Renovation update - Getting Close!

We are nearing the end of the renovation!

Last week lots happened:
-light fixtures were installed
-flooring was installed
-toilets, sinks, faucets, etc were installed
-painting is...well, ongoing
-new stone was added to the fireplace
-appliances were delivered
-decking was added to the front porch

Move in is scheduled for next weekend.

Here are some photos:

Renovation update - porch "addition"

There's a porch! Sort of...

Renovation update #3

Things are progressing along nicely (well, we were out of town for the last 2 progress meetings, so we may just be blissfully oblivious to all the things going wrong right now). Here are some photos of the new addition:

Inside, they have framed all the new rooms, but it's hard to tell from the photos what is what, so I'll post the inside when there is a little more to see.

Thankfulness - Renovation, part 2

Today, on our drive home from our Thanksgiving get-away at Andrew's house, Paige asked us all to say what we are thankful for this year. Dave said, "I am thankful that you girls have been so well-behaved and easy-going, even though our living situation has been challenging over the last few months." There was a short period of uncomfortable silence, followed by Rylie saying, "are you being sarcastic right now?"

Wall asbestos removal is finally finished, and the house looks really strange with the walls down. We thought the asbestos people seemed a little too bored, so we invited them back to take up the asbestos flooring in the kitchen, which was under the hardwoods. Our builder was impressed that we had it in both the linoleum AND the floor tiles that were hiding under there all those years.

The excavator should begin today, and, pending any weather delays, the foundation for the addition should be poured next week (while the second round of asbestos remediation is taking place inside).

Renovation, part 1

The year of 2017 has been all about changes. We sold our Ashburn house back in June, and bought the place I have always thought of as "home." This meant that the Heironimus family had to clean out 40 years worth of stuff that accumulated in the house, and, if Dave is asking, only "a little" is currently boxed up in the basement waiting to be unpacked (he's going to be really excited about the Smurf glassware set from the Mobil gas stations of 1980).

Since only moving isn't quite crazy enough, we also decided to tackle a renovation/addition project on the house.

Here are the plans for the project:

This is the current house, the dotted lines are walls that will be moved/removed.

Here's what it will look like after the work is completed.

Of course, no project is ever complete without a few "tiny hiccups," so here is the current status of the project:

Hopefully we'll be back on track, starting next week, and it'll be smooth sailing to our end of February completion date!

Open letter to our fans

Dear Fans of The Lynch Family,

I want to start out by apologizing for the total lack of posting to our family website. Also, all the links to our photo albums recently stopped working (thanks, Google), thus making our website a total waste of the interweb. However, I have repaired the broken links, and here I am, making a post!

Basically, we have been busy. Since our last post, Paige started and finished first grade. Rylie started and finished pre-k. Paige completed her last year of Daisy Girl Scouts and bridged up to Brownies. Both girls attempted softball. Both girls competed on a summer swim team. Izzy got more gray hair around her snout.

At the end of August, Paige started second grade, Rylie started kindergarten, Molly started her 14th year of teaching, and Dave....well, nobody really knows what Dave does for work.

Here's our fall schedule:

Sundays - Both girls attend Sunday school in the morning, and I (Molly) may or may not have just volunteered to be her teacher (it's unclear). Paige has swim team in the evenings.

Mondays - Paige has softball games in the evenings.

Tuesdays - Paige has softball batting practice in the evenings.

Wednesdays - Rylie has musical theater classes in the evenings.

Thursdays - Paige has softball practice for 2 hours (!) in the evenings.

Fridays - Rylie has swim lessons around lunch time. Paige has Brownie meetings in the evenings.

Saturdays - Paige has softball games in the mornings.

Rylie will be starting Daisy scouts once the troop has been created, so we'll squeeze that in there somewhere once that starts up. Add in a few birthday parties, family gatherings and other going-ons, and we basically live in our car. The girls love being busy though, so it's all good. I should wrap this post up so I can head out to Costco to gather the ingredients for our meals-on-the-go that we will eat this week. Hope everyone is well.

Molly
Head of the Lynch Household

Dream time

Our girls could not be more different, in personality. A few days ago, they both shared their dreams from the previous night. Here they are:

Paige:
"Mom, I had a bad dream. I was at a birthday party and you told me I could only have one piece of cake. But then a waiter guy walked by and he offered me a second piece of cake, so I took it. And I only had a few bites when you saw that I had a second piece of cake and you took it from me and threw it away."

Rylie:
"Oh, I had a bad dream too. There was a puppy stuck in a stroller, maybe with glue. The stroller was stuck in a tree, way up high. The tree was surrounded by hot lava, and I couldn't get to it."

So there you have it.