How I spent my Christmas vacation

Bob (Meredith's husband) here with another cameo appearance. My holiday vacation is drawing to a close -- Tuesday it's back to the grind, but I certainly have no room to complain. While there are drawbacks to the teaching profession, the long breaks (winter and summer) are certainly a plus.

Anyway, I've really enjoyed having more time to spend with Meredith and the boys this Christmas. We didn't have to travel hundreds of miles to visit family for a change, which meant a lot more time to simply enjoy each other. Of course, this year Little Elvis was much more into the whole Christmas experience.

(bathroom before -- note ugly pink tile board and pink walls)

I wasn't just sitting back watching the boys and sipping hot chocolate during the entire vacation. With the help of my father-in-law (also in the education biz), I managed to finish up the bathroom renovation which had started as simply demolition during my Thanksgiving break. Considering that we expected the project to drag on for months (we pretty much gutted the bathroom -- taking out the shower surround, walls, floor, toilet, vanity and uncovering electrical, water damage, and plumbing snafus along the way), our finish time of about a month is nothing to sneeze at.

. (bathroom after -- bead board, new chair rail, new linoleum floor and overall duck theme)

As the bathroom project was drawing to a close shortly after Christmas, we decided to dive headlong into getting our kitchen floor redone (decided to go with tile to replace several layers of old, ugly linoleum).

(kitchen before)

With tiling being a task beyond my skill and patience (and the clock running down on my holiday break), we decided to leave this part of our remodeling to the professionals. However, I am good at destroying things so, in order to cut down on the overall cost, I (again with the help of my father-in-law) spent the last week or so pulling up the layers of linoleum (and plyboard underneath).

Anyway, the professionals showed up today and managed to get the tiling done in one day. What do you think?

(kitchen after -- Little Elvis seems more interested in his lollipop)

Now we just need to paint the ugly paneling and cabinets -- is it Spring Break yet?