Anniversary 2012

X and I just got back from a weekend get-away up in Reno for our 3rd anniversary. Since it wasn't a milestone year, we thought we would just do something simple. More of a "back to the basics" kind of thing. And it actually ended up working out perfectly with a work-sponsored event as well. We had a great time, and here are some of the highlights from our trip:

Fortune cookie from P.F. Chang's

We started the first night off right at P.F. Chang's. The fortune cookie for X said that we would enjoy doing something different over the weekend. We weren't sure exactly what it was going to be, but we figured we'd know what it was when we saw it.

Saturday morning we woke up and headed over to the nearby "Trampoline Bounce House" where we thought it would be cool to dive into foam pits and run into the walls. Then we showed up and it was full of rowdy kids for birthday parties and such, so we decided against going in. We were probably a little too old in the first place.

We had lunch at an Indian buffet. Sadly it seems like nothing can compare to our favorite Indian restaurant up in Logan (Tandoori Oven), so we're going to have to make a special trip up to Logan next time we are in Salt Lake. Fortunately my little sister is still in school up there with her husband, so we can see them while we are up there and justify the trip.

After lunch we decided to let the food settle so we headed to the local fun park and did a round of mini golf.

X's Go Kart - "The Snail"

K.C.'s Go Kart - "Slick Trick"

We also did a round of Go Karts on the road and slick tracks. X's Go Kart was SO SLOW and I ended up lapping her twice. But I let her pass me in the end so she didn't feel as bad. The slick track was much better and she managed to stay in front of my pursuit the entire time.

We headed inside a nearby casino where we were surprised to find a "Cat Show" taking place. We laughed and mockingly said that it will be just like a Dog Show. We were right. I had no idea people actually professionally show their cats, but we saw a whole conference center full of them! We enjoyed watching some cat judging and walked through to see all the cats on display. As we were leaving we walked past the entrance where we noticed it said $5 entrance fee that we didn't see on the way in. Oops.

Then we headed to the indoor arcade in the same casino and had fun playing Dance Dance Revolution, Skee Ball, and ended up winning the jackpot on a couple of the ticket reward games. Maybe I should take up gambling since I'm so good at the gambling arcade games! We gave our tickets to a family with some small kids who needed a few extra to get a bigger prize.

After the arcade we went outside and X surprised me by saying she wanted to go on the Sky Coaster. Now this really shocked me because X is really afraid of heights. I knew this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something like this since she normally would not consider doing something like this. I told her that if we were going to do it she would have to pull the rip-cord since I wanted her to be able to say she did that too. She didn't want to agree to that at first, but she finally came around. Here's our video of the adventure:


If you can't see the video visit this link.

We met up with some good friends at Texas Roadhouse for dinner before we all headed over the local Minor League Baseball stadium. It was GE Night at the Aces game, and we had a good time cheering for the home team.

They had a special promotion called the "Gelato Lotto" where if the Aces won the game and had more than 7 runs everyone wins a free scoop of Gelato from the Atlantis Casino. They ended up winning 14-9, so we ran over to the casino and ate our HUGE scoops of gelato while we watched a couple of people lose over $2500 playing black jack. Good times!

Army Crawl

X taught our dog a new trick. It only took her 2 days to get it down!

P.S. We finally named her "Rhys" (Reese). It's Welsh for "Dragon"

Home Improvements

When we moved out to Nevada we knew that there were going to be some upgrades we were going to have to do pretty soon. Our couch was old and uncomfortable. Our kitchen table was small and only had 3 chairs. The fridge was not energy efficient at all. And our TV was small. But X was only at the house for a couple months before she left back for school, and I figured that everything still WORKED, so I could manage using it all still at least until she got back. Fast forward 9 months. X came back and was able to give her input on what kind of new furniture we could get, and now we’re ready to show it off!

This is our new dining room set. We specifically bought a counter-height table so we would be able to get extra chairs to put along the island bar. All eight chairs will fit around the table if we have enough company, and it makes for a perfect game-playing table for the game nights we've hosted at our house :)

This is our new living room furniture. We actually ended up (unknowingly) buying the same sofa & love seat that X's dad had in his old apartment. We were sure surprised when Carolyn walked in our house shortly after we had bought everything and said "These are our couches!". They are definitely MUCH more comfortable than the old blue couch. I would've love to say RIP blue couch and burned it out in the desert, but some guy offered to buy them for $80. Why not, right?

One of the benefits of being a GE employee is the ability to purchase GE appliances at the "employee" rate. The top is a french-door refrigerator, and the bottom is a pull-out freezer drawer. Its way more energy efficient than our old one (we were shocked at the savings on our new electric bill), and we also enjoy finally being able to use a water/ice dispenser.

We finally splurged and got a new TV! We held out for so long since we couldn't afford a new one as students, and we wanted to wait and see if the latest technology would come down in price. We decided to get a 3D TV, but we got one that uses the same kind of glasses as the theaters, instead of the $200/pair kind. Now we don't have to worry about having the neighbors and kids over to watch a movie! This also "forced" us to upgrade to a blu-ray player, and I decided that we would also get a 7.1 Surround Sound Home Theater system too while we were at it. I LOVE these new additions most of all :)

X has also done a lot of decorating in the house too. I'm grateful that she's able to do that, cause it isn't really my thing. She really seems to enjoy it though, so I'm glad she's found a new hobby to keep her happy. She has a real knack for buying cool creative things and pairing them together, and she has also made some neat things from ideas she found on Pinterest. Since it isn't really my thing, I'm not really up to posting about it. So I'm calling X out to post about all your new décor either here or on your own blog :)

Day by day our house feels cozier as we add new improvements!

Home Sweet Home

Wow. I really waited too long on this one! At first I thought if I delayed writing about our house, people would be incentivized to come out and visit us to see if for themselves! And then we wanted to make all sorts of improvements so we waited and waited, and then 2 years later I decided I just need to get this done so we have some kind of record that we do indeed have a house!

This is Carson Valley - Can you see Lake Tahoe in the background?

So that is the area we live. Some people have told us it is a little bit country. We think it is a lotta bit country! People are VERY laid back out here and I still don’t think we are used to that. We do enjoy all the open space and outdoor activities available out here though. We can’t remember what rush-hour traffic is, and the starry nights are AMAZING. And the best part is that it feels like home for us.

Moving Day!

Have to add felt pads to the bottom of EVERYTHING to keep the hardwood floor looking nice

All the packing paper from the movers – unfortunately there isn’t a recycling program out here, but I like to use this paper as tinder for the wood-burning stove

Here's that fireplace. It keeps us roasty-toasty in the winters, and also helps reduce our gas bill!

The kitchen was remodeled in 2008. We’ve had to re-organize the kitchen twice now to make all our stuff fit and easier to access, but we both love how it looks.

The “Green Room”, as we call it, has become our office/craft room. There is enough room on the floor for a queen-sized blow-up mattress, and we’ve hosted several friends and family here.

The “Blue Room” is our guest bedroom. It also features a Crayola-colored ceiling fan for our guests' enjoyment.

Guest bathroom

The master bedroom is where it is all at! So far we've actually kept it pretty plain. We don't even have a TV! But X is working on new decorating ideas every day.

The master bathroom has slate floors – pretty nice, but FREEZING on January mornings in bare feet! Walk-in closet is in here – a little different – but at least our clothes get steam-cleaned on a daily basis!

The Laundry/Mud room with utility sink. Also acting as extra emergency storage.

We don’t have any A/C, but the house came with a window-mounted swamp cooler. We were a little nervous about this fact when we moved in, but the summers are so mild here that we haven’t had any problems! In fact, most days we just keep the blinds closed and turn on the ceiling fans and that has kept us cool enough!

And that’s it! Sorry it took so long to get this out there! Check back soon for a post on some of the improvements we’ve made since X returned.

Our Baby

Towards the end of the year X and I decided that our house was a little too quiet. We decided that it was either time for a baby or a dog. We went with the dog. :)

Introducing: Name to be Determined!

This is our new 3-year-old Welsh Terrier. She’s a hypoallergenic dog (doesn’t shed much, like a poodle), and she is very well behaved… Unless you make her do something that she doesn’t want to do; then she gets a little, shall we say, “bitey”. She also doesn’t get along very well with other dogs, but we’re hoping to nip that problem (and the biting) pretty quickly. We’re still working on some dominance issues, but once we’re over that we feel pretty confident we’ll be able to socialize her just fine.

We actually ended up getting her from a posting we saw on craigslist. It all seemed a little sketchy – one of those “too good to be true” kinds of things, but so far she has been super fun and has filled in that gap that our house was missing. She’s completely house and kennel trained, and has no problem staying inside while we’re both at work during the week. She doesn’t seem to really chew on things, and since she doesn’t really shed she is allowed on the bed and on the couch (although she does get down and sleep in her kennel during the night).

We’re still working on a name (her previous owner called her “Lulu Bear”, or just “Lulu”), but our friends’ dog’s name is “Lula”, and we’d just prefer to change it anyways. Some names we are considering are “Toffee”, “Reese”, and “Pepsi” (LOL all food names). Leave a comment if you like any of those or have another suggestion!

The Challenge is Over

Last year I blogged about the Cruise Lifestyle Challenge we were doing with my family and X's mom for a year. The challenge officially ended October 1st, and everyone had a good amount of success with completing their goals.

I ended up losing 55 of the 60 pounds I wanted to lose! Unfortunately I couldn't find a "before" picture (not sure if I even took one), so I figure an "after" picture won't be worth much without something to compare it to. Instead, here's a picture of 5 lbs. of fat, so you can just imagine what it looks like (and feels like) to lose 11 of these :)

I also successfully completed a year without sweets (minus the once-in-a-lifetime desserts I was able to try in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan). I had hoped it would be relatively easy to stay away from sweets after a whole year without them, but unfortunately Halloween proved this to be incorrect. At least I feel like I'm eating a lot LESS than I used to! Here's to keeping it all off - until the cruise at least!

Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza 2011

NOTE: For the most satisfying viewing pleasure, please read this blog directly from my website (not from Google Reader or another RSS feed). The before/after images won't work otherwise.

This year for Halloween we were in San Francisco for "Nevada Day", so we didn't have a lot of time to carve our pumpkins, but we still had a fun time picking them out at the local pumpkin farm and furiously trying to complete them before our trip. Here are our results! (Reminder: hover over the pictures to see the before/after images)

"Nightmare Before Christmas" Jack Skellington Pumpkin

"Despicable Me" Minion Pumpkin

Unfortunately when we got back from SF on Halloween Eve, our pumpkins were a little wrinkly, but nothing that a quick bleach bath couldn't fix!

While in SF, we went to a 49ers game, which was AWESOME! Check "Professional Football Game" off of my bucket list!

As a side note, if you have ever wanted to find out what it is like to eat a meal as a blind person, try out Opaque - Dining in the Dark. It is a "Blind Dining" experience where you basically get to eat a full 3-course meal in a pitch-black room! It was totally the most unique experience! They have locations in San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, NYC, and Dallas.

New Callings

Now that X has gotten settled into the area, the bishopric decided that it was time to put her to work. They were going to try to give her a calling that she could do remotely (calling for visiting teaching reports maybe?), but it didn't end up happening. Now that she's back we've heard that all the auxiliaries have been "fighting" to get her, but she ended up with the young womens. Here's the new YW 1st Counselor:

I've been the Elder's Quorum secretary for about a year now. The EQ President that called me had been in for about a year. A few weeks ago X and I were asked to meet with someone in the stake presidency (we weren't familiar enough with the presidency to know if it was the president or one of his counselors), but it ended up being the president! We weren't sure if it was going to be a new calling for X or me (it really could've been for either of us - it didn't matter that she was just called as a YW's counselor), but it ended up being for me. Prior to the meeting X teased me that I was going to be called as a bishop (there have been rumors about splitting the wards out here for some time now), and I was fairly sure I wouldn't be called as the EQ President since our current President has been in for less than 2 years. So any guesses?

I'm the new EQ President!

We both are a little overwhelmed with our new responsibilities, but I guess we got what we were looking for when we decided to get outside the Utah bubble and find opportunities to serve!

Stay tuned next time - we're getting our new furniture delivered this week and finally feel like we can show off our home!

Our New House

BIRD-House that is! We've had this plain, old, log/post sitting out in our front yard ever since we moved in and we've been looking for something to put on it. We were pretty sure we wanted to do a birdhouse of some kind, but none of the ones we found had the right "look" that we were after. But on our bike ride yesterday after a work picnic/carnival, we spotted a bunch of birdhouses for sale and found the perfect one. Here's the final installed product!

There's a tiny little broom leaned up against the door

Sitting atop the log/post

50 Down... 10 to go!

After 9 months I am almost at my cruise goal to lose 60 pounds! I still have 3 months left for the last 10, but I definitely feel like I have plateaued and it is going to be quite a struggle to go this last little bit. It is definitely easier though to resist sweets after all this time! I'll definitely post before/after pictures after the challenge is over.

The Honeymoon

I stumbled across some pictures from our Honeymoon back in 2009 and realized that I hadn't ever posted about them. Since I'm still dragging my feet on sorting through all the pictures from Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, I figure posting these might be a good stalling tactic for this week! :)

X and I were married on May 20th, 2009 in the Salt Lake Temple. We decided to do our reception the night before (at "The Point" at Huntsman Cancer Institute) which made things SO much easier - the day of our wedding was tons less hectic, and we were able to leave right after the ceremony and luncheon. Definitely the way to do it in my opinion! We decided to do a smaller honeymoon up in Park City for a week, and then for our first anniversary we'd do something bigger and better.

Since our reception was the night before, no one ended up decorating our car. Luckily my car was dirty enough for us to manage it ourselves!

We stayed our first night at the Stein Erikson Lodge, and had dinner at the Glitretind Restaurant. Since dinner was included in our Honeymoon package, we decided to be adventurous and try new and expensive things we wouldn't have tried otherwise. Our 3-course meals included raw elk (sliced paper-thin), foie gras (duck liver), quail, peanut butter and banana crème brûlée, and the most random flavors of chocolate truffles - including curry!

We spent one afternoon at the Utah Olympic Park. We found out they give free upgrades on ride passes if you are on your honeymoon! :)

X practices her form on the luge

I couldn't bear to watch

X enjoying a ride down the mountain

I'm not sure if I was enjoying this or not...

Before going down the zip-lines

Waiting for the gates to open

I smiled to trick X into thinking I was going to let her win in our race down the lines

Of course we couldn't leave out the "Alpine Slides". We'll never forget the little girl in front of us on our first run who rode the brakes the whole way down. We would literally wait a few minutes in hopes she'd be at the bottom by then, and then catch up to her in like 10 seconds! Fortunately they let us ride again for free.

I snapped this shot when we were waiting for the slow-poke

Wanna Come For a Visit?

We had our good friends Mike and Suzanne out from Utah for Memorial Day Weekend and we had a blast being good hosts for them. You can read about all we did in their very complimentary recap of the weekend. So if you've ever thought about coming out but didn't know if it would be worth it, see what you think after reading what they had to say!

Preparing for X's Return

I had a lot of work to do before X got home last week. I had secretly turned the house into my own personal bachelor pad (I had lots to hide up in the attic and down in the crawlspace), and there was lots of yard- and house-work I wanted to take care of prior to her return so she wouldn't have much to worry about. Here's what I've been working on the last few months to spruce the place up a bit:

Weeding

Oh the joys of owning your own home! Part of our yard is just rocks, so I was sure that was going to be weed-free; oh how wrong I was!

Our weedy side-driveway

We had LOTS of these in the grass

Even since X has been home there has still been a lot to do for the both of us! Maybe we need to get busy on that having kids thing... Luckily I heard about this stuff called Casoron, which is an herbicide that prevents seeds from germinating. So I've applied a bunch of that this year and will do more next year before anything starts to grow and hopefully we'll see a dramatic reduction in weeds.

Sandbox and Grass Seed

The previous owners had a large sandbox with a huge playhouse build into it, but they dug it out and took it with them when they left! But they didn't dig out all the toys, garbage, and other crap that was left behind in the sand. So I had to dig out all the junk left behind and make it look nice again. I also tried my best to grade the sand also since it was really shallow in some places, but really deep back by the fence. The playhouse also had a slide that went right into the grass so there was a big dirt spot where the kids would slide into the grass, so I seeded in that spot and a few others. The grass is already filling in nicely!

You can see the missing grass in this picture, and also the dark line on the fence where the sand used to be

Sprinklers & Broken Pipes

This year when I turned on the water in the backyard, I was confused when suddenly ALL of the sprinklers turned on simultaneously. Turns out all of the sprinkler valves in the backyard were bad and I had to replace them all! We also have a pair of those old-timey water pumps in our backyard, and one of those had burst during the winter so I had to dig that out and cap off the pipe. Unfortunately for me that one was tied directly to the water main (so who knows how long that was leaking?) and there was no way to turn off the water completely unless I shut off the water to the house. No fun.

After digging the hole

Looking down into the abyss

Finished result

X is back home now and I am glad I have a lot of these big projects out of the way so I can enjoy the free time with her! :)

Floor Repair

Our house has nice hardwood floors in all the rooms except the bedrooms and bathrooms, but unfortunately the movers didn't understand the concept of moving pads and left some nice scratches in the floor when they moved us in last year.

Imagine this, but ALL OVER

Luckily we were able to get the moving company to fully cover the cost of repairs (after 10 months of hard work and many, MANY follow-up calls). Apparently the guys who put the floor in originally didn't really know what they were doing and neglected to let the wood acclimate to the dryness here, and so there were gaps EVERYWHERE where the boards had shrunk (see below for examples). We've been really worried about spilling any kind of liquid down there and ruining the boards from underneath, but luckily for us the floor repair guy said those gaps would have to be filled in order to do the repair, so we were able to kill two birds with one stone! I knew there was going to be a period of time when we couldn't walk on the floors while it was drying, so I made sure to get it all done before X came home. Here's a picture journal of the entire process:

DAY 0 - "Before" Pictures

Here's what the floors looked like before - we also decided to do it right and take off the baseboards so that we could get right up against the wall

Here's a good example of a gap in the boards

Some of the gaps were almost 1/4" big!

We kept the fridge plugged in and kept it in the front entryway so I could get food without walking on the floors

All of our stuff got crammed into the bedrooms

I didn't really get to cook at all during this process - good thing I like cereal!

DAY 1 - Initial Sanding

The first pass from the sander - the natural floor color was lighter than I expected!

Finished sanding

DAY 2 - Hand-Troweling the Filler

After the first round of filler - when I showed X this picture she freaked out cause she thought our floors were ruined :)

The sander - it was so heavy he had to wear a weight lifting belt to make sure he didn't hurt his back!

DAY 3 - Sealer

After sanding the filler away - the wood has so much character - the floor guy didn't know what it was for sure, but guessed it is a mix of light and dark Brazilian Teak

The sealer brought a lot of color back to the wood - luckily it dried in a few hours so I could walk on it right after work

DAY 4 - First Coat of "Glossy" Finish

The finish needs a slightly rough surface to adhere to, so they had to "scratch" the surface before applying the first coat of finish

The applicator - aptly described as looking like a "sheep's bottom"

Applying the first coat

VERY glossy! Fortunately only the last coat influences how the floor ends up looking so he used the glossy (stronger) finishes for the other coats

Look at the difference between the glossy finish and the satin sealer!

DAY 5 - Second Coat

After the second coat had dried - each coat took 24 hours to dry so I had to go out the back bedroom door and around the house to go anywhere!

DAY 6 - Final Coat

We had them do a satin finish for the final coat since the floor was so dark - that will help keep it from showing dirt as much, and overall it looks much nicer!

The finished floor - It looks so great we couldn't have hoped for better!

It took a couple days for the final coat to completely cure before we could move any of the furniture back out, but we got everything put back before X came home, so all in all it was a huge success! The floors look GREAT! And it is so nice to have a completely smooth, flat floor now and no concerns about spilling foods and liquids into any cracks. Now all we have to do is put up some new baseboards (X insisted I wait so she could help with that part), and it'll feel like a brand new house!