Go away GUSTAV!

Many of you know that I have a lot of family in Louisiana. My mom is one of nine children and six of the nine live near the coast in Louisiana as well as my grandparents. SO, we have been glued to the TV watching the storm, hoping that it doesn't hit near where my family lives-in New Iberia. New Iberia is about 3 hours west of New Orleans. However, as the storm gets closer it appears that it will be hitting them head-on. Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers as Hurricane Gustav will be hitting the shore on Monday September 1.

ALL this...in ONE week!!

A man and his house, this is our living room wall, next to our bedroom door! Yes, it really will be that big:
I can't believe how fast they have framed our house! We love visiting every day and checking out their progress. We are so excited for it to be finished and it is great to see our dream house materialize before our very eyes!

All they have done in a week, from the back:

A view from the upstairs, our cul-de-sac today:
Lauren's future bedroom, you can see the loft, as well as the stairs down:

The house from the front:
The entryway:
Another view from the house, and the building you see is the Discover Card building!!
Lauren holding Jamie, or trying to anyway:

Matt's sister Kristen and her husband David came to see our house on Saturday August 30th:
The whole gang sitting between the garage and the office, it was REALLY windy:
Our fireplace was framed, I had to sit in it, afterall, I'll never be able to that again (and for my camera shy kids-it was very windy and dirt was getting in our eyes):
A picture of what our house will look like (a model like ours):

Weighing In: Week Two

Okay. I lost 2 pounds this week...so 4 pounds total. The thing I learned this week: The less sugar you have, the less of it you want.

Mr. Clean and Beautiful

Okay, so I am posting four posts tonight. Kinda crazy...
1) I got way behind from the computer downage.
2) I am really having a good time blogging.
3) Matt suprisingly thinks it is cool.
4) Hey! I had a lot going on!

I had to do this post as well because in case you didn't know it. Matt was chosen, (and I say Matt because I didn't have anything to do with it) as one of about 20 homes in West Valley as being "Clean & Beautiful". We got a neat sign for the yard, tickets to Hale Center Theatre, our names were in the highly acclaimed "West Valley Journal" and we are invited to a reception at West Valley City Hall tomorrow. Matt works very hard in our yard, I never realized how much of a science keeping grass green is. I have to agree, it looks great Matt! Plus...I think it will be a good selling point for the house. Anyone interested in this cute Rambler, landscaping by "Mr. Clean and Beautiful himself'"??? It will be on the market next Spring!

Our yard today, it is hard to imagine starting all over at the new house, it took us 10 years to get to this point:
A view from our porch, I LOVE our neighbors the WFW (Wakefield Way) gang!:
Our prized Petunias:
Our sign, and yes Matt takes it down when the lawn is too long!
What we believe clinched the award for us. Pink flamingos from the neighborhood "White Trash Party". Bree, we feel like part of this award goes to you as well, LOVE YA!!!

ALL this...in TWO days!!!

Here are the pictures as promised. Many of you have asked where the new house will be. It is 5200 West and 3200 South. It is literally 2 miles from where Matt and I work at Discover Card. So, They started framing the house on 8/22/08. We were suprised how much they got done in such a short amount of time. We were also pleased to see how much of the basement they framed for us. Here was day one:

The basement from the view of the garage:
The back of the house, this is the basement:
Me, hanging out the basement window:
Another view of the back:
This was day two of the framing on 8/25/08. Again, we were shocked to see how much they had done. I can't wait for it to be completed!

A far away shot of the garage:

A far away shot of the backyard, with our future fence:
The future waterway. They also started working on this today:
This will be my bedroom window:
The basement steps:

Look Ma! No hands! Soon there will be a wall on the side of these stairs:
The garage:
A view from the side, that is my closet window and wall in back and the garage up front:
This is the backyard, you can see the fence, waterway, and our cars on the street:

Jordanelle

This past Saturday we decided to go boating up at Jordanelle. Boating is one of the things we can do as a family and we all love it. Matt's sister Kristen wanted to join us and we are so glad that she did. We had an awesome time riding the waves, and lounging in the sun. When I am boating, everything seems right in the world. Here are a few photos from our adventure.

Captain Matt:
Lauren, the Daddy's girl:
Aunt Kristen and Jamie (with cheeks so big the jacket can't hold 'em!)

Me, Lauren, Kristen, and Jamie: Boating!

What a poser, who does she get that from?
Jamie loved it! Check out the goose-egg on my little explorer......
Yup, he loved it so much, it tuckered him right out....cold!
Back on solid ground:

Let me bring you up to SPEED....

My handy husband never ceases to amaze me! He has brought our computer back! What a relief! Tonight we had to look over almost every single picture in the file in awe of what we ALMOST lost. Whew! And yes, we now have a backup disk in case we have a scare like this again! Here is one of the pictures that would have been gone forever: Me and Lauren (9 months). Thanks Matt we love you!

The computer is down, I repeat the computer is down!

After almost 10 years of faithful service, our computer "Dell" has died. On Thursday August 15th it totally crashed. We lost all of our Office files including ALL of our digital pictures, and our "Money" files. Matt and I were both nearly in tears! Matt has ordered a few parts and we are hoping to get it back up and going again. Until then, you will have to deal with my "pictureless" blogs. Don't worry, I have been taking pictures! I just can't upload them yet. Okay, that was the bad news....the exciting news is our new house! The downstairs plumbing was done on 8/19/08. The garage and basement floors were cemented on 8/20/08. They started framing the house on 8/22/08! They are really flying! They have already started 3 other houses in our circle since ours began on 8/5/08.

In other news...I spent Friday at the zoo with my two kids, my two sister-in-laws (Kristen and Alex), my niece Isabella, and Alex's mom. It was a lot of fun and perfect weather for the outing. I am so lucky to have sister-in-laws that are friends as well. My favorite parts of the trip was watching Jamie mimic the giraffe's chomping and Lauren waving to me from the carousel. I love being a mom!

Diet update...I lost 2 pounds my first week. It is a start! I have made a few changes like: making sure I eat breakfast, eating as many fruits and vegies and I can, drinking lots of water (with only one diet drink per day), ALWAYS taking the stairs at work, and I did a 20 minute workout at least 5 times per week.

The "Before" Pictures: New House

Lauren and I standing on the edge of the property: A view from the front, you are looking at the garages:
Across the street, there will be a house there, for now this is our view.
Also across the street on the other side:
Our Cul-De-Sac, the only one in the Ivory Development:
Our backyard, there will be a lake and a walkway there soon:

Our backyard, you can kinda see where the lake will go:
The house from the back, this will be the basement:
A view from the back, the walk-out basement:
Another shot from the back (you can see Matt's truck on the street):
Lauren and I standing on what will be the stairway:

From inside the basement, looking out:
We were recently told it will be a daylight basement, meaning all windows will be above ground:
A shot from inside the basement. The walkout:
Our backyard:
(Above) Some pictures of the house and surrounding area, as it is now.

If any of you didn't know it, Mathew and I are building a new house. Our dream house and we are both tickled to death. We love our house on Wakefield Way, and we absolutely love our neighbors...but we need something just a little bit bigger and something a little closer to where we work. It wasn't something we set out to do, it just sort of happened. So, after nearly 10 years..it is on to bigger and better things. Let me bring you up to speed with the timeline;

We started looking at houses in January.

We picked our lot on 4/3/08.

We picked out all of our colors and options on 5/6/08.

We put 8% down on 5/19/08.

The hole was dug on 8/5/08.

Foundation poured 8/7/08.