As we approached the weekend we started taking frozen meat out of the freezer and letting it thaw.
Friday night we made a big pan of curry and rice and everyone ate a bunch. Then Jon and I went over to Stooks house. He’d saved a big load of aluminum cans for us and we loaded them up to recycle for money. We loaded up the cans and hung out for a couple beers. We headed home and in the morning took the cans to the iron yard. Things started to go wrong at this point. First off I went to Jon’s house and he went to my house. Then once on the road we lost 2 bags of cans and had to run back for them and re-strap them all down.
Then we made it to the iron yard and dropped off the cans but the 360lbs of cans and an old boat battery were only worth $78.50.
We drove home and Jon needed a load of much so I went with him but on the way a trailer tire exploded on the highway over a bridge. We did a bit of maneuvering and got the trailer out of traffic and barely onto the shoulder. Jon had no spare for the truck or trailer. We got the blown wheel off and headed to my house. We tried to measure and find a tire off my truck, the van, Jon’s Focus and finally found his truck had the right number of bolts and they were apart the right space. We called 3 tire shops and no one had a used tire that would fit the trailer.
We got back on the bridge with Jon’s tire and the fender around the wheel would not let his tire on but we were able to bend it enough to get the wheel in but then found the big hub in the middle was too big and his wheel would not go on. We had no plan but got off the bridge. One of the tire shops had not answered so we went there and they were closed. We ended up heading down troost until we found a place with tire sign out front.
He didn’t have anything that was a perfect match but we found something close enough and got the new tire.
We rushed back to the bridge and the trailer was still there and we managed to get the wheel back on and hauled it out of there.
Jon headed off to get his mulch and I was glad to get away from the tire. I was way behind schedule for the day but fortunatly Pops had got a fire going in the smoker and it was ready to be loaded.
We tossed a bunch of meet on then ran to Price Chopper for a few things.
Once home, everyone was ready for lunch and the sausages were smoked perfectly. We ate then the girls laid down for naps and Heath went to see a show with her mom. Pops and I worked the smoker and ran around doing other projects. We moved a bunch of furniture around in the basement to expose the floor we are working on again. We took down 2 giant and quite heavy florescent lights in the basement bedroom and we wired up 3 new recessed lights in the great room.
The lights have been up forever but I had to do a bunch of research and questioning Jon before I was confident enough to wire up the 3 way switches for them. But after all the planning it went really smooth and they are pretty great.
Pops headed out to my sisters and I got the kids up and let them watch a movie. I got busy cleaning and working the smoker and before I knew it our house filled with friends hungry for BBQ.
The Sanders and Pottebaums helped get dinner ready and we finished smoking. I was pretty gross with sweat and insulation and smoke but made do. We had pork tacos and all sorts of other treats for dinner and hung out and had lots of fun. Once the kids were down for the night we played bartender. 
In the morning for some reason I got up way too early but could not get back to sleep. It worked out okay because there was lots of stuff to clean up and get ready. After breakfast Pumpkin and I headed to my work and everyone else went to Peanuts church performance. Pumpkin and I cleaned up all the stuff from the membership drive and then rushed home for Christmas lunch with Heath’s mom and siblings.
We got home just after the chiefs game started and rushed to help get things ready for lunch.
We ended up being on a different schedule then everyone else and just hung out eating appetizers and watching football for a few hours. Then everyone came and we had smoked turkey that turned out really good. Everyone was pretty worn out and we did presents and watched Home Alone and laid around on the couches. The kids started getting a bit rowdy so when everyone left we headed to a playplace. We let Pumpkin cash in her student of the month free meal and she was pretty excited.
After playtime we headed home and got to bed early.
Last night we all met up at Lowes after work/school and picked out a new ceiling fan for the basement bedroom and picked out some blue smoke paint for the walls in there. Then we headed home and ate some leftovers quick. Heath and Peanut went to visit a Boyscout troop to see if Peanut wanted to join, Pumpkin worked on homework and Bean and I got busy on the floor.
We started out with scrub brushes, hot water and soap. Then we shopvacked the flloor real good and I got her in bed. Pumpkin stayed up a bit longer and worked on the computer while I broke out the adhesive remover.
The floor we have already done has a little pattern from the glue on the tiles and we hoped to avoid this on the rest.
Following the instructions I spread some remover goo down on the floor, covered it with plastic and rolled it down, then waited 30 min and came back. While wet it makes the glue a liquid like tar substance but it quickly dries back into glue.
Each little section I did I learned and got better at smoothing out the floor.
But the stuff is really nasty and messy and ultimately I found it works great without soaking in under the plastic. It does seem to burn on contact with skin and kind of destroys anything it touches.
I got about half the floor done between last night and this morning. I’m not getting up all the glue but the floor does seem a lot smoother so once the epoxy is down I think it will be worth the effort.