Finished!

The home is finished! We did a walk through with the project manager on Friday and put up blue tape on Saturday of all the places we want paint touched up. Now all we have to wait for is the painters to do the touch ups and the cleaners to do a final cleaning! Yay! We are also waiting as the mortgage company does an appraisal of the house and does the underwriting process. One more week and then we will be good to close on the loan and will officially be homeowners! (well mortgage payers - many, many, many more years until we actually own the home)

We are super excited and are starting to pack up the apartment. We already picked out our washer/dryer and those will be delivered the day we move in. I LOVE the washer/dryer we picked. I couldn't sleep the night we purchased them - I felt like a kid trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. And best of all we got a sweet deal on them. RC Willey was having a sale plus we got an extra 20% off the washer/dryer, plus 20% off the pedestals, plus buy one get one free on the pedestals, plus a giant bucket of HE detergent, and I talked them in to free delivery! What can I say - I love a good bargain!

I also went with Angela and ordered special fancy fabric to make pillows out of for the living room. I am going to do this living room in a totally different color scheme compared to our apartment. Even though our couches are not a modern style, I am trying to go for a more modern, contemporary look. And hopefully one day can replace our couches with modern, contemporary ones. We shall see. I can't wait! Here are some pics of the finished house. Hopefully, the next post I do of the house will be with all our furniture inside!

(It is already too cold in Utah so the yard will have to wait until Spring to be put in.)

(After installing the wrong appliances last week (black ones - yuck!), they finally got the correct ones installed.)

(We have a pretty sweet view of the mountains behind our house!)

"It broke off baby!"

If you claim to be a Seinfeld fan, you should know what episode that is from. And if my car had a needle for the gas gauge, it probably would have broken off, too.

Here is the car with a full tank of gas:

And here is the car as David and I drove to dinner:

Needless to say, we quickly stopped for some gas.

Interior Shots of the House

Week 6, 7, & 8 Exterior

Week Six - they primed the stucco:

Week Seven - they painted the stucco and the trim and installed the garage door:

Week Eight - nothing much changed:

Week Eight - back shot of the house:

Healthy Eating

So as you know I love to post yummy recipes I come across. I made my sister Lori's Salmon with Mustard Glaze and Pasta Salad a few weeks ago. You can click here to go to the recipe. The recipe was SO good! David and I love salmon but I have never been able to find great recipes online for what to cook with the salmon. We usually just eat it with some garlic and a few random spices and a side of instant mashed potatoes. Nothing that great. My sister posted this recipe and I knew I HAD to try it. Not only was the salmon yummy, but I am pretty sure that was the most vegetables I have ever cooked/eaten in my entire life - and they actually tasted really good! I highly recommend this for a yummy, healthy dinner. Below is my pic of the salmon before we put it in the oven. There are no pictures of the dish after we cooked it - we literally devoured the whole thing in about 5 minutes!

Five Weeks Down - Five Weeks To Go!

Our house is halfway done! I am so ready to move in and buy new furniture and decorate! So far it looks like we should be in before Thanksgiving! I can't wait to spend the holidays in our first home! Here are just a few shots of the progress so far. We go out each Saturday to see what they have done.

Week One - they excavated and poured the footings:

Week Two - they poured the foundation walls:

Week Three - they framed the house:

Week Four - they finished framing and installed the insulation:

Week Five - they hung the drywall and sprayed on the stucco:

Labor Day Cooking

It was so great to have some time off from work on Labor Day. Both David and I had the day off and for whatever reason we were both in cooking moods that day. We starting the morning off with a delicious breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and orange juice. The pancakes were from my new Pioneer Woman Cookbook - her secret ingredient is sour cream. I had never made pancakes before so I don't even know what you normally put in pancakes but either way they were delicious! Perfect consistency - and I didn't even burn any of them! (I couldn't find the recipe on her website; I guess it is only in her book so if you really want to try her pancakes, just let me know and I'll send it to you.) David made the eggs with loads of cheese - just like we like it - and some orange juice.

We didn't really have specific plans for the rest of the day, which was really nice. Sometimes it is nice to have nothing to do when you usually work all the time. We did go to the mall and buy me a birthday gift. :) Then we went to the Quarry in Provo since we had a coupon for it. The Quarry is an indoor rock climbing place. The last time we went was three years ago when we were dating. Wow are we out of shape compared to when we went three years ago! It was a ton of fun but our arms killed when we finished! What a work out!

(This picture is from when we went in 2007 - we forgot to take pictures this time)

After that we went home and started cooking dinner. My sister Lori recently posted her version of my brother-in-law Matt's homemade mac-n-cheese on her blog - thecluelesschef.blogspot.com - and I really wanted to try it. So David and I worked together and made this delicious meal! I used Lori's altered version and put diced red peppers and finely chopped spinach in the mac-n-cheese, too. (Oh and I couldn't find flax seed or wheat germ so we just crushed up some Ritz crackers and put them on top) It was so good! And it was nice to be eating some vegetables for once! Thank you to both Matt and Lori! And as Lori says on her blog - the recipe makes a ton - I made half the recipe and we still were able to eat it for three nights.

The best part was when you got a bite that had one of the big cheese cubes in it.

Then we ended the day with an exciting football game - Boise St. vs Virginia Tech. Sadly, it was back to work the next day. Hope everyone else had a great Labor Day!