Our home, the construction site

So John went into project mode and decided it was time to raise the duct work in the basement hallway so our tall friends and family can walk around without conking themselves on the head.
I didn't get a good before picture because John started hacking away at it before I even got home from work (p.s. I got that job I was talking about a few posts ago) but I did get this:

Its ridiculously low because I can touch it when I'm on flat feet so it does need to come up. We're also going to put in some lighting since it has none now and fix some of the previous owners electrical work.
Well after a long weekend and lots of this:


(thats only a small dent of the crap that came out, John would haul it off the the dumpster before I got the camera out)
John got all the duct work taken out and is now putting in the new stuff. Oh and the storage room door and wall are gone. :) nice...

I have even helped some! I cut some of the metal to make end caps and what he calls blockers (my cut lines weren't very straight though) and I'm very good at holding stuff over my head while John nails it into place!
John's goal is to have most of the work done by the end of next weekend, I think its kinda a stretch but I'll cross my fingers for him. I just want it done so we can paint the boring white walls and maybe I can talk him into painting the bathroom too :)

The graduate!

Well Enna graduated puppy class on June 28th and it was the total opposite from the week before. She did everything she was suppose to do right when we told her to and didn't have to be corrected once. We are very proud of her and signed her up for the next class which will start July 23rd.



This is Ruby, a maltypoo and a classmate of Enna's.


This is Rusty, a lab/pointer mix and a classmate. He was really good and so cute. If he wasn't going to get so big I would have taken him home with me.


And one of my new favorite pictures of Enna, She's actually starting to hold still long enough to get some new pictures.

Birthday Time

So my birthday has come and gone, another year has flown by and I'm getting to be an old lady ;)

John bought me this full length mirror I've been hinting at since we moved into our house, it still needs to be mounted on the wall. (I bet it wont be mounted for at least another month and thats only if I push John to do it)


My parents and sister gave me two mini rose bushes, a new purse and a Willow Tree figure of a girl holding a kitty.

For my birthday I got to go to puppy class (I am SOOO lucky! ;)) where it was practice day for graduation. Our trainer wanted us to see how we could do without giving our dogs treats, well lets just say Enna failed with flying colors!

He had scattered treats and toys all over the floor and we had to walk our dogs through it from one corner to the other without them picking anything up, Enna did fine with this. Then we had to have her sit for petting in one corner, again she did fine, and then walk her back across the scattered treats to the starting corner and have her sit and stay for 20 seconds. Enna would get to about 15 seconds and then stand up, the little stinker! It took us 5 minutes to get her to stay for 20 seconds and even then I think the trainer just gave in because she was still wiggly. Then it was to another corner for lay and stay. Again it was nothing but headaches and took about 3 minutes to get her to stay for 15 seconds. The only thing she did extremely well on was come when called and maybe thats the best because its a pretty important thing. Enna ran right to us and didn't pick up any treats on the way over.

Thankfully we can use treats next week because she does really well when she knows she'll get rewarded and that means we can pass the class! yay! I am going to miss the puppy friends we made in class and hopefully they'll move on to intermediate class with us.

Two great presents that I hope come soon are: our couch, yes we're still waiting and I'm getting frustrated. I hope it comes this week. And the job that I had an interview for this morning. I got a call back interview so hopefully thats a good sign.

♫ Hey baby, lets go to vegas! ♫

John and I just got back from Las Vegas Sunday afternoon and we had a blast! We stayed at Hooters and surprisingly it was really nice, it was a room my aunt would have loved, palm trees on anything and everything they could put them on!
Thursday we walked the strip and went to The Lion King show at Mandalay Bay, Friday we did more walking but also rode the coaster at NY NY, very fun but I think its over priced (what isn't in Vegas?)


We went to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay:










and to the wax museum:



My grandpa says John looks like Abraham Lincoln with his facial hair so we took a picture to compare.


This next picture requires some explaining. When John and I went on our honeymoon he bought me a black coral necklace in St. Thomas. Bernard K. Passman is the only man in the world allowed to use black coral and its very very rare. Passman only has 6 stores in the world and I couldn't pass up owning one of his works. Well a few months after our honeymoon Sophi lost my necklace and we have never been able to find it. While we were in Vegas John remembered that one of Passman's stores is at the Venetian so we stopped by to replace my necklace. It feels so good to have the necklace back and I'm going to be keeping it in a nice safe spot from now on!


If you're interested in Passman's work here's a link to his site.
http://www.passman.com/
I wish I could have more of his work, but its just so expensive!

Saturday we went to the Hoover Dam and went on the Dam tour:





They're building a bridge to reduce traffic over the dam, it's really cool!

after the Dam we met up with John's brother who lives in Vegas and he showed us the really cool property that he maintains and then went to see his wife, son and new baby. It was really good seeing them and talking with them for a while.
Then we went back to the strip and did more walking, went to the sirens show at Treasure Island and the flower gardens at the Bellagio (I'm probably spelling that wrong) Then Sunday at 7 AM we left so we could get home in time for puppy class.

Bathroom faucet is complete

So that 3rd trip John took to Lowe's wasn't needed either :) but all's well that ends well, the bathroom is done! We have now replaced all the chrome hardware to oil rubbed bronze and it looks amazing.
Here is what my bathroom looked like during the installment, John had lots of help from the pets.


Here is the before faucet:


And here is the after:


I'm pretty proud of John, when we opened the box for the faucet there weren't any instruction papers so he had to figure it all out. He said it wasn't hard (he was just having a hard time with the plumbing, hence all the trips to Lowe's) but it looked hard to me!

We also got some free gifts in box, okay only one free gift because they jipped us, but we have no need for it because we replaced the towel ring in the bathroom back when we moved in. If anyone wants it, let me know. It comes with the hardware and instructions.


Last night while we were lying in bed john complained that he didn't get to relax all weekend, I told him that it was his own fault for wanting to buy all the projects at once. For once his house complaining isn't my fault! :)