Lifting My Eyes: That's one big kitchen!

And now we move on to DEMO DAY 1!

T's brother came to help out for the initial demo inside the house and it was a JOB. They gutted the entire kitchen and soon to be laundry/pantry alcove.

Before Pictures:

What you don't see behind those solid wood doors is a LOT Of water damage. The roof has been leaking in several spots for quite awhile so while these are solid cabinets, they all had to come out. Plus...we've never had our own new cabinets...that's kind of exciting :-)

What was once a breakfast nook, we assume...will become a pantry and laundry room.

After Pictures:

Side wall...you are looking at the door to the garage and what apparently USED to be the original doorway to the garage!

Check out that decking on a few of the walls!!! It's similar to shiplap and I WANT TO KEEP IT!! We have to figure out the best way to incorporate it, we will definitely keep it in the laundry/pantry area (replace a few of the boards that have old termite damage). You can see where the old door was to the garage :-)

If you know us at all, you know we love love love old things, we love leaving them intact when possible and updating when needed. I think these few walls are perfect as they are :-)

Previously, T found this treasure in the phone nook in the hallway...

Did I forget to mention there's a built in phone

nook? So cool :-)

Phone nook on left...has a nice cut out design under shelf...better photo to come!

And while we're at it...built in ironing board...which J2

had to ask what in the world that was. Yea, I'm not much with the iron...but

I LOVE old built in ironing boards!

Anyway...back to the treasure...we are thinking it's from the 50's due to the clothing on the man and the way the phone numbers are written (fun fact...I looked up the middle name on the list and he was born in 1935 and passed away in 2008 and attended the church at which J2 now attends school!). And J2 found the marble by the big oak tree before it came down.

While demo-ing the kitchen, the guys found these...um...treasures?

complete with a price tag of 39cents

The house already knows me so well

We have NO idea and aren't really sure we want to know

Ok, the glass bottle is way cool but we are all a bit scared to open it and clean out the unknown substance inside...

So while the brothers were taking apart the kitchen, the kids and I headed up to Longview for a few hours. J and I learned about an adaptive sports event at Lake Gladewater so we decided to head up and check on handcyles and see what else was available to see. We dropped the littles off with Grandma since she is just a few minutes from Gladewater and headed off. We missed a couple of events BUT we found out we can talk with the local AMBUCS about a recumbent hand cycle (which was our goal to check out!), super excited about that possibility. And then this happened...

Yep, J had the chance to try water skiing! It was AMAZING. This kid never fails to blow me away with his "I'll try it because I might regret if I don't" attitude even when he's a little nervous.

True to J-form, he struck up a conversation with a really great guy from Tyler who had been shot years ago and had a spinal cord injury and we also met one of the founders of the Power Incorporated non-profit that puts this event on annually. Judie was so inspiring and a wealth of information for us (including info on a possible new wheelchair company which we are hoping to purchase an upgrade soon so this was very helpful!). We are so glad we decided to head on up for a few hours. We also found out there are chances to kayak coming up and next summer they will have the Texas Adaptive Aquatics folks out closer to Tyler for another water event. So absolutely cool :-)

So back to the Ambucs...we had no idea Ambucs had ventured so much past the tryke J had when he was around 6 years old. Man, have they ever! We met Amy from Lufkin last Friday and J will have a hand cycle before Christmas! Those 5Ks will have nothing on him now :-) If you've never heard of Ambucs or know about the Amtrykes, definitely visit their website, it's a group well worth supporting :-)