Yellowstone with Diane and Glenn

We had a great one-day trip to Yellowstone with Aunt Diane and Uncle Glenn while they were here.  Here are few pics from our fun day:


We started off with pics at Yellowstone Lake.  It was overcast and the clouds and the lighting were lovely for picture taking!

 We stopped to look for animals and I took this lovely picture of the open meadows.  It was especially nice the day we were there because there was so few tourists.

 We went up to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the waterfalls.  It was very beautiful.

"Hello.(pause) Hey, why are you calling me?  I'm in church."

 On the way back we got very close--too close--to a buffalo.  It was nearly at Aunt Diane's window.  I could see her pulling away from her side of the car.  He wasn't interested in the cars though, so we were just fine.

Dad looking for the wildlife!

Nearly finished

Several weeks ago I posted our bathroom teardown. Little did I know then how much work is involved--even in a small bathroom like ours! I thought the prep was a lot of work. And it was. The actual tiling was the easy part. Spread mortar on a tile and lay it on the floor. Easy, peezy. 

One thing I learned--I do not want to do tiling on vertical surfaces--namely walls, ever again. Too much leveling, and unevenness in the floor lines. Hard as I tried the floor dipped down and hence, the tiles had to adjust for that! Maddening! 

But then there is all the finishing work: namely, grouting, sealing, and installing the cabinet, reinstalling the toilet and connecting the plumbing! 

Dad was good to do all the plumbing and all the prep work. That only left me with finishing. I decided before putting the trim work up that I would paint the walls. That way I could make a mess and not worry about having to clean up the edges. The problem was that parts of the wall had large spaces where the plaster seemed to be missing. That and a few other pock marks and indentations where the wallboard had been made me decide to go with an uneven look. Embrace the texture, so to speak. So I tried this tissue technique I had heard of. Check it out. 

You paint the wall with a coat of paint, then you crumple up that white wrapping paper tissue that you use at Xmas into a ball, then unfold it, and lay it on your wet wall. Then when it has enough folds, or creases and personality, you paint another coat over it to adhere it to the wall. It comes out great, and very uneven, which is actually a plus. I like it. Great texture.


So, all in all, for our first effort at tile work in our bathroom redo, I think it looks pretty good!