Flat screen-ready

Tonight we made our hearth room, living room and master bedroom flat panel tv-ready. We (yes, WE - I had the ever-important job of handing Jason the screws) hung 2x10 boards in places where we will potentially hang a flat panel tv in the future so we have something to hang them on. Not very exciting, but we'll be glad they are there when those tvs finally become affordable!

Not much has changed - we suspect that they're waiting for an inspection, so most of the work has been put on hold. They did finish the siding, soffits & facia on one whole side of the house, and it looks great! Now, if they would just get started on the front...

Basement floor

We have a basement! They poured the floor on Friday. We went out there this afternoon and Jason went down the ladder, but I didn't bother. That was really the only thing new, so I decided a picture of that could wait - that floor's not going anywhere!

Due to my inability to hold onto my camera, we are without until the new one arrives in 7-10 business days. Since my parents are in NY visiting my sister, my in-laws were gracious enough to loan us theirs (didn't end up using it yet). It is at our disposal at their house whenever we need to use it, so I'm sure we'll take advantage of that this week. I'd hate to miss documenting anything in the house progress!

The spec home across the street with the same floor plan as ours is almost finished. We went in today and they have carpet & cabinets. The cabinets are the same color as ours and they look so pretty. Can't wait until our house is that far along!

I talked to the Lucas Homes lady today and she said they should do insulation & drywall very soon, and she would think we'd be in by the end of September. Celebrate!!

Concrete & siding

We have a garage floor!! It's so pretty. We also have a front porch & half of our siding!!








They also finally installed our back door, so now we're only missing the door leading from the garage inside the house. We went into the basement tonight (by climbing down a rickety ladder) and they have poured gravel everywhere, which means we should have a basement floor any day now! They also put in our rough-in for our basement bathroom.

It seems like it's going so fast!!

On a side note, we also walked through Cyndi & Todd's new house for the first time last night - it's going to be awesome! They're building an atrium ranch, so lots of windows! Can't wait to see the finished product. They are about as far along as us - it's weird because our builders are doing things in different order - we've had our brick for a bit, but they're just getting theirs, but they've had their garage & basement floors for awhile. Only time will tell - we just hope we don't all close on the same day - that would make for a rough weekend of moving!!

Work field trip

I was out of the office yesterday because we went on a work field trip. We took a bus about 4 1/2 hours away to Monmouth, IL, where Monsanto has a research farm that is about 460 acres. It was pretty cool - lots of corn & soybeans planted there. The long ride made for a long day, but it was interesting to learn more about our company.

Wires, wires everywhere

Well, they put in all the wiring & there are wires everywhere! They tend to just throw things all over the floor when they're finished with them, and that's exactly what they did with all the wire scraps. It looks pretty funny.

They also delivered all of our siding and started putting up all the siding trim yesterday. I'm guessing we'll have a fully-sided house in the next couple days (pending the weather).

Wires in kitchen wall:

Siding trim on back windows:

Melphis

This weekend was Melissa's bachelorette party in Memphis, a.k.a. Melphis. There were 12 girls in one big van. We had a great time - our hotel was one block from Beale, which was perfect! I took about 300 pictures, but sadly my camera has seen better days due to my butter fingers. I'm going to have to take the memory card to Walgreens in order to retrieve the pictures, as the camera will no longer turn on. Needless to say, the hubby is less than pleased.

The house update is pretty short: we went last night and they've put all of the boxes for the light switches and outlets. I guess next is attaching all the wires - hopefully that took place today. It looked like there were a few lights missing in the kitchen, so we've got to call & ask about that.

Tub & showers

The latest addition to the house is the installation of our tub & showers. They've also run some PVC drain pipes & set up the washer/dryer hook-up. Thrilling, I know. That's pretty much all of the house updates.

We didn't make it out to the house tonight. Instead, we went to visit my grandma in the hospital. Poor grandma has been very sick lately as a result of her chemo. She finally had enough of the vomiting, so she went to the ER on Monday night. She's been in the hospital ever since. Today an MRI found a "spot" on her brain. We are praying this is not cancer, but we won't know for sure for a few days. She is still maintaining her positive attitude as always - she is such a trooper! Please keep her in your prayers.

Bricks & stones

Well, they've made some progress on the front of the house - they put our brick and stone waterfalls & windowsills in, and they've also installed our front door. Starting to look more & more like a house! The only other update is that they installed our gas fireplace - still have to frame it with brick.

My trip

My trip to Amsterdam was very short - arrived at about 1:00 in the afternoon on Sunday and left Monday evening around 9:30. We met with people at our new entity all day on Monday (which went well, I might add), so that left Sunday afternoon/evening for exploring even though we had a severe lack of sleep from our overnight flight. There is a TON to see there! All of the buildings are very unique. Here are some examples:

And of course everyone is familiar with the famous Red Light District. We checked that out during the day and stumbled upon it again on our way home at night - it was quite a scene. There really are red lights in the windows, and the poor scantily clad girls waiting for their next customers looked so young. We saw "brown" cafes everywhere and the smell of pot was in the air. We even saw a Hemp & Hash Museum and several stores selling seeds. Definitely an eye-opening experience!

Then it was on to Singapore. We were busy with meetings, training sessions and group dinners, so we didn't explore a ton. The first night we were there, we went to the Chinatown market, and to the Clark Quey (pronounced "key"). It was a big open area with tons of restaurants - it was recently renovated, so every one of the restaurants was new and modern - very cool. Our last night there was Friday night so after dinner we checked out the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo. It was really cool - we rode a tram through the zoo, and all of the animals were right up near the road - almost close enough to touch. No pictures though - the animals are nocturnal so you couldn't use your flash. I was brilliant and tried over & over again to take pictures anyway, and shockingly, they all came out black! We also went to the Raffles Hotel - the oldest hotel in Singapore and the supposed inventor of the Singapore Sling (a yummy fruity mystery drink).

Link to all of my pictures (Amsterdam = 1-51 & Singapore is the rest): http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=159144527/a=8436422_8436422/t_=8436422

No sleep 'til AIRPLANE!

Airplane, Brooklyn, whatever. It's 1:43am early Saturday morning Singapore time and I got back to my hotel room from dinner/sight seeing (more on this later) a little over an hour ago. The driver picks us up at 4:15am and I still have to shower, so I'm thinking it's best to stay awake rather than sleep for 1.5 hours and then try to wake myself back up. I feel like I'm back in college cramming for an exam. The way my sleep has been since I've been here though, I'm surprisingly not that tired. Jet lag does weird things to your sleeping & eating habits.

I'm planning to sleep a lot on the plane, and will probably sleep all night Saturday when I get home and most of Sunday. Gotta get back to normal before Melphis next weekend!!

New neighbors!

I know I promised to post from abroad, but it has been a whirlwind, with very little spare time on my hands that is best used for sleep (still trying to get caught up in that department). I did take a ton of pictures in Amsterdam though - there is a lot to see there! Haven't taken a ton in Singapore yet, but hopefully Friday night when all the work is finished, I can take a few more. All in all, the trip is going great - I have met lots of colleagues that I've exchanged numerous emails/phone calls with, so it's great to put faces with names! We are covering the whole Asia/Pacific region, so there are people here from Australia, Thailand, China, India, Pakistan, Philippines....you name it!

Also Jason met some of the new neighbors while visiting the construction site the other night. He said they seemed very nice and probably about our age. He inquired about the experience they had with Lucas Homes and Carol. Apparently they had nothing but nice things to say about both. So that's very comforting. They are having a block party on July 20th. Let me know if anyone needs directions.

Arches, bricks and baby beds??

Not a whole lot has changed at the house, except Jason went Wednesday and built the archway for the kitchen doorway. So pretty...

UPDATE: Jason changed the arch because he decided his first one was shitty and wouldn't work. Thanks to Merlin, the project is now done proper-like. No pictures, because I'm out of town and Jason is a lazy jerk who doesn't like to take pictures of 2x4's. But he does thoroughly enjoy watching paint dry. As do most people who actually enjoy looking at pictures of 2x4's.

They're also almost finished with the roof shingles:Looks like the next project is going to be brick, mortar & stone. The front will start to take shape:









We also got a little extra bonus that we didn't even have to pay for - a new baby bed! (OK, maybe new isn't the way to describe it):
Someone apparently thought our future front yard was a great place to dump their trash. Hopefully when we move in they'll realize it's not a junk yard.

I'm leaving tonight for Amsterdam & Singapore. I'm hoping to take pictures while I'm there and hopefully even post them to the blog this week, but no promises.

House update

We went Friday night to the house and all of the windows are installed. Very exciting, except that we had paid to upgrade ALL of the windows to have the grills on them (the little criss-crosses in between the glass) and only the front windows have them. Not really the end of the world - I didn't feel that strongly about them, but I really like the grills. We decided it's not worth having them re-order windows, take all of the other ones out, etc. So we went yesterday and added some can lights to our kitchen plan in lieu of the window grills.

They started laying the shingles on our roof, I'd say they were about halfway finished when we went yesterday afternoon.Hopefully there's more to update tomorrow!!

My Best Friend's Wedding

Well, we just got back from a perfect weekend in Florida to watch our friends Alison & Mike tie the knot. I don't think it could have gone any better. Weather was great (a little hot, but could have been a lot hotter, or even worse, rainy!). Wedding was beautiful, reception was loads of fun. Just doesn't get any better! Alison looked like a princess (of course!). AND, all of my college girls were back together again for the first time since Lisa's wedding in November 2004. That is way too long in my opinion!! Here are some pictures of the fun times:

Walking down the aisle with Dad:
It's official!! Notice little Gracie cheering in the background - the flower girls (Gracie & Bina) are the little ones Alison moved to New York to nanny for, and they are ADORABLE! All the girls - together again!

Here's a link to the rest of the pictures - warning: there are hundreds of them!http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=159054267/a=8436422_8436422/t_=8436422