New Driver and New Siding

Hello, All!-- (click on the pics for enlargement! Especially the house pics at the end :) )

TEST DAY. We now have another driver in the family! Kara took her Road Test early Saturday morning...and passed, Ding-Ding-Ding! She can drive herself places, and family members only, for the next 6 months.

We did have to finagle the timing, since the PSAT was scheduled at the high school for that same morning.
She got up bright and early and was FIRST in line. Starting at 6:30 a.m., she drove around with the driving school people for maybe 20 or 25 minutes. Then at 7 or so, she took the test. Awesome. Congratulations, Kara!! :) :) :)

She went from there, directly over to the high school to check in for the PSAT at 7:30 a.m. It worked, whew!

They all run across the field together, at the end of the game:
Kara is on the far right

SOCCER. Here are some pics of Kara playing soccer. I may have mentioned before, for home games they wear white, and for away games they wear black. Soccer cleats come in some amazing colors these days! Last year she wore these neon orange Nike cleats. This year she's wearing bright blue ones.

They had a game last night, and it was action-packed and the girls played really well. We didn't win...but it was a really good game, 0-1.

HOME IMPROVEMENTS. The before/after pics I wanted to show, are of our house. We have been in Massachusetts for 8 years 2 1/2 months now...we are approaching our ninth winter. (And yes, I'm counting. No use pretending I'm not.)

Over the course of those years, we have worked lots, and PAID to have lots of work done to this 1950 house in every room. This includes:

Cleaning out and making livable a nasty, old garage.
Full remodel of kitchen and bathrooms.
Painting. Almost everywhere.
Building a closet and hallway.
Building front porch steps.
Changing lighting.
Adding lighting.
Adding ceiling fans.
Changing all doors to 6-panel.
New front door.
Changing from oil heating to gas heating.
Adding heat/ac units to 2 separate rooms.
Adding French drains to the garage, and replacing drywall and flooring in the basement (remember our awful flooding year? I do.)
Widening the driveway.
Adding a heat zone upstairs where the MBR is.
New fireplace.
New slider doors out to the deck.
Stone steps down the front/side yard of the house.

This is my off-the-top-of-my-head list! If we went back and really looked, the list would be twice or 3 times that long. This is the backstory for the following...

LOTS OF HAIL. SO. Last August (2015) there was a quick hailstorm in Wayland. 15 minutes tops. It zipped on through, really weird. I posted pics in the blog then...here is Frank holding some hail, and you can see it in the yard.

Well, we had damage to the roof of the car, so in the next few months we had that fixed.

All of a sudden, though, there were roofers coming to the door every few days. "Can we do an estimate on your roof for hail damage? You might get some insurance money for a new roof!" Nah, nah, we didn't believe them so we brushed them off.

Then for some reason we decided to let them go up and look. They thought we could get a new roof, paid for by insurance. "I see dings on your siding, too. Why don't we see if you can get new siding?"

The roof company made their estimate and then the insurance guy came out. Guess what, both agreed that we could get a new roof AND siding! Wow, cool!

FRONT PORCH OVERHANG. Then we said "Well if you're taking off the roof and siding, we should actually get an overhang built over the front porch. We've always wanted that, and this is perfect timing for it."

Well. Things always take longer than you think they will. Estimates, carpenter appointments, blueprints, permits. Getting on the calendar. Things got pushed out and pushed out, so then it was December, then April...then June, then August again (2 months ago).

But it's done now. 1 year and 2 months after the storm, we have a new roof, new siding, overhang over the front porch, and a new awning over the deck! (I didn't take a picture of the awning but it looks TONS better than the old one...it was in bad shape, hammered even more by the hail.)

BEFORE: 2008

I'll include a before picture, when we bought the house. FYI, "before" is a scanned photo of the Realtor's packet, and I did not take it...it is a little grainy and so of course it will not be as clear as the "after" pictures! But here they are.

AFTER: 2016

I have typed a lot more than I planned -- hope you're still awake! The leaves are changing now, and it's a beautiful drive around town, to church or to school.

Have a great week!
Love, Kari