State Capitol Dinner

Troy & I went to a dinner at the State capitol building a few weeks ago with his parents. It was the annual meeting for the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which the hotels are members of. The dinner program was borrrrring. But, there were tours of the newly renovated building, and that part of the evening was wonderful. I was disappointed with how most of my pictures turned out, but I have included a few of the good shots.

The first is of the outside of the building with our state flag flying high. (I still cringe when I call it "our" state. Arizona will probably always feel like home.) The next two are murals from the Senate room and the State House [of representatives] room. I found the cherubim interesting because of all the controversy we hear about separation of church and state. The other is a landscape painting of the southern part of the state. (Yes, the ceiling was curved- it's not an optical illusion.) We go camping there a lot, and it is beautiful.

The last picture was taken in the "Gold Room." Once the computer reduces the resolution when I post it, you will probably have a hard time making out the thing I was trying to get a picture of: the incredible view of the Salt Lake Temple framed perfectly in the window with its ornate drapery, moldings and carpeting. This room is intended for hosting dignitaries from other countries and other important people. The photos don't do it justice; this room is so formal and fancy. The gold leafing was so intricate and the woodwork was all hand-carved and is the original. It was so well- preserved. Well, enough of the history lesson! I don't want to bore you to death.

The Park, Model homes, and our future home

Last Saturday, we decided to look through some model homes in a new subdivision that's being built about 15 minutes away from here so we could get ideas of what we would like in our new house. The models weren't open when we arrived, so we went to the park to pass the time. Here are some fun pictures from the park. Since then, all the snow has melted and maybe we will have an early spring. I hate when there is snow on the ground (or especially falling) on my birthday. We had a fun time on the slides. Timmy was especially proud that he could climb up the ladders all by himself. He did not, however, like the monkey bars; his dad did, though! Spencer is growing up too quickly! He is now able to crawl and can walk along the furniture. He loved standing on the jungle gym and holding onto the bars for balance. He has a real independent streak like his dad and brother.


We thought you might like to see some of the things we liked about the model. Here are few of those pictures. After looking at these new homes, we came home and incorporated some of those things into our plans on the computer. Troy bought some CAD software (for drawing floorplans of houses) with 3-D ability and we have designed what our "addition" look like. The elements we added were: the stairway shape and the wrought iron ballasts. It's a little hard to see the angles in this picture, but the stairs start in a straight line, then turn 45 degrees, then continue, and then turn another 45 degrees. It has a look similar to a round staircase, but it's a little more modern (and a little less expensive). Besides, Troy will be doing most of the building, so he said straight lines are easier to build.
The corner fireplace, rather than the traditional.We like the way the tile was laid, more like a brick design, than a square design.
We like how on the island, rather than just overhanging the counter and pulling barstools for informal dining, they added legs to the island so it looks similar to a table. It looks better once the counter tops are installed.

We also re-arranged the layout of the master bed/bath after seeing these model homes and made ours a little more "standard." We want a house that will accommodate large groups of people, because I like to throw parties and the way it is designed, we have a lot of open space from the kitchen to the living room, and I think we will really love it.

Our floor plans

So I mentioned that Troy is using some software to design our "dream home." He is pretty pleased with his work and thought some of you might be interested in looking at his plans. I know others of you will look at this and wonder what it all means. I am one of those who have a hard time looking at lines on a paper or a computer screen and figuring out how it converts into a house. Luckily, the software has a feature that renders the plans into a 3-D view, so It's like taking a virtual tour. That is something I can visualize.

The two images are not drawn to the same scale. There is also a basement that will be another 2700 sq. ft., all unfinished. So the first image shows the main floor, plus our current house. We will continue to live in our teeny tiny (950 sq. ft.) 2 bedroom house while we build the house shown below. When it is finished, we will move into it and convert the existing structure into a very large garage. (Troy's dream come true.) The second image shows the second story, with yes, 4 bedrooms. Don't go making any assumptions- we may or may not fill them all with children. We would be content to have one of them be an exercise room and one be a craft/scrapbooking/sewing room for the time being. Also, not that there is an office/nursery on the main floor- that is for convenience. I don't want to have to go upstairs every 2 hours when my newborn baby wakes up in the night. There are no eminent plans for a newborn. Our current house is just getting too crowded, so Troy and I agreed that we would have a bigger house before we have another baby. Besides, Spencer is only 9 mos old!

Main Floor 2700 sq. ft.

Second Floor 1850 sq. ft.

So, here's the plan! We have been meeting with architects and draftsmen for the past week and will select one on Monday, tomorrow. Then we should have the plans ready to submit to the city for our building permit the following week. Then, we'll let the dirt fly as we break ground for the basement. If any of you want bigger plans, Troy would be happy to email you a PDF of these. We're so excited to have a big adventure to begin.

"When it Snows, We're Going to the Beach"

I went to manage my pld posts and found this post with all the pictures ready, but no text, so here it is:

The first week in December, ( same week as the "Duck, Duck, Goose" post) we went to California. We told Timmy tha we would go to the beach when it snowed, and lucky for us, it snowed the day before we left for California. Here are a few pictures of us on the beach at sunset and in the dark. Timmy was terrified of the water and we had a hard time getting him to smile for the photo shoot, so here are some pics of a screaming Timmy, a happy Spencer and a Mom struggling to hold them while Dad takes the pictures. These are old, so I am not going to write too much. It was Newport Beach, and they have a Fun Zone with a ferris wheel and a merry go round. Timmy loved the horses and it was a lot of fun. It was also a good motivator to get him to eat dinner. Troy isn't in any of the pictures, because he was the photographer, but he was there, too.

Finally! Some New Pictures

We're ready to go play in the snowEnough pictures, already. We want to go outside!

Spencer is happy to help Mom unload the dishwasher. Unfortunately, he isn't tall enough to reach the shelves, so the silverware is all going on the floor. Oh, well.

Can you see my 4 teeth?

Whew! Tromping around in the snow sure is tiring. Timmy taking a rest on his snow chair.

No matter how long we stay outside, he never complains of being cold-even though he's got bright pink cheeks and a cherry red nose.

Spencer waving good-bye to all of you.

It's a good thing he's so adorable, or else throwing all the clean silverware on the floor would get him in trouble.

These pictures were taken in January, but I hadn't downloaded in over a month. Call it Lent. :-) I haven't felt like getting out all the stuff, so I temporarily gave it up.

I've been tagged!

So, my pal Julie tagged me, which, I'm told means that before I can post anything to this blog, I have to list 6 facts about myself.

1. We are planning on making a large addition to our house. For Valentine's Day, Troy & I are "giving" each other an architect. Or, in other words, we are looking for someone to draw up the plans we have designed. How romantic...

2. I have a new calling to work in the nursery, as of Jan 1, 2008. Since that time, I have gotten sick 3 times. Any chance those are related? At this point, Troy would comment something like, correlation does not prove causation.

3. I hate snow. I don't want to sound too negative, so I will leave it at that. If you really want to know the details, call me and I would be happy to have a gripe session about snow.

4. Yesterday, I (with the help of my lovely mother in-law) re-arranged the boys' room. I am really pleased with the results. Although it is a small room, the way she suggested we move the furniture really opened it up and makes it feel more inviting and spacious. It also helped that we took 2 baby swings, and 2 boxes of outgrown clothes out to the shed and moved my hope chest into another room.

5. We are hoping to go to visit the folks down south in warm country for Easter/ Spring Break/ My Best Friend's Wedding. My friend Tonya, is recently engaged and is hoping to get married the day before Easter, which coincides perfectly with Spring Break, so the uncles will be out of school. (A note to all other friends: don't get your feelings hurt that Tonya is my BF, I still like all of you, too.) Timmy said something funny about the uncles the other day, "Garrett is the big uncle, [streched his hands high above his head and used a deep voice] and Kirby is the little uncle [pinched his fingers together and used a squeaky voice]."

6. We spend a minimum of 2 hours a day reading books, often more than that. Some of our (Timmy's) favorites are: Curious George (no thanks to uncle Shannie G.); Mercer Mayer's Little Critter Books; Big Al; Go, Dog, Go!; most of Eric Carle's books, especially the Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider; Clifford; King Bidgood's in the Bathtub and he Won't Get Out; and Bears on Wheels. We go to the library at least once a week because I get sick of reading the same books over, and over, and over, and over...

I don't feel like tagging anyone else specifically, especially since not many people visit our blog, and of those that do, very few have blogs of their own, However, if posting 6 random facts about yourself sounds like fun, consider yourself tagged!