Furniture show results

So I got back home from the furniture show in Vegas on Saturday at 4:30 in the morning. It turned out to be not as great as we had expected. 6 months ago the building we spent most of our time in wasn't finished so many of the exhibitors were outside in tents in temporary booth spaces. With the new building being finished the exhibitors mostly had permanent store fronts in the building so they weren't looking to unload all their furniture before they headed back to China and India. This made it more difficult to find the temporary booths, there were basically only 2 floors of these and I didn't find any large furniture pieces that I wanted to get.

I did get a dining room table and chairs and a sitting area table with 2 chairs. That was all I ended up with. Our friend Zane got a bed, a dresser, and some art work. So it wasn't a total bust, we got good deals on what we did purchase, the biggest problem was taking the stuff to the vehicle. I would estimate that we had to carry each piece of furniture nearly 1/3 of a mile to the truck. In the Vegas heat of 109 degrees, THAT SUCKED!!! We started taking items out of the building at 4 p.m. and finished around 9 p.m.

So, I think I may go back in the future but only for home accessories and decorations, it's just too big a hassle to get the big ticket furniture and get it back home. Zane and I were seriously dying after several trips carrying furniture a really, really long way.

On a different note, we went to check out the new house and on the way back we saw something kind of funny. It's frequent to see welcome home signs on highway overpasses made from plastic cups stuck between the holes in the fence, typically it's something like "Welcome home Elder Johnson", well today we saw one that was a little different.

Almost done framing

It appears that the framing at the new house is almost done and of course we took pictures. As promised in the previous post, these pictures are a little more interesting.

Roof framed and garage doors arched

Other side of the front

Kaleb rockin his new room

Kaleb seriously rockin the kitchen

Kaleb doing his best asian teen impersonation, peacing in the living room.

Kaleb pondering the size of our 3-car garage and what toys he'll fill it with.

Enjoying the future back yard

Throwing rocks at the neighbors

One of the basement "rooms"

I don't know why they call it cold storage, it was 97 degrees in there.

Future BAND ROOM! (don't tell Joelle)

ARCHES!

So thats what we've got for now, it seems like the house sprung up out of nowhere, but that makes it exciting. Tomorrow Joelle is trusting me to go with our friend Zane to Vegas and shop my butt off for furniture. Wish me luck!

More Wood!

It looks as if the new place will start to quickly take shape and actually start looking like more than a box. Here are a few recent pictures and I'm sure there will be more in a day or so.

Front view


Front corner view of garages


Entrance


Master bedroom


Kaleb's room


I promise the next set of pictures will be much more interesting. Well, at least I'm hoping so.

Our house has wood.

Framing has begun at our new place. It started early this week and will probably finish up next week at some point.

Front of the house.

Back corner of the house.

I guess it looks good to me, I don't know enough about framing to form an opinion on it so as long as there are holes where the windows need to be then it's all I can hope for.

Enough about the house. We went to watch the American Fork fireworks the other night with Joe and Jen and the gang and Kaleb loved it. The fireworks were good, but he enjoyed having other kids to run around with. We were at AF high school and he was wrestling with the other kids and having a good ol' time.

I'm pretty boring this week, but I promise to get some more pictures taken and more information up soon. I should have all sorts of information to put up in about a week so stay tuned.

Foundation and a Crock Pot

We went to check out the progress on our new place today and it's moving along rather nicely. Our foundation has been poured, window wells installed, and some of the basement plumbing has been put in. From what I can tell, the next steps will be to finish the plumbing in the basement, then pour the basement floor. Here are a couple of pictures of the progress:






Now, lets party! It's Joelle's Birthday today. She isn't one for anything elaborate, so we had dinner at her parents house and cake and ice cream with her family. So, what do you get somebody that you have no idea what to get them most of the time? The item they've been dropping hints at for the last 2 months. A CROCK POT!!! I think the comment that sealed the deal came when we were having a normal everyday conversation and in mid-sentence Joelle says "I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a crock pot." I realize that cooking items aren't exactly the best birthday present, I guess they don't send the best message, but with completely random hints I didn't have a choice. I think we're going to get a wii as a combo gift, so the crock pot doesn't end up the only think I got her (yes, she wants a wii, it's not me trying to get another gaming system! although it will be fun)

So with that said, Happy Birthday Joelle! Kaleb and I love you very much! You don't look a day over 48. It's true, she doesn't. :)

Swimming, Fireworks, and House Update

Yesterday we took Kaleb swimming at the Lehi city pool. After much coaxing I was able to get him to go down the tube/slide (which is pitch black all the way down) and he absolutely loved it. So we did it again and again, I got pretty good at keeping Kaleb above water upon landing...Joelle didn't. I can't accuse her of trying to drown our child, because Kaleb only gave her the one shot and he was done with riding the slide with her.

Kaleb giving his approval of the water slide

After swimming we went to Joe and Jen's house for illegal firework viewing. There were some pretty good fireworks that gave the neighbors a good scare on several occasions as the firework aiming mechanisms were less than accurate. And then... POLICE INTERVENTION!!! Now, I've been on the receiving end of severe police intervention (sorry dad) before, and I was prepared to bolt and let the kid and wife fend for themselves, but I stuck in there and the entire episode was over in under 15 seconds and I didn't even have to get involved. It went something like this:

Salt Lake County Sheriff Deputy pulls up:

Deputy: You guys know those are illegal right?

Joe's Cousin: Yeah, we do

Deputy: You also know there is a minimum $500 fine?

Joe's Cousin: I didn't

Deputy: Well there is, so those need to stop.

Joe's Cousin: Ok, sorry

Deputy: Alright.

(Deputy turns around and walks back to his car and drives away)

WHAT!?!? THAT WAS IT!? There was an overflowing box of Wyoming special fireworks sitting 15 feet away in plain sight from Inspector Clouseau and he didn't give a hoot. I think this particular policeman was so lazy that I could have grabbed one of the many Roman Candles in the box, lit it up, and fired it straight at him and gotten nothing more than a wink from the guy. If I were him I would have cited every man, woman, and child in sight for $500 and poured a 5-gallon bucket of water into the firework box. Luckily for everybody around I didn't follow in my Dad's footsteps and go into law enforcement, but I have a feeling that my brother who is in law enforcement would have done just what I said. LOVE YOU JEFF!

Just up the street from Joe and Jen, our house is being built. I'm no expert in home construction, in fact, most random 6-year-olds could give you more helpful information on building a house than I could, but with that being said, I think the Footings for our house have been poured. Here is a current picture of what the site looks like, if I was wrong in my assesment feel free to leave a comment and let me know just what is happening on our lot.

Footings?

And with that, I'm done babbling.

Look at my hole!!!

That doesn't sound right, but that's basically the point of this post. Our builder dug the hole today that will eventually hold our house! We are pretty excited to actually see that our new place is on it's way up. Kaleb is certainly excited, but I think alot of that had to do with all the tractors, backhoes, and steamroller/compactors that were out there. The hole doesn't look all that deep, but yes, we will have a basement. There will be a good amount of dirt brought in to build up the lot after the foundation is poured.

The picture above was taken by Kaleb, giving his props to the workers I guess.

We will keep our blog updated as we go through the process. We are told that the builders would like to close around the end of September, so this could be a quick process.