Here we are!

Welp, we're home. well, at least we were. elijah just left for a 2 week trip doing jewelry & music shows. i get to stay here with our lil' pups and get as much done as possible to make up for our lil' vaca.

we've got new additions to the family! kudzo joined us May 10 2008. He is a 5 month old black lab mix puppy. he's super cute and crash is finally starting to love him. here are some photos...

if you want to see larger images, click here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rhondawyman/NewPuppiesKudzooLostLittlePup

There are also some starter photos of our new fence elijah built. it looks awesome and keeps our puppies safe. at the end of the slide show you'll notice a 3rd puppie. elijah found her on the side of the road. she was the SWEETEST puppie i have ever 'had' i cried today when i found her owners. then i managed to hit a baby bird that fell out of a tree on my way home. its like God was literally throwing little fluffy balls of sadness at me!

now onto our trip! it was great fun, lots of driving, lots of strange motels, but lots of fun. we got to meet up with elijah's desert family and go to disney with them. they are as crazy as us so it a super fun disney trip. wanna see?

or click here for larger photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/rhondawyman/VegasDisneyDesert

Here are some videos of all the fun we had at various times throughout the trip.

This is a WHOLE roller coaster ride.


This is our new puppie Kudzo. He likes water.



I have spend the better part of the day uploading photos and images, and now i don't want to look at the computer any more. but i'll update again in the next week. for now, i'll leave you with this....


xoxo
rhonda, puppy-kitty, crash-dog, & kudzo.

and we're off!

hiya! we leave tomorrow for our 3 week cross-country trip. we'll be traveling to las vegas in the next 3 days for our wholesale show. we'll be meeting up with elijahs family at nights and then heading to the desert for a day to spend some time with them on monday. after that, elijah's cousin david has promised me a "true southern california experience". elijah says this entails some bonfires on the beach, perhaps disney, and i am hoping lots of sushi and mexican food. after a couple days there we will meander back to the mountains of asheville, stopping along the way in texas for some shows elijah will be playing, new orleans and other undetermined destinations. we will upload our videos and photos for you to see once we return. we're excited!

wish us luck at our wholesale show and we'll be in touch in the next couple weeks!

Hot Water Rebirth/Studio Labor Pain.

Here is a highlight from the exciting adventure we had replacing our water heater. To be honest it was fairly easy work after spending 24 hours straight taking notes on Tom Conlon's masterful plumbing on the rest of our house, I felt confident that I could make secure solder joints. See for yourself in this video:



Seriously though, it wasn't my solder joint! I simply didn't screw on the pipe tight enough to the hot water heater...uhg. Re-doing work is always fun!

Fun facts about our old water heater:
1.) It's for a mobile home.
2.) The leak is somewhere in the middle of the tank and we can't find it.
3.) I'm considering (to Rhonda's dismay) of making it into a water collection barrel for our garden.

Other than that I cut a terribly asymmetrical circle for our sun tube in the new studio. Observe: Not to worry though, we had a massive storm that night and our new sunhole thing didn't leak! Hooray. Rhonda and I also put in another window. We've gotten quite good at putting in windows. This took us perhaps 40 minutes. Since then we've put in some laminate flooring we had from a failed wholesale show display attempt, put up beams for a ceiling to keep in the heat, finished the sun tube, installed a doorknob/deadbolt, finished insulating the beast, put up a strange mixture of OSB and drywall walls from stuff we had lying around, and painted the walls! We'll take pictures of all that progress soon.

Oh the house you ask? See the posts below...it looks exactly the same. This week I will be a force (farce??) of nature and FINISH the kitchen and living room before Jason and Joanna come for their much anticipated visit on Saturday. I leave you with this terribly sad picture.

Wheeeeee!

-elijah.Rhonda extracts the old heater with her jeweler's saw.
This process is so tedious I refuse to do it.

Crocs Endorsement.

Yesterday I was convinced we had a very vocal family of squirrels living in our abandoned chimney. Later in the day, when they were chirping louder than ever, I realized it was actually the hot water heater making a strange noise. It also sounded like it was constantly filling. After calling Elijah (he happens to be in MA this weekend)he said it was not going to explode because the gentlemen on Mythbusters say it is extremely difficult to make a hot water heater explode. I wasnt' thinking 'exploding' I was thinking 'leaking" somewhere. So, as all the pipes in our home are exposed at the moment, I checked, and... no leaks. After watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with Crash and Puppy Kitty, I walk to the kitchen and hear the squirrels still even louder. I don't have shoes on, and I feel my socks get wet. I look down and *slosh* water is coming up through the tiles. After that I realize what happened. The bottom must have rusted out and our tank was continuously emptying itself throughout the day. The WHOLE living room had to come up, and yes, we JUST finished finally laying down the new laminate flooring. And lots of the kitchen did as well, see below. We need to take down the wall between the kitchen and living room as this has apparently happened before and there was lots of old water damage. I made a quick video. Nothing was seriously damaged, we lost some flooring, a wall that needed to come down, but lots of valuable time. All in all, it was really just a huge pain in my bleep. I ended up finishing around 5am and our wet dry vac saved the night.

If Im ever famous I might find myself endorsing Crocs. Not only are they comfy for walking around in, if you are ever caught in an in home emergency flood, you wont have to worry about ruining your shoes. Thank you Crocs, you made my night.




this video doesn't do the job of relaying how much water was there, once I took up the underlayment we had puddles.



some photos....





Happy Easter!

The Shed.

here are some photos or our new studio shed! its going to be rad.
Old Shed.


New Shed.


Updating Shed.


Updated Shed. (a large window will go next to this new door and a deck will run along the side and to the back where the barn doors are which will then connect with our patio(which isn't finished, or started yet)


we feel very empowered doing this kind of work. nothing like a few power tools to make you feel tuff.

also, some photos of our roadtrip to our recent wholesale shows. yep, thats our cat "Puppy" strolling around above our heads, and Crash was a happy lil' pup sleeping so high up.


can you guess where we are?









love you all!
xoxoxo,


ps, our next show is in vegas, so we'll be sure to get some photos/videos up then... except of course the things that must 'stay in vegas'(!)

more movies....

As you may know, we are a very 'musical' family. Our newest member is no exception. Here I am sneaking around listening to the two of them duel it out for the next american idol award...




i've got a bit o' music in me too, as elijah tiptoed around to hear...

house sweet home.

hullo from the mountains! so, we decided we will be doing some video blogs for our friends and family. tell your friends and family if you like, its very exciting. if you get motion sick easily, beware. we make these with our digital camera so they are a bit shaky. we'll post more soon! hope all is well and wonderful!

love and hugs and smiles and high fives,
r + e + p-k + c-d


Unaka Tour:3/15/2008


Shed Destruction: 3/2008

Recovery time...

...and we finally post again. Ironically enough, we started this blog to keep people updated with Elijah's then newly diagnosed kidney disease. At the time of the last post we had just started a job in Cambridge, MA. We left there in Sept. when Elijah's disease went crazy and sent him into end stage renal failure.

Well, its now June 8th 2007 and I am sitting next to Elijah while he sleeps after his kidney transplant. Its amazing what can happen in a year. For those of you who don't know the whole story please check out the site we made for Elijah's Rotten Kidneys (http://elijahwyman.com/rottenkidneys.html) . A wonderful friend, Jason Rozen, donated a kidney to Elijah. This post is mostly to keep all of you up to date with their recovery...

Both surgeries went very smooth with no complications*yay*. There have been a couple minor complications with Elijah's meds giving him an allergic reaction the past two days, but they are working on figuring out which ones. Its not causing too much discomfort, but Elijah's catheter is another story! They are expecting Elijah to be discharged most likely Sunday, but possibly Monday. Jason should be going home tomorrow (saturday). They have been walking back and forth from eachothers rooms to play nintendo ds mario cart, eat some meals, compare bowl movements and the likes. i bought myself some old school super mario 3 for the ds, i just sit here in the night while elijah sleeps and can't read because the lights off, so i figured i may as well.

im okay, a bit tired, and its been a bit overwhelming for me. we just received a duffel bag full of $5000 worth of meds for the next couple weeks. eli (i don't call him 'eli', but its quicker to type) has a lot of travelling in front of him the next few months. he'll be travelling into the city 2Xs weekly for the next month, and getting labs in salem. after the 1st month, he'll be here 1X a week, and it will diminish as time goes on. We got one of those crazy pill carriers. its as big as my laptop with lots of compartments.

so, as of now everything is going as planned. i'll post again later about his continued recovery.

thanks so much to everyone for all of there prayers, thoughts, crossed fingers, good vibes, phone calls, notes, emails, donations, and visits. if anyone is interested in thanking jason email me and i'll give you his info, i don't think he would like it if i posted it here on the site.

x0x0x0
rhonda

Our new life....

deserves a new blog.