Almost there!

(PLEASE!!! FINGERS CROSSED PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!)

Ramon (seriously...if he was single!) has finished the tile in the bathroom, patched the kitchen ceiling, and put in the carpet. He should be finishing up today. (YAY!)
My cousin, John, has promised that tomorrow we are finishing up the rest! Setting the kitchen sink, finishing the plumbing of my bathroom sink, putting on the shower fixtures, and fixing the water line and the valves. It's a small chore list. We should be able to knock it out!
Whoo-Hoo! Although I'm not officially planning that we'll be moving in too soon. (I don't want to get my hopes up, only to be disappointed, again!!) So, I'll let you know when the move actually is happening!

Girl's Camp... Take 3!

May I just say that it is so hard to be focused on Camp when you have bought a house and are working on it?!

Day 1: Drove myself up this year and YUP! You guessed it. Even though I swear I followed the directions to a T, I still got lost! ( I found Target easily!) I had to call my brother for the address to the camp so I could use my phones navi app (Only 2.99) Le sigh! I was only 15 minutes late. Tonight we had a Burden Trail activity... 3 stops where we told the girls they had committed a sin and had them place a rock in their bag. I think they saw an R rated movie on stop 1 Of course my stop had to be the sexual sin! I had to tell them that they went too far with a guy on a date! I think I scared some of the 12 yr olds! I could see them in their cabins later that night asking their cabin Mom's what 'going too far' with a boy meant?! So, for the younger girls, I started telling them they dated before they were 16! Less weird for me!! The girls ended the trail at a big pic of Jesus where they got to "place their burdens" on the Lord. Then Sis. Hale gave a talk. It was a fun night.

Day 2: Ugh! I have to get up at 7?! (Bishop's Night) Today the girls had Archery,water balloon volleyball, and an iron rod activity. Susanne Thompson and I were in charge of the Iron Rod Activity. There was a rope "trail" through the woods & the girls were blindfolded. Susanne would place the blindfold, place them on the right track, tell them not to leave the rope, and then let them go. My job was to have the YCL's try to get them to let go. At first I thought it was going to be a boring time for me, b/c the girls would know what the rope represented and not leave it. SURPRISE! Some of the YCL's were sneaky and would lure them away with the promise of a shortcut, or tell them they were going the wrong way, and to come toward the sound of their voice and they would 'help' them. We got a LOT of girls to leave the rope! I got to play the spirit and when they left the rope I would place them back on and tell them not to listen to the YCL's and to stay on the rope! Amazingly, some of them left the rope a 2nd time!! One girl left the rope 5 times!!!! It ended with a talk by Bishop Smith. It ended up being a lot of fun! PS: A girl fainted in the dinner line tonight. Dun... dun... DUN!

Day 3: The dreaded hike to the Lake day!! It's a 30 minute hike and a lot of it is uphill!! I know I am out of shape and I was not having fun!! It's a long hike, and once you get to the lake you can't even swim!! Only kayaks and canoes. I took a book and just sat in the shade and read while they had fun. Then we had to hike back... and my group got lost... of course! My girls had KP all day today-Woo-Hoo!! I was washing the dinner dishes with Alysha and one of my YCL's came to get me asking me if I could help with another of my YCL's. Well, she was lying flat on the floor, barely breathing, and unresponsive. I thought I was going to have to do CPR!!!! I was scared out of my mind! It was more unnerving b/c I was the first person to get there! SCARY! We ended up calling the paramedics b/c she wasn't responding. They told us it was a bronchospasm. (minor breathing difficulty problem.) We went to testimony meeting once she was responding and said she felt better, but kept an eye on her. They waited to start testimony for us which made the night go WAY LONG!! After testimony we had dessert, and then still had star gazing... by the time the girls went to bed it was probably after 1! I know it was when I went to bed! Anyhow, the day was basically emotionally and physically exhausting! PS... after testimony we got to see 2 American Flags retired

Day 4: YAY! We get to go home! The girls got up, had breakfast, cleaned, packed a lunch, got on the bus, and were on their way! We leaders were about 20 minutes behind them, but we still made it to the Ximeno building before the bus. Here's the final kicker: I locked my keys in my car promptly upon arriving at the church. Yee-Haw! That's what sleep-deprivation will do to ya!

4 loads of laundry, 12 hours of sleep & 1 shower later...I am fully recovered!!

Just an update:

The place is still being worked on. The bathroom is almost user-ready! YAY! As soon as that is ready, we can move in. The carpet is still not in, 1 ceiling fan still needs to be put up, the kitchen sink needs to be set, the upstairs bathroom still needs the pipes set... but that about covers it. WE are sooooo close, but still no cigar people! I'll keep you posted!

Movin' on up!

...to the East side? OK, no. But things have been moving right along! Last Saturday an electrician came out & put in the recessed lighting in the kitchen. It looks really good, except that he left a hole in the ceiling... so, 1 problem fixed 1 problem added? Oh well, at least that orange big box is gone!

Today, my cousin was in TOP FORM!! He brought a veritable army of workers with him today!! His son Jake, and 2 friends Dave (who is going to help us with our shower for CHEAP-YAY!) & Jim (who is funny, helpful, and a VERY hard-worker... & was the poor sap who had the task of being in our 100 degree + attic cutting a hole.) Besides being hysterically funny (& a bunch of guys) they put up Soni's fan- (after having to climb over the AC unit in the attic, and cut a hole in the ceiling... AND go to Lowe's TWICE). They got the garbage disposal and kitchen sink put in- (after having to make 2 more trips to Lowe's, cut the piping (twice), replace the Garbage Disposal plug, and try to figure out where oh where they placed our main water shut-off! FYI: Still have NO CLUE... what we think should be it DOES NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT turn our water off all the way... it flows slower but keeps on running!) And finally, my sink upstairs put in- (after having to drill new holes so it would fit &...) OK, so that was probably the easiest although the piping underneath is too small and so we called it quits, but our final trip of the night... TO LOWE'S!! We wanted to have everything on hand for next time! I feel like the list is FINALLY getting smaller & smaller! I'm thinking we'll actually move in BEFORE 2011!! YAY!!!

Plumbing, Painting & Doorknobs!

So.....Turns out that Soni's and my home teacher is... (drum roll, please) a PLUMBER!! Which for Soni and I is like manna from heaven!! Since our cousin (after numerous-and I mean NUMEROUS- texts and phone calls) is still a NO-SHOW!! WTH?!?!?! Not sure if we offended him or what?! At this point, I think I'm more offended! :(

Saturday, after a mid-singles breakfast at Gourmet Pie (YUM!), Soni and I head over to work some more on the place. (UGH!) We were meeting our HT/Plumber so we felt like at least something would be getting done!

Wade... our HT, got the downstairs toilet installed (YAY!) and the bathroom faucet in.

*Note... this is not our plumber... I just thought the pics were hilarious!*

Soni... finished all of the grout sealing and has been unloading boxes.

I... painted my bathroom door, painted my balcony railing, put a doorknob on my bathroom door, fixed the upside down light switch in my bathroom (I was in a hurry last week OK?), switched out the deadbolt and doorknob on the front door, sanded and then painted the laundry closet doorway.

Soni and I both... went to Lowes (TWICE!), finished putting the hardware on the kitchen cabinets...can you believe we had to buy nuts to put on the backside of the screws b/c 1 1/4" screws were too short and 1 1/2" screws were too long and they don't make in-between!! C'mon! What else could go wrong?!

What else? I'm glad you asked! We went to open the vanity to put in the upstairs bathroom and guess what? Yup, it was broken! :) You just have to laugh!! Luckily, Lowes delivered it, so I'm sure they'll take it back. Soni and I were joking about all the set backs that we've had, and I had to ask, "If the Lord didn't want us to live here, shouldn't He have clued us in BEFORE we bought it?" :) We are trying to stay positive... we have a plumber-BONUS! And we have some numbers for electricians for our kitchen lighting-just have to get some estimates and pick one! And finally, the carpet is in and ready to be installed as soon as we are ready for it! (Fingers Crossed, Prayers, Luck, send ALL good vibes our way!!)

Clown car?

So, Soni and I are pretty much tired of relying on other people to help us with our condo. I can't even begin to tell you how many times we've been flaked on! We are the types who like to do everything ourselves and have learned over the years to rely on ourselves only. Don't know if that stems from having a non-handy Dad or what? Anyhow, we both have Civics...smaller cars that DO NOT carry big stuff! (I seriously wish I had taken my camera when we tried to STUFF my toilet into the trunk...and then tried to SHOVE it into the backseat! It was more funny looking back on it than when we were actually doing it!) I actually went to Lowe's myself to pick up 105 square feet of tile, grout and 7 backer boards...which are 5'x3'. I left those behind just in case you were wondering! What was I thinking?!

Yesterday, Soni & I had some site to store pickups at Wal*Mart that we needed to pick up. We didn't want to call my cousin with a Pilot b/c he has flaked on us soooo many times already! We just decided to get it done ourselves! It was a TV, a TV stand and 2 LARGE bookcases! Imagine that piled into the back of a Civic!! Just in case you can't, I had Soni take some pictures! Keep in mind that Soni already has a truck-load of stuff that she keeps in her trunk!!

Me in the front seat with the seat all the way forward and the seat in the FULLY upright position. I would have died from the airbag if we got in a wreck!

When Soni pulled up he gave me a look like we were the craziest 2 girls on the planet!!

I got some seriously FUNKY looks from everyone we drove past! I'm sure they were wondering what my damage was?! You have to laugh, right!

Another Saturday...gone.

Was at the condo with Soni today (sigh) feels like it will NEVER be done!!

On the bright side I changed out ALL the downstairs outlets and light switches and put on the plates...I only got electrocuted 3 times! :)

I also put the new doorknob on the bathroom door. Works great!

Now if we can just fast-forward to when everything is done and we are sitting on our new couch watching a movie and sipping ice-cold Coke-Zero's!!! THAT would be AWESOME!