Christmas 2008

Finally, a Bathroom

We got a great deal on our vanity top, but had to wait until the kitchen counters were installed to have it also installed. That put our bathroom on hold until we were ready for counters, which all happened a few days before Christmas. One of the nice things, well one of the only nice things, about doing a lot of the work yourself are the extra things you end up adding to a project. Our bathroom ended up with heated marble floors, in-ceiling speakers, and a heated towel rack. We're still feeling like we're in a hotel.

Finally, a Kitchen

It has been a long road but we finally have a working kitchen. The cabinet guys are not all done quite yet (better be this week), but we have moved in and hooked up just about everything. We had forgotten how great modern conveniences like dishwashers and garbage disposals were. We used Vermont soapstone on the counters and are really pleased with how things are turning out. Eventually, we'll get the backsplash and pot filler in to finish out the kitchen, but who knows how long that will be so I'll go ahead and put these pictures up.

Learning New Things

These guys are getting more fun every day.

Halloween 2008

We had a busy Halloween. Marta finished the boys costumes just in time for the big day. The boys started the day at my work where Beau collected more candy then he needs for the whole year. We then headed down to Marta's grandma's house and brought the zoo to her neighbors, and then finished off the day at the Trunk or Treat.

A Winning Business Idea

You should always keep your eyes open for new business ideas, and I think I've got one. There are two winning pieces of this business. 1) Beau has these undershirts that he has outgrown making them very attractive belly shirts. 2) He has been learning all kinds of new exercises at pre-school. #1 + #2 = "Exercise with Beau" full body workout videos. What three year-old wouldn't want to do jumping jacks and press-ups with this mean hunk of kid?

The Football Player

We have two season tickets to BYU football this year (not a great week for them), and so Marta and I alternate weeks taking Beau to the home games. All the football has made him excited to play in our backyard, so just about every evening after dinner this is where you'll find us.

Still No Kitchen...

Time flies when you still don't have a kitchen I guess. It's probably all the dish washing in the bathtub that does it. It's not really all that fun although it does remind me of a Seinfield episode where Kramer does all his food preparation in the shower. At least he had a garbage disposal in there though. Our cabinets are currently being made so we should only be at most a couple of weeks out, then another week out for countertops, so we should be done with the kitchen by Thanksgiving.

This photo doesn't have anything to do with what this post is about, but you can't have a post without a photo, can you?

The Blakers

After the Lubas post I had to put his brother up here. Blake has his own nickname that Marta uses but I can't really pronounce it (much less spell it) so I stick to 'The Blakers'.

These two pictures pretty much tell the story of this kid. He is a very calm and sweet little man.

Our Lubas

I don't know how, but all our kids have strange nicknames. Emmett has become "Lubas". I'm not really sure where it came from, but it stuck and he is our Lubas. He is also a very big ham for the camera.

Check out that new kitchen floor he's drooling on!

Vote Here

Did you catch those conventions going on? Pretty entertaining. I fall into the category (with a lot of Americans) of "first-time taking real interest" in our November tradition. This is pretty funny flash movie no matter which side of the fence you're on: Vote Here.

Getting to Work...

Sorry it's been so long. Looking at the date of that last post I can't believe so much time has passed. Let's see, what's happened in the last month+... Well, Beau has started back up in preschool. He loves it although all the new kids who weren't in his class last year are the "other mean kids". Mom came into town unannounced - we're a 20 hour drive away yet there's no time in there for a phone call? That is always ok though as we put her right to work.

So in the week she was here we: finished the upstairs bathroom tile and grout and sealed it, painted the wainscoting, had the shower, toilet and claw foot tub hooked up, installed baseboard in the living and family rooms, installed crown molding in the family room, tore out the old bedroom corner closet (what were they thinking?), trimmed out the dining room windows and doors, in the dining room we installed baseboard, a plate-rail, and mission-style wainscotting, built a new bedroom closet and hung the doors, gutted the kitchen, had it re-plumbed, and put down, filled, sanded and finished (stain with three coats of poly) the new bedroom and kitchen wood floors. Not too bad in a week, but considering we now have about a month's worth of painting to do (not to mention our kitchen is in our dining room) we probably won't be able to take too much of a break.

The Photography Bug

This week concluded "The Month of Grandon Family Visits". My brother Jeff was here from Albany and brought with him all his camera gear. I was able to squeeze all kinds of photography tricks out of him and we took a ton of photos. I think I've got the bug that makes you spend a whole bunch of money to buy gear and ultimately leads you to sweat when lighting isn't exactly right. You can see our version of "Name in Lights". Pretty cool stuff.

Birthday Bash

Last week with Julie and her boys in town we rented a pavilion at the park and had a birthday party for the twins. It was a beautiful night and the kids seem to have had a blast running around. It was a Cat in the Hat party complete with Thing 1 (Blake) and Thing 2 (Emmett). Oddly enough both Thing 1 and 2 seem to have inherited their Dad's love of chocolate cake shaped like a big top hat.

A New Backyard

The backyard plan has changed a number of times as we've been working out there, but we feel like it kept on getting better. So this is where we are at with it. I got the boys this playset that Beau calls his "ship". It said that you should be able to assemble it and play on it that day...um, yeah right. This thing was a beast to put together, but today, after many late nights we've finally finished! We have the fill for under the playset coming next week, but I'm going to guess that's not going to slow Beau down from getting familiar with his ship.

Goin' Fishin'

As soon as you get out the camera to capture a playing together moment, they quit and just look at the camera. This is pretty much what these guys do though. Emmett spends his days looking for ways to get into trouble.

Golden Lefthanded Swing

I came across this video of Beau. I had gotten it all ready to post and then forgot about it. Look at that swing - I'm pretty proud! This was taken last October so imagine his power now... Wait, how does that saying go about living your dreams through your kids? Ah, I don't remember, I think I will go ahead and send this off to some colleges now.

The Reception

Ian and Lyndi had their reception at a very cool stable with the biggest horses I've ever seen. There was a beast of a horse named Wilhelm that was Beau's favorite, and he wanted to just hang out and pet him all night.

Let's Take a Trip

Ian and Lyndi's wedding has come very fast. We had planned to fly down to Newport Beach, CA, but after looking at the enormous pile of junk we'd have to take for the kids we realized there was no way we could get it all into a plane. Let the drive begin! The kids did so much better than I was expecting and we broke the drive up into two days so that we could actually enjoy ourselves a bit on the journey.

The view could not have been better from the condo where we stayed - check out that view. We hit up Disneyland last Friday, and besides the heat, it was great. I even convinced Beau to go on Space Mountain with me. You have to be 40 inches to go and the big guy comes in at a whopping 40 1/2 inches. The Nemo submarine turned out to be Beau's favorite ride, but all that and I think his fondest memory of the whole trip was the big hole he dug in the sand at the beach.

More Backyard Work

Our backyard plan keeps on changing, although it keeps on getting better. We rented a tamper again, this time to try to get our patio as flat as we could. Of course as soon as we got it home it started to rain, but that didn't slow Marta down at all. Beau would not let me drive the Bobcat unless he was sitting with me. Ever since this day he has talked about how much fun it was to dig and dump the dirt.

Time For Dinner

Time for the Backyard

The last couple of years out here it feels like we have gone straight from snow to 100 degrees with no spring. This year we actually have had some spring, but we're now seeing the warm weather here to stay. Since our construction began about a year and a half ago we have pretty much had a dirt backyard. So it is now time to take care of that. Last week mom came out and and I put her to work from the time she got out of the car until a few hours before she pulled away. Marta and I keep telling her that one of these days she'll come out to visit and we'll just bbq and go to the zoo, but I guess not this trip.

We did an obscene amount of work and as I type this - nearly a week after - my hands still feel like they are asleep. This weekend we're doing the final prep work for sod and planting some trees, but these pictures show where we are with the backyard now. We decided to recycle our old driveway as a patio which was a lot of work. Over the week we re-did sprinklers, moved a rock pile, poured a concrete driveway and sidewalk, hauled in about a thousand wheelbarrows of dirt, and leveled each piece of rock for the patio. Now the idea is to fill the cracks with dirt and grow some thyme in between. The newer pics are taken looking down from our upstairs bedroom. I think it should be a nice look when it's all done.

Owl PJs

One good thing about the posting layoff is quite a bit of new material. Beau was pretty excited when his best friend came over before pre-school and they saw that they were BOTH wearing robot shirts! You know, thinking about it now, I guess it's probably not that huge of a coincidence among 3 year-old boys.

The Summit

Welcome back. I know it has been a long while but things have been crazy. I've spent the last month in the back yard and would show a picture, but it's still in a condition a bit too depressing to share. Soon though...

The boys are all doing great. Emmett is everywhere and still hasn't figured out that it's easier to go around things than over them. Fortunately, Blake hasn't yet realized that he could just move and Emmett would fall off his perch.