Life Rolls On

 

 We've had some beautiful Fall weather.

 

It took me a few months but I finally painted the house and deck! Another week and my paint pants weren't going to fit, so it kind of came down to the wire.

 

The cabinets are in the kitchen and baths, still waiting on a couple doors.

 

 

 Master Bath

 Fireplace upstairs

 

And downstairs fireplace, thought it turned out well though its hard to see from pictures. Now I just need all my mantels put in!

 

 

This process has really dragged on, but life rolls on!

 

Family Photo 2014

You know this one's going over the fireplace!

Time for a Trip

In the middle of all the fixing up and cleaning of our old house to sell and the renovating our new house to move into we had a trip to Spain that had been planned for a while. Austin's mom flew into town to watch the girls and off we went! I felt like it was really bad timing as we had a lot on our plate, and it took me about half the week to relax, but on the plus side we went to Spain! We also got an offer on our house while we were in Spain and I got to practice my Spanish with Austin's old mission companions and families. (Okay, actually I was super nervous about this and it was one of the reasons I was stressed about the trip. I thought it went well though). I fell in love with the Alhambra and Austin and I soaked up the sun on the beaches of Southern Spain while trying to avoid the naked old men also enjoying the beach. As a fun bonus we got lie-flat airplane seats going there and back! I feel like I'm in the Golden Age of airplane travel with those bad boys. Also I'm pretty sure some famous/rising-to-fame band sat in our section on our flight from Madrid back to L.A....only musicians could get away with that hair and those outfits.

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Beach day in Spain...they have historic buildings all over the place so we walked out on a causeway from the beach to this old fort.

 

 

We stayed for a few days with Austin's old mission companion Israel and his family. (On the left). They were very nice and hopefully our 6-year-olds meet someday! I also got to meet Austin's other companion from Southern Spain, Jose, and his wife and baby.

The Three Amigos

 

The Alhambra. I'd like to go back sometime.

 

I wish I could read Arabic.

 

 And I wish my sister had been there to take some gorgeous pictures. My little point-and-shoot only goes so far.

It's Spain, but it felt kind of like Agrabah from Aladdin.

I think I loved the Alhambra because it was so cool and restful after hot tourist-y activities. (Although obviously still a tourist attraction). There were shady courtyards and fountains and gardens all over the place. Austin actually stepped in one of these fountains...I would have gotten a picture but I was too busy pretending like I didn't know him.

 

 

Another successful trip instigated by Austin!

 

New House Renovating

 

The new renovation project has been occupying a lot of my thoughts recently, so I'm going to post more pictures. Now if I was going to do flip houses as a thing I wouldn't do any of the work myself, because with Austin gone most of the time and three little girls I didn't have as much time to help out as I thought. I had to put the girls down for naps at my mom's a lot then run down to the new house, paint and stain my little heart out, then run back about the time they woke up. I missed a lot of afternoon naps, which as a pregnant woman made me grouchy because I like/need naps. On the plus side, I did get a lot of sunshine and fresh air and alone time.

 

 

Covering up the blue on the wood siding.

Dad putting in new deck.

 

New garage door

Master bath

 

Fireplace with old rock off and drywall on top half

 

Rock going on

 

Trying to find the perfect beige to paint the whole house

 Kitchen a little more put together and opened up

And Everything Nice

And now for an important part of The Flip House story:

We have three girls who are all so very different but all wonderful. Raising them is hard work sometimes, but I consider them our most worthwhile investment. In February we will be adding another girl to our family, bringing the grand total to four!

New Baby Girl

 

Usually I just get one ultrasound to check for medical problems and gender, but this time I got an early gender ultrasound before I told people. (And I just went in for my full one today). When I told people I was pregnant with Charlotte I had to endure a lot of annoying comments like, Family member: "Let's hope it's a boy!" Me: WHY, DON'T YOU LIKE GIRLS??? or Family member: "We need a boy!" Me: WHY, DON'T YOU LIKE OUR GIRLS?? I didn't actually yell these responses, although I probably wanted to, but as a pregnant woman I am a little more on edge emotionally and sensitive to things such as gender comments. Earlier this week I saw the first leaves of autumn falling and it sent me into dry-heaving sobbing mode.

Anyway, I figured I'd dodge the annoying comments by just telling people it was a girl at the same time I told them I was pregnant. (Or that it was a boy, but that was always a slim possibility). This wasn't actually 100 percent successful, but it did go better than last time.

I had to wait 4 months to find out the gender so we kept the pregnancy under wraps for awhile. My brother Ammon was actually the first to guess, kind of. We were sitting around chatting talking about clothes sizes for kids I think, when he suddenly joined the conversation, "Wait, are you pregnant?" Me: Ammon! You can't just ask women that! Him: "Oh, I thought you were talking about pregnancy clothes." Me: No! We were talking about kids' clothes! (Or a similar topic, I can't really remember now). Notice how I sneakily didn't answer his question?

Me getting ready to skydive at 4 months pregnant. I was horribly nauseous on the way down because my dumb instructor thought it was cool to do loop-de-loops and flip upside down even after I told him it was making me ill. I didn't tip him. We also had to pull over a couple times so I could puke on the way home. I was denied the satisfaction of sharing this with people at the time so I'm sharing it now.

My pregnancy is an important part of The Flip House story because it's one of the reasons we decided to move out of our cute old house into what shall now be known as the New House. The extra room, (Charlotte can move out of her closet!) absence of stressful problems, (What's going to break next?) and financial wisdom of moving (Good-bye money pit!) are/will be great things about our new place, but I am still really emotionally conflicted about moving out of our old place. I'm pregnant. I can be emotional.

More on that and the After pictures of the Old House later.

A week before I told people about the new baby my sister Charity called to chat and asked me if I was pregnant. (Not sure why? Because we were moving?)  Me: "Charity! You can't just ask women that! A woman's age and if she is pregnant are the two forbidden questions!" Unfortunately sisters are not put off as easily as little brothers...she seemed to think that she could ask me that because she was my sister.... It was nice to finally be able to tell someone the exciting news.

 

So the upshot of all this is, I still can't tell you if flipping a house is everything I thought it would be, because we are no longer flipping a house. (Austin's devious master plan? He's never really liked our old house...) Now we are redoing it to live in ourselves, which is a different beast entirely. I know this, because guess what I was doing last year at this exact same time? Yes, renovating a house to live in. Aaargh. Can I just live in a house for a while?

HGTV and The Flip House

One of the big things going on this summer has been The Flip House. I've always wanted to flip a house...ever since I started watching HGTV, that is. Back when I had cable I watched this show called Flip or Flop, (they almost always make a ton of money though, go figure) about a husband and wife who buy foreclosed or underpriced houses in California, have their contractor fix them up, then sell them a couple months later for a big profit. The wife's role seems to consist of dropping their child off with the babysitter, walking around the disgusting house they just bought and going "Ewww," shopping for pretty new flooring and cabinets to put in it, and then looking good for the open house. Sometimes she mops the floor with a Swiffer mop before the open house starts.

I'm sure she is more involved then that, after all it is only a 30 minute tv show, but the point is: I want to be that woman. What she does looks really fun and easy.

Long story short, Austin found a house down the street from my parents that he thought would make a great flip house. (Little did I know about his devious master plan...more on that in a later post.) It has good feng shui, is in a great neighborhood, my parents wanted to go in on it financially with us, and best of all it was a blank slate, totally gutted--a plus after spending a lot of time ripping things out of our charming colonial house. So we bought it and there went my relaxing summer/fall. But I was secretly excited because at last I would get to see what it was like to flip a house!

Not much to look at. Pretty bad actually.

 

 

Front entry

Looking into kitchen from entry. Note walls.

Fireplace and ceiling hole.

 

So the story is, the old-timer guy living here died and some relatives(?) moved in and let a huge leak in the middle of the flat roof develop. The whole house got water in it. The man's son took over the property and put a new roof on, ripped out everything, I mean everything except the fireplace, and ripped off and open pretty much every wall to check for mold. Then I think he ran out of money and it went into foreclosure. That's where we came in.

The kitchen and other side of the fireplace

Garage

Master Bathroom

Basement

 

 

I have a lot more "before" pictures but without walls or fixtures it's really hard to tell what the room is...all the pictures kind of look alike.

Next up will be "during" pictures and a report on if flipping is everything I dreamed it would be.

The Bad Hair

 

Lots to blog about after the summer hiatus! I will start as far back as The Bad Hair.

 

This summer Cici got a really bad haircut from Sammy. They found forbidden scissors in Grandma's basement, and with Cici's encouragement Sammy gave her this haircut:

 

 

Cici didn't care of course, but I gave Sammy the option of getting her hair cut exactly like Cici's or giving Cici the brand new birthday Barbie her best friend gave her. Just to play with, not for keeps. Sammy's obviously smart, since she didn't experiment with her own hair. Guess which one she chose? There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth though.

 

Back to the hair, it's kind of hard to tell with the hair brushed to the side, but Sammy took a big chunk out of the middle of her bangs and some mullet chunks out of the side. I decided I would just bite the bullet and trim Cici's bangs all the same length, resulting in this:

 

 It's like a bad Tina Turner wig.

 

I've never been a fan of mullets on girls, so I lived with it for a day then decided I couldn't stand it any longer. We took a mom-daughter trip to Cookie Cutters and got the professional haircut:

 

 

Hooray! They couldn't do much with the bangs but they are growing out now and she's about ready to go in for a trim.

 

Stay tuned for the more important catch-up updates. Big changes have been happening.

Crazy Lazy Summer

 

I was hoping for a relaxing summer, but things go from super-trips-events to boring-lotsoflibrarytrips-unpacking so quickly around here, I'm in a constant state of nerves. There is a project in the works I want to blog about as soon as we get the green light on it, so stay tuned, but in the meantime, lots of pictures from our crazy, lazy summer!

 

 

"He's a big pig, you can be a big pig too! Woo!"

 

My precious. I just love to squish her chubbiness.

 

Our backyard just got a lot cooler.

 

All of us cramming into a seaplane in Alaska reminded me of "It's a Mad, Mad, etc., World."

 

Nature's Power Couple strikes again!

 

And again!

 

And again!

 

Our summer backyard camping trip always earns me lots of love from the girls. I'm hoping it's all they remember of their childhood.

 

Happy Birthday, Joseph! And for your gift, this delightfully chubby redhead!

 

Pretty much sums up our 4th of July.

 

The girls groom our neighbor's pony, Little Feather. (The pony is not actually kept in her backyard.)

 

 

Can we handle another month of summer? We shall see!

 

It's Finally Up!

At the Mystery Spot in California a couple of weeks ago.

Yay! My blog post finally got posted by the mayor!

This is it

I also did the behind the scenes version here.

But here on my blog, you get the behind the behind-the-scenes version.

My house looked amazing. I was so glad lots of people showed up. One lady emailed me the night before, asking if she could come, but said she would understand if I didn't want her to. I thought she was referring to the last minute notice. She was not. Apparently she is arch-enemies with the Mayor and pretty much everyone on the city council. She came in and took a seat right across from where I was planning on seating the mayor. Just what I want him to see when he comes in, someone who hates him. Fortunately, she had to switch chairs and move. I was worried she would try to dominate the meeting, because she has quite a few agendas, but since I love running meetings with a firm and powerful hand (I told the mayor one hour!) she just said a few comments near the end. She actually seems like a really neat lady--apparently she knows everything there is to know about politics in the city--and a potentially powerful ally. I'm curious to know the story behind her statement that she has basically made enemies of everyone in the city.

The night before the meeting, a news anchor from BYU asked me if she could film the evening and me puttering about the house pretending to get ready for the mayor. I politely said no. I was already super stressed about the evening and I didn't want to turn it into a media event.

Turns out my neighborhood friend Amie is also a reporter. I did sit down and talk with her after our women's meeting. She wrote a piece here. (Our neighborhood party got moved back). After she left, I worried that I had inadvertently thrown the Mayor under the bus. Bless Amie, she made me sound good.

I had a lot of family support, which was great. I think my mom and sister were expecting to attend a bash-the-mayor event with a group of rabid feminists, so they were pleasantly surprised that in actuality, it was just a tame little Ladies' Night with the Mayor.

Off to Alaska in a few days--always another adventure!

The Story About the Mayor

This is the long story about the Mayor coming to my house.

Due to the fact that I really like my neighborhood, and maybe a little due to binge-watching Parks and Rec, I have gotten a lot more involved in my community lately. I have a little neighborhood blog, I'm the block captain, starting a service committee, etc.

The mayor here is very responsive to the public, has made good use of social media, and even has a blog that I follow to see what's going on in the city. One day he posted about a local breakfast place and also posted this: "I had a great breakfast with a group of busy but involved residents. We talked about getting more engaged in local politics, transportation, school board, and the City’s future."

I took a second look at the picture. Hmm. I jotted off a quick comment: "Were any women invited?" I was concerned that to the mayor, "busy but involved residents" only equated to "white males of a certain age." But I didn't want to be too quick to judge. Imagine my annoyance when I checked back and someone else's innocuous comment about how they needed to check out that breakfast place got approved and mine did not. We middle children do not like to be ignored. Plus, was the mayor hiding something? Was my town really run by the good ol' boys club? I decided to write the mayor.

I was very nice. I told him that his group didn't look like the Provo residents I know, and that no one was more concerned about the issues he mentioned than the women in our community. I told him that I was confused as to why my comment didn't get approved and encouraged him to include women when he discussed policies that affect the community.

I guess three women were invited, only one showed up after the picture was taken. He was not sure why his social media person didn't approve my comment but he would ask, invited me to host a women's meeting, and lastly do a guest post on the city blog afterwards.

I think the outcome was good. We can talk about it! At first I tried to find someone else to host the group. Surely someone in my neighborhood group has a really cool house? But I finally bit the bullet and just decided to have it at my house. I have been going crazy finishing all my renovation projects that got stalled over the winter. Floors! Baseboards! Hang curtains! Paint trim! All the things I have been dreading doing but now have a reason to do.

I'm a little nervous. I hope people show up and the evening goes well. The mayor is pretty much as big a celebrity as it gets in Provo. My parents are wavering between being proud that the mayor is coming to their daughters' house and a little embarrassed that their daughter is causing trouble again. I'll update you!

Update: The Ladies Night with the Mayor went down tonight, but I forgot to post this because I was having so much fun on our cousins' trip this past weekend.

Review of Coal Harbour Lasik Eye Center in Vancouver, CA

Dry stuff, I know. But when I was looking online at this place there wasn't a ton of reviews out there. So here are the basics: They are a high-volume Lasik eye center open two days a week. That means they can keep their prices low because of the amount of people they are seeing on one day. Compared to the first place I went for an eye exam in the U.S., they were a lot busier. If you like special treatment, this probably isn't the right place for you. The assistants were all very friendly and chatty, but the surgeon, Steven Kirzner, is very to the point with a get-it-done attitude. No idle chit-chat here. I feel like people think that they should spend a lot of money on Lasik because IT'S YOUR EYES but statistically, your Lasik outcome gets better the more surgeries your surgeon has done, and Dr. Kirzner has done over 60,000. This is compared to the 20,000 the doctor I went to first had under her belt. So I felt pretty good.

I liked that they were more honest than the first place I went, which in retrospect skimmed over the actual procedure and just talked a lot about how cool it would be to just open my eyes and be able to see things after surgery. I also say that they were more honest because the first place I went said I needed Wavefront, which costs more, and that patients who used it had better night vision. They kind of made it sound like an upgrade to normal Lasik, which of course I should get since it's just a few hundred more. Since I'm a cynic, I wasn't convinced as to whether I should get it or not until I went to the Coal Harbour Eye Centre. According to their hand out:

"Some people can have irregularities within their optical system, i.e. cataracts. One abnormality or irregularity is 'aberrations' or irregularity in the way that light is focused onto the retina. These irregularities or aberrations can only be measured by sophisticated equipment called an Aberrometer....We analyze all our patients for the abberations and if they are present, we may recommend the Wavefront treatment. Wavefront treatment is only recommended in 5-10% of our patients and only for those who have High Order Aberrations."

So I totally was not a person who needed Wavefront, or who it was developed for. The Eye Center website is really great and has a lot of information about Lasik and PRK.

They did way more thorough testing than the first eye center I went to, then I came back the next day and got tested a few more times before the actual surgery. (We spent the night at the hotel next door).
The actual surgery was quick, but I felt like I was in a bad scene from a movie...just the surgeons, and the fuzzy red light and a laser burning off my eyeballs.... Austin was in the next room watching on TV, and he said it was really gross (he didn't realize they were going to cut the top of my eyeball off and peel it back to laser the inside of my eyeball). For some reason, I felt better hearing that he suffered mental anguish.

Then we tried to leave Vancouver, but due to horrible traffic gave up and just spent the night in the city, which we should have planned for in the first place. My eyes really burned putting my eye drops in that first night, but were much better the next day.

I was really confused, because I showed up early to my next-day check up appointment but no one was in the office. Then I noticed a group of people with dark glasses congregating in the lobby, and I joined them...my tribe of fellow eye surgery survivors. The Dr. showed up and the herd of shade-wearers followed him into the elevator up to the top floor...I guess only he comes in to do the quick check on all the patients who had surgery the previous day. Must keep costs down...

Anyway, that's my review! I can see fine now, a week later, but my eyes are still a bit sensitive to light and fuzzy for a few seconds when I first wake up. Polling my fellow patients, some people were doing awesome and had perfect vision right after surgery, and some were horribly sensitive to light and in pain. I think I probably fall somewhere in the middle.

*UPDATE: Six months later and my vision is great. I was sensitive to light for 2-3 months but now I'm back to where I was with contacts, i.e. normal. I feel like Lasik is such a miracle of science, and I frequently stop and think how neat it is to be able to see unassisted. Also my overseas travel packing has gotten a lot more streamlined in the toiletries department. So yes, I'm loving my results.

The Eye of Sauron is Upon You!

This is my eyeball on TV in Canada! I wish you could see it better, because it's really gross.

Earlier this year, on a sunny Saturday morning, I was getting ready to schedule my yearly eye exam and buy more contacts. This costs me a lot of money. Since my eyes became allergic to extended-wear contacts, I have to use dailies, which added to the eye exam, runs me about 600 dollars a year. More if I want new glasses.

That's a lot of moolah, so my financially-minded spouse suggested I go to a Lasik center that afternoon and see if I was a candidate for eye surgery. It's around 3800 bucks to get it done here, so we would break even in about 5 years.  I'm not big on change, but the idea slowly sank in and I went in the next week. The place I went was really nice and they were very positive about me getting the surgery. (But not too pushy, so that was good). I scheduled a date for surgery and went home, where a few days later Austin came up with the brilliant idea of getting Lasik in another country.

I rejected Istanbul as an option, (we are stopping there for a day in September) and we settled on Canada.  I ended up going to the Coal Harbour Lasik Eye Centre in Vancouver, which was just over the border from Austin's parents' house, a 2 to 3 hour drive, so it worked out well.  It was half the price of getting Lasik done here. Awesome.

Just a few random notes:

I thought I couldn't get Lasik until I was done having kids, but it turns out your prescription just has to stay the same for a few years. Since mine has stayed the same through a couple pregnancies, I'm not worried about it drastically changing if I have another kid.

Going to Canada isn't for everyone. Crossing the border was a pain, (at least coming back we had our Global Entry cards which helped us reduce a 2 plus hour wait to 1 hour), traffic was a pain, and getting a hotel costs money. For us it was cost-effective since we were already going up there for a trip, and Austin's folks were nice enough to watch our girls. It probably wouldn't be cost-effective for everyone.

I didn't know it would hurt. Ouch! I felt like I was in a torture chamber. Granted it only lasted 30 seconds but I would rather have another child naturally than do it again. No re-touching for me!

The place I went, Coal Harbour Eye Centre, wasn't quite as glossy as the first place I went in the U.S., but I feel like they didn't skim over important information/risks like at the first place. It's kind of hard to find reviews online, so I'll probably post a review shortly.

I feel kind of like I have dry contacts in a lot of the time. You have to use a lot of eye drops and it can take a while for your vision to stabilize. I can see great, but when I first wake up it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust.

Sunshine and Roses

aaargh

Blogging on an iPad isn't so easy. I just want to capitalize my own sentences, okay? Stop doing it for me! Unfortunately I'm on vacation and don't have my full blogger capabilities. However, I decided I needed to put my neighborhood blog online so I could stop thinking about it and enjoy my vacation. (I also need to change the template for this blog, but don't worry, I'll get around to it! And I won't worry about it.) So I put it up last night and immediately ran into controversy. 

The point of the neighborhood blog is to showcase interesting and positive things about the neighborhood that would be useful for someone moving here or living here to know. Actually the real point of the new blog is that I like writing and I felt like writing about my neighborhood. Unfortunately, someone didn't like my report of the neighborhood meeting which mentioned a couple annoying people. I thought it provided a much more interesting account of the meeting, which in turn would get more people to come to the next one, since no one likes a boring meeting. But apparently people don't like it when you call other people out either. It's like that little kid who blurts out in the middle of the most insanely boring sharing time on earth, "This is boring!" and no one knows quite how to chastise him because he's right. 

I don't really want to be that awkward kid. On the other hand my neighborhood blog is not a sanitized advertisement for Shangri-la. What do I do? I have to be willing to accept a little criticism--after all, writing by committee is usually as good as art by committee. But I don't know if my intended audience wants to hear anything negative, and Writing 101 is "Know Thine Audience." On this blog my audience is really myself, so my life observations usually go over better. As far as the new blog goes, Austin pointed out that I don't want people to be afraid to comment at meetings. I personally wouldn't mind less idiotic comments at meetings, but I get his point and took down the offensive half of the post.

So my new and improved sanitized neighborhood blog is joaquinprovo.blogspot.com.  

But it would make me feel better if I posted the second half of my meeting notes here. 

"Other not-so-important notes: 

The guy who digressed on parking as we were running out of meeting time until he was told politely that we needed to focus on the big picture. He exhibited no situational awareness, (a cardinal "meeting sin" in my book), repeated himself some more, and then was told not-so-politely that it was time to MOVE ON.

Then there was the lady who digressed about how there are a lot of UVU students living in the neighborhood, and maybe if Orem weren't such a lame city with no city center/personality that the students would stay there instead of invade our neighborhood. The real problem is Orem, people. Hmmm, not sure what we're supposed to do about that in our little Joaquin neighborhood meeting. 

And, of course, the issue of our absent neighborhood chair, which is a little hotbed of gossip that I'm not sure I care to get the full story on."