Life 2.0

I can't believe it's been so long since our last post in June! So much has happened! Quick summary:

• We bought a house in Clinton, UT!
• Josh works at Hill AFB as an electronics engineer for the U.S. Air Force
• Shauna is still teaching third grade and commutes everyday to Lehi, UT! That's more than 1 hour each direction! (I owe her SO many backrubs!)
• We moved
• We unpacked (sort of... we're still unpacking)
• We cleaned, patched, painted
• We bought some new toys (Huge TV, Kitchen Table, and.... our OWN washer and dryer!)
• And we have thus far survived the winter

We could go on and on about each of the aforementioned topics, and we probably will in the future. For now, I'll post a little blurb I wrote a couple months ago.

LIFE 2.0

November 2009 -- Life is finally starting to unpack itself (with a little help from us, of course) from the boxes and piles that have held it captive for so many weeks. When we last posted, we were at the end of our house hunt. To fill you in, we did indeed follow what we felt to be right and we purchased the ranch style house that needed some work. The days that followed were full of last minute packing in Provo, cleaning out our apartment, taking care of some last minute management issues, and moving to Clinton. That brief list does not do justice to what a great ordeal that was!

Upon arriving in Clinton, we found the home pretty much like we expected to find it: in a mess. Nothing too bad, really, but there was a huge pile of junk in the garage that had to moved out so we could put our piles of junk in there. We didn't want to move in any of our stuff until the place was clean and space was how we wanted it (i.e., patched, painted, etc.). Basically, our stuff was in the garage until about a month and a half ago. We were met by a few brethren from the elders quorum who were a huge help. We've gotten to know them well over the past few weeks; the whole ward is wonderful. What took us pretty much all day to pack and load took them about 20 minutes to unload for us.

Throughout our first day and night here, Shauna's family was just wrapping up a trip to Orem that they graciously extended a few days so that they could help us out. I am especially grateful for that. My mother-in-law and Shauna did an incredible job cleaning everything--the fridge, the kitchen, the kitchen floor, the bathrooms--everything was filthy when we got here, but they made it all sparkle like new! I don't think the house had ever been cleaned or vacuumed. Shauna bought a new bagless vacuum with great filters and stuff; well, she vacuumed the carpet multiple times and she filled up an entire little garbage can full of the filth it took off the floor!

Anyways, enough about that for now. So far, here's what we've done: cleaned everything (see above), patched multiple holes in multiple walls, tore out the master bedroom door and jamb (it was destroyed), tore out the baseboard (it was beat up beyond repair), removed all the blinds for cleaning, removed and discarded all door knobs and faceplates, removed pantry and master bedroom closet doors for repair, removed all light fixtures from the ceiling, painted the ceiling (two coats), painted half of the walls one color (two coats), hated that color, discover dishwasher is filthy beyond repair, buy new dishwasher, install new dishwasher, dig out 2 of 6 window wells with flooding problem, contract out to repair split pipe at exterior spigot, order and setup DSL internet, arrange payment of other utilities, order curbside recycling, trim/prune monstrous trees to reveal sidewalk, clean blinds, hang blinds, replace some of the blinds, try to fix leaky jetted tub (no luck), discover leaky jetted tub doesn't work anyway, install water line to fridge, painted all of the walls a good color (two coats), moved stuff in from garage, contract out air duct cleaning, get screwed by air duct contractors, tore out main bathroom floor, contracted friends to retile bathroom floor, try to fix garage door opener, contract out for garage door repair, fix garage door opener (kinda) with remotes, weed landscape to plant gifted plant starts, buy baseboard for master bedroom, paint baseboard, buy door for master bedroom, paint door, install door (three times to get right), cut and install baseboard, patch nail holes in baseboard, caulk seams in baseboard, paint caulk, paint nail holes, install ceiling fan in master bedroom, drop ceiling fan from ceiling (oops), return ceiling fan, install new ceiling fan, officially move in to master bedroom, relax...

And I think that covers it. Next on our list is to finish the other two bedrooms and then finish unpacking for real! Keep in mind that while all of this is going on, both Shauna and I are working full-time, we're also having to do the normal chores like laundry and dishes, and we both recently were called to high-commitment jobs in the our new ward. I am now serving in the Young Mens Presidency over 12 Deacons and Shauna is the Young Womens Camp Director. So, in a word, life has been crazy! In two words, life has been effin' crazy (pardon my Utahn).