Weekend Wrap Up

This weekend was busy! I took Friday off to wash the windows in our house one last time with my Mom. She was up for my Silpada jewelry party so she thought she'd help out!  Thankfully she did because it goes much quicker with two people.

Later on Friday morning, our realtor told us that we had an offer on our house. It isn't even on the market yet but another realtor in his office told one of her clients about it so she came to look at it and loved it. Dave and I chatted about it a bit at lunch and we countered to keep the washer and dryer unless she paid us more for them. We love our Whirlpool washer and dryer and plus, we didn't want to purchase new ones when we moved into our home, we'll have plenty of expenses the way it is.

My Mom and Ryan. 

Kitchen of our new home

Since we've spent a lot of time thinking and selecting layouts, finishes, colors, etc. I thought I'd share what we've decided.  The kitchen of our new home was a focal point for me because I absolutely love to bake and cook, so I decided to share this room first.

I wanted something spacious that would allow me to watch the kids playing in the living room. Below are photos of the kitchen and I'll explain what each of them are throughout.

This is the layout of our new kitchen from another home under construction with the same floor plan as ours, except this house is "flipped."As shown below in the sketch, our cabinets will be all one level on the top. The white door is a large pantry as shown in the photo below.  These cabinets are Autumn Brown, the same color we selected for ours.

Below is a rendering of our actual kitchen, except our island will be all one level as shown in the picture above.  This is a very open concept with a large island to allow more baking/prep space. It'll be great when I need to spread out when I'm baking cakes. As you'll see in this rendering, we modified our upper cabinets so they are all taller (not staggered on top as they are in picture above). We also added a tall pantry cabinet to the right side of the counter, as you just can't have enough kitchen storage space.

Weekend Wrap Up

The weekend didn't start as planned because I was delayed getting home from a work trip. On Friday, I was supposed to fly home from Washington D.C. at 2:30 p.m., so my manager and I got to the airport around 12:30 p.m. Our flight was delayed due to the arrival of the airplane so we missed our connecting in Chicago. We tried to rebook on a different flight to Des Moines but it was full, they put us on stand-by on the flight to DSM and booked an actual flight to Omaha. The Omaha flight was expected to arrive in Omaha by 10:00 p.m. so we thought we'd try to rent a car to drive home from Chicago instead. No car rental places would rent a car one way from Chicago, so my manager and I headed back to the airport.

We asked about the stand-by flight was and it was in terminal C and the Omaha flight was in terminal B. The flights were supposed to leave within 20 minutes of each other so we couldn't chance trying to get on the stand-by flight and missing Omaha so we headed to terminal B. Come to find out we could have made it on the flight to DSM.

Our flight kept getting delayed and didn't end up leaving Chicago until around 9:40 p.m. About 30 minutes into the flight the pilot came on and said we'd be running into some weather coming into Omaha. We could handle a little turbulence, at this point we just wanted to get home. Once we got closer to Omaha we circled the air for an hour and then finally the pilot came on and said we'll try this and if we can't land, we'll head up north. I really wanted to have a few choice words because I was tired and just wanted to get home. We landed successfully but once we got closer to the airport the pilot came on again saying it was lightening so they couldn't let the workers out to put out the gate bridge. Wow, I thought that was crazy because we're sitting on a metal plane but that didn't seem to matter. We sat for about 10 minutes and finally taxied to the gate bridge.

Our crazy flight path. 

Father's Day Weekend Wrap Up

This post is a bit late but I thought it was important to post a weekend wrap-up since it was Father's Day weekend.

Growing up, Father's Day was special to me because I was extremely close to my Dad. I am one of six children, there are three girls and three boys. I'm the second oldest girl. My brother's were all too small to run the farm equipment so I was the one in charge so that's why I have such a great relationship with my Dad. Father's Day even means more to me now since I have a great husband who is the fabulous father to our two children.

In the early part of the week, I asked Dave if he was interested in heading home to visit our parents since it had been a while and we just needed to get out of town. We each called our Mom's to make sure our Dad's were going to be around before we made the trip. My parents were going to be home but Dave's weren't so we thought, what the heck, we'll head home anyway so the kids can enjoy the farm.

On the way home, I called my Dad to wish him a Happy Father's Day and he was sad that it had rained so he couldn't be out raking hay. I told him he wasn't supposed to be working on Father's Day and part of me was glad it had rained so he was home. As we pulled into the driveway, my parents were sitting in front of the house and my Dad wondered whose black car just drove in. As I stepped out he was surprised and said, "You were halfway home when you called me."  Yup, once in a while a little girl can surprise her Dad!

The kids had a great time and enjoyed spending time with grandpa!  Little-C loved sitting on the tractors, going for a 4-wheeler ride and riding the pedal tractor.

Little-C and Ben enjoying the tractor.

Basement of our new home

After we had our lot chosen and the plan signed off on, it seemed like nothing was happening but our realtor kept telling us we needed to be patient because a lot was happening behind the scenes.  After the plan was submitted to the City of Ankeny, they would review it to assure everything was up to code and issue a building permit. Thankfully, it didn't take too long and the builder was able to get started.

The first work done on the lot started on Wednesday, May 28th when the basement was dug, and they formed up the footings, as shown in these pictures.

Weekend Wrap Up

This weekend was extremely productive in getting the house ready to put on the market.

The productive weekend began on Friday evening, when I met my sister half way between Omaha and Des Moines to pick up my niece, Katelyn, for the weekend. She agreed to take care of the kids while Dave and I worked on getting things cleaned up in the yard and items taken to the storage unit.

On Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early to get the day started. Dave and I ran to Menards and the Habitat for Humanity Restore to pick up some things. We were bummed it was raining and looked like rain most of the day but we figured we had some odds and ends things to get finished anyway. Dave is on vacation this upcoming week, so he could finish up some of the things we couldn't complete due to the rain.

Katelyn took awesome care of the kids and little-C didn't seem to mind when we had to run to the store. She made sure to give us a hug, kiss, high five and knuckles before we left each time. It's her ritual when she says goodbye to anyone.

Great evening for a bike ride

On my way home from work, I thought it would be a perfect evening for a bike ride. I stopped at Kyle's bike shop in Ankeny to pick up a helmet for R-man, little-C already had one from last summer. When Dave got home he got everything ready and we took off. We rode to Palmer's Deli in Ankeny for dinner. We weren't sure how R-man would like the bicycle ride but he seemed to enjoy it as much as little-C.

Choosing a lot to build on

Choosing a lot to build may seem easy but living with a City Planner made this decision rather difficult. Dave was very cautious about how the lot drained (he insisted on a lot at the top of the hill), what was being developed around the lot we choose, major roads that would be developed near the lot and nice parks and trails within walking distance. We knew we wanted to be on the NW side of Ankeny so that did narrow it down a bit. After choosing our builder we were really narrowed down to the area that we could build in as the builder was also the developer of the subdivision.

After looking at open lots, we knew we either had to choose from a walkout or daylight basement. We choose the daylight windows because of the way the lot was graded and it was less expensive. Plus, when the kids get a bit older to room in the basement, we didn't want to worry about a walkout basement with them downstairs.

After our lot was chosen, we were excited about our new address, 3925 NW 6th Street!  Sounds good doesn't it - well we think so! Our new development is called Rock Creek Crossing!

Our new lot!

Kids Update (May 2014)

Here’s a quick update from this past month.

Age:
R-man is 10 months
Little-C is 2

Stats:

Weight:

• R-man: almost 20 lbs.
• Little-C is 29.2 lbs.

Teeth:
R-man has 4 teeth. The second one on the top finally broke through! I'm pretty sure he's cutting more though the way he chews on his fingers.

Clothes:
R-man – He is wearing 9-12 months clothes now. It's summer so we love to dress him in his cute little plaid shorts with a matching shirt.

Little-C – She is wearing 3T clothes. She is usually pretty specific on what shoes she'd like to wear. Dave and I try to pick out shoes that match her outfit but normally she has another pair in mind. We bought her a pair of Keen sandals that cost $50 but she usually goes for the pair that cost $5 - go figure.

Weekend Wrap Up

This past weekend was great but would have been awesome if I would have felt better. I caught the same crud the entire family has had and it hasn't been fun. I went to the doctor this morning to make sure I didn't have pneumonia or bronchitis the way I felt but he confirmed it was just a virus that lasts 7-10 days. Lovely, not what I wanted to hear.

On Friday, my younger sister, Linda, came up for the weekend. We had a late Friday evening catching up on family gossip. Dave sat up with us but wondered when we were going to quit chatting and head to bed.On Friday, R-man turned 10-months and his cousin baby-B turned 5-months. It's crazy how much bigger R-man looks.

Baby-B (5 months) & R-man (10-months)

On Saturday morning, Linda and I woke up around 6 to get ready to head to mile marker three of Dam to Dam. My brother, Ray and sister-n-law, Tina were running it so we wanted to cheer them on. This was the first year Ray was running it and I didn't envy him at all with the humidity. They both looked great at mile 3 but around mile 10 is when they started to wonder when the end was in sight. We also cheered for my friend Laura - follow her blog today!

Ray & Tina at mile 3 during Dam to Dam