Our NEW CONDO!!!

[Click on any of the pictures to see a larger image]
Alright, last Saturday, August 16th, we moved out of our crappy 3-bedroom apt. we’ve lived in for the past 2 years


and moved into our awesome brand-new condo (OK, so some people were renting it before we moved in, but it’s LIKE NEW—read previous post for more details…)
The move went really well and we got it done really fast. We started the move at about 2 and had the truck back to the u-haul place by 6:45 or so. Special thanks to everyone who helped us move and got us food to eat!
So now it’s time for a tour of the condo. Here’s a view of the neighborhood outside the condo:

Here’s our condo:

And a closer look at the patio, where Amanda wants to barbeque in the summertime:

We’ve got a little storage area in there, but it’s where the water shutoff are for the building, so not much room to store stuff.
Here’s our place, #101…

Welcome. Come on in. Bonjour. Howdy (that one’s cause we live in Hickville—err…Pleasant Grove…)
To your right is the front room.

It’s a little messy cause Amanda was babysitting today. We’ve got 9-foot ceilings throughout the house, which is AWESOME and really opens up the space. We’ve got a ceiling fan in here, and when we get our new DVD shelves, I’ll show you a picture of that wall with our TV and some pictures and such. For now, you can see Abe pretend to play the Wii:

To the left as you enter the house is the kitchen:


You like Abe's pose for the camera?
And down the hall on the left is the kids’ bathroom, decorated with a frog theme:

Across from their bathroom is Abe and Joel’s bedroom—messy of course:

Here’s a view from inside the room looking out—bonus points if you can guess what Joel’s watching:

Next, Maddy’s even messier bedroom (despite not having to share with another person):

Judy gave us her old ice chest, which Maddy is full of board games in Maddy’s closet (Abe likes to pull the games out):

Further down the hall is the Master bedroom and bathroom. There’s a door closing it off from the rest of the house. The bathroom is to the left once you step into the room. It’s got 2 sinks. Here’s Amanda’s sink on the left:

And mine on the right:

The closet is also in the bathroom, which would’ve been awesome if our dresser was small enough to fit in there along with all our other boxes, hanging clothes, and file cabinet:

Here’s our bedroom, also with a ceiling fan:

Though you can’t really tell from the pictures, this room (and the whole condo) is really spacious. In our old apt., we barely fit everything into our bedroom, with maybe a foot-wide walking path to various areas of the room. Now we’ve got plenty of walking space. We don’t, however, have a spot for our linens just yet, so for now, they’re on top of Amanda’s cedar chest:

Here’s our bed, with a bedspread straight from Walt Disney World’s All-Star Music Hotel (where we went on our honeymoon—no we didn’t steal it—we bought it off ebay!)

Looking out from the bedroom, you can see down the hallway to the front door:

See it? Use it!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA
We really love our new condo and in the week we’ve been here, we’ve already grown really attached to it—and I’m not talking about the 30-year mortgage shackled to our souls.
And heck, you gotta love that it only takes me about 25 minutes to get to work instead of 35-40!

I'll put up some more pics when we have the walls decorated. For now, here’s a video clip featuring the house I WANTED to get…

Father's Day and a blog game

Man, so busy lately. That's a good thing, cause it means a better paycheck! But it means I'm really worn out at the end of the day and don't feel like blogging. But I got home early tonight and got to relax a while, so now I can catch up on my blogs.

Thanks to all those who contributed advice and snarky comments regarding our decision. We've decided for sure to have Amanda pursue Nursing rather than her Master's Degree. However, we're still not 100% where to live and whether to rent or buy. There are some townhomes in Pleasant Grove we've been looking at, though. No decisions yet, however.

Father's Day: I didn't have a giant breakfast like amanda did--I got to pick out a couple boxes of cereal just for me--I got Honey Graham Oh's (DELICIOUS!) and Raisin Nut Bran (which wasn't as good as I'd remembered). I spent the day relaxing. Watched a movie or two, though I don't remember what movies, and we enjoyed our combination Father's Day/Anniversary/need a new TV present of our new flat-screen TV. Now we have a remote control, and the TV doesn't change channels when we press the volume button on the TV!!

I've also put a new list on the right of this blog that lists the movies we've got through Netflix so far this year. Overall, we've made good choices--only a couple disappointments in the list.

I'll end with a game that my friend Jana has on her blog. Here's what you do, courtesy of her blog entry:

Here are the directions:
Okay, as a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty cool (and funny) to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. :) If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Why not end with a clip from PIXAR's newest short film "Presto" which plays before WALL-E?

Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Future

Man, I hate these long, busy stretches where I’m so busy with work and personal projects that I don’t have time to sit and write about life. Now you know why my journal-writing has gotten more sporadic as the years go by. Too busy doing stuff to write about the stuff I’m doing.
I’ll try to group this blog entry into topics:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Yes, I’ve seen it 3 times: The first was on opening night. Before the movie I took my “pre-movie bathroom break” and there was this creepy guy at the urinal next to me. OK, so it was my dear brother Kevin, who had just finished watching the movie. But it was still weird.
The second time was a couple days later with Amanda and the kids. Having seen it once, I was able to tell the kids when to close their eyes for the scary parts. Joel and Abe totally loved the movie. Abe’s been going around the house wearing my old fedora (which I bought in 1989 when Indy #3 came out) and using a measuring tape for a whip. Then he’s been carrying around a Knight helmet, pretending it’s the crystal skull from the film:



The 3rd time was a week later, and was required as part of the company retreat at my job. I was fine with it—heck, I got paid to see the movie, why WOULDN’T I go see it again?
My review: It’s my least favorite of the Indy movies (#3 is my favorite) but it’s still a fun movie to watch. It was brainless and cartoony, and it never seemed like there was any real danger in the movie. But it was a gold, old-fashioned “no-brainer” like my dad used to love watching. Like the 3 newer Star Wars films, this movie didn’t live up to the originals, but I can still re-watch the movie to enjoy the good parts.
We also bought the new Lego Indiana Jones game for the Wii. We were big fans of the Lego Star Wars games, and this is a fun one to play, too. Hence another reason I’m late updating my blog. I’ve been playing Lego Indy the past couple days instead.
The Disney Video Podcast
The main reason I’ve been too busy to write blogs is because I’ve been trying to finish up a video segment for a Disney Fan Podcast. If you have been living in a hole for the past couple years, I can tell you that a podcast is an audio and/or video program that can be listened to/watched on the computer or on an ipod. If you don’t know what an ipod is, it’s like a jukebox that fits in your pocket and can hold like 100 LP records. If you know what an ipod is, but DON’T know what an LP record is, you are so, so young…
I download a number of audio podcast episodes every week onto my ipod, then listen to them while at work. I listen to Eric D. Snider’s movie reviews every Friday. I download the Film Score Monthly podcast, where people discuss movie soundtracks in WAY too much detail. Recently, I’ve started listening to the Animation Podcast, which has great interviews with some awesome animators. And I listen to several Disneyland/Disney World podcasts. One is the Official Disneyland podcast. The others are made by the fans, where they discuss various aspects of Disney and the Theme Parks. One of them, Window to the Magic, features a lot of binaural audio. Binaural audio is basically 3-D audio. The person recording the audio wears a microphone by each ear that captures audio just as you’d hear it in the parks. They also have segments on the history of Disneyland attractions, again featuring a lot of vintage audio from Disney rides.
Anyway, to make a long story even longer, Patrick Hurd, who does segments for Window to the Magic, is starting a special video podcast for WTTM. Patrick was one of the finalists for the CMO contest (another non-winner, like me, though he made it to the top 10) and he asked me if I’d like to do a short segment in each of the video podcast episodes. I’ll let you know when the podcast premieres, so you can download it and enjoy!
The Quest for the Future
Finally, as many of you know, we’ve been struggling with our plans for the future. We’ve been struggling with whether or not to
A) move to Salt Lake City and have Amanda get her Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy. She’s wanted to be an OT for a long time, and it would guarantee that no matter what happens to my job situation, she would be able to make a good living for us anywhere in the country. The downside is that Abe would have to go to daycare, which would be expensive and/or scary. The older kids would have to take the bus, let themselves in the house, and lock the door until Manda or I get home (or, again, find a babysitter who could be expensive/scary). I would be a little closer to work, though I’d have to take a lot of back streets and freeway interchanges, as well as drive on the most horrid stretch of I-15 in Utah. But it would make it easier in the event I find a new job in the Salt Lake Area. We would live in Student Housing, which is small, but affordable.
B) Stay in Orem, and have Amanda get a nursing degree at UVU (formerly UVSC). We would try to buy a house, since we’re really tired of throwing away rent $ when we could be putting it toward something. My commute wouldn’t be any further than before, but it’s still a 35-45 commute (or longer in bad traffic). But the kids could potentially stay at their current elementary school , we’d have family members available for babysitting them, and Amanda’s schooling schedule for nursing would be less demanding on our time and resources. In fact, most of her classes would either be at night, on the weekend, or during the older kids’ school, so except for someone occasionally watching Abe, we’d hardly ever need a babysitter. However, while nursing is something she’s wanted to do and would be happy doing and be good at, it would be less personally rewarding and she wouldn’t earn nearly as much money doing it. Amanda, especially, doesn’t want the kids to have to go to daycare or be latch-key kids. Even though she and I both grew up in that situation, it concerns us. The nursing program would take about the same amount of time as the OT degree, but would be a lot cheaper, so less money added to our student loans. Additionally, staying here would allow Amanda to stay at the Disney Store, where she’d be able to get health insurance for all of us at a price much cheaper than we could get on our own or through the U of U (she’s required to have insurance at either school).
Those are the 2 basic options. We’ve also thought of trying to combine the 2 ideas, staying down here but having her go to school. But that would require me to either tailor my work schedule to her school schedule or have us buy a 2nd car, meaning double the gas expenses. And we would have even less time with the kids and they’d again have to be latch-key kids or be babysat by family a lot. Or we could try to find a home or apartment in Sandy, close to where I work, so I’d have almost no commute and Amanda’s would be short. But that puts us in a similar situation to us living at the U of U where Amanda wouldn’t have to commute, but I would. So we may as well live up there where she’d be more available to the kids than I would.
No matter what, we are NOT staying at our current apartment any longer. The new manager is horrible and the rent is going up. There’s no washer/dryer, they like to close the swimming pool whenever they want to, and our new upstairs neighbors have a very squeaky bed.
I’d like to know everyone’s opinions on the matter. Any experience, insights, observations, etc. would be appreciated. Obviously, we’re giving the matter a lot of thought and are praying about it constantly. It’s a huge step, and adding to the wrinkle is the fact that I’m looking to change jobs in the near future, but that will take a great opportunity landing in my lap or some 3-D animation training on my own time to get a better job.
Speaking of 3-D animation, we’ll end with a clip from Wall-E. Man, I’d love to be an animator at PIXAR...