Cabinets!

Scott and I are totally ready for the next phase of our renovation. We've been paying off the deck and our new bed and we're finally ready to jump back in.

Saturday we decided to go in to Home Depot and design our kitchen cabinets. It took two and a half hours, but we chose what cabinets we wanted, colors, hardware, and set up plans. We got the total: more than $6,000. Ouch. But Home Depot has a price match guarantee, so we took the plans over to Lowe's to see if they could beat it. We were incredibly surprised to find that their quote came to almost $2000 less than Home Depot's!

We like Home Depot better than Lowe's, though.

So we took out the printed list of all the different cabinet pieces and their prices and brought it back to Home Depot, where they were happy to replace all their prices with Lowe's prices, saving us tons of cash. They were also having a sale on their custom cabinetry, so we got an extra $1000 off our order! Total, after taxes and delivery fees and all the little extras we got, we ended up paying only $4600, and they threw in the hardware for free.

We freaking LOVE Home Depot!

We'll have the cabinets delivered sometime at the end of October, and then we'll start ripping everything up in the kitchen. We'll be really careful with our current cabinets, since Mim wants them when we're done for her downstairs kitchen. They're so old and ugly, so she'll have to refinish them, so we're just going to give them to her for free. She also wants our appliances when we get new ones, but that will be a long time from now.

So we'll rip out the cabinets and move the appliances out of the way, then we need to finish up the drywall where the back door used to be (which means we'll need the inspector to come over sometime very soon) and build the little half-wall the peninsula will be up against. After that we can paint at least the part of the kitchen where the new stuff will be (it's a huge room, so there's really no need to paint it all at once) and then we'll need the countertops.

The countertops are going to end up being almost as expensive as the cabinets themselves, and it looks like Lowe's won't have lower prices to match on this one. They'll be a speckled Corian acrylic that goes SO WELL with the cabinets, flooring, and paint we've chosen. So until we get the cabinets delivered, we're going to have to scrimp a bit so we can afford to order the countertops soon after we get the cabinets put in.

Our kitchen will be gutted for a while. I'm going to have to figure out where to put all of our dishes and such while we don't have any functional cabinets.

After we finish all this, we're going to have to wait a while and make money for the next phase: flooring. Brazilian Cherry!

Pictures!

A few weeks ago Scott and I finally got around to buying a new bed. RC Willey was having an amazing sale, with a couple hundred dollars off plus a free headboard, a free sheet set, free pillows, and a free little HDTV:

Scott's been using it as a computer monitor (surprise, surprise). It actually died on him the other day, but when he brought it back in to the store they were happy to replace it so no harm done.

 So here's our beautiful, soft, comfy, BIG, king-sized bed:

Buster has been getting really good at holding treats on his nose until we say "ok".

When Scott gets sad (say, when we spend $4600...) he hugs Buster, even though Buster doesn't like being hugged:

We found a new mask for Scott to wear under his cloak when he passes out candy this Halloween:

Of course, we had to put it on Buster, who was not amused:

And that's it!

Sushi

There is a new sushi place near our house... we thought we would try it. Bad idea. I don't like sushi. I only had two pices but my tummie was all... "Um ... this is not cooked, I think I am going to kick you in the butt for this... ready... go ... (kick)" not fun. I thought it would be good. Wayne is always telling me that it is good so I blame him.

Shooting ... Paper

Anna, Jon, and I went shooting a few days ago. I am super rusty and need contacts. I can't see the target. I used to land almost all of my rounds in the same hole... or at least within an inch of each other. I had not shot anthing in almost 1.5 years... man that is way too long. My pictures turned out a little blurry ... but I will show you anyway. This is me shooting Jon's new CZ. Good gun ... I wish I could get one. The next one is Anna shooting her .380 for the first time.

It's Always Us...

Last night at about 2:00 a.m. Scott and I were woken up by people yelling outside our window. Scott got up and looked, and it looked like it was just two people yelling, but not physically fighting or anything, so he just got back in bed and ignored it. BUT, after a minute or so, the woman started screaming bloody murder "Help! Help! Get away from me! Help! Let go of me! Help! Help!"...basically what I would be yelling if I were being attacked, so Scott got up, grabbed his gun just in case (concealed, of course), and went outside to see if he could get a better look and make sure nobody got murdered right in front of our house. Meanwhile, I called the police.


They sent a few officers our way while I described what was happening to the emergency operator. While the police were on their way, Scott went out toward the fighting couple as soon as it was apparent that there wasn't any physical violence. They talked a bit, and the man seemed upset and was pacing around, but nobody was yelling any more. I just stayed inside the house, watching what was going on, but unable to hear anything at all.

Two cruisers showed up and one cop went to talk to Scott, while the other went to question the two people who had been yelling. A third person appeared seemingly out of nowhere (he had been inside a car parked on the street) and soon enough Scott headed back inside and told me the whole story.

It turns out the two of them were insanely drunk, and had come from a party down the street. They were bickering, and the woman was overreacting to the man following her. She had left the party, claiming she was just going to walk home (but she lived in Ogden, around 15 miles away) and the man had followed her to try to get her to come back so their designated driver (the guy in the parked car) could take her home. So, really it wasn't a big deal. We did find out that the guy had fallen pretty badly at the party and had a few broken ribs, so the police let them go and take him to the hospital.

We seem to attract trouble. I suppose that's what we get for being the unofficial neighborhood watch.

Pictures from the LAN

Jeff, Amber, Brennan



Lily got to come too.



Wayne... (remote)

Ben and John

That was AWESOME!

I had a LAN party this weekend and as you might guess, it went very well. We had lots of food and lots of junk... food. WAY to much junk food. It started at about 2 on Friday... and went until about 2 on Sunday, given that a good chunk of that time was just Jon and I it was still fun. Ben and his brother showed up around 4 and we played some Vegas 2, then I went down to Bountiful to get Brennan. I had not seen him in years ... he is really tall now. After Ben and his bro had to leave we played some Starcraft 2 until I couldn't keep my eyes open.
One of my oldest brothers, Wayne, even "came" from Hong Kong (via web cam and Internet). I had a computer setup for him so he could play here and see what was going on. He also was able to play for a little while until the LANoi Pro decided that it didn't like Windows 7. It did work for a little while so he did get to play but not as much as I would have liked.

Another one of my brothers was not able to come but was still able to play a little over battle.net we played some Starcraft 2; he is really good but he doesn't think so. I also had my brother that is a hermit come... he didn't want to play Warcraft 3 but I guess that is ok, he played a little Plants vs. Zombies wile we played. However the party as a whole was a major success.

Jon and I were the only ones to stay and play the whole time.

I think I will have another one for new years or maybe thanksgiving, what do you think?