Thursday, December 31, 2009
Lincoln Brent Lorimer
Heather and the baby came home. Before coming home we filled out the birth certificate paperwork, so he officially has a name. Lincoln Brent Lorimer. Lincoln because we like it. Brent after Heather's dad, and Lorimer just comes with the territory.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Now we just need a name to go with the baby....
Heather had the baby today at 11:44 AM. He was 19" long and 7 lbs 12 oz. We still don't have a name for him though.....
Saturday, October 17, 2009
A whole bunch of catching up.....
I think the appropriate term is "slacker", but I am going to claim "busy". We haven't updated this blog forever. The last post was from the first day of a conference in San Francisco and I had these grand delusions that I was going to post fantastic summaries of my trip every day. As it turns out, the conference was outstanding, and I spent all my time doing things for the conference. Not blogging. Since then, our life has been pretty busy and exciting. I will try to give a quick rundown, then just post a ton of pictures...
At the conference, I learned a of great information to help me do my job better. They had a party one night which was a lot of fun. There was free bowling, a Foreigner concert, pool, ping pong, mechanical bull, lots of food, air hockey. They had a baseball throw and I went to show my stuff at the baseball throw. Turns our they only had softballs. It hurts to throw a softball at 60 MPH. On the last day, I had ~6 hours in the morning before my flight to wander around San Francisco. I walked ~10 miles which felt like ~25. San Francisco is a pretty city, with a ton to do. The cable car museum was really cool, but the lighting sucked so none of my pictures turned out.
Gracie had her birthday and turned 3. She had a blast. We did a small family party the night before and then she had a bunch of friends come over and play for her birthday party. She was _VERY_ excited to get a lot of Blues Clues toys to play with.
Noah turned 5 a couple weeks after that. His favorite part of his birthday was the BlueTrak racetrack he got. Heather and I like it because it doesn't take batteries. I am surprised what kind of loops and turns you can get Hot Wheels cars to do with just gravity getting them going.
Our other news recently is that Heather has an official due date (no longer is it a 3 week range). She is due on Jan. 4th. The doctor says that the baby will likely come before the new year one way or another though. In anticipation of this, we bought a van last week. We looked around at a lot of different vans. We were lucky enough to find one that some people in Holladay were selling that had everything Heather wanted. When people ask what options it has I tell them it has all the ones Heather cared about (heated seats and power doors).
Last week Heather and I had the chance to go to Saint George without the kids for a few days. It was a good trip. I attended a security conference for work and Heather had a nice break from the kids. The highlight of the conference is that out of ~230 people, I won the hacker challenge (a bunch of geeky challenges that involved un-deleting files, eves-dropping on network traffic to get information from other computers, picking locks and that kind of stuff). I was pretty happy to win.
The thing that brings Heather the most joy from the last month though, is the basement. The walls are painted. The carpet is re-laid. The doors are hung. We even have some things put away. Our house has a chance of getting back to normal at some point in the future.
At the conference, I learned a of great information to help me do my job better. They had a party one night which was a lot of fun. There was free bowling, a Foreigner concert, pool, ping pong, mechanical bull, lots of food, air hockey. They had a baseball throw and I went to show my stuff at the baseball throw. Turns our they only had softballs. It hurts to throw a softball at 60 MPH. On the last day, I had ~6 hours in the morning before my flight to wander around San Francisco. I walked ~10 miles which felt like ~25. San Francisco is a pretty city, with a ton to do. The cable car museum was really cool, but the lighting sucked so none of my pictures turned out.
Gracie had her birthday and turned 3. She had a blast. We did a small family party the night before and then she had a bunch of friends come over and play for her birthday party. She was _VERY_ excited to get a lot of Blues Clues toys to play with.
Noah turned 5 a couple weeks after that. His favorite part of his birthday was the BlueTrak racetrack he got. Heather and I like it because it doesn't take batteries. I am surprised what kind of loops and turns you can get Hot Wheels cars to do with just gravity getting them going.
Our other news recently is that Heather has an official due date (no longer is it a 3 week range). She is due on Jan. 4th. The doctor says that the baby will likely come before the new year one way or another though. In anticipation of this, we bought a van last week. We looked around at a lot of different vans. We were lucky enough to find one that some people in Holladay were selling that had everything Heather wanted. When people ask what options it has I tell them it has all the ones Heather cared about (heated seats and power doors).
Last week Heather and I had the chance to go to Saint George without the kids for a few days. It was a good trip. I attended a security conference for work and Heather had a nice break from the kids. The highlight of the conference is that out of ~230 people, I won the hacker challenge (a bunch of geeky challenges that involved un-deleting files, eves-dropping on network traffic to get information from other computers, picking locks and that kind of stuff). I was pretty happy to win.
The thing that brings Heather the most joy from the last month though, is the basement. The walls are painted. The carpet is re-laid. The doors are hung. We even have some things put away. Our house has a chance of getting back to normal at some point in the future.
Monday, August 31, 2009
San Francisco day 1...
I am in San Francisco for a conference this week. The conference is called VMworld. 15,000 geeks like me come here and learn more about virtualizing computers. I am pretty excited for it. There is a ton of really cool information, displays and some great training offered. Today was registration and labs. I was only able to get into 2 labs today, but that is okay. The day started kind of early (6:15 for registration). I got to meet a lot of nice people (most of whom I will never talk to or see again...).
As I was planning the trip, I was saying to Heather that I wanted to go see the Golden Gate Bridge. Since I knew I wasn't going to have a car, I told her I was thinking about running across it. The next morning on a blog, I read that a couple guys had decided that they wanted to do an official conference activity of running across the bridge. It was the perfect opportunity. Even though I forgot my running shoes, I decided to go for the run anyways. It wasn't bad at all. We traveled a total distance of ~5.5K.
Here is a photo album of today's adventures. I'll probably post more as the week goes on...
As I was planning the trip, I was saying to Heather that I wanted to go see the Golden Gate Bridge. Since I knew I wasn't going to have a car, I told her I was thinking about running across it. The next morning on a blog, I read that a couple guys had decided that they wanted to do an official conference activity of running across the bridge. It was the perfect opportunity. Even though I forgot my running shoes, I decided to go for the run anyways. It wasn't bad at all. We traveled a total distance of ~5.5K.
Here is a photo album of today's adventures. I'll probably post more as the week goes on...
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Forget Waldo......
Today, I found the best church book ever created. Guaranteed to entertain for hours and hours. It can be pre-ordered here. Yes, we do need a copy at my house.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Comments.....
I had somebody walk by my desk at work today and comment, but that kind of comment doesn't work.... This post was just too good to pass up.
Anybody out there?
On Heather's family blog, her brother-in-law has started a new habit that I like. When he notices nobody commenting, he posts a random picture/link/video. If nobody comments, he posts something else. With each post, they get progressively weirder.
I thought I would start with interesting before heading into the world of weird.
I thought I would start with interesting before heading into the world of weird.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Progress you can see. Finally......
We have had a lot of help getting things done in our basement. We are really grateful for everything that everyone has done. It seems like everything we have done up to now (except the first few days of ripping stuff out) isn't really apparent. We spent a lot of time redoing the wiring, adding light switches and replacing light fixtures. Last weekend, we finally made some visible progress. Heather's family and a guy from the ward came over and helped us and we got a lot done.
Work done so far:
Work left:
As I look at that list, it seems like we have more to do than we have done. As I look at the basement I am pretty sure we are well past the hump and entering the home stretch.
Here are some pictures of where the basement is at right now. If anybody else wants to help, the next big party is August 1st. You are all welcome to come help any time though. :)
Work done so far:
- All the wiring that was in or near the water has been replaced
- Every room has it's very own light switch (in a logical location) - Yea!!
- New light fixtures in several rooms (needed more than 1 40 watt mini-bulb to make it not feel like a dungeon)
- Added light fixture in family room
- Centered light fixtures (instead of wherever they were before)
- Moved the wall and Heather now has a laundry _room_ instead of a laundry closet
- Closed in the wall to the storage dungeon and opened up an opening for new french doors
- Removed big box on the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs (was put there because of a lazy electrician)
- All exterior walls have new insulation
- Drywall in the pink room
- Drywall in the blue room
Work left:
- Window box in the blue room
- Drywall in the yellow room
- Drywall in all of the closets
- Drywall in the hallway
- Drywall in the family room
- Wetboard in the bathroom
- Install french doors into the office
- Move 2 wires in the ceiling (where the electrician went around, not through the top plate.... Crossing my fingers - hoping it is easy)
- Add 2 new outlets in the office
- Fix all the holes in the ceiling from pulling new wires
- Do all the taping and mudding (I think we will pay somebody to do this)
- Lay new flooring in the bathroom
- Put down new carpet pad and all the carpet
- Redo the window wells so this NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER happens again
- Keep tabs on a good realtor in case this happens again
As I look at that list, it seems like we have more to do than we have done. As I look at the basement I am pretty sure we are well past the hump and entering the home stretch.
Here are some pictures of where the basement is at right now. If anybody else wants to help, the next big party is August 1st. You are all welcome to come help any time though. :)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Last night's ceremony...
Last night as Heather and I were talking, a small ceremony took place. It was very small and unassuming, but it definitely signified a major event in both Heather and Noah's lives. It got me thinking a little about ceremonies in general. Everybody knows you are getting married long before the wedding. The ceremony doesn't annouce anything that was unknown. If you skip your graduation, you are still a graduate. Attendance is optional. The ceremony is usually just a capstone. The work is done before you enter the ceremony.
Last night's ceremony fits all of these descriptions, but it was much smaller. The ritual has been performed. If you weren't paying attention, it was easy to miss. As we were talking, Heather looked at me and said "Someday, _your_ boy is going to have a little boy, _just_ like him. I feel bad for his poor wife."*
It is now official. Noah is a boy, and Heather is a mother.
* Brief explanation for those curious about what caused this comment. Noah was curious. He wanted to see how well dryer sheets clean a bathroom mirror. When they did nothing, he got them wet. When that left a white film, he tried toilet paper. With the toilet paper though, he was a step ahead. He knew that dry things did nothing, so he went straight to the wet phase. The end result was a bathroom mirror 100% covered in white dyer sheet film with a light spattering of toilet paper pulp. The counter was covered with enough raw materials to do a few more mirrors, including water.
Last night's ceremony fits all of these descriptions, but it was much smaller. The ritual has been performed. If you weren't paying attention, it was easy to miss. As we were talking, Heather looked at me and said "Someday, _your_ boy is going to have a little boy, _just_ like him. I feel bad for his poor wife."*
It is now official. Noah is a boy, and Heather is a mother.
* Brief explanation for those curious about what caused this comment. Noah was curious. He wanted to see how well dryer sheets clean a bathroom mirror. When they did nothing, he got them wet. When that left a white film, he tried toilet paper. With the toilet paper though, he was a step ahead. He knew that dry things did nothing, so he went straight to the wet phase. The end result was a bathroom mirror 100% covered in white dyer sheet film with a light spattering of toilet paper pulp. The counter was covered with enough raw materials to do a few more mirrors, including water.
Monday, July 20, 2009
What we've done so far this summer
We haven't posted a whole lot this summer. That isn't because we haven't done anything..... We have even slipped some fun in between weekends of working on the basement. Noah and Matt went on a father's and sons campout. Noah thought it was awesome sleeping in a tent. For the Fourth of July we went to the Plain City celebrations with Heather's sister. Noah participated his first pie-eating contest. The highlight of the day though came with the fish catch. They had a pond that they filled with water before adding fish. The kids got to climb in and catch the fish with their hands. Noah caught a couple of them on his own but had troubles putting them into the bag. Gracie needed a little more help. Both of the kids had a TON of fun running around in the water with the fish. Here are pictures that do a better job describing the summer than I have done.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Work stuff somebody may be interested in....
I know this blog is mostly for people to see what is going on in mine and Heather's lives. I started on an adventure at work today and I thought I would share it. Most of you probably won't care (and by most I mean 1.5 of the 2 total readers we get here on this blog). Anyways, at work I run linux on my desktop and laptop. The other day, I tried to upgrade to the newest version of Ubuntu and had problems getting my 2 video cards to work (I have 2 19" monitors and 1 24"). I could get 2 working, but never all 3. This is a LOOOOOOONG standing problem with linux. After harassment from some of the guys at work, I agreed to try out a Mac for 2 weeks. I figured I would document my thoughts and findings for posterity. Here are the raving opinions of a linux guy switching to OS X for a couple weeks. I'll try to even throw in a few accurate facts occasionally. After the 2 weeks, I will post an update with my final thoughts and findings. Here are some of my thoughts after 1 day:
OS X FTW:
- Video drivers - Video drivers just plain suck in Linux. Beyond description they suck.
- Adium/Pidgin - Adium wins. I know Adium is a fork of pidgin, but Adium is MUCH better.
- Apps - Having apps be self contained folders where dragging and dropping them is awesome. Every OS should implement this. apt/debs is really close, almost making it sixes, but I am going to nudge OS X here.
- Mail/iCal - This being the pre-release of 10.6 I have exchange support in Mail/iCal. It is nice to be able to interact with Exchange correctly for once.
Linux FTW:
- Spaces/Compiz - compiz is just as functional, easier to use and has more features.
- Amarok/iTunes - Amarok wins. Hands down.
- Who the @#$(@#*$ decided that Home and End shouldn't do what they have done on every OS since the beginning of time?
- People still pay money for applications!?!
- Adjusting from control to/from Apple Key/etc. Fewer modifier keys is a good thing (mostly my brain not rewiring, not a real problem).
- Every OS should have 2 clipboards. Linux's highlight/middle click is AWESOME!
- Apps are 1 icon: nice. Having your package manager update EVERY_SINGLE_PROGRAM_ON_YOUR_COMPUTER, priceless.
- Terminal/gnome terminal - I miss my next tab shortcut – a LOT. If I could find a way to do it in OS X Terminal, it would be sixes.
Sixes:
- Drivers in general. I am trying OS X because of video drivers in linux. OS X just works, but I only get 2 monitors (hardware limitation). I can get 2 monitors working in linux pretty easily. Dell keyboard not surprisingly unsupported in OS X.
- gnome-do/Google QSB - Both are pretty even. If pushed to choose, I would choose gnome-do, but it is too close to matter.
- User Interface - Sure OS X is prettier (out of the box), but I don't really care. If I did care, linux is customizable enough I can make it look EXACTLY like OS X, or even arguably better (lots of examples on the internet).
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Happy News
I feel like all the things I post to the blog are negative (we have had a run of bad luck) So I am happy to report that we are expecting a baby (the due date is either the end of December or the first of January) We are very excited for the new baby. We are about 12 months along and things are going well. How am I feeling? I just be honest I feel sick, but I am hoping that I am just about to get feeling better usually 3 months is the turning point for me.
Noah and Grace are very excited. Noah wants to ask the baby questions and Grace gets very upset if we don't pray for the new baby when every we say prayers.
A cute story about Noah and the baby, we were at the library yesterday and there was an advertisement for the 4th of July fireworks he says to me "Look Mom, they are having fireworks for the baby's birthday" Well they are having fireworks but it is just a little early for the baby's birthday.
Noah and Grace are very excited. Noah wants to ask the baby questions and Grace gets very upset if we don't pray for the new baby when every we say prayers.
A cute story about Noah and the baby, we were at the library yesterday and there was an advertisement for the 4th of July fireworks he says to me "Look Mom, they are having fireworks for the baby's birthday" Well they are having fireworks but it is just a little early for the baby's birthday.
Our second flood
So on May 24thJ we finished cleaning up from the sprinkler flood, the basement was all painted and we had the carpet layed. On the following Tuesday June 2 there was a bad rainstorm in Smithfield and the canal behind our house overflowed (due to the fact that the canal was totally full and the city dumps the storm water in it). We had about 24 inches of water in our yard and about 4-6 inches of water through out our basement. We had tons of help that night (thanks everyone who came to save our stuff) and we were able to save most of our possessions. We did have to rip out all the carpet and pad and the hardwood in the bathroom, we also had to take out about 2 feet of drywall and insulation, some of the wiring has to be replaced and well the short story is it is a mess.
We are very grateful we did not loose more, we do not have to replace our furnace (yeah! especially since it is brand new) or the water heater or the washer and dryer. We also saved most of our possessions (except our guest room furniture I guess all of you planning to stay with us will have to sleep on the floor again)
So how far is the reconstruction and what is our plan? Well that is a good question. We are mostly doing it as we have the time and money. So far nobody's insurance is willing to pay for it (our home-owners won't neither will the canal companies, we are still working with the city). So since we were not planning on finishing our basement (since it was finished when we bought the house in Feb) we will see when it gets done.
We are very grateful we did not loose more, we do not have to replace our furnace (yeah! especially since it is brand new) or the water heater or the washer and dryer. We also saved most of our possessions (except our guest room furniture I guess all of you planning to stay with us will have to sleep on the floor again)
So how far is the reconstruction and what is our plan? Well that is a good question. We are mostly doing it as we have the time and money. So far nobody's insurance is willing to pay for it (our home-owners won't neither will the canal companies, we are still working with the city). So since we were not planning on finishing our basement (since it was finished when we bought the house in Feb) we will see when it gets done.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Random Rant of the Day
A while ago I watched a discussion play out. The topic was very emotionally charged. It started with an offhand comment, to which others chimed in and added their thoughts. The discussion quickly passed through debate and straight to mudslinging. It was interesting for me to see how as the discussion got emotional, tempers flared and logic became moot. Rather than point/counterpoint the discussion was full of insults ranging from childish to slanderous mixed in with a few threats.
As I sat on the outside watching things play out I thought back to when, as a kid, I took a debate class. I wasn't the best in the world, and I don't practice what I learned very often. I decided that I want my kids to take debate. I want them to be able to have intelligent discussions with people even though they are on different sides of the issue. I want them to listen to points made, think about them and offer counterpoint. Perhaps their own thoughts and beliefs (and/or those of the other person) will come out stronger, slightly altered or possibly end up take the other person's side. I want them to be able to strongly disagree with someone on a point, yet still be friends with them.
The discussion I observed was diffused and everyone walked away with little more than bruised egos. I think that the people that were friends at the start were friends still in the end. I couldn't help but wonder if some of the participants might miss out on what could possibly be a great friendship. Circumstances formed a first impression that will be difficult to overcome. Some of my best friends have been people that held drastically different beliefs from me.
I am not totally sure of the point of this post. Perhaps a future reminder for me. Something that will be etched into the archives of Google's cache. Awaiting my future browsing. When my kids are old enough, I may stumble across this post. At that time, I will read this and find my own advice brilliant. I'll remind myself just how smart I am (or perhaps was). The other option is that I will read this and see my naivety. Laughing at the similarities of this post and how much I was positive I knew about kids before I had some of my own......
As I sat on the outside watching things play out I thought back to when, as a kid, I took a debate class. I wasn't the best in the world, and I don't practice what I learned very often. I decided that I want my kids to take debate. I want them to be able to have intelligent discussions with people even though they are on different sides of the issue. I want them to listen to points made, think about them and offer counterpoint. Perhaps their own thoughts and beliefs (and/or those of the other person) will come out stronger, slightly altered or possibly end up take the other person's side. I want them to be able to strongly disagree with someone on a point, yet still be friends with them.
The discussion I observed was diffused and everyone walked away with little more than bruised egos. I think that the people that were friends at the start were friends still in the end. I couldn't help but wonder if some of the participants might miss out on what could possibly be a great friendship. Circumstances formed a first impression that will be difficult to overcome. Some of my best friends have been people that held drastically different beliefs from me.
I am not totally sure of the point of this post. Perhaps a future reminder for me. Something that will be etched into the archives of Google's cache. Awaiting my future browsing. When my kids are old enough, I may stumble across this post. At that time, I will read this and find my own advice brilliant. I'll remind myself just how smart I am (or perhaps was). The other option is that I will read this and see my naivety. Laughing at the similarities of this post and how much I was positive I knew about kids before I had some of my own......
Friday, April 17, 2009
More clouds and the silver lining....
Here is an update on the flooded basement situation. At first our insurance was iffy if they would cover anything at all. The adjuster was really nice and good to us though. He concluded that the water did in fact come through the windows and all work will be covered by our home-owners insurance. The Alpine guys ripped out the dry wall below three feet in the rooms and discovered the next problem. The guy who owned the house before us finished the basement, but didn't do a stellar job with the wiring. Rather than frame the basement with 2x4's like you normally would do, he affixed 2x2's to the foundation. Since 2x2's aren't really big enough to put wiring through, he decided to run the wiring along the floor underneath the 2X2's (they don't quite go all the way to the floor). We are all lucky and glad that we didn't get electrocuted during clean-up. It is also kind of a miracle the house hasn't burned down.
Alpine has seen sub-par basement finishes before and knew that some home insurance policies include "code upgrade clauses". Turns out ours is one of those. Thanks to the restoration people being on the ball, Heather and I get to have all of the wiring in our house upgraded to meet code. This will probably mean all new drywall and framing on all exterior walls in the basement, new wiring throughout the basement, fix the stupid light switch in the hall that controls 2 bedrooms (putting switches in each room) and put a light in the hallway downstairs. I think they will even fix the fact that the circuits all have too much stuff on them (outlets upstairs are hot to the touch right now as the fans run in the basement because of power draw). A couple of the breakers trip when you run multiple things at the same time (the fans in the basement require us to head out and reset the breaker several times per day). Hopefully we will get a couple new home-runs for the basement instead of just tapping into the upstairs circuits like we currently have.
We aren't excited to have our basement ripped up for the forseeable future. It seems to be for the better though. I am really glad that we found the wiring problems. It really is scary/dangerous having the wiring as bad as it is; it really needs to be fixed. I probably would not known until the house burned down. Once they found the bad wiring, I probably would have rationalized and justified my way out of ever doing all the work to fix it if it wasn't being done for us. It really does need to be done though, and sooner rather than later.
All in all, for how much I was upset at things when I heard the basement was flooding, things are turning out about as good as they possibly can in this situation. Just to top things off even more, the insurance company is going to count the work we did to take things out of the rooms and vacuum up the first 150 gallons of water. They taking several hundred dollars off the deductible. Life is good.
I was pretty happy with all this news. We are getting all of the wiring in the basement fixed (on the same insurance claim/deductible no less) and therefore my house not burning down. Heather wanted to sweeten my day a bit more though. She made me home made corn dogs and churros for dinner tonight. It really has been a pretty dang good day here in Smithfield.
Here are some pics of the current status of our basement:
Alpine has seen sub-par basement finishes before and knew that some home insurance policies include "code upgrade clauses". Turns out ours is one of those. Thanks to the restoration people being on the ball, Heather and I get to have all of the wiring in our house upgraded to meet code. This will probably mean all new drywall and framing on all exterior walls in the basement, new wiring throughout the basement, fix the stupid light switch in the hall that controls 2 bedrooms (putting switches in each room) and put a light in the hallway downstairs. I think they will even fix the fact that the circuits all have too much stuff on them (outlets upstairs are hot to the touch right now as the fans run in the basement because of power draw). A couple of the breakers trip when you run multiple things at the same time (the fans in the basement require us to head out and reset the breaker several times per day). Hopefully we will get a couple new home-runs for the basement instead of just tapping into the upstairs circuits like we currently have.
We aren't excited to have our basement ripped up for the forseeable future. It seems to be for the better though. I am really glad that we found the wiring problems. It really is scary/dangerous having the wiring as bad as it is; it really needs to be fixed. I probably would not known until the house burned down. Once they found the bad wiring, I probably would have rationalized and justified my way out of ever doing all the work to fix it if it wasn't being done for us. It really does need to be done though, and sooner rather than later.
All in all, for how much I was upset at things when I heard the basement was flooding, things are turning out about as good as they possibly can in this situation. Just to top things off even more, the insurance company is going to count the work we did to take things out of the rooms and vacuum up the first 150 gallons of water. They taking several hundred dollars off the deductible. Life is good.
I was pretty happy with all this news. We are getting all of the wiring in the basement fixed (on the same insurance claim/deductible no less) and therefore my house not burning down. Heather wanted to sweeten my day a bit more though. She made me home made corn dogs and churros for dinner tonight. It really has been a pretty dang good day here in Smithfield.
Here are some pics of the current status of our basement:
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Easter 2009 in Smithfield
Easter in Smithfield was exciting. The fun started Saturday morning. Smithfield City did an Easter egg hunt at Mack Park a few blocks from our house. It was more of a candy hunt, but that is what the kids wanted for anyways. I am still amazed at how much candy was strewn across the lawn at the park. I would guess there were 200 kids there. Noah and Grace probably had less than average and they still came home with more candy than they needed. After Mack Park, we went to the store to grab some things for dinner. The grocery store was also having an Easter celebration. More candy for the kids. More sugar highs.
Next on the agenda was building a sandbox. Heather's dad came up and we started clearing out a spot in the lawn. Noah was ecstatic to go to the landscaping supply place and pickup the sand. We got to talk about the skid-steer that loaded the sand. He thought the name was silly, and thought the reason behind the name was even funnier. After we got home, I learned that while the tires on the truck are good enough to pass state inspections, they aren't good enough to drive on wet grass. It didn't make Heather's day to see me ripping up the grass in the yard.
When we got back, we finished digging the hole, and building the wooden frame. We were about to start unloading the sand when Heather came and told me the happy news of the night. There was ~2 inches of water in the three bedrooms in the basement. There were 4 of us that spent ~2.5 hours with wet-dry vacs sucking up water. I have no idea how much water we got out, my best guess is around 60-70 gallons. We finally gave up and called in the big guns. The Alpine guys ripped out all of the carpet pads, did their own extractions (getting who knows how many more gallons of water) and set out fans and a de-humidifier.
After looking around at things, it turns out that I caused the flooding. As a part of the Spring preparations, I turned the sprinkler valve back on. The guy we bought the house from showed me the valve out front, but everything else was under snow. We never opened up the sprinkler control boxes and I didn't see that he had a drain valve installed there. In case anyone cares, you need to close the drain valve (in both boxes, front and back), before you turn on the main sprinkler valve out front, or life gets exciting. Luckily we caught it within 6-8 hours of turning the water on. We rarely go into the basement and it could easily have been days before we caught it.
Today has been a lot better. The kids actually slept in. We got ready and headed to church. After church, we spent the afternoon just relaxing. We took a nice walk, and the kids played in the sand box, and most of us took naps (Noah is too big for naps...) All in all, it was a very eventful Easter weekend, but pretty nice.
Here are some pictures of the happenings at our house this weekend.
Next on the agenda was building a sandbox. Heather's dad came up and we started clearing out a spot in the lawn. Noah was ecstatic to go to the landscaping supply place and pickup the sand. We got to talk about the skid-steer that loaded the sand. He thought the name was silly, and thought the reason behind the name was even funnier. After we got home, I learned that while the tires on the truck are good enough to pass state inspections, they aren't good enough to drive on wet grass. It didn't make Heather's day to see me ripping up the grass in the yard.
When we got back, we finished digging the hole, and building the wooden frame. We were about to start unloading the sand when Heather came and told me the happy news of the night. There was ~2 inches of water in the three bedrooms in the basement. There were 4 of us that spent ~2.5 hours with wet-dry vacs sucking up water. I have no idea how much water we got out, my best guess is around 60-70 gallons. We finally gave up and called in the big guns. The Alpine guys ripped out all of the carpet pads, did their own extractions (getting who knows how many more gallons of water) and set out fans and a de-humidifier.
After looking around at things, it turns out that I caused the flooding. As a part of the Spring preparations, I turned the sprinkler valve back on. The guy we bought the house from showed me the valve out front, but everything else was under snow. We never opened up the sprinkler control boxes and I didn't see that he had a drain valve installed there. In case anyone cares, you need to close the drain valve (in both boxes, front and back), before you turn on the main sprinkler valve out front, or life gets exciting. Luckily we caught it within 6-8 hours of turning the water on. We rarely go into the basement and it could easily have been days before we caught it.
Today has been a lot better. The kids actually slept in. We got ready and headed to church. After church, we spent the afternoon just relaxing. We took a nice walk, and the kids played in the sand box, and most of us took naps (Noah is too big for naps...) All in all, it was a very eventful Easter weekend, but pretty nice.
Here are some pictures of the happenings at our house this weekend.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Awesome read....
It may be my love of the movie "The Italian Job" getting to me, but I found this wired article about the world's biggest diamond heist to be beyond fascinating... I highly recommend reading it.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Holy long post Batman!!
Before I lose everybody in the long, boring bits; we have an invitation to extend. This Saturday (March 7), we are having an open house at our new house from 5:00 - 7:00 PM. It isn't going to be super formal. Just hang out, play games, chat, whatever. We will have a few treats to snack on too. We would love to see you there. If you can make it and/or need the address, get a hold of Heather or me. If you can't make it, that is fine too. You are all welcome to visit any time you want (whether or not you make it to the open house).
Back to the post....
I have been doing a bad job updating the blog again. That probably shouldn't surprise anybody. :) Things at hour house have been crazy lately. I have started a post for the blog about 5 times, but never finished it. I'll try to do a quick sum-up as to what has been happening at our house.
We moved into our new house in Smithfield. The move went off pretty well. Shockingly, the only thing that broke was a cookie jar. I kind of expected more stuff to get busted in the move. Heather did 98% of the packing and 99% of the unpacking. I feel pretty bad about that, but she did an awesome job. She also coped with the kids while she was at it. I took the easy route and went to work.
We love the new house. It is much bigger than our old house. We love having all of the space, and finally being able to put everything in it's space (although, the truck hasn't made it into it's place in the garage yet, I still need to finish cleaning out the garage...) As it warms up, we all get excited about the yard. The people who owned the house before us did a pretty good job at landscaping, and loved their patios. We have 3 large patios, and lots of trees. The kids can't wait to put their swingset together and play more in the backyard. Heather and I are getting excited for the garden.
The university is not immune to the economy. IT at USU recently let 20% of their employees go via either reduction in force, or a voluntary termination. Thankfully, I still have a job. I also have some free time coming up next week. Whether I like it or not. We are going to make the best of it by finishing getting settled into our house.
Heather has wanted to go to the beach for a while. I thought: Hey, my brother lives a couple hours away from a beach. Why don't we go to Texas to go to the beach? We are hoping to make it work out for us to go down there. It will be a LOOOOOONG trip. We will see how that pans out.
I am sure I am forgetting several things, but this post is plenty long enough already. I'll leave off with some pictures for everyone to enjoy.
Back to the post....
I have been doing a bad job updating the blog again. That probably shouldn't surprise anybody. :) Things at hour house have been crazy lately. I have started a post for the blog about 5 times, but never finished it. I'll try to do a quick sum-up as to what has been happening at our house.
We moved into our new house in Smithfield. The move went off pretty well. Shockingly, the only thing that broke was a cookie jar. I kind of expected more stuff to get busted in the move. Heather did 98% of the packing and 99% of the unpacking. I feel pretty bad about that, but she did an awesome job. She also coped with the kids while she was at it. I took the easy route and went to work.
We love the new house. It is much bigger than our old house. We love having all of the space, and finally being able to put everything in it's space (although, the truck hasn't made it into it's place in the garage yet, I still need to finish cleaning out the garage...) As it warms up, we all get excited about the yard. The people who owned the house before us did a pretty good job at landscaping, and loved their patios. We have 3 large patios, and lots of trees. The kids can't wait to put their swingset together and play more in the backyard. Heather and I are getting excited for the garden.
The university is not immune to the economy. IT at USU recently let 20% of their employees go via either reduction in force, or a voluntary termination. Thankfully, I still have a job. I also have some free time coming up next week. Whether I like it or not. We are going to make the best of it by finishing getting settled into our house.
Heather has wanted to go to the beach for a while. I thought: Hey, my brother lives a couple hours away from a beach. Why don't we go to Texas to go to the beach? We are hoping to make it work out for us to go down there. It will be a LOOOOOONG trip. We will see how that pans out.
I am sure I am forgetting several things, but this post is plenty long enough already. I'll leave off with some pictures for everyone to enjoy.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Another housing update.
It will be sad to leave our Meadow Circle house. Neither Heather or I have any doubts that this was absolutely the right house for us to be in. We all love it here. The location, the house and the ward. As we talked, it felt like it was time to move on. We feel that this is the right time for us to move.
Right after we put the house on the market in November, we had a couple showings a week. We have only had 1 showing at our house since the week of Thanksgiving, but I guess 1 is all it takes. Our current house went under contract about a week ago. We feel like we are getting a great market value without ripping the buyer off. A win-win for both of us.
Once our house was under contract, it became crunch time. We either had to find something new for us, or a place to rent. Last week I think we looked at ~20 houses in 2 days. The last one we looked at, we made an offer on.
We now have that house under contract. There was an existing offer on the house that was contingent upon the buyer selling their house. Since we have our house under contract, we made an offer and the seller has accepted it. The other buyer has a couple more days to drop all contingencies from their offer, but that is unlikely. It looks like we will become the primary offer and get this house.
The house is in Smithfield (~4 miles north of Logan). Across the street is the church, and behind the house across the canal is the elementary school. The house is _HUGE_. We have no idea what we will do with all the space. The home was built in 1991, then they remodeled in 2000. It has 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.
Assuming all goes well, we will close on both houses on Feb 23. That means we will have to move out of our current house on ~Feb 21, and we hope to do some work on the new house before moving in, so it will probably be Feb 28th before we move in. We are pretty excited.
Here are some pics of the house for all to enjoy....
Right after we put the house on the market in November, we had a couple showings a week. We have only had 1 showing at our house since the week of Thanksgiving, but I guess 1 is all it takes. Our current house went under contract about a week ago. We feel like we are getting a great market value without ripping the buyer off. A win-win for both of us.
Once our house was under contract, it became crunch time. We either had to find something new for us, or a place to rent. Last week I think we looked at ~20 houses in 2 days. The last one we looked at, we made an offer on.
We now have that house under contract. There was an existing offer on the house that was contingent upon the buyer selling their house. Since we have our house under contract, we made an offer and the seller has accepted it. The other buyer has a couple more days to drop all contingencies from their offer, but that is unlikely. It looks like we will become the primary offer and get this house.
The house is in Smithfield (~4 miles north of Logan). Across the street is the church, and behind the house across the canal is the elementary school. The house is _HUGE_. We have no idea what we will do with all the space. The home was built in 1991, then they remodeled in 2000. It has 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.
Assuming all goes well, we will close on both houses on Feb 23. That means we will have to move out of our current house on ~Feb 21, and we hope to do some work on the new house before moving in, so it will probably be Feb 28th before we move in. We are pretty excited.
Here are some pics of the house for all to enjoy....
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
It's official.....
Today, we signed the paperwork and our house is officially under contract. We are pretty happy about this, but at a bit of a loss since we have no idea where we are going to go.... Closing is February 25. We hope to find something in the meantime. If not, we will rent or do what is needed. We scoured all of the listings pretty thoroughly and nothing screams at us that we need to buy it. We are going to kind of play it by ear for a while and walk through every house in our price range to see what there is....
Monday, January 5, 2009
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