for the duct just outside the bedroom door first.

 

Next came the actual joists - how heavenly. Actually, there was a bit of a downside. I was surprised by the slight feelings of sadness that showed up as we began to cover up the cement footings and foundations we had worked so hard on. Don't get me wrong, I was delighted that it was finally time to start getting up and out of the dirt. But the joists and then the floorboards were just going to cover up all we had done! No one would come see the construction now and say oh wow there's a floor there. For most rooms that's a given. But not us! Still, it was worth it. I wouldn't trade.

Installing joists meant picking up more lumber - more engineered lumber. This time LSLs (Laminated Strand Lumber) instead of LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber). Also not quite as long. It's so fun to pick up lumber from the lumberyard in a minivan. The guys doing the loading just give you the strangest looks, and are very skeptical. But aren't they surprised when we just fit it all in and roll away! Will I ever get sick of taking selfies in the car with loads of lumber? Unlikely.

 

 

When the joists were about halfway done, we had to install the heating vent and duct that were actually in the room. These things were one of main reasons we really wanted to tear into the room in the first place. Before our work, the vent was set right next to the doorway, and since the single air return is at the front of the house the warm air just got sucked immediately back out of the room. That room was so cold! And wet too. How satisfying to get the vent placed in an effective place. 

 

Troy ordered the heating duct and when the box arrived I was a little surprised at how small it seemed. Then he opened the box and I was even more surprised at the volume of the duct inside. It was like a giant snake emerging from a den. We immediately started calling it Shai Hullud, after the massive sand worms in the Dune stories. We found the name to be so appropriate that we referred to it as such for the rest of the installation process. "Hey, could you pass me Shai Hullud?" "Shai Hullud is slipping, could you hold it up for a second?"

 

Last of all - I had to include this photo. Troy was removing some wood from the walls to make sure nothing was blocking where the joists needed to go. He uncovered what I feel like is a perfect example of what we end up dealing with. Check out this tangle of nails, going every which way, sticking in and out of one piece of wood. What on earth was that for? Heaven only knows.