- House - put in a new bathroom
Our house had 1 1/2 bath and with us contemplating the possibility of a move in the future, it only made sense to have another bathroom put in so we can appeal to more potential buyers. It's nice to have a bath off our master bedroom as well. The cost was much lower than expected and it turned out really nice (other than the lack of water pressure). We should have done it a few years ago. - House - put in pantry and closet
Our main level has/had no closets, and with us spending much more time on the main level these days, we needed a place to store stuff that we want to keep out of sight and out of little kid reach. We had a walk through hall that we closed in on both sides; one side is now a closet and the other is a pantry. The extra space is nice and it gives us the chance to get some stuff off our counters. The cost could have been better as well as the workmanship, but we'll be happy enough once it's all painted. This is also a step in the plan to redo some things in our kitchen. - House - insulate attic
Our house was built in 1906 or something, and while there's been a lot of updates to the house as well as major remodels, I felt that we could use more insulation. I'd seen numerous ads over the years from companies saying that the cost was minimal with the rebates, tax credits, and energy savings. Total out of pocket expense was $340 and we're expecting $185 back from Questar and the government. Time will tell on the energy savings. It took the company like 45 minutes to do the install. We should have done this when the rebates were higher, but we've doubled our insulation. - House - replace ceiling fans and lights in back bedrooms
Yes, a lot of these a boring house projects. This one sounds simple enough, but there's some back history to it. We have these two bedrooms in our house that have ceiling fans in them, but no overhead lights (our house in general has minimal overhead lights, but that's another topic). A few years ago, I had the thought of buying light kits for the ceiling fans so that we'd have more light in the rooms. I bought the compatible light kits, installed one, turned it on and no light. I thought 'must be a bad light kit' so I installed the other one, and the same result. Damn. Must be an electrical issue and I don't want to mess with that. Fast forward to this summer and one of the fans stops working. Our house has no AC and the room the fan stopped working in has our treadmill. I had plans to start using the treadmill more/some (which is again a whole other post to write about) and thought there was no way without a fan. So, I decided it was time to replace the fan with ones that had lights. Two birds, one stone you see. Well, I won't go into the details of the fun I had installing the fans, but guess what... the reason the original light kits didn't work was due to the fact that the wire to the light kit wasn't wired up. A 30 sec task when the fans were originally installed would have saved me a lot of trouble. Regardless, we now have new fans with lights. - House - replace dishwasher
This one will be complete this week assuming the install company shows up. We bought it this past weekend after doing minimal research (another topic). The dishwasher we're replacing has to be 20 years old. It's served us well, but boy is it loud. I'm sure the new one will pay for itself in time thanks to the energy and water savings. Another step in the kitchen master plan. One less thing to complain about too. I wonder what's next. - House - close in stairs
You'd have to see our house to understand this one, but a year ago our house wasn't the most kid friendly and the stairs were the biggest example of that. Of course, a year ago this wasn't an issue, but now that we have an 18 month old running around it would have been a significant issue had we not resolved it. Essentially our stairs and the half wall at the top of our stairs were open to the downstairs, and it would have been quite the drop for a little one. I won't go into the details on the trouble we went through getting the work done by our contractor friend, but it was a rather frustrating process (you wouldn't think you could spread out 15 hours of work over 4 months, but you'd be wrong). Thankfully, we now have ourselves a much safer stair setup while maintaining a unique entry way. - Engaged Encounter - become Local Coordinators
It's quite ironic that our lives are simpler now that we have our son, and that we felt we were in a place in our lives where we wanted to do more for the Catholic Engaged Encounter community of Utah. I can't say that the experience is turning out how we thought it would, but it is giving Jo & I a new perspective on the ministry and our future roles in the ministry. We're still excited about all the possibilities, but not as excited as we were initially. We've met some really nice people and had a lot of fun at the unit meetings, but I've begun to worry about our local community a bit. With God's blessings, our community will rebound and grow into what I believe it can be. - Engaged Encounter - successful EE SLC convention
slc2009eeconvention.com This really was our first responsibility as part of our new role as LCs despite our attempts to not let it become our responsibility. It's hard to say if we brought on the responsibility ourselves by taking on the official roles that we played for the convention or not. Thankfully, the convention was a huge success especially in the financial area. Despite all the worries and headaches, it was a nice experience that I hope to never try to duplicate. - Travel - visit grandma & grandpa in WY
Finally, a new category! This one I'm awfully proud of because this was all Jo and me. We actually visited grandma and grandpa twice this year with CJ, but the trip we made in May was the first one and it was just us that went. It was actually 2 trips in 1 because we first traveled to Alpine, WY to see my uncle and aunt and family then over to Riverton, WY to see the grandparents. I'd never driven the stretch from Jackson to Riverton and it was quite lovely (especially past the Tetons). It was a wonderful trip with a lot of relaxing and visiting. The weather didn't permit any fishing which was somewhat disappointing, but not surprising. I had a chance to talk to my grandpa one-on-one for quite a while and I learned some things and interacted with him like I never had before. They, of course, loved seeing CJ and spoiling him (especially Grandma). The second trip was over Thanksgiving and Mom, Jess, and (gasp) Dad went that time (a whole other story for another time). - Travel - air travel with CJ to Denver
A trip to Denver for Ben & Heather's wedding. This was originally going to be an extended vacation, but we cut it short due to limited vacation time at work, but it was fun nonetheless. We traveled with our good friends, Jeff & Kristi and their 2 little boys, so we had them as our safety net. You should have seen the 4 of us with our 3 little boys and all their stuff (carseats, strollers, etc). It was really nice of Ben & Heather to invite us, and hanging out with the Aoyagis and Lonahas was a blast (the Aoyagis have always been wonderful). I even golfed for the first time in years and had a great time socializing with Jeff (of course) and Ben's brother and brother-in-law. I'll have to continue to get over whatever mental block is keeping me from getting out onto the course (again another topic). - Life - go to church more???
I/we struggled with this one as we always do, but I feel like we're doing better. EE certainly helps in this area, but I think being parents does as well. At the same time, being parents requires a lot of our time and managing an 18 month old at church isn't the easiest thing to do. I do feel, however, that we've grown spiritually over the past year and I feel that's most important. - Life - watch less TV
This is really a result of having Christopher and him needing more attention than he needed in the past. Referring ahead to the next resolution has also had an effect in this area. So much of TV is really such a waste. Yes, I/we still have shows that we want/need to watch, but we've managed to cut out quite a bit. - Life - start eating at the table
Again, this is a result of having Christopher, but another positive artifact. It seems like we used to live upstairs, but we've since moved our DVR downstairs and there's more room down here so it just makes sense. Christopher is on a much more regular schedule these days and scheduling dinner so we can all eat works out well. The little guy has brought a lot of structure to our life.
Congrats to me and Jo for getting all these things accomplished. I'm so proud.
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