Real WET!!

Well, I still don't have a camera..its on back order and hopefully will arrive within a couple weeks. If I did, I would show you all a picture of our new lake in our backyard...I didn't know we necessarily wanted one, but looks as if we have one that continues to grow as the day goes on. The rain started yesterday and it doesn't sound like it is going to stop until Monday. Mom had knee surgery today, and I had planned on visiting here before going to work at 11 am. Fortunately, I was put on call because just when I was getting ready to leave I realized that unless my Honda turns into a boat I won't be leaving our street anytime soon! I'm hoping that the rain lets up a little bit..because Ben went to work at the elementary school this morning, and I'm kind of concerned how he will get home. The news just said that west wichita (where we are) has received 9-11 in" of rain so far...YIKES! I guess we should be glad we aren't living in Texas and we still have our home.

Labor Day Weekend

It was a bittersweet weekend for us...well, for me anyways.


On Saturday, we went to Marion Lake with some friends from Hesston College. One of them is heading off to live in Bermuda (must be rough) as he is starting a new job flying for a company down there. So we enjoyed an outing at the lake, and the weather was perfect. The not-so-perfect part was when we had a big splash come on board and absolutely soak the front part of the boat. That was where Ben and I, and my camera and phone were located. Needless to say, I won't have any pictures to post on here for a bit because it appears that I will be needing to purchase a new camera. Sad times :( But on a brighter side, my phone only temporarily died...and is now back to life again. These are what was left on the memory card (which survived the drowning).

Ben (below) and I (above) enjoyed wake boarding!!

Derek Christophel (left), Nathaneal Shue (middle, the one that's moving to Bermuda), and Chad Hershberger (right, not related). The couple sitting, Jason and Dani Roupp from CO.

Sunday, Mom and Dad Sweigart came up for church and then over to our house for dinner. In the evening, we went to Newton to hang out at Brent and Alyssa's and play the new Wii Fit!!! Brent had a pretty amazing find...not only did he find one for their family..but there was a second one in the store that he had picked up for us! It is quite the contraption, just let us know if you're wanting to try it out..it is like doing a workout in game form on the TV.

Then today, Ben helped with Dad's workers of Kansas Electric at the Lowe's job in Wichita. I think it's a fast moving job and they had a hand-picked crew to do some catching up over the holiday "non"-workday. After picking up pizzas for the guys that were working, I went to Hesston and spent the day outside in the pool with Mom, Alyssa and the three little ones. I was actually on call all afternoon and evening, but apparently pregnant women chose all of last week to do their "laboring". We finished the day with a delicious supper at Mom and Dad's with the Sweigart men and Ben joining the rest of us already there.

general happenings

I'm happy to say that the house projects are nearly complete! The painting (other than around the windows, which will be a fall project) is done...the gutters are on...and the mega tree that was chopped down in the backyard is very close to being all removed from all over the yard! So YEA!!! For what we wanted done this summer, it has happened, so that's a good thing. For now, these are the only pictures...due to a reason in the next post, bottom line..my camera is dead.

A general update on what we're up to now that the things on the house are not totally consuming our spare time. Ben is back in classes at WSU full time, and those are going well. He will continue to work at Cloud Elementary School, as he started last semester through a WSU program. This last Friday was his first day back this year, and he will be helping out in the first grade classrooms again. Then he will be starting another side job within the next couple weeks, painting a house of one of his boss's from his summer job. He had completed a different boss's house earlier this summer (these boss's are father and son..I guess they each wanted as good looking of a house as the other). As for me, I am still getting plenty of hours working at the hospital. Last week, I worked every day, some of them quite long hours. I'll be curious to find out how many twins we had delivered in the month of August, it seems like every day I worked there were more and more sets delivering..and at least 2 sets of triplets this month. I guess the statistic is true at least in our hospital, that the most babies are born in August. Hmm..anyways. So that's what keeps me busy...that and making sure Ben has enough food :).

Roof, roof, roof...done!

Just to caution you...this may be a bit long, but much has happened!!

Wow, what a week. The painting is underway beginning last week, but has been put as the lesser of priorities as you will see. Dad and Mom Sweigart came up Thursday to cut down the rest of the same pesky tree down to the trunk part. We were very grateful for that...and our backyard is just so lovely now, the chopped up pieces from the tree have formed a jungle of sorts for "decoration". Actually Matt Alison, Ben's friend came to complete the removal with a HUGE chainsaw...and now we just have to get rid of the entire thing by hauling it off.


Then..beginning Saturday morning bright and early we were up and on the roof. Throughout the morning wonderful helpers arrived...Dad (Phil) Hershberger, Derek Christophel, Sam (Ben's brother), Mitch (Jess's brother), Dad (Tim) Sweigart, and Mom (Mary Jean) Sweigart came with the nephews and niece. The weather proved to be fabulous for a roofing project and we were SO very happy. As projects go, you can anticipate what is going to happen...but you can also plan on that changing..and it did. Originally, we thought that maybe we could replace the "bad" pieces of decking and obviously all the shingles and such. Turns out, all the decking was pretty much terrible and was needing to be replaced. The good part of that is..the roof will be good and done right...the bad is that it takes longer and harder work. By Saturday night, the back and side front part of the house had the new decking and felt paper on it. We prayed it wouldn't rain...and thank God it didn't.

Derek (left), Mitch (bottom middle), Sam (upper middle), and Phil (right) all working hard!

Sunday, bright and early again we were up and at it again. Phil and Sam had spent the night, so we were on the roof by 7 ish. We took a mid morning break for church and gained more help for the afternoon. Mitch, and Jess's parents came up again. The shingles were going on the back side by Mitch and Sam, and the front was getting the decking completed by Ben and Phil. Mom even got up on the roof to see how it was coming...and to bring us Sonic drinks (I think that's her official task for every project!) Dad and I worked on getting the furnice stuff replaced that we discovered was very unsafe and had a hole in it, leaking carbon monoxide into the roof. So I guess another good reason we replaced all the decking, because we would have otherwise not known this. By about 6:30 the clouds were looking a bit suspicious and sure enough went ahead and let loose with rain...and every single body was moving at a faster speed to get the rest of the exposed wood covered with felt. All was well, and another full day spent on the roof, and I think everyone's body was feeling it in some way.

You can kind of see the gloomy clouds that soon let loose in the background

Mom is up for the final decking inspection, pointing out nails that need to be pounded

It still took Monday and until Tuesday noon to complete the roof...whew. Thank God that Phil stayed for the duration, we really appreiciated ALL his help!! I don't think roofing is really my calling...but was glad I could participate in the process. Ben and I worked on cleaning up the debris all around the house...and one of these days it will look "normal" again.

Isn't our yard so cute??

Almost done, Phil and Ben put the ridge on

(They let me nail the LAST shingle!!!)

Thank you again ALL of you who helped with this...we are so blessed...and as Ben said while cleaning up "Thank God, really...thank God."

Progress outside...

Step by step the tree and roof will be done before too long...we hope. Last Saturday was the planned "tree removal" day, and then it rained (quite odd for August). Mom and Dad Sweigart came up for some breakfast and we at least cleaned up the BIG ol' pile of branches that has been collecting at the side of our house for over a month. Then Dad just had to try out the bucket truck...just to see if it would fit in the backyard for a future tree removal day. Well, it just so happens he brought his chainsaw and I think he may have "tried" it long enough to get a good chunk of the tree down! For just having knee surgery the previous week, Dad demonstrated how stubborn he can be with all his help :) That evening we went to Harper to celebrate Ben's cousin, Jessica Penner's birthday and welcomed her back from a summer in South America.

This week Ben's been finishing up the trim work so the painting can begin. Yesterday, I started painting while Ben was at class. Hopefully the rest can get finished today and tomorrow. This coming Saturday is roofing day (and hopefully getting the rest of the tree down day)...I really hope the forecast is wrong, because it says rain again. I'm not complaining about the weather, but if I could get a little picky, I would prefer the rain could hold off until next week. Here are some pictures of the happenings outside...

Loading up the trailer with the first load of branches

This limb was a tricky one..it actually fell directly on the fence and broke it..but no one was hurt, and the fence is easily fixable.

Our "supervisor"...who brought us Sonic drinks!!

Big Day on Maus Ln

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad Sweigart!!! They've been married 32 years today. :)

Today has been quite an eventful one so far. To start it off, I delivered a baby at 6:34 this morning. I worked all night until 7:30 am and it was crazy busy. The lady came in by wheelchair, her water had just broke as she was walking through the parking garage door. As she was wheeling down the hall I could hear her pushing. She barely got into bed and sure enough lucky for me I had gloves on and out came a screaming baby girl (I think her name was going to be Nora..although I thought Jessica would be more fitting). So that was the start of the day (or end of yesterday really)...

After a few hours of sleep, my cousin Camille and husband came over as they are in the area this week. While we were visiting the shingle men came to drop off the load of shingles. That was fascinating how they unload...looked to be quite a bit more efficient than carrying them up by a ladder! Still during their brief visit I noticed the men from the electric company came to take care of the tree that needs to come down in the back yard. Remember...the same one that Ben thought was a good idea to tackle by himself. Well, I laughed outloud when I saw the number of people that it took to watch one man climb up the limb to cut it down. It was very ironic how one of the ten men standing there was criticising the man up in the tree, barking orders how it should be done, while they all watched him do the work.They only cut the one limb since it was the only one close to the power line. Hopefully, this Saturday the rest of the tree will be taken care of with a few extra pairs of hands and proper equipment. I didn't know all this activity was going to go on today. I wish I would have taken a picture of ALL the trucks that lined Maus Ln to take care of this nasty limb. Quite amusing..not sure why all of them needed to come. Here are some pictures just for fun.

I couldn't fit all the men that were standing around in the picture...but here they are "working" away!

The one pulling on the rope above, is the one in the tree...you can't tell but part of the tree is falling in this picture.

First Weekend at Home....Ahhh.

Well after all the travels of the summer we finally had a weekend to do whatever we wanted around the house. Saturday, we drove up to Hesston to borrow Jessica's parents truck and power washer. On the way home we picked up Ben's futon from the house he was living in before we got married. We were able to get the house pressure washed, and Jessica got started on scraping the trim. Hopefully this week the house can be primed and painted (its mostly brick, so its just the upper part and trim). Also, Ben worked on patching rotten pieces of the trim.

The plan is to re-roof the house the third weekend in August, so all of this is to prepare for that to happen. In the evening, we decided to rearrange the basement furniture because I guess we didn't have enough to do...

Mitch stayed with us for the night and Ben took him to the airport bright and early in the morning. He is starting his classes for his Masters in Business at University of Indiana, and needed to go out there for a week (most of the program will be done online for this year).

Sunday we went to church....and then relaxed!!! Ahhh..we actually drove up to Hesston for the afternoon and stayed near the pool (at over 100 degrees outside, it felt mighty good).