Ninety Years of Bill Brady

The second weekend of June, the Houston faction of the Brady bunch packed up our boots, babes and bags to head to South Bend for an epic birthday party.  On June 8th my incredible Grampa turned 90 years old.  Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting him knows that he is one-of-a-kind and to say that we are blessed that he is ours is absolutely the understatement of the century.  On Saturday June 11th, we threw a bash in his honor.

We had far too much fun and there are far too many stories, pictures and laughs to recount them all.  I don't see myself stringing together another 30 minutes on a lunch break for quite some time, so I'm going to try to squeeze it all into one post.  To help aid your understanding, I'll break it down into the phases of any good party experience.  Here we goooooooo...

THE GETTING READY
So, this was our first trip on a plane with the girls.  This big milestone was to immediately followed by their first time in a rental car and a 2.5 hour drive from Chi Town to the Bend.  Are you jealous yet?

To keep the Martin Family Income Statement afloat (this is an actual excel spreadsheet that my husband produces, by the way), we snagged tickets through Spirit.  This meant awful flight times, an extreme amount of time Googling travel hacks and an absurd amount of  time spent worrying by Ryan & I.  I am pleased to report that it was all basically for naught though because the girls did extremely well on the plane.  The car ride was a different story, but hey- all's well that ends well, right?  (The Hertz employee who was left with Brynnie's crumb-filled carseat may feel differently.)

Grampa's 90th was at a barn and featured his line dancing teacher coming to show us all how it's done.  Obviously boots were in order.  I'm thankful I took this picture pre-packing because Brynn has yet to leave them on for long enough to take another one.

They're looking a lot more awake than I was feeling at 4:15 am.  (Parent Tip #437: Leaving them in their jams does not incite sleep.)

The grass is always greener on see-see's (sissy) side.

This photo was taken approximately 2 minutes after take off.  At 3.5 minutes after take off, Ryan opened a bottle of water and the pressure caused water to spray all over Brynnie, waking her up, never to return to sleep again.  (Ok, maybe she did sleep at like 7:30 pm that night.)

THE PRE-PARTY

This picture was taken about 3 minutes after we got to Grampa Brady's house.  If you know my Em, you know what a feat it was that she warmed up so quickly.  I was so proud of her.

Another day, another state, another tool to be used.  Here's GC cleaning up Miranda & Trav's barn.

Be still my heart.  Watching these 7 (Brynn was napping screaming inside) brings back so many irreplaceable memories I have as a kid with my Indiana cousins.  Left to right we have Ellie (1), Ava (9), Stockton (1), Shiloh (6), Tripp (5), Lucy (3) and Emery (3).

I think I have roughly 1,000 photos of this event on my phone.

Lucy looks skeptical of Em here.  I don't blame ya, girlfriend.

Pawpaw Jim and Pawpaw Tom teaching Ellie about the important things in life- like tools and tractors, I'm sure.

Caddy & JJ getting their swing on.

This looks totally natural, right?

Sharing invaluable insights on Peppa's First Sleepover.

One of the days leading up to the party, the men took the children to the zoo while the women crafted.  It appears it went well.

Em was really working on getting Pawpaw Brady to eat out of the palm of her hand.

THE FIESTA

My little cowgirls.  (Brynn, I'm going to charge you $14 for those boots once you get an allowance, child.)

Miranda makes Martha Stewart look like a slouch when it comes to crafting.

I wish I would have taken a picture at night.  I was, however, otherwise disposed as you'll read later.

You have a fake on you, cousin Ashleigh?

Baby's first red solo cup.  Put it in the scrapbook.

So this is the line dancing portion of the evening.  Please take note of how much harder Ryan seems to be working than everyone else.

The line dancing version of running man?

Brynn showcasing some moves she did NOT get from her father.

The Pawpaws playing grill master.

Boot cake to pay homage to Grampa's love of line dancing.

And an Eiffel Tower to pay homage to his years (and years and years) of teaching French.

I am pretty obsessed with Miranda & Trav's property.  The barn is where we held our shindig.

My Grampa is truly the coolest.  It's impossible to look at this picture and not smile.

Mamcita and Patty making sure he gets all those flames out.

I think maybe I was meant to be a farm girl in a different life (but without the early rising, manual labor stuff).  Did I mention I was obsessed?

Cheers to 90 incredible years.

The whole crew.  Left to right: Paul, Stockton, Kara, Travis, Miranda, Shiloh, Ava, Ashleigh, Kyle, Ellie, Lucy, Nonnie Jan, Pawpaw Tom, Tripp, Grampa Brady, John, Nennie Jean, Matt, Nonnie Kathe, Emery, Dad, Me, Ryan, Brynn, Julie & David.

THE HANGOVER/STORIES FROM LAST NIGHT

Memorial Day Weekend 2k16

Hello from the other side.... of summer.  I suppose now that it's nearly O-V-E-R I should get to documenting it, huh?  You know my M.O. when it comes to the summer holidays.  I spend too much time relaxing, gorging and chatting which inevitably leads to horrendous documentation and a random smattering of photos.  I regret to inform you that summer 2016 I did not turn over any new leaves.  Let's get to it, shall we?

Right before the holiday weekend, Conroe and its neighboring suburbs were hit hard with rain.  The lake level got up higher than it's been since my parents have owned their house there and it was breathing down the neck of historic levels.  This was very unfortunate but led to this awesome picture of my Mom rescuing Matt's canoe (kayak?).  I have no doubt she'll be SUPER pumped I put this in.  (Love you, Mom!)

This was the view from my parents' walkway down to the dock on Saturday.  You can tell by all the mud that the water came all the way up to the edge of the walkway.

My tribe*

Cheese?  Nah, I'm good.  Cupcakes?  Gimme, gimme.  That's my GIRL.

Clearly we had offended Emery.  Probably by refusing to let her play on the iPad.  As any good sister would, Brynn supported Emery's cause by laughing.

Probably talking Pawpaw into downloading the YouTube kids app.  These two are trouble.

Brynn's love for da-dawgs knows no bounds.

I hope you all had equally family-, fun-, and food-filled weekends.  The sincerest of thanks to all those who have, do, or will serve.  Nothing would be possible without you!

* The use of this term is in no way meant to imply my agreement to Ryan's self proclaimed Native American heritage.

Home Sweet Home Reno: Month Eight

On April 21st we hit the 8-months-of-renovating milestone.  I would deem this the month of sheet rock.  While it was originally slated to take 1-2 weeks to get the walls/ceilings closed back up, textured and trimmed out as with most things reno- the timeline expanded.  By the end of the month though we were I---I thiiiiiis close to being able to start paint.  EEEEEE.  That's yet another huge mile marker for us.

This month errrrrrr'yone pitched in- Nonnie included!  Non had a few bonus days off of work and so she spent them at the house helping to put up bead board, keeping things tidy and helping my Dad's hammer to mysteriously walk off.  Is that not everyone's dream way of spending extra time off work?

As you'll see in the pictures below, things are really starting to come together.  I can't emphasize enough how hard everyone has been working and what it means to us.  I'll write a big sappy post at the conclusion of this project, I am sure.  So I've been working to save the sentimentality for that, but this month really makes it tough to keep a lid on it.

Accomplishments:

• All sheet rock hung
• All sheet rock taped and floated
• All sheet rock textured
• Ship lap completed in living room built ins
• Fluted trim removed in living room built ins
• New trim installed in living room built ins
• Ship lap installed behind Emery's vanity
• Ship lap installed behind Brynn's vanity
• Bead board installed in Emery's bedroom
• Bead board installed in Brynn's bedroom
• Ship lap installed on living room side of kitchen bar 
• Stairs to attic on 2nd floor replaced
• Stairs to attic in garage replaced
• Old base demo-ed from main living area
• New base installed in main living area
• Crown molding installed in main living area
• Chair rail installed in main living area
• Door trim, jambs replaced as needed
• Banister stained
• Ship lap in breakfast area started

Purchases:

• I know this is getting to be a broken record... but lumber

In the Pipeline:

• PAINT!
• Picking countertop for master bath
• Purchasing countertops

Finally getting to see the new dining room opening closed up in sheet rock.

Sheet rock.  I know it isn't as pretty pre-tape/float/texture but I was really jazzed up about closing some things up.

So jazzed that I took this picture.

Can you tell I was digging the new dining room enclosure?

The home of future pocket door #2.  The entrance to the bathroom (which is the one on the right) is enlarged.  The entrance to the toilet room (the one on the left) used to be perpendicular to the entrance to the bathroom.  Moving it here allowed us to put the light switches immediately within your reach when you walk in as they used to be where this pocket door will be.

Phase 3 of the built in re-do.  Hard to tell here but all that's missing is crown at the top of the bookshelves and removing that fluted casing to replace it with something simpler.

On the days you think your job is hard, just refer to this picture.

Em was very amused by "Pawpaw's friend" and his shoes.

GC and I spent an entire afternoon trying to organize how much trim we needed from ProBuild.  Things got complicated as you can see.

Pawpaws friend doing some skimming.  This was one of my first views of the entire kitchen area closed back up.

New casing: check.

Ship lap behind Emmy's vanity.

View from the front door of the extra sheet rock new kitchen opening.

Bead board in Brynnie's room (with a side of ship lap behind her vanity).

While the sheet rockers were at lunch one day, GC borrowed that massive ladder and took down the foyer light.  People really need to stop leaving their ladders around him.

Bannister after it's first coat of stain.

The bar into the kitchen getting gussied up.

Bead board in Em's room.

New stairs to the attic installed with love by Jimmy James and Ryan.

Santa's workshop.  Also doubles as American Ninja Warrior: Toddler Edition.

More ship lap.  Because I love it.

GC admiring his dining room handiwork.

More of the dining room face lift.

If seeing all this progress made you tired- don't worry you aren't alone.  Here's our guard dog hard at work.