Around the Home

WE ARE DONE with our quarantine projects! We wouldn’t have spent this time any other way, but there is something to be said about the feeling of accomplishment after major projects, eh? Completely worth it and I would do it all over again (though I hope we don’t have to for awhile :)). We learned so much over the past few months and being able to do these projects with my best friend, and we are STILL married after them all, says a lot! We don’t always like each other at certain moments, but we sure do love each other and in the end, we grow and learn all the more about each other. So here’s what this past crazy week looked like:

Inground pools need to be painted every 5 or so years (depending on the paint) and it was time for ours to be painted. That obviously means we had to completely drain our pool so we could do so:

It is a very odd feeling to stand in the deep end of your own empty pool!

Then it was time to paint it:

The finished product:

Meanwhile, on the rainy days, Mazy and I made homemade elephant ears, after LOVING the ones we ate during what should’ve been Tulip Time Festival, from a vendor! I will share the recipe coming up!

So another project we’ve been doing is scraping, priming, and painting an old farmhouse for some friends of ours! I LOVE to paint and Dan is my heights man, so we like to tackle projects together. The weather wasn’t always the best, but we sure learned a lot while doing this project too and oh the satisfaction to see it complete! We are so grateful for the opportunity to do this and as you can see, Mazy didn’t mind riding on the lift either:

As you can clearly see, I am NOT up there! Kristin doesn’t love heights 🙂

The day we finished up our projects, I took Mazy to the Grand Rapids airport, which is one of her favorite destinations. If you know Mazy, you know she is VERY sensitive to loud noises. So anytime we went, we always had to stay in the car, which was fine with me. I don’t want to make her do something that makes her ears hurt (as she says). But this time, it was GORGEOUS outside, and she saw a few kids playing, so she wanted to have fun too. So we stepped outside the ole van, and she did GREAT! I had to hold her tight when the planes took off and landed, but she was just ECSTATIC that she was brave enough to be outside. And oh, we also needed to roll down the hill in the meantime…

I often tell Mazy that she has the best sense of humor…point in case…

When ya waterslide down the deep end of the pool, ya sure ain’t gonna get back up easily! So here’s Dan’s makeshift tow rope:

I’m not sure it was even 7:00am at this point, but there Mazy sat in her winter boots and pajamas, playing the sandbox!

 

Taking a break from our first pool party with the cousins to go play at the park:

Believe it or not, they all swam, which kudos to them! The pool was 50 degrees (yes, you read that correctly)! While warming back up, the girls played Candyland, poolside:

And nothing beats watching the new popcorn machine pop it’s first kernel:

This warmer weather has done wonders for our pool! Thanks to our solar heaters, we were able to raise the temperature of the pool almost 10 degrees in 1 day! Nothing like efficient heating, right? We are loving being able to see a few more people here and there, and at the same time, are so thankful for the time we had during this quarantine. I feel I could write a whole blog post on this idea in and of itself, but God has provided in so many ways during this time! As I often say, “I could write another book…” about the ways God has provided. We are eager for summer, in whatever way it may look, because we know we don’t hold the keys to our future. Nor does a virus. GOD DOES. And we are living in freedom, knowing that truth and reality!

On a side note: I thought I would give a quick heart update! I began a new med called Entresto (I’m sure many of you have seen commercials for it), and it’s going okay! I get really tired at times, my blood pressure is rather low, but not to the point of having to go off of it, and my kidney function is down (which isn’t good), but it can take a few weeks for the body to regulate. I’ve had nasty headaches, but nothing that Tylenol can’t take care of! I’ve only been on it for a week, so we are hoping for slow improvements. This medication has proved to really help in battling heart failure, so I’m hopeful that I can still stay on it. Kristin rarely does well on med changes, which can be frustrated, but I so want this one to work out, so I want to keep pushing through it, knowing that the symptoms will hopefully subside. Overall, I am still feeling good, which is just SOOOOO (I could add 1,000 more “O’s”) good! My friends, it’s been a long journey. And the thought of starting a new med wasn’t appealing at all. But I want to do what’s best and so far it’s been going okay, which we are so thankful. All of this just makes me not take any day for granted! To be able to walk to the park with my daughter the other day, I couldn’t have dreamed of doing that last fall. Brings tears to my eyes to think of the struggle last fall was. But God has been SO GRACIOUS to us and we just pray that I continue to feel good. If I continue on this trend, this will be the first summer in 3 years that I have felt okay. So the first summer since we moved back to Michigan! To say that I’m eager and PUMPED beyond words, is an understatement!

Thanks for letting me get that all out…but in all of this, just see the power of GOD! May his name be glorified and praised!