Extreme Home Makeover: Family Edition

For Thanksgiving break this year, the Skousen family loaded up the cars, trucks and SUV’s and headed to Mesa, Arizona.

Our lovely Aunt Dina lives in Mesa and due to some plumbing/flooding/years and years of wear and tear, her house was in desperate need of some TLC.

That’s exactly what we gave it.

We learned to paint, cut-in, spackle, blend, edge, tape, sand, scrape, gut, hammer, mud, scrub, screw, sand, repaint and so much more.

We did it all.
In under four days.

From sun-up til the late hours of the night, the little house was filled to the brim with family.

We had Miyasaki’s, Rust’s, Skousen’s and Horito’s tackling this feat from the inside out.
I believe there was a total of 53 of us. Not bad eh?

We arrived Wednesday night and got to work on ripping out carpet, spackling holes, scrubbing down walls and a million other things.

By Thursday morning we had gutted most of the house and got to work on scrubbing and sanding cupboards. We also started painting all the rooms. 

I love this first picture of Grandma down on the floor scrubbin, what a woman!

Paint. Paint. Pain. Paint.

We were sure to take breathers every so often.

We did take a quick break to enjoy a fabulous traditional thanksgiving dinner complete with my personal favorites: Pomegranate jello and onion casserole. By the end of our feast we were all sprawled out across the entire church passed out on the carpet, face down. Then it was back to work til 10 pm.

Friday morning came and so did a whole nother set of assignments. Again we worked and played and ate all day long.
P.S. We ripped out all the toilets of the house and therefore often heard shouts of "I'm going to Home Depot, who needs to use the bathroom?" What an adventure.
On Friday night, the Mexican Food God's visited us and fed us homemade carnitas. So good. So needed. Then back to work.

By Saturday morning we were worn out. But there was still work to be done. Carpet to be put in, fridges to clean out, cupboards to re-paint, hardware to install, furniture to be cleaned and moved back in and so much more.

My family left at about 6pm that night. The house had been transformed. It was amazing!

I can’t think of a better way to spend Thanksgiving than surrounded by family, immediate and extended, working side by side for a good cause. I got to know my cousins better and meet aunts and uncles I hadn’t seen in years. I learned so much about construction and about my family. Gosh I love them. This week has made me realize how blessed I am to live in the family that I do. I am indeed thankful for them and for this opportunity we had to grow closer together.

Thanks family!

Love, Noelle

Operating Heavy Machinery

Does this count as heavy machinery?

This is the beauty I learned to skillfully maneuver today.

Growing up with four big brothers got this girl out of ever learning the necessary art of lawn mowing... until today.

After a brief, "flip this switch, pull this stringy thing, unflip the switch and push" lesson, I was well on my way. I wouldn't exactly say that I find lawn mowing terribly enjoyable, but hey, it wasn't too bad at all. And best of all, I can add "lawn mowing" to my ever-growing (oh so slowly, but surely) list of useful skills.

I quickly grew weary of having straight lines and decided to add some pizazz to mine. Tangent: I just love our cute, little, red chicken coop seen on the right. It is currently chicken-less due to our recent move, but it'll be filled back up before you know it!

I'm actually kind excited for the grass to grow out so that I can practice a bit more and mow some cool design in the yard. That's about as artistic as I get... lines in grass. Oh, and I may have even gotten a little bit tan and been able to bask in the glorious smell of fresh cut grass while accomplishing this task. New favorite chore? Possibly.

On another semi-related-but-not-entirely note, I drove into St. George the other day, woooo!

Truth be told, I greatly disliked driving into St.George.

Sure I like to drive.
I like to drive down Moapa Valley Boulevard, going 55 mph and counting the cows and horses as I pass them.
I like to drive down the back roads in Logandale, discovering new streets and houses back there that I never even knew about.
I like calm Sunday drives and short drives to the store or the high school.

I am not a fan of the freeway.

It could be the fact that I haven't driven on it in over 4 years...whoops. It could be that I'm terrified of being in another car accident, or worse, causing a car accident. It could be that I'm not an aggressive driver and would be more than happy driving in the slow lane the entire duration of the trip. It could be that semis make me want to cry. Whatever it is, I've got to get over it!

If I'm going to get anywhere in life, I've got to know how to drive in the real world. Growing up in a small town and moving to go to school in an even smaller town (with out a car) didn't really help me out too much in that aspect, but I'm pretty determined to get my car driving capabilities up to that of my impeccable lawn mowing skills :) Wish me luck!

Love, Noelle

P.S. Only two more days til Derrick, Brittney and Molly get here! Yeaaaaaaah!