We Made the Move, Sorta!

Well, we finally made the move thanks to Rich, ( finished wiring the Kitchen, my lights are great!) Ryan and Rogers help. We rented a Uhaul, last minute and Saturday we moved all the big stuff and the boxes (Yes in the snow). But it was not to bad. The house technically is not done but, it is livable. We still need counter tops, a kitchen sink, door knobs, hang the doors, and base boards and we should be good. All thinks I can live with out for now (well maybe not the counter tops and kitchen sink, that will get to me) but live able.

We stayed in the house for the first time Monday night, we new the snow was coming but we also new our appliances were coming and the electrical inspector, so we thought we better stay there. I am sure glad we did because we unpacked until about 3 am and set the alarm for 7:30. The inspector was suppose to come at 9:30 and the appliances between 12 and 4pm. Well that didn't happen. I wonder if anything in this house will go as planned. There was a voicemail on my phone at 6:45 am from Lowes, I called back and they said between 12 and 4. Then 2 minutes later they call back to say in 5 minutes. YIKES! Well we made it thru. Now we have a fridge and a stove and a washer and dryer, YEAH! Now all we need is Gabe's computer and the PS2 and he will be happy too:)

I have a bunch of photos to download, and I promise to do that before Christmas. I have a cute one of Ryan with our mess. Thanks again guys!

Doggies

Zoe, Maxie and Maggie have been somewhat neglected by us with all of this house work and they have pretty much had enough. Zoe has turned into a lap dog that curls her paw around our armas and locks us in place. She also will nodge me or give me a dirty look when I am on the computer. How can I resist this cute face

Maxie and Zoe during a big storm. Big chickens.

Zoe, knows were leaving again. Which I lost another pair of shoes. (Only mine)

Maggie May poutting because I would not give her, her favorite treat.

The Cabinets are in!!!

Well, the time has finally come for the cabinets. Talk about some obstacles! They decided to completely close are road the day the cabinets were to arrive. Luckily they the let the driver come in. The same day, the drywaller (Dave, awesome work by the way)was finishing up and Gabe was working on the gutters, the city workers stop by to tell us they hit the main gas line going to our house. YIKES!!! Good thing we don't have it hooked up to the house, yet!

So this was on Wednesday. Friday I took off of work to paint and had a visit by four Pit bulls, one coming up to me twice barking that I locked myself in the garage for a bit till I could sneak in the house to call the police. That was scary! Bad news is they live two houses away, which I don't think we are aloud four dogs so this should be interesting. But, my dogs were in the house and I am ok so I guess we are ok. But I am definitely getting a bigger fence and a gate over the driveway. Anyone know were to get a gate?

Friday afternoon Rich showed up and the fun began! We worked on the base cabinets till 1am.

Rich is like the energizer bunny and just keeps going. I couldn't, so I went home to the dogs and back we went in the morning.

Aaron and Jonelle came over to help with the Hanging cabinets. Here Aaron barely had to raise his arms, and Gabe is using everything in his short little arms to hold up the cabinet. HEHE.

Becky, was the Foreman taking pictures, and doing a good job watching us with her cute little pouch.

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Well, now the cabinets are in and the really hard part has started! Picking out tile and counter tops, YUK! After 4 hours of shopping I went home to drink. I can't wait till I can fill my new wine cabinet up. I already bought 4 new bottles:)

This Cabinet is my favorite!

Here is the other part of the kitchen. I love all the space.

Now, we just have to finish the floors and my cabinet!

Halloween Party and a Ticket,

So, Gabe's sister had a halloween party the weekend before Halloween. So Gabe, Myself and my parents all went. What an interesting start to our night. My dad went as beetle juice, he was so cute! My Mom went as a Gypsy and the teacher came out in her because she made a cheat sheet for her tera cards. And Gabe and I went as pirates. Well on the way out to Burlington we got pulled over, My dad was speeking oops. My Dad did get a ticket, But the funniest part of all of it was the cop was either weirded out or scared so he stayed back from the car. Since my dad looked like this.

Last weekend! was the floors.

Here's the spare bedroom.

So Jenni, and Jonelle came over to help me paint all the trim boards in the two bedrooms. It looked great. Yep, thats right it looked great. My dad and I started working on sanding the floors in the bedrooms, hallway and living room. My dad had me remove parts of the baseboards. so no I have to repaint the base boards. Bummer!

As far as it goes with the floors let me just say, Oh, my is that a work out. I have to say it is a lot of fun having these family times, but a lot of work and a lot of pain. I now know I have muscles in places I did not know still excited:)

The floors are getting there, a few moresanding jobs and some varnish and we weill be good. One more step to getting the house done. YEAH!!! Next comes the kitchen cabinets!

Doors, their every where!

So, all the doors in the house either had dead bolt locks on them, or they smelt really bad, so I baught new doors. And I stained them all by myself, of course with a little help from Gabe. The only thing is we can't put them in yet, so there are Doors Every Where.

It was kind of weird. I really enjoyed this job. I think I found a new hobby, so if you ever need anything stained, I'm your gale!

Painting on the other hand I can't stand.

What was I thinking!

I thought it would not be a bad project, what was I thinking! I am still not done!

So I decided, that I wanted the built in Curio to go back to the natural wood color like the rest of the dining room. Little did I know there are at least 4 layers of paint on it. Even though the cabinet does not look big, oh my what was I thinking. Luckily I found this great orange stuff that is a gel and helps remove the painting.

The inside of the cabinet is a different material, it was such a mess!

After Minnesota

Well, since we have been back from Minnesota we have been spending every weekend working on the house.

We finished demoing, and started putting the kitchen back together. Rich came and did the electric while we were gone and then we started putting in the insulation, and hanging the drywall. Gabe's Dad and my Dad helped with that fun project.

This is Gabe sealing himself in with the insulation.

Sam and Grace with Grandma

So, I was not there for this but it is so cute I have to share it.

The Minnesota Trip

The first weekend of October we went to Minnesota to see Mike, Alia and the kids.

My Grandparents went up there, my parents and us. We all when to the casino for dinner. And boy can those kids eat!

Sam's birthday was in September so we wanted to take him to get a build a bear, he was so cute he picked out a cheeta, named it Cheeta (takes after my brother) picked out pink bunny slippers and a really cool motorcycle for it to ride. Then we went to the amusement park in the mall of America. Uncle Gabe was the luckey one to go round and round with him. Except for a few that we all went on.

It was also Grace's baptism (finally) Alia had to cancel 4 times because of all of us. Sorry, Alia but thank you. Grace is a character she just smiles but she will tell you what she wants, she has a mind of her own, but man oh man does she have a great personality. At the baptism, she just wanted to play with the water and when we came back for a spaghetti dinner she told us she was hungry by sitting in her chair on the floor, it was so cute.

Sam did really good at the baptism and so did Sophia (she is such a cutie)

It was a very eventfull weekend because, on sunday my brother ran this 26 mile marathon, which as normal he did great at. After 26 miles he was still smiling. The year before in 95 degree weather that was another story.

The last weekend in September

Well the last weekend in September was another busy weekend, Rich and Becky stayed the weekend to Go to Chris and Anna's wedding and they also helped us design the Kitchen. (Which, thanks to Rich is going to be Great!) We also got some wonderful and exciting news. After Three plus years of trying Rich and Becky finally joined the Baby Blog YEAH!!!!! Did I mention I am excited.

I also decided to take a picture of the top of Gabe's head. I wanted to see if the house was getting to him. NOT YET!!!

I almost forgot, the weekend before we had Demo day, Becky and I threw a bridal shower for Anna and then had a old school pj/slumber bachelorette party for Anna. Anna is such a cute bride and Becky and I had a blast doing it.

So now back to the fun of the house. The blue prints are done, we try to get the permit and it is not going to fly we needed way more info. But it worked out because we could not move the stairs. There is an extra brick wall in the basement. Must have been an addition along time ago. So, no permit, no stairs but we can still remove a wall and close up a door. We finally got the permit(oops). We had to do more demoing which was actually a lot of fun. Rich and Becky came to help again. Thanks Guys.

Becky knocked out the side wall with all the tile, it was insane she had it done in like 10 minutes.

Gabe pulled down the Saufet and two feet of the ceiling with all the insulation came with him.

I did the wall with tile that we could not go through the other side or we would have been in the living room.

Rich did everything else.

And my dad built the layout for the breakfast bar and closed up the side door. So stylish! HEHE

It was Labor Day weekend so we headed to my Dad's Condo in Indiana(where he works) to go relax, spend some family time with my parents and the dogs and go on the boat.

The dogs love the boat but not the water! They would only go up to their legs and then sit down. I thought retrievers loved water.

Gabe Drove the boat for a while, I was nervous with the other boats around, but not my dad he got to relax.

It was nice to finally have a break

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Well after the dads started the demo, Rey and Benito came over to finish gutting it out. My dad and I went in to look around and turned on the kitchen light. My dad made a comment about a hissing noice and I smelt something and then we looked at the light switch to see the smoke. Yeah that wasn't good! Good thing my best friend is an Electrician and was on his way to look at our electric. Minus the smell it was not to bad.
When Rich showed up, my dad and him got to talking and came up with this great idea to close the side door, move the basement stairs and add the breakfast bar. It really did not sound like a bad idea.
So, my dad started the blue prints( it is great when you know an engineer/architecht and your his little girl :)) So we could take them in to get our permits, and then we took a break!

Wow I was looking at my last blog and realized I have a lot of catching up to do.

Since the tree was cut down, Gabe's dad came over with my dad and were going to remove the bottom cabinets to and put new tile in, from that it went to the top cabinets becuase there was no insulation in the walls to, no cabinets, no drywall, never any insulation to new electric.(Thanks Rich) oh to tearing out a wall, closing up a door, and adding a breakfast bar.

It all sounds like it will be great but man what were we thinking. Well this all started in the middle of August. And this is our old Kitchen being demoed! Only one injury, which was my dad and thank fully he did not pass out. (we have weak stomaches) I walked to the grocery store and am fully supplied with, bandaids, gauze, medical tape and lots of neosporine for the next oops!

The Honey moon is over!

When we got back from the honeymoon the first piece of mail we got at our New house was a notice that there was a tree dead in the back yard that had Box elder disease or something and we had 30 days to remove it or pay $250 to have the city remove a tree that was 6ft tall and maybe 6inches in diameter. So, Roger was nice enough to come by and help because Gabe "thaught" he was going to cut down the tree with a $4 or $5 masheti that he baught a harbor freight. So instead of going and getting my dad's chain saw they buy a circular saw to cut it down. It was pretty funny. Mean while my dad was fixing the plumbing since they turned the water off while no one was living there. The best part is they broke a part that has not been made in 50 years. Thank goodness for my dad or we probably still would not have water. From what Gabe said the city water guys got soaked in the basement saw a plumber driving by and he could not help with out charging us a lot of moola. Thanks Dad! He makes me proud!