Too much to talk about (part 3)

So if major home renovations and the announce of our first baby isn't enough to keep us busy....

We just bought a real house!

That's right. A real, single family, suburbia home in Saratoga Springs. Mary and I have been looking to move out of Provo for over a year now. We're kinda done with all the students and our tiny apartment and always worrying about being too noisy for the basement tenants.

Mary has been on the look out for a house that would suit us best. Well she found one in February. It was a short sale in Saratoga Springs.  The drama involved in this house purchase is too long for this blog.

But the tl;dr version is that because this house is a short sale, the banks (yes, there were two with liens on the house) were very unwilling to cooperate or be lenient in almost any way. So our realtor and our mortgage broker and we have been fighting with the banks and jumping through their stupid hoops to finally get to the closing table on May 19th. And just to tell you how close we were on this, our broker had to personally courier the docs up the the corporate offices in SLC in order to process them before the deadline. Our mortgage was funded about an hour later.

I only hit the tip of the iceberg on the drama that happened during this purchase. But we're soooooo glad that it's all over and we persevered and fought hard and got it.
I'll have to post pictures of it soon.

Too much to talk about (part 2)

The next big event in our lives is...

We're expecting our first little girl at the end of August!

We're very excited about this. We both feel ready, but a little anxious, about this next big step in life. But we'll be just fine, I know.

Too much to talk about

So, since our last blog update 8 months ago, it seems like a decade's worth of events have happened to us. So I'm really sure where to begin. But being prodded by enough family and friends, I shall attempt the impossible.

So our last post was about redoing the electrical in our old house. That project went more or less smoothly.


In September (a week or so after our last post), we had a guy come and replace our old breaker and electrical meters. So with the really hard parts done, I just had to go room by room and run the wire, switch out the old and put in the new.

I didn't really know anything about electrical and I kept stalling on it, waiting to get some know-how help with it. (I was super busy with work and school as well). So when the Christmas break finally came, I was resolved to get this project done while I had the time. Eddy came down and helped a ton too.

I forced myself to learn it. I started with the most simple circuit: the fridge's dedicated circuit. It has one plug.  After that was done, my confidence was boosted a little (residential electrical is quite simple really), and Eddy and I worked on next circuit.

We continued doing one room at a time, and we were able to get the entire upstairs apartment done.  We pretty much ran everything through the attic, which made this project much more simple. I spent several days up in the attic, pulling wire from below and wiring various circuits and such. Eddy spent a bunch of time cutting in new plug boxes in the old lathe and plaster walls.

Eddy helped us out a ton during this job.

This is the finished product. A new breaker with new wire!

In the end, we now have five plugs in the kitchen (instead of just one), and a lot more plugs in each room in the apartment. And we can run the toaster over and the space heater at the same time! Looking back, I'm quite amazed and proud that I was able to figure it all out and get it done. And honestly, it was fun.
Not wake boarding fun, but still fun.

After the electrical was finished, we finished that room that we tore down, which wasn't as fun as the electrical. We put in a new floor, new paint, and put a carpet top on that laundry box, so now it's a comfortable reading nook.

Here's Eddy and me working in super cold weather, cutting the frame for the wall.

 Mary helped out a lot with the mudding and sanding.  Unfortunately, we neglected to take a picture of the finished product. Oh well.

We're masochists

Yes. No doubt about it. We apparently love giving ourselves more work than we need to.  Our new project? Updating the electrical.  Last winter, we realized that the electrical in our house is really really old.
We learned all the fine combinations of electrical appliances that, when run at the same time, would pop a circuit breaker. It was a daily adventure for us.  The rule of thumb basically came to "Don't run more than one thing at once."

Mary and I decided that we couldn't go another winter without updating the electrical in our old house.
So we got together with a friend and we are taking the plunge on Tuesday. We got the permit required, got the new circuit breaker box and breakers, and all the wire we could possible use.  I must say, we are both very excited to have updated electrical.

But that's not why we're masochists. We're masochists because yesterday we decided on a whim to rip out all the lathe and plaster on the walls in the back room where the breaker is. We really didn't need or want to  do it, but we figured this would be the baby's room when the time comes and we've been told babies don't like drafty rooms. ;)  Plus, doing it now has its benefits. Having the room torn down to the studs will make the electrical work much easier. We will now have complete unobstructed access to the old breaker, the new breaker, and several plugs in the bedroom and  kitchen, including to the stove and fridge.

So now that we're down a room, it's just like we are living in a two bedroom apartment again! Ugggh.
And now for some pictures....

This is just one of me being goofy. Demolition is my favorite part of home improvement. Especially when I'm tearing out old crappiness that has cause us much grief in the past.

I must say, tearing out lathe and plaster is quite therapeutic and fun. It really allows one to release all that stored up frustration and stress.

 Behold, the lovely circuit breaker that I'm pretty sure came from the 50's.  Side note, the wires in the top right of this picture are the old old nob and tube wiring from the 20's. It looks like when they took out the fuse box and put in the breaker, they didn't bother to remove the nob and tube wiring. (It's actually pretty hard to do, so I can't blame them).

We filled Mary's truck with all the debris. It's amazing how much lathe and plaster you can pull off of two walls. We also had a nice thin layer of dust all over the whole house as well.

That is all for now. We'll update everyone when we can again say that we live in a three bedroom apartment.

My wife is awesome

Just some random thoughts about Mary.
We've been doing a lot of work on our house trying to get it ready to sell. During this time, I've also been coming up to a big deadline at work. So I've been very strapped for time.

So during those days when I'm stuck at work, Mary has accepted the challenge and done a lot of non-girly things around the house. Like framing, putting up drywall, mudding, and even messing around with some electrical stuff.

She is an incredibly hard worker. She can rattle off a huge massive of list of things that she got done that day and I just feel so grateful, and a bit lazy.

At the same time, she's no tomboy. She loves loves loves shopping, the color pink, heart-shaped anything, animals, getting her hair done, and being romanced.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that these two pictures are the same girl. How lucky am I!

A busy summer...

So busy in fact, that I don't have time to blog. :)
That's my cheap cop-out for being lazy.

Actually, we really have been quite busy this summer. So far we have
 * torn out and remodeled our laundry room,
 * redid some walls in the basement bedroom,
 * hiked to Lower Calf Creek falls near Escalante,
 * went hiking in Natural Bridges National Monument in So. Utah with the fam,
 * went biking ^^ there as well (fun downhills, but the climbs *suuuuucked*)
 * looked at lots of boats for Mom and Dad,
 * test drove several boats with Mom and Dad, (one of which they purchased!!)
 * been out on the water several times since then,
 * taught Mary how to back a trailer in the Novell parking lot (she's actually better at it than me, I think),
 * perused KSL classifieds for a week to procure some wake boards,
 -  and finally -
 * went with the Fam to Yuba lake on our first family boating trip in over a decade.

I may or may not provide pictures. We'll see. I've probably fulfilled my blogging quota for a few months now. Stay tuned for our next post, "Rusty passes out after Thanksgiving turkey".

Christmas Shopping

I think this picture says it all, but just incase your wondering this is how I feel when I try to go anywhere during the Christmas season. Normally I enjoy shopping but the herd is just a bit to crowded for me around Christmas time.

Gingerbread Mansions

The Howell tradition of Gingerbread construction was alive and vibrant this year! for those that aren't aware Rusty's family has a tradition every year of making gingerbread houses from scratch. This year Mom and Dad Howell did all the hard labor and made the pieces, the rest of us joined them for the candy fest and decorating. We literally had over 20 different types of candy, it was heaven for a candy-o-holic. We all ate way to much sugar but had a blast doing it. We may not be artists but at the end of the night I was really proud of our creations.

Back in the work force

So after a month of unemployment, job searching, interviewing and negotiating, I finally accepted an offer at Applied Signal Technology. I'm excited to get back to work. I must say, paychecks are really nice to have.

I'm really excited about this position. I'll be moving back into software development. I've been in QA (testing) for the last two years and I've realized that it's just not for me. I was rather bored with my job. Prior to my layoff, I had even told Mary that I was bored and that I wanted to start looking around. The big problem, however, is that searching for a new job is often times a full time job. It takes a lot of time. And since I was working and doing grad school, I didn't really get too far.

So with the adequate time to devote to job searching, I was able to find a better job. I have several friends who work at AST who have said nothing but great stuff about it. So I'm way excited to move onward and upward.

Black Friday the Howell way....

Although we love shopping (by we I mean I) we chose to avoid the insane crowds this black Friday buy going to one of the greatest places on earth, no not Disney Land, Southern Utah. We took a day trip to Arches National Park, about 3 hours south of provo, with Andy, Shawn and Evan. We hiked about 5 miles worth of very short trails, one of which was the picturesque delicate arch Utah is famous for. The trip was well worth missing the black friday sales.

Rusty's Little Red Head

No Rusty does not have a mistress..... just an adventurous wife. The day before Thanksgiving I finally did it, I died my hair red, cinaberry to be exact. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time but never had the guts to do. Even as I sat with box in hand at the store and at home I was still slightly hesitant. When I mixed it up and put the first few lines of color in and saw them get more and more purple I got kinda worried. Rusty reminded me that it was too late to go back now so I finished the job and voila, red hair. It is a little lighter than I expected and yes it is a drastic change but I love it!

I am thankful for a supportive husband who also likes change, he loves it too. But most of all I am grateful it washes out in 28 washes ;)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was awesome this year! We joined Rusty's family at Andy & Shawn's beautiful home for a very yummy assortment of traditional dishes. Everyone brought something to contribute, the turkey, made by Shawn, was fabulous! The house was decorated perfectly with hand made decor, also made by Shawn.

She is a very talented woman! The seven of us spent seven hours celebrating each others company and the bounty Heavenly Father has blessed us with. It truly was a perfect Thanksgiving!

I'm an author!

Or at least an official blogger.... Rusty added me to his blog! Hopefully it will get updated more frequently now.

Tech Support Cheat Sheet

From http://xkcd.com/627/

My cat is a flirt

Really, she is. She prances around and visits all the neighbors. They all love her. They all love petting her and playing with her. Sammy's even been known to wander in a open doors just say hi. One neighbor across the street left her door open one day and later found Sammy just chillin' on her bed. I think we actually make more friends through our cat than by our own means.

So the other day, that same neighbor was hosting a yard sale for her father. We went over there to see what they had. We looked around and we found few things. But we did not have any cash on hand. So I ask the father if he would accept a check. He looked very hesitant.

Him: "Are you from around here?"
Me (pointing at our apartment): "Oh yeah. We live right there. We're Sammy's owners."
Him: "Oh you're Sammy's owners! Oh she's a sweet cat. We just love her to death."
Me(smiling): "Yeah, she's ours."

With that connection made, we made small talk a bit longer. Needless to say, he had no problem accepting my check. That's probably the first time in history an animal has been accepted as a credit reference.

Home improvement

For the last few months, Mary and I have been doing some major renovations on our duplex. We've done a lot to the duplex, both upstairs and down, and it's taken us quite a long time to do it. It seems like practically every evening we've been over there working on something. Danny has been harassing me for a while about updating my blog. I'm going to blame my lack of blogger-tivity (copyright me) to this project.

The main improvement on the upstairs apartment was the bathroom. It started with a layer of linoleum. Beneath that was an older layer of linoleum. Beneath that was some rotted sub-flooring in the form of particle board, that had some serious water damage. I was hesitant to dig any deeper, but I decided to risk it. And what did I find? Perfectly good original wood flooring! I was very shocked, cause it seems like whenever I go poking around in this house, I open up a can o' worms that adds to my plate of things to do.


Mary had a great time painting, or we may have been delusional. I think this picture was taken in the wee hours of Sunday morning. We were trying to finish painting the bathroom before we went home, which happened to be at 3 am :) You can kinda see the good-condition hard wood flooring, too.


We enlisted a lot of slave labor over the past few months.


Katie was excited to come help Aunt Mary and Uncle Rusty. Or she was just excited to get away from her brothers for a few hours :) She helped us do lots of sanding and painting in the bathroom. Not pictured is Jaden, Katie's brother, and my Mom. Jaden came to help us a different day, and honestly probably got the more fun job of demolition when we were tearing up the bathroom floor and the walls. After all the painting and whatnot in the bathroom, Mom did a superb job in putting in ceramic tile.


No, I'm not spelunking. I'm playing with pipes in the attic. There was this one rogue pipe that came through the bathroom ceiling and hung down about two feet and then was capped! It had no purpose whatsoever. I crawled up in the attic and looked around. I found a second water pipe that (sort of) ran along side the first one but was capped in the attic. So I got a cut-off saw from Andy, the Power Tool Sugar Daddy, and hacked that thing up in the ceiling and put a new cap on it. So now I don't have this utterly ridiculous pipe hanging down in the bathroom.

This was a lovely task. The floor in this bedroom was a nightmare. It was squishy and sagging in the middle by a good three inches. Placing a level on the floor was a joke. We decided it was time to replace it. We tore up the carpet and and carpet padding. Beneath the carpet was a layer of plywood, two layers of linoleum, particle board, 1940's linoleum, and then the original (and completely rotted) wood flooring. In the picture above, you can see the flooring is a joke. The wood flooring was supported by 2x4s, which were also rotted.

Dad helped me clear out the old flooring, which wasn't hard to do, just a lot of work.



The end result: dirt. No kidding. The basement floor is not cement, at least not in the front half. The back two bedrooms have cement floors.



So this is what that bedroom looked like after we were done ripping the old flooring out. It kind of reminds of this cabin up in the mountains that had a door to a non-existent porch (anyone in the family knows what cabin I'm talking about). We decided the best long term solution was to pour cement in that room and give it a proper floor.


So we did. Andy, Dad, and Hans came down for the morning and helped me get the cement poured. Andy and his quick thinking devised a make shift chute to assist in getting the cement through the window. The chute on the cement trailer didn't quite have the angle.


If you can see, it was a very tight fit getting that cement trailer in between the house and the bushes. But we got it done.



Once that bedroom floor was finished and the framing/sheet rock was done, we had tons and tons of painting to do. We found two more slaves in the forms of Katie (above right) and Chris (below).

Chris and Katie came over and helped us a couple of times with the painting the basement apartment.


Papa Bear has been a huge huge help throughout this entire process. He's been there nearly every day I was and helped me with some of the most ugly and tedious tasks we've encountered. He even showed up a couple of times unannounced and worked on stuff alone while I was at work.

So the end product?

Yes this is the same bedroom. It looks livable doesn't it! After the cement, we redid the sheet rock on the walls and got new carpet, and of course, painted.

Another shot of the bedroom. It's hard to imagine that we were pouring cement through that little window a few weeks ago.

We are so thrilled that this project is over. We really want to thank all the people who helped us with this project. Hans, Jaden, Katie (the younger), Chris, Katie (the elder). A big thanks to Andy, my aforementioned Power Tool Sugar Daddy. Andy went through all of this (though on a much much larger scale) a year ago. Also a super big thanks to Dad, who offered a ton of help and sacrificed a number of weeks his golden years to help out a son. And also a big thanks to Mom, for lending Dad to me for so many hours.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you April 15th

Keep in mind that two days ago, Mary did her homework outside on the lawn beneath the warm spring sun.

Something is not right with this picture...

My first speeding ticket

It's true. I got my first speeding ticket last week. And there are witnesses (Mary, Andy, Shawn) that are more than willing to tell the tale.

Maybe I should ask Danny how traffic school works :)

Ye olde married couple

So I've seriously neglected my blog much to Danny's disappointment. He chastised me about it a month ago, and I still haven't done anything about it since. So here is this hasty post :)

Mary and I are living happily, albeit crammed, in our little apartment. We have a lot of stuff and no where to put it all. Two adults, an iguana with a very large terrarium and a kitty all crammed in to this little two bedroom apartment is wearing on us. We're very much looking forward to getting our first house sometime soon where we can finally stretch out and feel at home. But until then, we're happy where we are.

Mary has started school again full time at UVU. She hopes to get into the nursing program there and be able to work again in medicine in a few years.

In the mean time, Mary worked extra hard at work last year which qualified her (and me) for a trip to Mexico next month! President's Club is Novell's annual retreat for its top sales people and executives. This year its in Mexico and Mary was invited to go. We're super excited about it. We hope to have lots of time for the beach, scuba diving, and seeing the sites of Playa del Carmen. We are also looking forward to seeing Chichen Itza or some other Mayan ruins.

Ahh... Mexico in February, we can't wait. :)

We miss being single...

So, much to Mary's and my dismay, we had a rude awakening today. We thought we were forever leaving the awkward environment of the BYU singles ward. Not so. Today we attended our new BYU married ward for the first time. And we've both come to the same conclusion.

BYU married wards are just as strange as the singles ward.

No kidding. Literally, half the ward is pregnant, and other half have newborns. And, according the Mary, the Relief Society lesson was all about babies. "Multiply and Replenish" was the theme of the lesson today. Mary's wondering if we could get our old Bishop to let us back into his ward. At least that strangeness we're used to.

One of the oddities is that I sort of expected or imagined a married ward to have a lot more spiritual maturity. Again, not so. The people in our singles ward are just as 'spiritually mature' if not more than the members of our new ward. They just don't have spouses. Or babies.

So, in short, we miss being single. Or at least our singles ward. But sex is frickin' awesome. :)