Fun in the Sun!

After NYC, we took the kids and drove to AZ to visit my family.  We had a blast!  My mom and dad are getting ready to put their house on the market and so they had some small jobs for Mike and then I was going to help my mom paint.  It seems fair since she travelled to Chicago to help us paint our condo and then she helped us paint our house in AZ.  (No, I am not ready to paint my UT house!)  Little did we know we were entering the Twilight Zone of Paint Hell.  

let me start from the beginning: smallest room in the house had two walls painted a deep burgandy.  Home stager walks in and says get rid of the red walls, just paint them the brown that is on the other walls.  No big deal, or so we thought. My mom already had the walls primed and taped when we arrived.  It should have just taken one coat of paint and then 'texturizing' the paint since it is the Ralph Lauren suede paint.  (Remember when that was big 4 years ago?!)  So we got ready to paint and realized that the 'suede paint roller' had completely dried out.  We used a regular roller (strike 1).  It looked good that day that we painted.  The next day, walked in and saw white spots where the primer was not covered.  So we pulled out the paint and touched up (strike 2).  Now it looks like we had 5 year olds sponge paint the walls.  IT LOOKED HORRIBLE!!!!  So I tell my mom we need to get the right roller and start all over again.   The next day, after spending the night at my sister's house, I get ready to help my mom again.  My dad warns us that mom just had a melt down and she needs help. We find out that my mom had to paint ALL of the walls again.  After the 5th layer of paint, 2 1/2 gallons later ($40/gallon) my mom is crying because you can see the roller marks.  She has had it!!!!!!  I tell her, I will texturize the paint, don't worry about it.  So I make my brother help me.....it was his idea 4 years ago to paint this wall the stupid 'suede' texture anyway (strike 3).  So we get busy while ALL of my family is hanging out. And now the wall looks like suede!  All is fine but did not expect 2 walls to take us 4 days to paint.  Oh well, I owed my mom.

Highlights of the week: seeing my family; Moms afternoon out; seeing Bride Wars and our guys were the only men in the theater; seeing friends on Sunday; watching Ghost Town with the fam; Mike having fun with sleeping masks; dad telling grandkids 'George, Fred, and Herbie with Donald Duck' made-up stories; and putting the painting supplies away!!!!