A Basement Update.

We have been at this basement remodel for a while now, and I have good news to report. It has been a very productive weekend. We rented an industrial grinder with a diamond grit head and sanded the cement floor down nice and smooth. It was a very messy job. I thought drywall dust was bad, but it had nothing on concrete dust.

Ryan is in there somewhere.

After the sanding we started staining the floor with a new product called acetone stain. You mix a powder substance with a gallon of acetone. It smelled just like fingernail polish remover. We applied it with a simple weed sprayer.

We let that dry for a day and then began to apply the sealer. We discussed this whole process with a few different people, but not one of them told us about the intense odor that came along with the sealer. We had to leave the house for about 6 hours. Thankfully Jill and Dustin took us in for the evening.

I must say it was all worth it. We love the finished product.

Ryno brings Keoni home to meet the Savages.

Ryno has been gone to Boise now for about 4 months. He has been dating an "amazing" (that's what Ryno says about her) young lady named Keoni. She is attending the same college, they met in his photography class. He was just dying for us to meet her so he invited her down and she didn't know us well enough to decline.

Ryno & Keoni

They got here and we had a couple of hours to visit before we met up my brother Jake and his family in the Tri-Cities for Pizza and Bowling. We figured if we were going to scare her, we might as well scare her big time.

Jake & Steph

The dudes figuring out the score.

Sooooo Cute.

The pressure of the game is just too much.

We had an awsome weekend with all our boys and Keoni. We hope we didn't scare her too badly

Christmas 2009

I am one of those people that just can't wait for Christmas to get here. I start planning for it and decorating for it way before it's politically correct. I would start even earlier than that if Ryan would let me. He keeps me rained in.

This year was as busy and crazy as usual. The festivities started on the 23rd with the Savage family gift exchange. We decided to change things up a little and we had Italian food. That was kinda cool.

On the 24th we had the Raines family(that's my side) Christmas at my sister Jill's house. My Parents came down from Nampa ID for a couple days. It wasn't near enough time, but it never is. My Unlce Dave, Aunt Sandy, Cousin Crissy, Jenny and her new husband Jared and baby daughter came by for dinner. We had a wonderful Prime Rib that Jill and Dustin made. It was sooooo gooood.



Finally the big day had arrived Christmas Day. The day that the boys get to open all of their gifts. The hard part was that we had to wait for Ryno to get there. Colby and Cameron only had to wait about 15 minutes, but you would have thought it was a couple of hours.

This is a picture of Colby & Cameron showing me their impatient faces.

Colby's surprised face.

Cameron's surprised face.

Ryno's version of the surprised face. They all need a little work.