Wow, wow, wow

Brig has said probably five or six times over the last two days: "I can't believe we live in our own house!" I can't believe it either, to be honest. This move is a culmination of lots of work, lots of miracles, and lots of waiting. We're absolutely thrilled to be in a beautiful home, in an awesome neighborhood, in a great ward, in a good city. We count ourselves very blessed.

You know I like lists, so here's a list of projects and things we've accomplished over the last month or so:

• - ran tubing and electrical for central vacuum system with the help of a friend in the ward
• - ran speaker wire for our sound systems with Cameron
• - arranged interior insulation for sound proofing
• - laid out, taped off, and painted five coats of paint on our beautiful hardwood floor in the entry hall
• - researched, price matched, exhaustively comparison shopped, and purchased washer and dryer
• - did the same for refrigerators (kitchen and garage), mattresses, and a BBQ grill
• - built a king bed, a queen bed, and a big dining table with the help of Matt Max and Dad
• - primed and painted the garage walls with the help of Cameron
• - acid cleaned the garage floor and sealed all the garage floor seams
• - epoxy'd the garage floor with the help of the whole family
• - got bids and designs for landscaping
• - Trips to Home Depot, Lowe's, Kwal, lumber store, RC Willey and other furniture stores = at least 30

So now we unpack some boxes each day, and we love sleeping, eating, and playing in our new home. It will probably be months before we hang any pictures and really settle in with nothing to do, but it already feels like home. We have lots to do, but somehow it's much easier to get it all done and feel excited about it when it's for your own home, not for your landlord's!

Um, forgot that...

So in talking all about our busy weekend last week, I neglected to mention two of the most important things: Morgan's 9th birthday, and Mother's Day.  That was not because of a lack of love for those two special people, it was simply because I'm an idiot, and my simple mind has a hard time thinking about more than one thing at once.

So we had a fun day for Morgan.  I didn't participate in all the festivities, because that would've required me to get brightly colored toenail paint.  But I did submit myself to the Justin Bieber movie as part of our family celebration for Morgan, and we had a fun dinner at Pizza Factory.  It was so fun to see Morgan happy and loving the attention.

Mother's Day was a bit less celebratory for Angela, unfortunately.  With my ox firmly entrenched in the mire (a biblical reference that helps me feel better about having had to paint the floor on Sunday due to a strict Monday deadline), I spent many hours, both before church and late into the evening, at the house finishing up the floor.  Church was good, my long afternoon nap was great (nothing like telling the mother of your children you love and honor her by taking a two-hour nap... sheeesh), and it was really fun to go to dinner up at my parents where many of my siblings gathered for my Mom's final American Mother's Day for a while.  (and I feel like I should explain the nap thing ... I had been working on the floor until 1am three nights straight, and then was up at 5:30 Sunday morning to try and get more done before church, so Angela was very understanding...)  See below for my Mother's Day gift to my dear wife...

Also, here are a couple of links to YouTube videos of Micah's last two performances for Centennial Idol.  I particularly love the first one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlkLQmxOTu4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwDlbx-amdE

Busy Weekend Coming Up

It's dang hard just to keep up with my life, let alone with this blog.  So that's my excuse for not being more active in writing.  We've had a good week, but I'll admit it'll be very nice when life slows down a little bit. Aside from the normal hustle and bustle of life, we also had a fun date with Mom and Dad on Monday night, Kennan's Hope of America concert on Tuesday night, I went to SLC to build more furniture Wed night, last night Angela and I were at our new house until after 1 am working on our latest project (more below), tonight Ang and the kids are going to a play in Bountiful followed by a sleepover at cousins while I work on the project again, tomorrow we have a niece's baptism, a baby blessing, an important rugby game and BYU rugby alumni even, lots more work on the house project, and other stuff I can't even remember.

So the house... it's going great, and scary fast.  I say scary because it will reintroduce us to real life - mortgage payment, utility bills, home maintenance & repairs, etc. ... and we can't wait.  Our friends in CA built a beautiful house a while back and they had an artist come in and paint a really cool pattern on their hardwood entry floor.  Angela got it in her mind that our house will just not be complete without doing something similar at our place, and so I was commissioned as the artist in charge of ruining the beautiful hardwood floor ... err, painting the floor.  Here's a tip for all you aspiring floor painters - the actual painting is the easy part.  Laying out and scaling the pattern, and then taping off the floor, were 5 hours worth of back-breaking labor last night.  I'm not kidding, I feel like I ran a marathon yesterday.  I'm sore, tired, and grumpy because I have to go back onto my hands and knees tonight for sanding and then painting a second coat.  And all this without the sure knowledge that it will actually look somewhat decent...

We could be in our house in two weeks.  Yep, less than three months after breaking ground, we are doing final walkthrough next week, and we should close the following week.  Did I mention we're excited?

Micah found out today that she won Centennial Middle School's "Centennial Idol" competition, that included singing a number of songs over weeks of eliminations, until she competed in the finals yesterday.  It's no surprise to us, but we're happy for her because it was fun for her to show her talents.  Kennan and Micah were also in a dance competition with their cousins and dance teams last weekend, and -- somewhat surprisingly to me -- they both brought home first place awards in their team's categories.  Both are good dancers, but the thing that sticks out to me are their genuine smiles and happiness at doing something they love.

Morgan took first place in her most recent swim meet in the IM, and didn't win in butterfly but she was competing against much older kids in the 12 and under division.  Frankly, I'm just impressed she can swim 50 meters of 'fly...  She's a super good little swimmer and we're excited to support her in daily workouts.

Brig is officially outgrowing his clothes.  He was walking around today in jeans up to his ankles, and a t-shirt that had to be size 3 - up to his belly button and hugging his armpits.  Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but it's definitely time for new gear.

This is already much longer than I planned.  I'm out.