Care Package

We sent our first care package today. It's about a week later than intended but better late than never. Ally's birthday is tomorrow (really though it started a few hours ago because it is tomorrow in China but we'll celebrate her birthday on our 23rd). I'm sure I'll post something but not sure what yet. In the care package today was a letter to Ally, a letter to Ally's foaster family, a photo album of us, a disposable camera, some chocolate snacks, a dress and PJs, and a pink Vermont Teddy Bear in a dress. We hope she gets it first of all and that she gets it soon. Secondly we hope she can begin getting her heart, mind, and soul around us. Big changes coming for this little lady and for us too.

No word on anything out of China, and just wanted to reiterate that this would be pretty early for us to have heard anything. The wait is hard but knowing we that we will complete this journey helps a lot.

Still full bore at the home renovations. Basement is nearly ready for mudding sanding. We have had a longer than expected time planning the basement 3/4 bath, but are now ready to get that finished to the point of mudding and sanding too. Once the mudding is done I'll trim out the areas that need it and also construct two built in units, one for storage and game cabinet and the other is the home entertainment cabinet in the theatre room. When completed, we'll have created a theatre, rec room, storage area, work room and 3/4 bath in the basement. The boiler/mechanical room already existed. We will have added somewhere around 710 sqft of finished space.

the next project is to convert the old rec room above the garage which was roughly 500 sq. into two bedrooms, a hallway, and linen closet. The hard part about that is insulating and drywalling the garage ceiling. Some framing and electrical also but that wont be too bad. Once completed Zack and Beej will move to those rooms and Beej's room will convert to a study/office space and then Ally will get Zacks old room right next to ours. We will redecorate from the jetfighters first though. :)

That's it for today,
Jim