Christmas Newsletter 2014

It has been another busy year for the Royer family.  Unfortunately, none of it has been documented on this blog so you can't peruse our archives for details like you've been able to in years past.

We're sure that many of you will be scanning this newsletter for explanation of the extra person on our Christmas card this year, so we decided to start with that news so it's easy for you to find.  :)  After much thought, discussion, fasting, and prayer, we decided to become certified foster parents in a child-specific arrangement.   We are hoping that we will be able to adopt this little one into our forever family.   It has been a whirlwind to say the least - we made the decision the weekend of Halloween and our new family member arrived in our home the Monday before Thanksgiving.  In order to respect privacy, we've decided not to share any information about our new family member on this blog, including identifying information or photos.  If you would like to hear the story behind this part of our family's journey, feel free to contact us and we will share as much as we are able to at this point.

Jaynee, our almost-five-year-old, continues to be our little firecracker of sunshine.  We found out in January that Jaynee needs glasses and she wears them like a champ.  She has had a recent growth spurt - we measured her this week and realized that she has grown over two inches since September!  After taking a year off following her year of "toddler school," Jaynee started preschool this past fall and is looking forward to full-day kindergarten next year.  Jaynee lives her life to a self-performed soundtrack; she absolutely loves to sing and even sang a duet with Gavin in front of our congregation at church.  Jaynee started dance last fall and had her very first recital this spring; she is taking lessons from my former dance teacher, so it has been fun to watch her follow in my footsteps.  Besides dance, Jaynee loves books, helping mom, playing outside, and filling any kind of bag with treasures of all sorts.

This picture is SO Gavin!  He is in first grade this year and his teacher has said that her heart melts when he looks over the top of his glasses at her.  We're sure his eye doctor would not be so pleased; Gavin continues to go into the Casey Eye Institute for check-ups every two to three months.  At his most recent eye exam, his weaker eye was measured at almost 20/35.  Those of you who have been keeping up on that portion of our journey know what a huge deal that is!  We WILL have a party when we get to 20/20, so stay tuned!  Gavin turned seven this month and is growing into such a kind and thoughtful little boy.  He continues to be our little scientist; he loves learning about animals and tells everyone that he is going to be a biologist when he grows up.  He played tee ball this year and is looking forward to playing in the coach pitch league next year.

Jared continues to work hard at Les Schwab.  So hard, in fact, that his body has started to protest; he just recently had knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus.  As in the past, Jared has one school day off every week, so he always has something fun planned for his special time with the kiddos.  I hope he doesn't get too bored when all three of them are in school for the whole day next year! 

I continue to work full time as a special education teacher.  My gluten-free diet has kept me aura-free for over a year, and I have felt like a whole new person!  With any spare time I get caught up on housework and spend time with the kids.  When I have longer stretches of time (summer break, etc.), I still like to coupon, crochet, play the piano and work outside.

There really isn't much for Jared and I to report individually, because we consider "our" news the family news:

We enjoyed sharing my parents' season tickets to the Timbers and attended several matches this year.  Gavin and Jaynee love to join in the chanting and eat cotton candy.

In addition to helping us with soccer tickets, my parents also let us use their fifth wheel for a week-long camping adventure at Fort Stevens State Park on the coast.  It was a very wet week, but we ventured up and down the coast for sightseeing, food, and fun.  We especially enjoyed exploring on our bikes as well as seeing the fort and shipwreck for the first time.

This summer we adopted a two year-old Airedale/German Shepherd named CeCe.  As you can see from this hilarious picture, she is an inside dog and the kids love her.  We have been very pleased by what a mild-mannered dog she is.

We took a bit of a break from home improvements due to a long story (it was actually going to be "Long Story #2" in my blog updates, but I never made it past long story number one).  Anyway, our deck project is still unfinished but we just recently found out that we will be able to finish it after getting our retroactive building permit.  Since I'm always looking for a reason to have a party, we will probably have a party when this ordeal is finally over. 

So that was 2014 in a nutshell!  We know that all of the blessings that we received this year have been provided by a loving Father in Heaven.  More than any other year since our family has begun, we have felt His guiding hand in our lives as we laughed, worked, served, played, cried, and prayed through this year.  For that we are truly grateful.

We wish you joy and peace in 2015.

LONG STORY #1 - My Achin' Head

So...we're nearing a year and a half since my last blog entry.  A lot has happened in the Royer household since December of 2012 and there is absolutely no way that I can catch up on everything.  My plan is to summarize some of the events of the past year and present them here as "long stories".  Consider yourself warned...there will be a lot of information coming your way. 

This story starts almost ten years ago when I had my very first migraine with aura.  I was in the middle of administering the Woodcock Johnson to one of my students and I had to stop abruptly because I couldn't see the book.  When I called my mom, distressed about the fact that I was most likely dying, I learned that I had experienced the exact aura that my dad and brother periodically experience.   So, up until two years ago, I would have a crazy visual distortion followed by a dull headache and car-sick type nausea around once a month, sometimes twice.  Nothing huge.

So what happened two years ago??  

I can't pinpoint exactly when, but my textbook monthly migraine with aura took a pretty drastic turn.  Most doctors couldn't look past the fact that it happened around the time I stopped taking hormonal birth control - - but I distinctly remember going off the birth control in the hopes that it would HELP all the nonsense that I was going through.  So what was the nonsense?  Here is an overview of what I was dealing with, occasional at first but then growing to a near-constant basis:

- Shaking hands, nearing tremor status at times

- Buzzing ears

- Crazy deja vu with immediate rushes of pain afterward

- Facial twitching - especially in the forehead and near the eyes

- Darkening of my field of vision, as if I had just come inside from being out in the bright sun 

- My entire field of vision would shake, as if the room was spinning.

- Nausea

- Difficulty speaking (my students would often have to complete my sentences for me)

- Way more head pain than my typical migraines

- Sensitivity to noise and light

- Mental fogginess (I'm glad that my bosses didn't know just how useless I was in the paperwork department some days... I did hand over the instruction of my students to my assistants on my really bad days)

- Slow reaction time (there were some days when I felt like I shouldn't be driving)

- An overall feeling of shakiness/buzzing

On top of all that, I was still having my usual migraine with aura, but much more frequently.

Let me stop right here and say that I am not sharing this information for a "woe is me"-type sermon.  I know that my medical concerns are mild to nearly nonexistent compared to what others have to experience.  There is a reason for this story, so stay with me...

The above symptoms didn't start all at once, but fairly gradually over the course of about a year until I was experiencing nearly all of them daily and on a near-constant basis.  I felt like my brain was short-circuiting.  That's when I finally went to a neurologist: April of last year.

NEUROLOGIST #1 - My GP referred me to a local neurologist.  She listened to my laundry list of hypochondriac-sounding symptoms and felt like we should have an MRI to rule out anything serious (she felt like it was probably migraine).  The MRI/MRA came out clean - no scarring, no evidence of seizure, things looked great.  So, it looked like the suspicions were correct - - I was having crazy migraines.  At this point, the medications began.  I was put on Amitriptyline (an anti-depressant that is often used as a preventative medication for migraine) and I was also given Imitrex to take at the onset of a migraine.  (I was thinking "Onset?! It's happening all the time!")  The Imitrex was horrible, so I only took it a couple of times.  The Amitriptyline seemed to help my textbook migraine auras but didn't do anything for my laundry list of other symptoms.  Plus, it made me a walking zombie.  I had absolutely no energy and was VERY moody.  I gained at least ten pounds on this medication.  When I brought my concerns to my neurologist during one of my five-minute, $300 check-ups - she just wanted to start experimenting with other medications.  I was still interested in WHY things were the way they were, so at that point I referred myself to a neurologist in Portland toward the end of the summer.

NEUROLOGIST #2 - This neurologist was awesome and very attentive to my concerns about WHY things were happening.  She referred me to a headache specialist in their practice to help us sort out what was migraine and what, if anything, was NOT migraine.  She said that if anyone could sort it out for me, it would be this doctor - - he sees migraine all day, everyday.  She also asked me to stop my current medication in case some of my symptoms were actually side effects of the medication.  So, while I counted down the weeks until my appointment, it didn't take long for whatever symptoms were being suppressed by my first medication to return with a VENGEANCE.  I could barely function at this point, so I called my neurologist, begging for something else to try.  She started me on a beta blocker typically used for high blood pressure.  I had more energy with this medication, but I couldn't do anything with that energy because, if I moved too suddenly or quickly, I became light headed and short of breath.  I stayed on the medication until I went to the specialist.

NEUROLOGIST #3 - I won't go into details, but my first visit to this doctor was definitely my last.  Although, for as difficult and frustrating as the appointment was, he left me feeling kind of hopeful.  He said that a lot of my symptoms weren't migraine, but could be something more physiological.  He dropped the term "fibromyalgia" which didn't excite me, since I knew that wouldn't quite give me the closure I was looking for.  HOWEVER, I felt like I could continue to work with neurologist #2 to find that physiological cause of my symptoms.  

BACK TO NEUROLOGIST #2 - We sat down the go over the report and it just solidified that doc #3 was a complete waste of my time.  His report referred to psycho-social causes (mainly stress) as his guess about my other symptoms and said NOTHING about possible physiological causes like he had said to me in our appointment.  My neurologist decided to go off of his recommendations and continue to treat ONLY my migraine with aura and judge our treatment choices based on the control of that one symptom.  So how was my blood pressure medication controlling my migraine with aura?  I was still having them almost weekly and the medication left me with a blood pressure of 99/60.  Needless to say, she prescribed me a new medication (this one was a medication typically used for bipolar disorder - have you pieced together the fact that there is currently no preventative medication intended solely for migraine?  Migraineurs just have to try any medication they can in order to stumble on one that will mess with their brain in just the right combination).  So after this appointment, I cried all the way home from Portland, completely discouraged and feeling like a hypochondriac.

At some point during this journey, I knew that I would never be happy taking a medication my entire life until I had exhausted every other option, so I tried migraine trigger elimination diets, migraine-friendly herbs and supplements and known migraine "superfoods".   I didn't notice a big difference with any of my symptoms.  I also eliminated MSG and anything chemically related (it's a long list and basically eliminates any processed food with "natural flavors" in the ingredients list).  I knew that I was sensitive to MSG and felt like this could help.  It definitely helped control some of my day-to-day head pain but didn't touch the other symptoms.  

Throughout my drama with neurologists, I was serving in church with a sweet woman who had her own experience with neurologists. She also had a daughter with gluten ataxia, which was the first time I had ever heard of a neurological connection to a gluten sensitivity/allergy. She also shared the name of her acupuncturist and had several other ideas that left me hopeful.  I decided to cancel my follow-up with my neurologist and decided to not start the medication that she had prescribed.  It was time for a different route.  I set up an appointment with an acupuncturist and also researched the connection between gluten and neurological symptoms.  That's when I came across articles like this one, that connected the dots between MSG (and other free glutamates), gluten, and neurological symptoms.  Since I knew that I was sensitive to MSG, I now felt like it wouldn't be too far-fetched for me to try a gluten free diet.  

Now the big question was....do I need a doctor to verify a gluten sensitivity before trying the diet (because I had read that you should be eating gluten in order to test for a sensitivity) or do I just dive right in?  Since this journey had already set me back over two thousand dollars, I decided to give it a try first.  I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on specialized foods (most of those gluten-free products on the supermarket shelf still contain ingredients on my need-to-avoid list anyway) so I stuck to a mainly whole-food diet for the first little while.  I was also seeing the acupuncturist during this time.  Things started to change slowly - I didn't realize it until I looked at the calendar that so much time had passed without symptoms.

It has been almost six months since I went gluten free.  I haven't had an aura in almost four months (without any medication!) and literally ALL of my other crazy symptoms are gone or extremely rare.  I haven't been to the acupuncturist in about three months and I am starting to feel a little "off", so I know that acupuncture was helping with some of my symptoms.  However, I feel safe in saying that the bulk of my symptoms were being caused by gluten.  Am I going to go back on gluten so that I can have a sensitivity officially diagnosed?  No, it's definitely not worth it to me. The current treatment trifecta that I have going on - the "MSG"-free diet, the gluten-free diet, and acupuncture - has me feeling like a whole new person.  

The point of this story??  After finding my own "light bulb" articles online, I always feel strangely obligated to share my own experience (remember the spica cast blog entry??) in case there is someone out there as frustrated as I was.

So there you have it...Long Story #1:  The story of my no-longer-aching head and why I am now in the GF crowd.

Long Story #2 should be coming soon.  :)

Christmas Newsletter

2012 has been a busy year for the Royer family!  We have been blessed beyond measure and it is with hearts full of gratitude that we share a little bit about what we have been up to this year.

Gavin will be turning five this month and he continues to bring so much love and laughter to our family.  His quick mind and inquisitive nature definitely keep us on our toes!  We enrolled him in the Kinder Connections program at the Dry Hollow Elementary School here in town which has been a great opportunity for him to get a taste of what kindergarten will be like; it is a four day-per-week program that is the same length of time as a kindergarten session.  They even get to take part in Dry Hollow’s assemblies, reading buddies, library, and PE.  Besides starting preschool, another noteworthy accomplishment for Gavin is that he had NO broken bones this year!  He continues to have checkups for his eyes every two months and a recent checkup informed us that his vision has improved to 20/50 with correction.  Gavin loves all things superhero, playing ball, reading books, listening to music and going to the park.

If you can believe it, our baby Jaynee Rose will be turning three in March.  She is a ray of sunshine and she keeps us laughing all day long.  She gets to go to Grandpa’s house for babysitting one day per week (the reason for that is described later) and she loves spending time with Grandpa, Uncle Matt and, most of all, her cousin-dog Rex.  She is definitely the “pack leader” when it comes to Rex; she has no fear of this large goldendoodle and can often be found pushing him around to various places in the house.  Jaynee has also been able to go to a toddler group two days per week and she absolutely LOVES it - she calls it "toddwer school".  In fact, she thinks she is such a little student now, there was a day when she tagged along to drop off Gavin at school and she went right over to the carpet and sat down, all ready for class to start!  Jaynee is talking up a storm now and you can find her singing pretty much anytime, anywhere.   Jaynee loves books, music, My Little Pony, Dora and anything animal related.

One of the bigger pieces of news for our family is that Stephanie went back to work full time this past August.  She was approached with a long-term substitute job for an open special education position at Dry Hollow, which ended up being a “test drive” for the position, an opportunity most people don’t get.  Although she went into it as a substitute, not wanting to go back to work full time, she discovered that the coworkers, location (one block from our awesome daycare and at the same school as Gavin), and case load were great and tailored for our situation.  If that wasn’t enough, the topic for her thesis can easily be addressed with research at this school.  So, after MUCH thought and prayer, we decided that she should apply.  Since Stephanie had an attitude that “if this is meant to be, it will be,” she had one of the least stressful application and interviewing experiences she has ever had.  That stress-free feeling didn’t last long, though, after being hired to fill the position; we believe in keeping things real on this blog, so we will be up front in saying that this has been a very difficult transition for our family.   However, we recognize what a blessing we have been given to have two full-time incomes for now and an opportunity for Stephanie to work while Jared goes to school in the future.

In addition to working, Stephanie is keeping busy with her church calling in the Primary and building her home “store” with the freebies she gets while couponing.  Other than that, she has scaled back on a lot of “extras” so that she can focus on the family when she is home.  Home improvements and scrapbooking will have to wait until summer vacation! 

Jared continues to work full time at Les Schwab, which is a blessing that we recognize every day.  With so much going on in the economy, the fact that Jared was able to log his full time hours in addition to some overtime was a huge blessing to our family.  He will be looking at starting school at some point in the next year or two, after Stephanie is finished with her masters degree.  Jared gets one day off during the school week, which is when he likes to take the kids out on special outings.  He has had to get a little more creative with the colder weather, but he always looks forward to spending time with the kids.  Jared has also been serving in the Elders Quorum for our church and is enjoying that calling.  He has also been finding time to work out in the basement early in the morning before the kids are awake; where he gets the energy is a mystery to Stephanie.  Jared has also scaled back a lot on extra things (like home improvement projects) so that he can focus on our family when we are all together.

In family news, we were able to go on a long vacation this summer.  Thanks to the generosity of Stephanie’s parents, we were able to spend several days in Seattle and then take a week-long cruise to Alaska with Stephanie’s family.  We had a lot of wonderful experiences and saw some amazing things.  The kids were in heaven since it was a Nickelodeon cruise; Gavin even got selected out of the audience to participate in one of the on-board game shows.

 Although we have scaled back since August, we did get several home improvement projects finished (or nearly finished) this year.  Even in its “in progress” state, we look forward to any opportunity we have to share our home with friends and family who are passing through, so please look us up the next time you are close by!

We recognize the hand of our Heavenly Father in the blessings that we have received this year, as well as His comfort during the more trying times that we have experienced.  We hope that you can feel of His love this holiday season as we celebrate the birth of His Son.

  With love,

The Royer Family

Four Pairs of Specs

Today Gavin picked up his FOURTH pair of glasses since he started wearing them when he was 20 months old.  I can't believe how fast the time flies!

It all started with a disposable camera at our little family trip to Lost Lake.  When I developed the pictures, I noticed an unsettling pattern of Gavin's eye turning in (like above).

So we took him to a local eye doctor who did what he could for an exam on such a little one (as far as I knew)- holding different test lenses in front of his eye and estimating a prescription based on when he noticed the eye going back where it belonged.  Those frames were huge (long story) and his eye still crossed, so I was still concerned for most of this year and eagerly awaiting his next eye appointment so he could have new glasses and hopefully more answers.

His next eye appointment came after we moved, so he had a new doctor.  Same general process, but this time Gavin could do a  little more with pointing out pictures, etc. during the exam, so the prescription was strengthened some.  Still no patching or other instructions.  Just kept on with the glasses.  His eye still turned in, so I waited impatiently for his next appointment the following year.

The third exam was the turning point.  We took him back to the eye doctor here in town and after not getting very far in the exam, he suggested we see a specialist because he had a feeling Gavin was seeing very little out of his bad eye.  So off we went to Casey Eye Institute at OHSU and saw a pediatric specialist who informed us that Gavin's bad eye was approximately two times worse than legal blindness, which essentially resulted in his brain "turning off" that eye. They significantly changed his prescription and had us start patching his good better eye to force him to use his bad eye. (It's his "better" eye and not "good" eye because it also requires correction). Then we were on a three month schedule for follow-ups.

It was at the first follow-up when I had to admit that we were utter failures at patching.  He cooperated at first, but then discovered that the freedom from having the patch off outweighed the pain of ripping it off himself.  So we started the drops.  He gets a drop of Atropine once a day, which dilates his eye and blurs his vision in his better eye.  It is essentially full time patching without the patch. And now he goes for follow-up every two months.

We went back for a follow-up a couple of weeks ago and found out that his prescription would be changing again (just in time because his glasses were trashed!).  His corrected vision is still at 20/100 and they are working hard to get his vision as good as they can before he starts school.  We find out more about his eyes with each visit and are more and more hopeful that we are on the right track.  

I couldn't help myself today, when I noticed the difference between his new glasses and the ones he had been wearing most recently, that I pulled out all of his old glasses to compare. Note the HUGE difference in lenses for his left eye, which are on the right side in the picture.  Each increase in lens thickness represents more knowledge about how our little guy sees the world.

I got teary eyed at the optometrist's office today when we were picking up his glasses.  They put them on and Gavin looked around with those same wide eyes that he has each time he gets a new prescription, seeing the world a little clearer than he ever has before.  And hopefully, one day, it will be as clear as it is for the rest of us.

Tribute to Uncle Mike

This morning my brother, Mike, came over to pick up some moving boxes.  He found a job out of town and will be leaving shortly.

In the year or so that Mike and our family have been in the same town, my kids have really enjoyed hanging out with "Uncle Mike."  So although we are excited for Uncle Mike's move (closer to his beloved Timbers) to do a job that he does so well, we will definitely miss seeing him so often.

So here is a video that I was going to post a while ago, because I thought Gavin said some pretty hilarious things (listen closely around :45 and 1:10).  I decided now was the right time to post it.

We love you, Uncle Mike!  Hopefully you'll get hungry enough during the week that you'll come back on the weekends!  :)

Vacation 2012 Part 1: Seattle

I will start off by explaining why it has taken so long to post anything regarding our vacation this year.  Our memory cards disappeared after I uploaded two pictures to Facebook, and we have never been able to find them.  I have been so sad about it - while still holding on to hope that we would find them - that I was waiting to post about our trip.  I have finally given up on finding them any time soon, so I decided to go ahead and post with pictures I have been able to steal from my family's Facebook pages, memory cards, blogs, etc.

Photo Courtesy http://www.shueyhouse.com

So our vacation started with 5 days in Seattle.  My parents rented an historical house that my nephew dubbed "The Mansion."  Being someone with a love for historical architecture, I was in heaven.  I thought this was a great alternative to having everyone in hotel rooms.

The cousins enjoyed each others' company, and even successfully started a few inside jokes that had the adults scratching their heads.

 We took a trip to Snoqualmie Falls and had a picnic.

Went to a Mariners Game.

And got tuckered out with all of our other activities, like sightseeing, walking around the neighboorhood, going out to eat at Ivar's, and just enjoying time with the family all together.

That's all I could round up, so that's all I will tell you about Seattle.  It was a great start to our vacation!

Cult Ritual

My brother was at our house last weekend and he saw what Gavin and Jaynee did during the theme song of their show.  He said "What is this...some sort of cult ritual??"

Actually, they do this for ANY music in a show or movie...so during Diego they get up off the couch and do this during the theme song, rescue pack song, and "We Did It" song.

I think the most hilarious part is the end...they're so matter-of-fact about it.

Two Steps Ahead

I always feel like I'm playing catch-up when it comes to Gavin.  The gears in his brain seem to be turning a little faster than mine most of the time.

Here's an example from when we were playing a rhyming game today:

"Gavin, what rhymes with 'big'?"

...short pause...

"Mom, what are pigs afraid of??"

:)

I just love this fella...

Spring??

You've gotta love spring in the northwest.  Last week, Jared and I worked all day in the yard - perfectly comfortable in the long sleeves and pants that we had to wear while we dealt with the shrubs.  We even worked through a couple of rain showers and enjoyed the periods of sunshine when it peeked through the clouds.

But within a few days it felt like spring had turned into SUMMER!  I was completely unprepared for this and for the frequent requests from Gavin to play in the water.  He wanted to swim.  That was that.

With a super-long outdoor chore list, I decided to turn on the sprinkler for the kids to play in while I worked in the yard right next to them.  I looked at them and said, "Go play!" and they looked at me like I was insane.  REALLY??  Running through the sprinklers was the epitome of fun when I was growing up!  Then I remembered that Grandma got him these cool dip-stick squirter things at Costco, so I filled a mop bucket full of water and told them to go for it.  That lasted all of 10 minutes and then I noticed they were trying to GET IN the mop bucket.  Gavin was dead set on swimming!  That was when the light bulb went on: "I wonder if I have any bigger buckets..."  I took the kids inside and we found the perfect vessels for their water fun...

With the unpredictability of spring in the northwest, I think we will be happy with our wrapping paper tote swimming pools until summer is here to stay.  

Jaynee's First Haircut

Jaynee had her first hair cut this week.  Jared and I didn't get to witness it.

But Gavin did... 

After walking into the kitchen to show me a clump of hair, I caught a glimpse of a pair of scissors that, until that moment, had always been tucked away in my abyss of a purse.  I put two and two together and frantically ran into the living room to see the rest of the damage.  As I finger-combed through Jaynee's hair, more and more loose hair came out with each pass of my fingers.  My heart SUNK!  

While Gavin was serving an unprecedented TRIPLE time out, I realized that this was technically Jaynee's first haircut, so I removed her locks from the trash can and slipped them into an envelope for her baby book.

Luckily, Jaynee's somewhat crazy curl is pretty forgiving of this particular hack job.  Plus, there was enough left up top to do a strategic combover.  We have coped so well that I'll bet no one at church realized what lurked under the big blue bow she was wearing today!  :)

Shrubbish

Our crazy, overgrown shrubs won a couple of battles today...

 ...but we won the war.

That is all.

Just Needs a Fresh Coat of Paint

The title of this post is a phrase that I have both heard and used a lot!  When we moved into our home, we knew that we wouldn't have the budget to make any huge changes to the house as a whole, so we picked the room that needed a gut job the most (bathroom) and then proceeded to give the rest of the house a fresh coat of paint, which was all our budget could handle.

But in this house, the amount of work needed to get to the fresh coat of paint has been ridiculous!!  We're talking much more than your typical sanding and spackling.  With that said, here is how we arrived at our fresh coat of paint in the kitchen...

We started making changes to the kitchen the day we moved in.

Yeah, the drop ceiling came down within the first hour.

And we were left with this.  I can hear the buzzing of the florescent lighting just from looking at this picture, can't you?

We also unscrewed all of the add-ons left by the previous owner.

And I chiseled the bar lamp shades (right) off of the light globes.  It wasn't pretty, but it was an improvement!

I don't think I took a picture, but I discovered that the top layer of the wallpaper came right off, leaving the tan backing paper on the wall.  I decided that looked better than the faded strawberry wallpaper, so we lived with that for a while.  The kitchen sat the way it was from September until March, because we knew there were things we had to get done before we could ever paint.  The first being the lighting situation.  

In addition to the flourescent lighting and the oddly-draped bar lights, we had this little beauty blocking the way for us to close up the wall so that we could paint above the cupboards.  When Jared got his bonus in March, we decided to get the electricity taken care of professionally. 

But before we could hire the electrician, we had to deal with the tiles on the ceiling...

...and the final reminder of the drop ceiling.

I was so giddy by this point that I couldn't contain myself.  I almost posted this picture to facebook until I realized that it wouldn't impress ANYONE except myself! I mean, really, who would think that this could POSSIBLY be an improvement?! 

So the electrician came and went and the ceiling looked like this....

...and this...

...and this...

...and this....

(The whole time that I was ripping the tiles  off the ceiling, I couldn't understand why the previous owner had used them.  It was literally under the final tile that I found this hole to the ATTIC!)

We realized that there was just too much patching to be done, so we also sought professional help to get some drywall hung on the ceiling.

Out with Cover the old, in with the new!

By this point we had also peeled off the backing paper from the wall...

...revealing some awesome aqua paint.  That really got me itching to haul out the paintbrush!

 But it still wasn't time for that fresh coat of paint.  There was much mudding...

 

 ...and sanding...

 ...and gnashing of this germophobe's teeth.

 And finally, after our most successful round of texture-spraying to date, we were finally able to give the kitchen that fresh coat of paint...

 A couple more before and afters.  I don't have time to fiddle with any fancy photo layouts, although I wish I could, but I'm sure you can pick out the before and after.

 (I'm not spending money on a new backsplash until we remodel the kitchen, which won't be for a LONG time...but I thought it was amazing how much the paint brightened things up!)

And one more time, in case you forgot...

:)