roof!

Well, it's done. Mostly anyway. We ran out of the ridge pieces that go at the very top , so we had to cover the last 8 feet with a tarp until we can get some more. But we finished at 9:00 p.m. and it started to rain around midnight. Last night my muscles were aching so badly that I could barely move. I took some ibuprofen and Trevor gave me a back rub, and I do feel a little better this morning. It was SO much work, but I will say that it is empowering to think that we could accomplish something like that.
We prayed before we started for Heavenly Father to bless us that we would be able to do the work in safety and that we would do it correctly, and we hAD SO many blessings throughout the week. The greatest blessing was that of our friends who helped us. The Lowe family spent 3 whole days up there helping us shovel shingles, and Chad helped Trevor to know how to do things correctly. Julie W. watched my kids for days on end, even when Ginny was sick, bless her heart. Her husband, Dave spent many hours on the roof with us, including in the crunch time last night when Trevor had to go to work, and the roof had to be done because of the impending rain. The Lowe family's neighbor, Nick, brought over some tools to help us, and then ended up staying for several hours to help us do things correctly. (He is a contractor by profession.) Then, on Monday, when it started to rain, he came back over with a friend to help us quickly get the tar paper up. On Saturday we had many, many people from the ward come over to help us for a few hours, and last night, just when we really needed it, Chris A. from the civil war band came over to help us finish up. My step-cousin Genny came over in a crunch time to watch the kids, and my new friend Wendy took the kids one day as well. It just seems like every time we had a crisis, someone would show up to help. I am just so grateful for so much service to be shared with our family. I know the Lord truly watches out for us, and has blessed us through these friends. I feel like the promise of the Lord about tithing has been truly fulfilled, where he promises that he will pour out a blessing and there will not be room enough to receive it. I'm just so grateful, to all of these sweet people, and to the Lord.

Now that it's raining, I guess we'll find out if we did it correctly! I think we did pretty well. I'm so glad we had some people who really know what they are doing to help us.
Max liked getting up on the roof. He helped pick up shingles and helped get toos, etc. He wanted to use the power tools, but of course we didn't think that was a very good idea. Emily helped on the roof some as well, and she helped watch her brothers and sisters and made dinner, etc. inside the house. We let Sam come up a couple of times just to see the view. That kid has no fear. It was definitely a family project.
Well, the book club is coming over here tonight, so I guess I better get to work cleaning up inside, now!