Where have we been?

Things have been so crazy for us so posting has been put on the back burner. About 10 days before the end of June, we had our first phone call on our condo. The guy and his wife happened to be standing outside our window looking at our for sale sign. I let them in. The liked it but we tried not to think much of it. Three days later they wanted to come see it again with their two sons. Their sons were crazy about the amenities so they loved it more than their parents. That pretty much sealed the deal. They came and made an offer the next day. They asked what we needed to break even and gave us that for the place. It all happened so fast. We are very blessed. There are many nicer and/or cheaper condos in our complex that have been for sale for months to no avail. Again, we are very blessed. The guy bought it for his two college-aged sons. He paid cash for it so we didn't have to go through all the waiting for loans and inspections and such. He wanted us out by July 1. That left us only one weekend for the actual move. So we started the search for a place to rent in Salt Lake. That took three days leaving three days to pack and move. Then I had a couple days to get the condo cleaned. It was a whirlwind and more stress than anyone should deal with, but we are now settled in and loving it. We wanted to shout out a special thanks to Mike and Mel, who were here vacationing and spent a large majority of their time in Utah helping us pack and move. We REALLY could not have done it without them!. Another special thanks to my mom and Sarah who saved me from a serious mental breakdown. Because of them I didn't have to spend a few days cleaning our place dealing with two kids who were melting down from lack of sleep, attention and normalcy. They cleaned the majority of my place while I mostly dealt with melt downs and tantrums. Also, thanks to my brother Brian, Wendell, Mike (again), Dallin and Zach for helping us unload. You guys are all the best.

Our place is a 3 bedroom completely remodled duplex in Murray. It is more space than we have ever had before. We have a private fenced-in backyard and a big finished basement for toys and misc. hobby stuff. It has been a great change for us and we are really loving it here.

Here are a few pics of all the in between stuff of the last month.

Adin's first time out in the new place. I have never had problems with him staying in time out before, but for some reason he just kept getting off the chair. This was grandma's solution.

All the cute Droubay girls. This will definitely be framed for Meg's room. Love it!

I am now officially married to an "old man" (or so he calls himself). Brian turned 27. It was a much bigger deal for the kids, but I guess that is how adult birthday's are. Meg is very into making birthday's special. We blew up tons of balloons and filled Brian's car while he was at work. Meg used window pain to draw pictures all of his car. Then she insisted on decorating the house. She was also certain that for her present she wanted to get daddy a new CD for him to listen to in the car. I thought that was so thoughtful of her to notice that music is one of her daddy's great loves.

Meg finally passed PRE!!-Level 1 (after 3 tries). She is quite the chicken. After some heavy bribery she finally dunked her head under the water. After that, all she did was dunk under over and over the whole lesson time. We'll see how Pre-Level 2 goes. :)

The kids had a blast and the cousin swim party. Thanks Kimber! Let us know when the next one is.

Meg's Birthday, Party and Preschool Graduation

PRESCHOOL GRADUATION

My little princess is so grown up. It is so sad for me. I couldn't believe how emotional I got over her being done with preschool. I have felt heartsick over it (ridiculous). I kept asking her if she was sad it was over and she would just shrug her shoulders and tell me not really. She had amazing teachers who I will miss and she made so many friends that she just loves and she even met her future husband (according to her). Her teacher commented many times to me how much Meg would surprise her. She expected her to be a total girly girl and in most ways she is, but then she was closest friends with all boys. She was apparently the ring leader every day on the playground in playing pirates, robbers and any other chasing/capturing game. Her teacher also mentioned how surprised she was that during insect week, Meg spent every spare minute holding the pet worms. At every parent/teacher conference they would list sections of development and discuss what we could work on at home. When they would come to her social skills, they always had nothing for me to work on. They said that out of all the kids she was the most expressive and polite.

Her graduation/last day fell on her birthday. It made for a crazy day. I am still very bitter about the amount of pictures I got. I went and bought new batteries for the camera the night before. I got through the first song of the program and my old batteries died. I opened the package of new batteries and they were 100% dead batteries. They wouldn't even power on my camera. Argh!!!! I loved the program and even got teary eyed throughout so I am so sad to have just a couple pictures.

Meg with her main teacher (and favorite) Miss Dani. Meg was crying because she didn't win the drawing for the class pet goldfish.

BIRTHDAY

This birthday held so much more anticipation for Meg than previous birthdays. She has been counting down since Christmas. She also had some very specific ideas about what should happen and how things should be. I don't know how she picked up some of these ideas maybe TV shows or something. She wanted to be involved in all of it. She wanted to help me put up decorations, bake the cake, decorate the cake...she even would have loved to help me wrap her presents.

I think we pulled off a fun day for her, but it was so much more of a stressful day for me than her past birthdays have been. I think its because I worked so much around her birthday that it was hard to get everything done. She really wanted me to make her favorite foods for dinner. I asked what that was and she said mashed potatoes with gravy (gravy was very important), chicken and corn on the cob. Sheesh! I thought I could pull it off, but everything was just too busy so come 6:00 at night we ended up at Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was a poor substitute from what she was used to, but she didn't care. She just thought it was cool to go to a restaurant on her birthday.

PARTY

Meg probably had more fun at her party this year than on her actual birthday. I tried to explain to her that her party was on a different day than her birthday. It must not have clicked because the night before her birthday she was in tears that she wouldn't be having her friends over on her birthday. Her anticipation for the party was crazy. She was bouncing off the walls for days. I was not excited by any means. I knew this was a good year for a party because she lives closer to her cousins and has lots of friends from school and church. Still, I desperately didn't want to plan a party and tried to convince her to go to Build-a-Bear instead. She insisted on the party. Darn it. It was worth it to see how much fun she had. She is still talking about it and was so happy that so many of her friends came. I know it will be a lasting memory for her so it was definitely worth my pain.

Brian told the kids to sing as loudly as they could.

This is just a totally random pic I had to throw in. Adin is such a goof ball, and he gets goofier the older he gets.

Now we are through the crazy week and I am so excited to start a summer of fun and sun. . . if only the sun would stay around for longer than a couple days. :)

Befores and Afters--Improvements...hopefully

Well, this past year has been the first year in my life that I have felt that nothing in life can be predicted. What we thought was such a good decision turned into not such a great decision. Now we just want to get out. :) We placed our place up For Sale By Owner on Sunday night. There couldn't be a worse time to try and sell, but we figure it doesn't hurt to try. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

BEFORE--Meg's Room



AFTER--Meg's Room





BEFORE-Adin's Room


AFTER-Adin's Room


BEFORE--Main bathroom

This picture doesn't do justice to the horribleness of this bathroom. The man before us was obsessed with black and cream and did a very poor (VERY POOR) tile job all over the bathroom. The floor was not level and kind of squishy as you walked.





Credit goes out to my parents, who gutted our bathroom last Thanksgiving. The floorboards were rotting and then we found out that the foundation (cement) wasn't even level. My dad had to pour cement. We removed all the wallboards (damaged from tile on walls and mold) and put in new sheetrock. My dad installed our new vanity from KSL. Then my mom helped me lay the linoleum floor. They did all that in ONE day. Brian and I have spent the last, hmmmm, six months painting and decorating. It has about four coats of paint on it as we tried to find the perfect color. I think this is the biggest transformation.


BEFORE--Kitchen




AFTER--Kitchen


Blah! If we had any more money it would go right here! I despise the tile.


BEFORE--Front Room


AFTER--Front Room


Credit on this goes to my brother Brian who made the cabinet doors to cover up the TV.



BEFORE--Master




The all to famous master with sheet metal crown molding.

AFTER--Master

Well, there you have it. I am sooo happy to be done with changing things. It is a pure joy to not focus on projects anymore. As hard as the work was, there is no part of us that wants to stay. We both desperately want out. Funny how that happens.