Ella Is Officially Dating!

Edited: They both read this post and were completely okay with me posting it. I would never post something without their permission! 

 Okay let's start at the beginning. Ella started going to youth group during the summer of 2022 and there weren't any girls attending at that time. Thankfully that has changed now, but at the time it was just her and she was actually okay with it. She has 3 brothers so she's used to being around boys. During her time at youth group she got to know a particular boy his name is Justine. They would hang out, laugh and have a good time together on Wednesday nights.

Justine didn't volunteer at the Fall Festival last year, but he hung out for a bit. Obviously he's the one sitting next to Ella. This was when I really took notice that he was kind of her shadow whenever they were together...always following her around and you could tell he really enjoyed making her laugh. 

A little bit after this I asked Ella if she liked anyone and she said, "Justine!" She really wanted him to know that she liked him, but she didn't know what she should do. I told her she could just write him a note if that would make it easier. So that's just what she did. She wrote a note that basically said she liked him, she thought he was a very nice person and she really wanted to get to know him better. She even put that if he didn't like her that way that it was okay she'd be happy just being friends. 

This started the over 2 months of weirdness on Justine's part. He didn't really know what to do with that information and instead of talking to Ella about it he just avoided her and stuck close to his mom and once church was over they left. Ella of course was upset. She was mad that she had ever written the letter because she really liked having Justine as a friend and now he wasn't even that. 

Fast forward to Winter Camp at the end of January...a few of the youth kids pulled Justine aside and said..."Yo dude do you like Ella or not cuz you're kind of being a jerk!" I'm paraphrasing! :) This got Justine thinking and he realized yeah I'm not being very cool at all I should probably fix that. So on that trip they started talking again. 

Fast forward to Valentine's Day....he gave Ella a card and some chocolates! She was over the moon excited! 

They started talking again like normal after this and then one Wednesday night she came home from Youth Group so excited because Justine finally told her that he liked her too! By this point they were only seeing each other on Sunday's at church and Wednesday's at youth group. 

For the Easter Adventure at church they wanted to volunteer together so they ran the Egg Toss Game. Ella asked Justine if he had anything going on the rest of the day and he didn't so we ended up taking him home with us to hang out. 

Ella had been talking to him about sea glass and he wanted to go find some so we headed to the beach at Redondo. 

It was freezing, but I sat out there huddled under the beach blanket while they searched for sea glass.

One of the number one things that we've always told the kids is that whoever they like they have to make sure they love Jesus. I told Ella if she was serious about moving forward with Justine she would have to ask him. At first she pushed back a little and said well of course he's a Christian he goes to church. However, that's not true....I'm sure there are lots of people that are at church that haven't actually committed their lives to Jesus. So she went ahead and asked him and he said yes. 

A couple Sunday's after this Justine came over and hung out at our house again. I think it was around this time that they started texting during the week. During this whole time, Ella and I had been talking about relationships and what we were okay with and not okay with. We have open communication with our kids...we talk about everything in our house. The ground rules had already been laid stating that Justine couldn't go upstairs....they aren't going to be hanging out in her room. They can't be in a room by themselves with the door shut. There also isn't privacy at this point in regards to their text messages. I read their texts messages at the end of every day. I know that some people might think this is being a helicopter parent or too controlling, but she's my 14 year old daughter and lots of kids have gotten themselves in to sticky situations in regards to texting and she isn't going to be one of them thank you very much! 

Fast forward to Sunday, April 21st, we decided it was time to have the official "Boundaries" talk. Justine's mom had come over to pick him up so she was present as well. We had already been texting so she knew what our boundaries were and she agreed with all of them. We told the kids that if they wanted to actually date that we were okay with it, but there were going to be boundaries in place. On top of the ones I already listed we told them we were okay with them holding hands and giving hugs. That's it! No sitting in each others laps, no laying their head on each other's lap and no kissing...at least until Ella is 16. Those are our rules! We talked about how this conversation was going to be on-going and how we want them to feel comfortable talking to us. I even said that there will most likely come a time when they are irritated at the boundaries we've set and I want them to feel comfortable saying so. We'll listen to them with open ears and we can discuss why they feel the way they feel and how we're going to move forward, but for now those are our rules. One thing I've talked with Ella about in regards to not kissing until she's at least 16 is how nice it will be to take that out of the equation. There won't be that nervous feeling of...is he going to kiss me now, should I kiss him and so on. It's not an option so there's no need to worry about it. 

After we had the talk Justine's mom asked if he had anything he wanted to ask us. They are Filipino and she was insisting that he do things the Filipino way. Justine was so nervous he was like a deer in the headlights. He was trying to figure out what he wanted to say and how to say it respectfully. Finally after a bit of encouragement he looked at Michael and said, "Mr. Michael" and then looked at me and said, "Miss Lyndsay can I date your daughter?" His voice ended up going up during the word 'date' and so he immediately berated himself and said, "Why did I say it like that?" 

It was so cute! Of course we said yes and then went onto to tell him that his mom has raised an upstanding young man. He's very kind and respectful and just a overall good kid. Of course he is....if he wasn't Ella wouldn't be interested in him. 

After that he and Ella went out on the deck so he could officially ask her. It took him awhile, but he finally asked, "If she would do him the greatest honor and be his girlfriend." Awww!

After they came in I got their picture. That's Justine's mom giving him bunny ears. She told him you know you can put your arm around her. 

Cuties! 

Just a few days later was Ella's choir performance on Friday, April 26th. Logan Ella's best friend and Justine got to come watch her. After her performance they weren't ready for Justine to go home so we decided to go on the hunt for some dessert to celebrate. After going to two Jack in the Box's and them not having cheesecake we decided to introduce Justine to Crumbl Cookie. 

While we waited for them to package up the cookies I snag a picture of them with Ella in her choir uniform. Justine had just cut his hair the day before and he looked so nice. He wanted to make sure to make a good impression since he was basically meeting all of Ella's friends that night. 

They love their peace signs! 

Logan was with us the whole weekend and she was completely okay with Justine coming over and hanging out on Saturday. They played pool together and we went to the park to play volleyball. 

Justine came over on Sunday afternoon as well....not only do they hang out together, but we usually end up playing some sort of game with them. I really appreciate that Justine likes to hang out with our family. One of the best things in my opinion was the fact that he was friends with the older boys first. They really like him and that speaks volumes! He also seems to be fine around Michael which is huge! 

 

This was their one week anniversary so we had to commemorate it with a picture! 

Just this last Sunday, May 5th, we were playing Five Crowns with him and I decided to take their picture. I commented on what a cute couple and showed them the picture. 

This was the picture! Haha!

Okay okay....they are a cute couple too!

Last year if you would have asked me if I would be okay with Ella dating at 14 I probably would have laughed in your face and said...NO WAY!!! This has been a really interesting process to me because it's just been lots and lots of conversations with my girl. Ella and I are closer than we ever have been...and it's having that open communication that has really made me feel okay with this. Also the fact that we set up boundaries from the beginning and they both know what we expect and they know they need to respect those rules. It also helps that neither of them have their driver's license. It's not like they can drive off alone somewhere. They are dependent on us to get them places. I have told them if they'd like to go see a movie we are okay with that, but we'll be at the movies with them....maybe not sitting right next to them, but just down the row a bit. If they want to go out to dinner we will take them and we'll just sit at another table in the restaurant. I know that some people will think we're nuts for letting our 14 year old date and then there will be other people that will think we're being overbearing with all our rules, but my response to that is...she's our kid! We know her and we are doing the best that we know how to keep her safe while at the same time allowing her to grow up a little bit at a time. 

House Sage 2024!

On January 14th, Ella & I were in Spokane visiting Logan. Michael and the boys were at home and they went to church that morning. When they came home from church Michael walked into the dining room and saw that it was raining inside our house. He immediately turned around and went to the meter and shut off the water to the house.  

Once he came back in the house he started filming for insurance purposes. I would never have thought to do this. 

This was the video he sent me that night. I think I was in shock after seeing this! 

When I got home on January 15th, I went around the house taking pictures. This is the dining room ceiling. It was raining from multiply places in the dining room.

 

The baseboards had already started to peel from all the water damage. 

The water just ran down this doorway. You can tell that it's swollen and the paint is peeling. 

The water poured down the wall right here in the kitchen and so the drywall is all bubbled up. 

This is the ceiling in the entryway. The water was pour out of that light fixture and it was still working. Michael said we were really blessed because a lot of times water like this can actually start an electrical fire somewhere so it's a good thing that he just came home to water damage and not a house engulfed in flames. 

Michael immediately filed a claim that afternoon. We got assigned a claims adjuster but as you can imagine there were thousands of claims due to the cold snap so the insurance adjuster couldn't come out and look at everything until January 25th. In the meantime we got the go ahead to isolate the leak so we turn the water back on to the rest of the house. Michael had to cut a few holes in the dining room ceiling to find out where the break was. He wasn't able to reach the break, but he figured out which pipes were broken and he was able to put on shut off valves so the only place in the house without water was our master shower. 

 

The remediation company sent someone out on January 22nd. She came and took a bunch of moisture readings and pictures of the house. She put a bunch of blue painters tape down on certain areas. I was sure she was going to be bringing in dehumidifiers and fans, but she said nope. She was just supposed to write up a report and then someone would be in contact. 

On January 25th when Jason our insurance adjuster came out he asked if the remediation team was finished with the demo. We were like...no ones even contacted us about demo. We were told someone would contact us, but nothing had happened. He was not happy about that and he got on the phone to the remediation company and the manager Sean came right out. He apologized for the mix up and he brought in an air scrubber to put in our pantry. 

That's what those cords on the dining room floor are for. By this time the pantry had started to smell so bad we had already removed the carpet that was in there...actually two layers of carpet. It was the nastiest smelling thing ever! This above picture was actually taken on January 31st....17 days after the water leak. You can see how buckled the flooring is in the picture by this point it had actually gone down since it was starting to dry out. 

This was the day the remediation company came to start tearing things out. I wanted to have before pictures so I ran around the house taking these. 

This first day they took some of the drywall from the dining room wall. 

A small section from this wall by the cubbies. 

They removed some of the flooring. 

Some more drywall from the kitchen. 

Some drywall from inside the pantry. 

They took out most of the flooring in the dining room. 

Then they set up all these fans and air scrubbers around the house. 

They were loud and they made it really warm in the house, but it was nice to see working actually being done. 

It was nice that they set up the plastic doorways to try to keep down on the dust. 

Upstairs in our bathroom they removed the damaged flooring. 

In the living room they only removed a portion of the flooring. 

This is where we started to get a little confused because they weren't removing all the clearly damaged materials. Their reasoning was because there wasn't any moisture present. Yeah....because it took 17 days for you guys to come out and address the issues. Of course there are going to be areas where the moisture is no longer present, but it was there at one point. Which means there could be mold lurking behind the damage materials. 

After a few days with fans and air scrubbers, we tried to put the house back together as best we could. 

Amazingly the china hutch and the kids cabins that are top of it were not damaged at all. 

While waiting to hear back from the insurance company about our concerns we got to work removing the rest of the damaged flooring in the living room. The subflooring under some of the flooring was clearly still damp. 

This wall is what really concerned us....they only removed the lower portion of the drywall at first because that was still reading higher levels of moisture. About a week after that initial removal from the remediation company, the mirror I had hanging on this wall came crashing down because the drywall had been softened from soaking up water. Thankfully the mirror itself wasn't broken, but the frame is. Michael knew that when it came to repairing this section he'd much rather have a clean line so he removed the drywall all the way up to the ceiling. That's when he exposed a bunch of mold!!! 

They weren't even planning on removing the ceiling which had been soaked with water. It was just a little maddening. Thankfully after reviewing our concerns...especially considering the mold and how Zeke is basically allergic to air...the insurance agent agreed that the remediation company should remove the damaged materials. The day we left for Great Wolf Lodge was the day they came in and basically took everything out that water had touched. 

These pictures were taken prior to us leaving...they had almost finished removing the ceiling in the dining room. 

They removed all the drywall on the north wall of the dining room. 

They removed all the drywall in the entryway. 

When one of the workers went on break he knew they were going to be removing this section next so he just stuck is hammer in the drywall. 

Here's what it looked like when we got home from Great Wolf Lodge. They also removed the drywall on the left side of the fireplace and thankfully because there was a bunch of mold back there as well. It felt really nice to actually be proven correct. We weren't being overdramatic or demanding we just wanted to make sure they were addressing the issue at hand in a correct and thorough manner.

Side note...one of the worker shut Charlie's cat door before they left. They knew we had an indoor/outdoor cat. I had specifically mentioned that he needed access to the cat door. Well, thankfully Charlie was inside at the time and not locked outside for days at a time. Our neighbor Jordan was feeding Charlie for us, but he didn't notice the door had been shut. Poor Charlie would much rather go to the bathroom outside so the poor cat was very confused he ended up peeing all over the downstairs. It was honestly a mess. Thankfully he didn't poo outside of his litter box. 

There was also some water damage behind one of my kitchen cabinets...you can see in this picture how it's pulled away from the wall. The remediation company broke that cabinet pulling it out, but we were pretty sure we could fix it easily enough. 

We had been trying to save our tile in the bathroom, but the subflooring had been too saturated so they ended up removing a portion of it. Later Michael had to remove the rest and you could clearly see that the subflooring under the parts he was removing were still damp. It was just so weird that they would only remove portions and not all of the damaged material. 

Ceiling and drywall all got removed from the entryway and even a portion of the wall up the stairs as well. 

Once the remediation company was finished Michael started getting to work. We knew that since they had to remove the ceiling in the dining room and entryway we would most likely remove all the ceilings. The kitchen ceiling was going to have to come down since Michael had already planned on completely replumbing the house and almost all the pipes in our house run through the kitchen ceiling. The office and living room would be the only rooms to still have popcorn ceiling so it seemed like if we were going to want it removed at one time or another now was the time to take care of it. Michael also wanted to go ahead and insulate between the floors since the ceilings were going to be all opened up. 

This was also going to be a time for us to change/fix things that had bothered us. When we first moved in Michael moved the doorway from our kitchen to our office, but when he did that he didn't really make the doorway wide enough. It's always bugged me. Also there was some electrical issues in this wall that Michael said had kept him up at night so he was going to address those as well. 

Since the pipe broke in our bathroom there was bunch of stuff that was going to have to get repaired in there. We were already planning on doing a major remodel in our master bath next year so that just moved up a bit. I have loved my jetted tub for almost 20 years, but it honestly just doesn't get used like it used to when the kids were little. I would take maybe 3 baths a year. The kids still have a tub in their bathroom so I was ready for this one to be gone. 

Chipping away at his first tile project and making way for where our new amazing shower is going to go. I'm so excited!!! 

Seeing Michael through the hole in the floor of the bathroom / ceiling of the dining room. 

The boys were such a good help with bringing down the tub. 

Here it comes! 

Out the door! 

One thing I've been wanting for years is recessed lights in our dining room. It's so dark in there with just the chandelier....we've always had two lamps in the corners, but still it isn't enough. Since the ceiling was open it was the perfect time to add them. I love how light it is now and we don't even have the chandelier up yet. 

Here's the doorway now from the kitchen to the office....it's so much bigger! 

Next it was time for the ceilings to come down in the office. Michael put plastic around the room to try to contain the dust. 

Then the kitchen ceiling came down. 

Which meant that my upper kitchen cabinets had to come down and they were put in the dining room. 

On February 19th, as I was organizing the kitchen cabinets in the dining room I needed to empty out the old pantry and this is when we found more mold. Michael immediately contacted our insurance agent. We also noticed mold in 2 other places....the corner of the pantry wall that butts up against the living room wall and the drawer kitchen cabinet that they broke had mold all over the back of it. 

On February 22nd, the remediation company came out again and removed even more drywall. They also threw away the cabinet that had mold on the back.

They took basically everything from the old pantry. 

We also finally felt heard and they removed all the saturated insulation from the basement ceiling. It was literally raining in our basement. Michael has a video of that too. 

Since we put recessed lighting in the dining room we decided to put it in the office as well. As first I bought daylight bulbs and they were so obnoxious I ended up returning them and got warm lights....so much better! 

Here's the basement ceiling with all the yucky insulation removed! 

At this point we placed a large order with Lowe's for all the new insulation in the basement. While we waited for that to come Michael started the process of replumbing the house. 

As he was looking at the plumbing for the kids bathtub / shower he saw that at one point there had been a leak and there was mold inside the wall. That had to go and the only way to get it out was by removing the shower. So not only is the master bath getting remodeled now the kids bathroom is getting a revamp as well. 

Saying goodbye to another tub.

In the beginning of this whole mess we were all taking showers in the kids bathroom, but thankfully by this point Michael had been able to bypass the break to get the master shower working again. Which of course was a very good thing since now we would all be showering in there! 

The first Lowe's order showed up on Friday, March 1st. The boys loaded it all into the basement. 

With all the rain and all the back and forth our poor lawn has seen better days! 

On Saturday, March 2nd, all of us minus Owen...since he works on Saturdays...helped with installing the new insulation in the basement. I forgot to mention that this was after Michael had fully replumbed the entire house. I didn't take many pictures during that portion of the work. We were able to get to get all the insulation installed in one day. It was exhausting! 

After the second Lowe's order arrived Michael started installing the insulation in the ceilings inside. It was so weird not having ceilings in the house. For one it was DARK...even though we had the same lighting it was dark. It was also hard to hear. The kids would be talking to me from the other room and I couldn't hear them clearly. When we would watch TV we'd have to turn it up so much louder than normal. I was so ready to have ceilings again! 

We also decided to bite the bullet and buy a drywall hoist. That thing has been a lifesaver for sure. We knew we'd use it a ton up here, but it will also come in handy when we finish the basement as well. 

Ceilings up in the living room! 

Insulation in the kitchen...time for the drywall! 

So much better!!! 

Since the remediation company had to remove more drywall Michael took it back to a point that made more sense in order to patch it in. It was nice for a time being able to see from my kitchen into my dining room. At one point I really wanted Michael to see if we could remove a portion of this wall, but it is a plumbing and electrical highway for our house. It could be done, but it would take a lot of work and a lot of money. 

Drywall up in the entryway! 

Tape and mud starting! 

Drywall in the dining room is up. 

And the kitchen! You can see into the old pantry that Michael added wood blocking between the studs. The other side of that wall is where Jack and Zeke's desks are mounted usually. It will be so much nicer mounting them this time around with all that wood to anchor in to. 

After what seemed like forever...we finally got approval from the insurance company for the remediation company to come back one last time to remove the flooring that was under our kitchen cabinets. On March 29th, they came back and in the course of removing the floor they broke our countertops and our sink base cabinet. When they left the house looked like this. I don't think I had really thought through the whole process because I completely forgot to have the boys do their job which is dishes. With the sink base being broken that meant the sink couldn't be reinstalled and the dishwasher couldn't run. This also happened to be the day before our church's Easter Adventure which I'm a co-leader in running the event. To say it was crazy is an understatement. 

Thankfully I have an amazing husband who after working at the Easter Adventure came home and fixed everything so it would work in the meantime. Of course now this means that the insurance company has to pay to for two cabinets to be replaced and new countertops. I think we are finally truly finished with the remediation work....praise the Lord!!! 

Mudding work started in the dining room. 

Here's how my dining room is set up with the cabinets around the perimeter of the room. It's actually not been that bad. For one Ella Bean has now become my sous chef. She runs around and gets all the things that I need from the freezer or the cabinets in here and it's made making dinner so much easier. In fact I've actually been trying a bunch of new recipes. 

At the beginning of April the only ceiling left to close up was the dining room ceiling which we couldn't do until we figured out where the drain was going to go for our new shower. After Michael and I laid out where we wanted things to go he was able to patch the bathroom floor with new subflooring and then start closing things up. 

On Sunday, April 7th, he put the insulation up and then drywalled the whole ceiling!

This was when the long long process of million coats of mud everywhere in our house started. Poor Michael....his hands have been worked so much during this process. Mind you he still has a full time job so he's been working almost every night after work. Every other week he takes Friday off so he'll get two days of work since he'll go to church that Sunday. On the weeks he doesn't take Friday off he stays home from church and works both Saturday and Sunday. He is just powering through trying to get it done. This isn't to say he hasn't had breaks...he definitely has, but it has been very taxing on him! 

At this point we had a restoration company come out that the insurance company recommended to help us restore the kitchen. It's literally their job to make wood looked aged so it will match the existing cabinets. The insurance adjustor contacted Michael and said that that the estimate for the two cabinets came in at $8,000!!! I couldn't believe it would cost that much for only two cabinets. This is when I made an appt with Lowe's.  

I met with the cabinet rep at the Lowe's in SouthCenter and for less than $8,000 we are going to get two new cabinets and we are getting replacement doors for the whole kitchen. The big cabinet behind the little one is our existing door. The one in front is the color we are going with. This one does have a glaze on it that makes the corners look black and we won't have that glaze. We also won't have this cabinet style they will be a simple shaker style. 

Right now as I type this I'm at Michael's water conference. I have an appt with the Lowe's rep on Sunday to finalize the cabinet order. I'm not sure how long it will take for everything to arrive, but I'm guessing around 6-8 weeks. It feels really good to be at the rebuilding part and there is still a ton to do, but it's getting there. Once we get home from the conference on Thursday, April 18th, Michael has to do a bit more mudding to do and then he'll start the sanding on Friday. We have a date night planned on Friday to go to Floor & Decor to hopefully pick out flooring and possibly tile for our master shower. After that the next steps are prime the walls, fix any areas that need to be address, texture and prime the walls again and then we'll finally be at the point for flooring! That seems like a huge milestone. We're still months out from being finished but each step gets us closer!