Moved In!

So, we got moved into our house last week. It's a little bit like camping seeing as how I still don't have a kitchen, but it's nice to have sooooo much more space than we are used to. Alex and Rhianna get up in the morning and just run laps around the house. You can hear them upstairs just running back and forth into and out of eachothers rooms having a good old time.
My dad brought over a few of my new kitchen cabinets today (just the boxes, they don't have doors or shelves yet) and I am a little amazed at all the new skills my Jeff has picked up in the last few months. In the last two days he has mowed the lawn, rewired and installed the plug in my range jack, drained and snaked the main line in my house that clogged (we have a weeping willow eating our main line) hooked up my washer and dryer and installed a light over them, then he helped build and paint (with a compressor sprayer, not a brush & roller) my 8 foot cabinets. Who the crap is this guy???
Anyway, right now you get no pictures because mostly the house is still in a massive state of disarray. There is stuff EVERYWHERE!!! So as soon as we get a little more cleaned up and you can actually see what it looks like I'll post some pics.

House Updates

Ok, so here we go! Here is (finally) a pic of the front on the house. The only thing that has changed out here so far is that boarded up window has been replaced. The other pic is of our living room ceiling (sweet light fixture huh?) we forgot to take pics of it before we textured it, but here it is textured, and you can see the line of where we had painted. It's amazing, we never really thought that some texture and a nice clean white celing would make SUCH a difference, but it really does. The wall in the kitchen is fully removed and the support beam that replaced it is pretty much done. The majority of the wiring has been completed throughout the whole house, and the are building my new closet in my bedroom as we speak. We have also fully removed the chimney and patched all the walls that had to be ripped down to do it. Most of all the walls have been patched and are ready to paint, and almost all the ugly 40 year old wallpaper has been removed. It still looks pretty much like a disaster in there, but we have made some really good progress over the last few weeks (thanks Dad!) It is starting to look like it might actually be completed one day! I'll get some more pics to post soon.

Babies are Crazy

Since I keep forgetting to take my camera over to the house to take pictures of all the amazing work my darling husband has been doing... I'll tell you a funny store instead.
Yesterday Alex and I walked outside into the rainy 58 degree weather (apparently Idaho Falls has banned both spring and summer) and he looks at me and says "Col!" (cold) So I say, 'col-d." with a real emphasis on the D, you know, sounded like col-duh. So Alex, being the good boy that he his , repeated it perfectly, Col-duh. I was so proud of the genius that was my 2 year old. We head inside and a little while later I give him a cookie. He eats the whole thing the walks up to me with his hand stretched out and says 'More-duh?'
So much for being a genius.

Our House

Alright, here are some pics of our house so far. It seems I haven't taken one of the front on the house, so I will be sure and get that done and post one of those. This first is the missing chimney. It was an old closed off coal stove chimney that was leaking and causing the plaster to crack all the way down. Also it was smack in the middle of the wall that I wanted to rip out. So we ripped it out as well! Let me tell you, the day Jeff took it down it was SOOO windy! He may have been a scared little girl the whole time he was doing it.
This is the back of the house with the chimney still in tact. This picture actually does not do the house justice, the paint is WAY worse than it looks in this picture! :0)

Here is the super cool Coke kitchen. And this set of cupboards with the sink were the ONLY thing in the kitchen. No other cupboards, no appliances, nothing. Those are gone now, as well as the false ceiling that you can also see in this pic. The ceilings are actually 10' high, we are not sure why someone would put a drop on it... guess maybe it was cool 30 years ago....

Here is the wall seperating the kitchen from the... well we aren't really sure what this room actually is/was/will be. So we shall call it the.... dining room? Sure, that sounds good. It is also the entery to the house, the front door is on the wall that you can't see in the pic. Anyway, this is the wall I wanted ripped down.

And here it is mostly ripped down. That chunk in the center is the chimney. The chimney that was just poured concrete. A lot of concrete. It has since been removed (ask Jeff how much he LOVED that job...) and the support beams are being built as we speak so by the end of the day this should be one huge open space!!! That's the majority of what we have done so far, but I will continue to take/post pics as we keep working. Sorry it took me so long to get all of these posted (sandy...:) I am a bit of a slacker. I'll try to be better from now on.

Whoops

Please read the next post, then understand that I forgot this pic. How could I forget this one? This is at Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers. I would like to say that Alex thought this was fascinating, but really, this was all about Jeff!

Detroit

So, Detroit. We had a blast! We went to the zoo first, then to a Tigers game (where they got spanked by the Red Sox.) Alex found the tiger claws (no foam fingers in Comerica Park!) but he didn't get any because... anyone wanna guess how much they cost? $15 each! Can you believe that?

But he did get this super cute hat that he loves!

This is the tunnel at the zoo. It goes underneath the seal habitat and they show off for the people. One of them just hung out letting the jet blow on it's face for about 5 minutes. Alex thought this was pretty fascinating, especially when they swam over our heads.

Since the movie The Golden Compass Jeff and I have both added Polar Bears to our fantasy army. Thus of course we had to take a picture with this one.

The fish kept swimming by in this tank, and anyone that sees alex... ever... knows what he is saying here. Whereareyou?!?!

I wished we would have had more time in Detroit, there was SO much more to do. Next time for sure...

Michigan

Here is a snapshot of part of our trip to Michigan so far! We went to Mackinaw island and there is an old Military fort up on the hill. This was inside one of the bunkers where they made a room into a 'kids quarters.' There were lots of activities and stuff for Alex to destroy. We thought he was just WAY too cute in the soldier uniform.....


Or as an actual soldier....

This is from a balcony at the fort looking out over the island. On this island the only cars alllowed are emergency vehicles. Everything else is horse and buggy or bicycles. You should see the construction buggies. Big old horse drawn flat bed trailers with all the construction equipment on them. No tractors or anything! That would SUCK!

Yup, he fell off. It was awesome.

Here are just a few so far from our trip. We are having a pretty good time, but the weather has been crappy pretty much the whole time. We have really only had decent weather 2 days so far, but it is supposed to be nice friday & saturday. Those two days are important cuz the Tiger's baseball game is Friday, and we travel on Saturday. So here's hoping the forecast doesn't change!