Plumbing goes awry

Well - As you know whenever you do any plumbing project it ends up being more difficult that originally planned. That is exactly what happened the other day. What should have been as simple as taking off the p-trap to retirieve Joshalyn's CTR ring turned into a much bigger project.
I have known that I would need to do something about the plumbing under the Bathroom sinks for quite a while. Well probably the first time I thought about it was 8 years ago. I always had hoped that I wouldn't need to worry about it. Since Joshalyn's ring was the first major thing to fall in there I decided I would look at it. What I found was that all the pipes under the sink leading to the wall were 1 1/2" pipes that had been cemented together using a 1 1/4" pipe as a connection inside the 1 1/2" ones. so there was no easy way to get them apart. (The only way is to cut or break them). So I went to Lowes and bought all new piping. Of course I then realized that I should have gotten 1 1/4" pipe for the bathroom and in that process realized that the bathroom had really only been plumbed for 1 sink.
When I realized that I had the wrong size pipe I decided that I would go ahead and install a new pop up drain. To match the faucets that we already had I would need to get a brass one. Well I found that I could buy a fairly inexpesive faucet for $3 more that it would cost for the pop up drain. But that would mean that instead of brass we would now have silver faucets and drains (which I like better anyway. It turns out Lynette wanted the brass look but it is too late for that, everything is done.) In replacing the faucets I found that the old owner of the house had used copper pipe for the water supply. That was fine except that I came up about 2" short and the copper pipe didn't meet the faucets water supply pipes. So back to Lowes to get new water supply hoses. Long story longer, I then realized that I needed to get a splitter of sorts (I guess it's called a "T"). What I needed was to be able to run water to 2 different sinks. I picked 2 up (one for hot and one for cold). It turns out I thought I had the right size but I was wrong, so back to Lowes I went. I really don't know how many times I visited that store but at one point I worried that someone might recognize that I had been there quite a few times and wonder what was up and start watching me. What should have taken just a couple of hours ended up taking about 7 or 8 hours. It was Columbus Day. For those of you who don't celebrate Columbus day, because you really didn't know it was a holiday, I work for County government so we get it off. It was this last Monday. So that is what I spent my holiday doing. Anyhow I hope your Columbus Day was as good as mine.

In working on this project I thought of another project that I had done where I was replacing the lever in the shower in the master bathroom. While researching how to do that I found the following link. Before I give you the link I want to warn you that there is at least 1 time where the lady drops an "F" bomb. And while I admit that it wasn't necessary for the story she told If you can get past that I think you will find her experience hillarious. http://frectis.net/?p=673.

Hyrum rides his bike

Hyrum learned how to ride his bike without training wheels in ONE day! He was shouting as he was riding, "This is soooooo cool!" Way to go Hyrum! Shad is very happy for him, because now he gets to have Hyrum's old bike. Joshalyn is happy for both of them. She was telling them how cool they were. Now we all can ride bike's together for a little while longer before the cold sets in. We should have worked with Hyrum this summer, but we didn't take the time since we were working on our house. It is fun to see these accomplishments whenever they are. Now we need to teach him how to tie his shoes. He can read 90 words per minute and do basic math facts, but he can't tie his shoes. What is wrong with his mother?!

Kayla plays the piano

We start at a young age here at the Smith house.

(Sorry it's sideways. I tried to change it twice).

Musician in my house

Lynette and I posted an ad on Craig's list to sell the remaining brick from our house. It took a little while for somone to finally buy some of it but the cool part of the deal is not that someone finally bought it but rather who it was that bought it from us.
Most of you, if not all of you will not recognize her name. Gayle Chapman. She lives even closer to the Boise Temple than we do and we are quite close. Gayle Chapman was the original keyboardist for Prince. You all, I am sure recognize that name. At one time she also fronted for a local Jazz band, The Frim Fram 4. Not a big deal but that was our brush with a celebrity.
She came to get the brick this past Monday night and I helped her load it into her van and we had a pretty good chat about everything from her working for/with Prince to what she does not to allergies and how to best deal with them. It was fun. I found out, and she told me, that even celebrities are just normal people like the rest of us.

The inside of our new addition

We have had many ask us to show pictures of the inside of our new addition. We added a bedroom and a study bringing our home to 2200sq ft with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and of course the study. We are enjoying the extra room so far and look forward to working on the yard and making improvements to the rest of the inside in the next few years as time and money permit.

Top to bottom - study, bedroom closet, doors to study, entrance to bedroom, hallway to garage, part of entry, new front door and entry way.

Joshalyn's Baptism

Joshalyn was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on August 3oth and confirmed on August 31st. She was very excited and has been looking forward to this day all year. She has been learning about baptism and has watched several of her friends be baptized. We are very proud of her for choosing to follow our Savior Jesus Christ and His example. Many of her friends and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins came to witness this event. There were some who weren't able to come and we missed them being here. Joshalyn said the water was so warm like Grandpa Herzog's swimming pool.

Back to school

The kids started school on August 25th. Boy were they excited. Not only was it Hyrum's first day of school (he's in kindergarten) but they just finished the new school. They are both excited because there are new rooms and new teachers and probably most important there is new playground equipment.
Since the Boise school district changed the boundaries for the various schools this is an exciting year for both of them because they have teachers that came from different schools as well as students/friends that come from different areas also. That means that they get to meet more people than they would otherwise have done. There are between 550 and 600 students in this new school. That is almost double the number of students that attended the old school.

Obviously Shad isn't in school yet so why is he in the picture. Well he just loves to have his picture taken. He is cute and it's a nice picture of the three of them together. I think he misses Hyrum while he is at school. He sure loves his big brother (notice that they are holding hands in this picture).