Here are the highlights of what we’ve been up to on the basement remodel project.

Leveling the family room floor.

New windows in the family room.  Thanks Devin for coming over and helping, along with lending us your awesome work lights.

Framing the basement.  A huge thanks to Mom, Dad, and Kevin for coming down and helping us out for the weekend!  You guys gave us a huge boost on this project!

Wiring up the family room.  We now have the lights in, wired and working.  The outlets are all ready for sheetrock.  We also go the new three way switch working to control the stairway light from the bottom of the stairs in addition to the top.

We’re making progress slowly and surely.  Sometimes this project is a bit overwhelming.  We’re 5 months and $7k in.  We sure hope it’s worth it.  We can’t wait to get the sheetrock up.  It’s going to be magical.

A while ago, Josie and Jimmy made plans to come down and see the Payson Temple open house over Memorial Day weekend.  Then less of a while ago, Stan and Melanie made plans to come up to Utah for Memorial Day weekend and stay with us for a couple days and go camping.  A party was brewing, so Mom and Dad decided to come down along with Kevin.  Now we had a full family reunion in the making.  We put together a Saturday afternoon BBQ.  Here is the group picture of the family all together.  Also at the party were some of Mel’s family and Sarah.  We had a great big group for our little house.  All that week, it had been storming off and on.  It was looking more and more like we’d have to do the party inside due to rain.  However, Saturday had a nice sunny window in the afternoon that made for a perfect BBQ.  We had hamburger sliders on pretzel buns, along with lots of other BBQ fixings.  It was delicious.

The strawberry lemon trifle has become somewhat of a tradition.  I found a picture from Stan’s graduation where we also had the iconic dish.  I think he might even be wearing the same shirt!  I should have put mine on too.

In addition to the great food, there was also a lot of fun playtime.  Laura’s bike was a big hit, along with Ashley’s new sandbox.  The bigger boys had fun flying my new little tiny quadcopter.

Once the BBQ was over, Mom and Dad headed out to make the drive back home.  The rest of us that were left hung out visiting.  Eventually we all ended up in Ashley’s room, the smallest room in the house.  It’s also the room with the most toys which made it the most fun for the kids.  Eventually everyone left, except for Stan and Melanie.  They stayed the rest of the weekend with us.  We had a pretty chill Sunday and enjoyed more good food along with a nice Church service.

On Monday, Stan and Mel headed out to go back home.  They had originally planned to go camping on Monday night while we watched Scott, but the rainy weather was not cooperating.  After they headed out, we got some good work done on the basement.  In the evening, we packed up the car and headed up the canyon to cook some foil dinners smores.  We brought the bigger quadcopter with the little dinky camera and had some fun getting some flight time in.  Kathryn drove the car while I hung out the window flying.  It’s hard to believe how much easier it is to get aerial video and pictures now than when I started out back in high school.  The quality isn’t great, but this is like a $75 system, so for the money, it’s pretty amazing.

This is one of the risks of flying up a narrow road in the forest.  A gnarly old tree will reach out and grab hold of your quadcopter and you’ll be forced to fish it out.

We made it up to our firepit spot at the foot of Powerhouse Mountain.  I believe this was Ashley’s first campfire.  She seemed to really enjoy the experience.  We cooked foil dinners and smores.  It so pretty up there.  This is pretty close to where Stan and Melanie were planning to go camping.  We kinda felt bad that they had gone home because it was such a beautiful evening.  However, when we woke up the next morning, it was raining pretty hard, so that would have made a pretty miserable night.

In honor of Memorial Day, I pulled up this picture we took when Kathryn and I visited Arlington National Cemetery on our DC trip a couple years ago.  Thank you to all the brave men and women who have served our country and given so much so that we can enjoy the life and liberties that we have.