Hanson Crew

 Ashlyn, Josh and I went to Colorado this week for a mini vacation. We were able to see my sister Adrienne and her family as well as our friend Kristen and her finance Benton for New Year's Evening. We are excited to go skiing on this trip. This will be my first time in years, Ashlyn's first time since she was 8 years old, and Joshua's first time ever. We'll post pictures of that experience soon!

 Tearing up the carpet downstairs to begin our new floor downstairs. We're going to leave it bare through Christmas break so we can play ping pong down there over break. Once Christmas is over, the floor is going down - super excited!

 

 

Well, it's hard to believe we're at the end of 2019. This year was a full year like the others, but seemed to go faster than most. Ashlyn graduated high school this May!! She graduated at the top of her class with many honors. She's a freshman at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO. She is majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Art/Graphic Design. She was awarded a big Amazon Scholarship and is going to school debt free. She will also intern at Amazon in Seattle this summer for 12 weeks. We are very proud of her and look forward to her texts and phone calls each week. In between her classes and keeping us in the loop, Ashlyn enjoys a few on campus clubs and organizations as well as hanging out with her new friends. Joshua is a sophomore at Park Hill High School and continues to excel in all of his classes. He finished Varsity Swim in the fall and is enjoying Speech and Debate tournaments already. He will start college visits in the fall with Washington Univers...

 

 

Hey there blog world! It has been almost 3 years since I have made an entry on this family blog. Alot has happened in that time. My mother-in-law started a cancer blog that I kept up for her for two years while she was going through that journey. After she passed away in January 2017, my intentions were to go back to our family blog and just never did. Most of my family updates have been made regularly to my Facebook page since then. John is regularly on LinkedIn. I plan to go back and update this blog with a few big family events that happened between 2017 and 2019 and then hope to keep this going again in 2020. I've recently been adding 2019 posts beginning in January... My biggest goal is to include our 2019 Christmas letter here like we used to do. So that might be my next post... Looking forward to 2020 with the Hanson Crew :)

 

 We went to Parkville to attempt taking a Christmas card photo today. It was chilly and everyone was a little grumpy, but we got a few. Here are a few sneak peeks..

After I finished the stair project and added a lot of white trim, I decided to work on the downstairs living room. First up, painting the doors a dark grey. They were white before. I painted the walls a lighter grey. I am hoping to add a wood laminate floor next!

 

 We started adding carpet this week. It was challenging, but still fun. John had to help with the end of the project, which he always enjoys.

 Joshua had an amazing conference meet this year in swim. He dropped time in both of his events, which made him very happy! He didn't qualify for state, but he did swim Varsity all season and ended with times he had been shooting for all season. Way to go Josh!

 We always have loved getting free or discounted Chipotle for Halloween. This year it was just Jonathan and I. We picked up dinner for the boys and I. It was still delicious and affordable, but we missed the rest of the gang and our normal tradition.

 Our stairs have always bothered me. The main thing is there is no stair skirt. That's the wood trim that goes along the stairs. It looks unfished to me. The railing had fell off last year too and I never got it back on. My intention with this project is to remove the carpet, add a stair skirt, add beadboard paneling, new carpet and a new rail. Hoping it doesn't take very long too. Here is the demo portion along with the skirt and wallpaper trim.

 While Ashlyn was home for the weekend, we too advantage of a free pumpkin patch in Kansas. It was actually pretty fun. We went to Lawrence since we were so close for Joshua's favorite BBQ place to - Bigg's BBQ.