Ohio Trip 2009

This year instead of going out to see my family for the holidays, we decided to devote our trip to the room featured above. (Random picture, I know- but it's the only one I have that shows the true beauty of the amazing wall paper in my old bedroom. My favorite part was the grid of shiny white squares behind the amazing dashes of color)

We planned for months in advance to make sure everything was ready so we could finish everything. I sewed the curtains and pillows, painted a picture and got a few nice prints for the room before we left. It was so fun to plan! The trip was great- we got to see all my siblings but one. To help recall the whole week, I'm going to go day by day. Feel free to scroll down and just look at the pictures :)

Saturday: Our flight flew us into Columbus, so Andrew and Lauren picked us up and we got to spend the night in their home. It was so fun to see where they live and spend the evening with them and get to know Luke a little better.

Sunday: The next day we drove the 3 hour trip up to Novelty where my parents live. The room transformation could begin! Here's what the room looked like when we got there. My parents were kind enough to tear down the wall paper before we came. (boy do I hate tearing down wall paper) (Do you see how GREEN it is outside those windows? sigh. I miss the world where water falls from the sky for free...)

Monday: My dad took some time off work and the three of us went to the Amish flea Market, Cheese factory and Mary Yoder's (Mmmm.. I'm still thinking about that hot meatloaf sandwich covered in gravy...) Because, after all- not all of our vacation was going to be spent painting! Especially with my dad around- he's way too fun for that. Then we swapped-my dad went to work and mom can home from work and we went and did a big Home Depot run.

Tuesday: oil based primer on walls, painted walls, painted lots and lots of trim, painted more trim, painted, and painted, and painted

Wednesday: painted ceiling, painted second coat on walls and trim. Then picked up Mom from work and went to the Kirtland Temple! This is a big deal since Doug has been to my parents house quite a few times now and something has always come up to make it so he couldn't go inside. We were excited. They even brought us up to the third floor where Joseph Smith had his office- something I hadn't done since I was little (they stopped bringing people up there for safety reasons). It was a really good tour.



Here we are standing in front of what may or may not be one of Martin Harris' (Doug's great great great great grandpa) old homes. The tour guide told us it was. But then the owner came home and told us it wasn't. Hmmm. I guess we'll have to do a little research on that one.

Thursday: Worked on the room some more. It's all starting to blur together... can't remember what we did each day in the room....

Friday: Woke up and saw Marika, Nathan, Alisa, Christopher and Ella who had driven in the night before! Mom took the day off and we all went up to Cleveland State to watch my Dad give a lecture on his research. None of us had a clue what he said, but were all re-convinced that he is very, very smart. The students, however, did seem to understand him so it sounds like it went really well. We went home and worked on the room as much as we could so we could be done before we left!

Saturday: After a bit of work, the room is done! Well, as done as it will be before we leave. We were going to hang up all the art on the walls and bring in all the furniture and leave it all perfectly arranged.. but... instead we sat and talked to family who we probably won't see for a very long time. I say it was worth it.

Here's what it looked like when we left-

(Sorry for the horrible picture quality... I didn't get a chance to take these until right before we had to leave for the airport so I was a little hurried...)

These are the things to hang on the walls- the big mirror fits right into the big middle square on the side wall, a quilt made by my aunt will fit just right in the square above the bed. The picture of the flowers is the one I painted to go in the room.

Sunday: Fly home while trying not to think of how far away we'll be from everyone until next year's trip out there.