Camping and Floors

Well, the boys did it. They managed to spend their first night away from their beds since '05 and '06 (Connell was 10 1/2 months and Liam was 4 months their last time away from home). Ray went camping with them at Lake Elmo Park Reserve along with the Schultz/Tong and Hoffman families. They (the Hagens) made it one night in threatening weather but came home during the downpour the following afternoon. They slept in sleeping bags in a simple tent -- no camper, no cots, nothing. The campers on the next site were uncouth to say the least and had their radio on all night long. Ray got very little sleep although the boys were pretty knocked out.

I joined the group from about 9:30 am until 2 pm on Saturday but the rain put a damper on any fun outside activities for most of the afternoon. It was freezing cold (about 60 degrees and windy and rainy) and so not the best weather conditions for June 11th-12th.

Since camping is not my cup of tea, I stayed back Friday eve. While they were gone, I worked on a long overdue project. I stripped the vinyl kitchen floor. We knew for a while that it needed to be done as patches of light were peeking out from under the build-up. You can see in the photo how dingy they had gotten over the 5 years and what an improvement I made. I figured no one would notice the difference once the entire floor was done, so I had to take photos as I moved along the kitchen floor to prove it! Isn't the difference amazing? That is build-up that the regular cleaners never got off over the years and made the floors dark and dingy. Now they look fresh and clean -- for a while at least. I used professional strength stripper and it took a lot to get through all the grime that we had! I really do love the vinyl flooring that we picked out 5 years ago when we redid our kitchen -- it just has a slight marble look to it which I like so I would like them to last a few more years.