The House - Week 0

Most dear readers of this blog probably already know that we're building a house.  Construction started October 27, so we're currently in the 10th week of construction.  I'm getting a late start, but I wanted to document the weekly progress of the house.  Many of these pictures have already been posted on Instagram (follow our home construction progress by following house.of.squire), but I wanted somewhere to post a lot more pictures.

First some background: We purchased the lot using a lot loan in August 2013.  In the spring of 2014 we started to work with our architect to put some plans together.  We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted and we were able to find a similar floorplan that the architect was able to adjust to our needs. Our drawings were completed in early June, we bid the documents out during July, selected our contractor in August and finalized our construction loan in September.

This first picture is from September 2013.  We closed on the lot in August and this was the first time that we made it up to the lot after we were the proud owners of this land and the earth down to the core.

The photo is from last December.  The house 2 down from ours (to the south) was just starting construction.

Spring. Looking east.

The 4th of July. Looking north.

This picture is also from July.  I'm standing on the SE corner of our lot, looking to the NW.

Our neighbor started bringing in lots of fill dirt to level out his backyard and and move the steep slope at the back of his lot to the west.  When we purchased the property and first had it surveyed, we found out that from the SE corner of our lot to the SW corner of our lot the elevation dropped over 50'!

This stake sat along the south edge of the property.  The stake at the rear of the property sits down at the bottom of this steep slope.  Granite Construction Company owns the land behind ours and we are working to negotiate a permanent slope easement on their property.  This will allow us to bring in fill dirt in order to raise the back edge of our property to be level with the rest of our backyard.  The slope that currently is at the rear of our property would then be pushed onto Granite's property and allow us to have a fairly large backyard (our lot is around 1/2 acre).

This picture was taken just a couple of days before excavation started for out basement.  I'm now standing on 30+ feet of the import dirt at the back of our lot.  I was not interested in paying very much for the import dirt, but our excavator offered a deal of $10 a load to bring it from another project that they were working on. I think they ended up bringing nearly 300 loads of dirt in.

Next post: Week 1 and the start of excavation.

Disney World in Review - Christmas Party

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

I wasn't originally planning on spending about an extra $70/per person to go to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party (MVMCP), but when in Rome...

The party officially started at 7:00 PM, but we were able to enter the park starting at 4:00 PM.  I think that we got there a bit after 5:30 PM.  Our first order of business was to find some chow, then we went on a few rides and searched out the characters that typically have long lines or are not typically out and about.

MVMCP also had free* hot chocolate and cookies (or apple juice and apple slices) throughout the park.  I made sure to take advantage of these treats as often as possible because I was on a mission to recoup my $70 entrance fee through gorging on cookies, hot chocolate and apple juice.  I think I did a pretty good job... Especially considering that I couldn't fall asleep until 3:30 AM because I had a gut-ache. Finally at 3:30 PM I puked in the bag for the ice bucket (that same bag that the maid never replaced).  Then I was able to sleep.  The best part was that I was able to show everyone my bag of puke the next morning. ;)

I think that we had fun at the Christmas Party.  We enjoyed the lighter crowds, the lines for the attractions weren't bad and we did our best to see as many of the characters as we could. I give the Christmas Party 4 out of 5 stars.

*Free with paid admission...

Disney World in Review - Fastpass+

Fastpass+ and MagicBands

Since the last time that we visited Disney World they've introduced the MagicBands and the Fastpass+ system (which replaced the original Fastpass system).  The MagicBands were shipped about a month before our trip and each of the bands was customized to the wearer and personalized with our names imprinted on the inside.  The bands themselves were pretty slick.  While at Disney World we used them to get into our hotel room, enter the theme parks, pay for our purchases (either via our credit card linked to our room, or more commonly, as a debit against our dining plan) and for Fastpass+.

Fastpass+ is Disney's new and improved Fastpass system. I didn't mind the new system too much, but I much prefer the old system (which as far as I know is still at Disneyland). They have Fastpass+ available for nearly every attraction, including shows, parades, character greetings, rides, etc.  Up to 30 days (or 60 if you're staying in a Disney Resort), you log onto Disney's website and select up to 3 Fastpass+ attractions per park per day.  Even though I tried to make our selections 45-50 days in advance most of the popular rides and attractions were already unavailable.  In addition, at Disneyland we're used to using Fastpasses all day long because I'm willing to run across the park getting new Fastpasses as soon as they're available.  With this new method, that's not an option.  The times that we did use Fastpass+ were nice though.

All I can say is get used to it.  I'm betting that this system will migrate to Disneyland once the system has been perfected. I give the MagicBands 5 out of 5 stars and the Fastpass+ system 2 out of 5 stars.

Disney World in Review - Dining

Disney's Dining Plan:

I was convinced by our neighbor Mark (and lover of all things Disney) that we should add the Disney Dining Plan to our trip.  I was hesitant as it was around a $900 adder, but as I've already said, we decided to go all-out...

We added the dining plan that allowed us 1 table service meal, 1 quick service meal and 1 snack per person per night of our stay.  As we had already paid for the food that we were going to eat, it was in our best interest to try and find the most expensive meals and snacks that we could, right?

Snacks:

All of us got to pick one snack per day.  They generally allowed snacks to be anything up to about $5 in price, although we did find some at $5.50.  We had cupcakes, popcorn, chocolate dipped Mickey Mouse ice cream, Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwiches, a carrot cake cookie (see photo above), cinnamon roasted almonds, frozen lemonade, cinnamon rolls, LeFou's brew, chocolate dipped Mickey Mouse Rice Krispies treats and probably others. It was nice to be able to acquiesce to our kids when they were begging for a treat as we normally wouldn't buy these sorts of things at a theme park.

I think that we spent around $105 in total on snacks.

Quick Service Meals:

The quick service meals are the typical meals that you would purchase at a theme park or for breakfast.  The meals always included drinks and for lunch or dinner they also included dessert (two items that we normally wouldn't buy with our meals).  Even though the dining plan only allowed for 2 meals/day, we tried to make those meals last for us rather than eating 3 meals/day.  We ate macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, breakfast, chicken sandwiches, etc.  Alison and I would usually share our desserts with our girls who only got kids' meals.

We spent about $305 on quick service meals.

Table Service Meals:

Table service meals are all restaurants with waiters or waitresses and they all require reservations.  We were pretty pleased with the places that we dined, but it was difficult (more like impossible) to get reservations for the places that we wanted to eat most.  We ended up dining with characters 4 different times as these places are usually pretty expensive, and then once we dined at the Kona Cafe for dinner at the Polynesian Resort.

We ate at:
1900 Park Fare (breakfast) - with Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger
The Garden Grill (dinner) - Chip & Dale, Mickey & Pluto
Kona Cafe (dinner)
Ohana (brunch) - with Lilo & Stitch, Mickey & Pluto
The Tusker House Restaurant (lunch) - with Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Mickey

We only added the dining plan to our resort reservations about 60 days before our trip, which was too late to make reservations at the restaurants that we most wanted to visit.  To eat in Cinderella's Castle with the princesses or at the new Be our Guest restaurant you've got to make your reservations as close to 6 months in advance as possible.

The other thing that was a pain was that even though we had reservations at these places, we waited anywhere from about 10 minutes to 30 minutes at each place.  They were always running a little behind...

We spent $643.45 on table service meals (plus about $107 in tips that were not included in the dining plan).

In total our meals cost around $1,053, we spent around $900, not including drink mugs with free refills for our stay (that we hardly used).

I don't think that I would go so far as to call the dining plan a good deal as we most certainly would have eaten much more economically had we not used the plan. I did enjoy the variety, trying new places and not worrying about how much everything cost, including the snacks and desserts.

I give dining and the dining plan 4 out of 5 stars.

Disney World in Review - Transportation

Transportation:

We took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and the transportation center, we walked to the Grand Floridian and the transportation center, we took the ferry from our resort across the Seven Seas Lagoon to the Magic Kingdom and we took the buses to and from Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom and Blizzard Beach.

Disney's Magical Express: If you stay at an on-property resort, then you can get free transportation from the airport to your resort.  In addition, they took care of picking up our luggage and delivering it to our room and taking our checked luggage back to the airport and checking it for us.  This was an awesome perk and it worked perfectly.

Monorail: The monorail was fun and generally convenient for us to use.  The best thing about it is that I didn't need to fold up the stroller in order for us to take it. My biggest gripe was that after a long day at the Magic Kingdom we were always stuck waiting in line for the monorail.  This wouldn't be so bad if they actually made an effort to fill the monorails up with people, but more often than not, the end trains of the monorail were barely used forcing everyone waiting to have to wait longer.  no big deal, right?  I'm just glad that we weren't visiting during the summer, or a time when the parks are truly busy as it just would have been worse.

Ferry: We loved taking the ferry to the park from our resort.  We never had to wait too long and it was a fun change.  We never took the ferry home from the park, mainly because by that time of the night we had tired girls that I didn't want to pull out of the stroller in order to fold it up.

Disney Buses: I was very disappointed with the Disney bus system.  We often waited 20+ minutes for our bus (once waiting nearly 40 minutes) and the buses were almost always crowded, with standing room only and they would take circuitous routes to our destinations to stop at other resorts or parks. After our day at Hollywood Studios we had to wait in a big line for 3 buses before there was space for us and then the ride home took a long time due to an accident in the middle of the exit road from Hollywood Studios.

Overall, I give 2.5 out of 5 stars

Disney World in Review - Lodging

Lodging:

We elected to stay at a Disney World resort.  The last time that we went to Disney World, we got an excellent deal at an off-site hotel, but this meant that we had to drive into the park every day, pay to park our car, fold up the stroller and ride the parking tram, fight traffic on our way out of the parking lots and drive back to our hotel.  Granted it was much, much less expensive.

There are around 30 on property Disney Resorts to choose from.  We had to select a room that accommodated a party of 5, which bumped us up from the cheapest rooms.  Our options ranged from about $200 per night to upwards of $1500 per night.  Because I had already decided on staying at a Disney Resort, I wanted to go all-out and stay at a resort that had monorail access to the Magic Kingdom.  This narrowed our options down to the Grand Floridian, the Contemporary Resort and the Polynesian. There was a deal offered at the Polynesian Resort, which knocked about $100/night off from the nightly room rate because parts of the resort are under construction.

I booked our room at the Polynesian (for around $500/night, yikes!) and we were excited with our choice.  We were very pleased that they let us check into our room when we arrived at about 7:00 AM.  At check-in we were all lei'd and we walked to our room, which was in the Tuvalu building at the NW corner of the resort, right on the water.

The room was comfortable, but there wasn't really anything that set it apart from just about any other nice hotel room that we have stayed in before.  Nothing anywhere in the rooms and very little in the resort gave any indication that we were at a Disney resort.  Many guests may prefer it that way, but at the price that we paid, I would have been okay being reminded who (i.e. Disney) suckered us into paying so much...  On the downside, I was really not impressed with the housekeeping services.  When we arrived, there was garbage from the previous guests in a cupboard, the bag for the ice bucket was never replaced (which was unfortunate because I filled it with puke) and they were inconsistent in their other services.

The beds were comfortable, there was a couch that swung into a bed for our 5th guest and we slept well every night. We utilized the resort transportation every day that we were there, we ate at both of the table service restaurants (Kona Cafe and Ohana) as well as at the quick service restaurant (Capt Cook's) and we enjoyed watching the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom from the beach at our resort.

On the whole, we overpaid for a typical room in an average resort.  I loved being close to everything, I enjoyed how clean the grounds were and the South Pacific style of the buildings and being right on the water.  I give 3 out of 5 stars.

Disney World in Review - Flights

Flights:

When JetBlue announced their new routes between SLC and Orlando the seats were going fast. We had to make a snap decision back in May/June whether or not we would purchase flights to Orlando.  They had available times in the beginning of December and in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.  We decided that we would figure out the details later and went ahead and purchased our seats for about $200 per person.

The biggest downside to these flights is the red-eye flight from SLC to Orlando.  It leaves SLC at midnight and arrives in Orlando just after 6:00 AM.  Alison and I didn't sleep much on the flight, but our girls did great.  You can see from Kate's face in the picture above that she was thrilled to be there... Actually, that girl just loves her sleep and was not too happy when we had to wake her up.

The flight home left Orlando at about 8:00 PM and got into SLC after 11:00 PM.  This flight went really well for us as well.  The girls all eventually fell asleep.  I enjoy watching the flight tracker map.

Overall, I give our flights 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Disney World in Review

I wanted to write a final post in summary of our Disney World trip.  We did a lot of things that we wouldn't normally do and I want to have something to refer back to for the next time that we plan a trip to Disney World.

EDIT: I had planned on publishing all of my review in a single post.  Instead, they're all turning out to be pretty long-winded, so I've broken them out by topic:

Flights
Lodging
Transportation
Disney's Dining Plan
Magic Bands and Fastpass+
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

Memory Maker/Photopass - Rather than doing a whole blog post on this topic, let me just put in a plug for the Memory Maker or Photopass system.  Basically you pay for the option to download all of the photographs that the Disney photographers take of you and your family in the park, as well as pictures from the rides.  I love not having to ask strangers to take pictures of our family, most of the photographers are decent and the downloaded pictures are fairly high quality.  I think we paid around $150 to add Memory Maker (Photopass) to our trip, but I was able to download nearly 2 GB of pictures and videos from our trip.

I'll update the links above as each review is published - DONE!

Animal Kingdom (Day 6)

We were sad to have to check out of our room.  We packed up our bags, dropped them off with the bag people, left our carry-on items with the valet and waited to catch the bus to Animal Kingdom.

Our first stop was Expedition Everest. We had fastpasses for this ride (although we were a bit late because we waited for our bus for nearly 40 minutes), but we got on and conquered the mountain.

Kate and Alison.

Ada, Kate and me.

We quickly made it over to our next fastpass ride, the Kilimanjaro Safari.  We saw hippos, giraffes, elephants, lions, rhinos and a bunch of others. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about, traveling to Africa to go on a real safari, when you can go on a decent one here in the states.

After the safari we greeted Tarzan.

And Pocahontas.

Then we took the Wildlife Express Train to an area of the park where they have a petting zoo.

Lyla with a goat.

Ada with a pig.

Finally, we made our way to our last meal. We had reservations at the Tusker House Restaurant, which had African cuisine and a handful of characters.  We were in a terrible rush (we had to catch our bus back to our resort, in order to catch our express bus back to the airport), so we were unable to really enjoy the food and characters too much.

We did see Donald, Daisy and Goofy. Unfortunately the lighting in the restaurant was pretty dim which made it a challenge to take good pictures using our cell phone cameras.

Daisy.

Tusker House Restaurant.

We caught our bus and made it back to our resort in the nick of time, where we caught our express bus to the airport.  The airport and flight home were uneventful. We were all happy to sleep in our own beds, but none of us wanted to go to work or school the next day.

And thus concludes our photo journey through Walt Disney World.

Magic Kingdom (Day 5)

We returned yet again to the Magic Kingdom.  We knew it would be crowded today as the park was open from 8:00 AM to midnight, it was the week before Christmas and the weather was gorgeous.

Once again we took the boat from our resort to the park.  Our captain was a pirate and gave pirate hankies to the kids.

We saw Aladdin and Jasmine.

We waited for about 60 minutes for Splash Mountain (the waits for Space Mountain, Anna & Elsa and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train were all 110 minutes+!).  I liked this view of the Frontierland Train Station.

After Splash Mountain, we weren't dying to wait in more lines, and while Alison and the girls used the rider swap, I staked out a great spot for the parade.  We typically avoid the parades, but on a busy day like today it seemed like as good of place to spend our time as anywhere.

After the parade we waited in line for Enchanted Tales with Belle.  The kids star in a quick re-enactment of the day when Belle and Beast fell in love.  Kate was selected to play Maurice, I don't remember what part Ada played, and Lyla was an extra.  After the quick play, Belle spends a moment with each child and takes a picture.We had never been to this attraction and the girls ended up loving it.

Lyla rock climbing while we wait.

Kate as Maurice.

Kate with Belle.

Lyla with Belle.  She got the whole audience cooing over her as she showed Belle her red hair and pigtails and her twinkletoe shoes.

Ada with Belle.

We finally found the best treats in the park.  Big Top Souvenirs in Fantasyland (across from the Dumbo rides) has a big selection of treats.  We got chocolate dipped Rice Krispies treats with M&Ms or toffee, but they also had fudge, cupcakes, chocolates and lots of other treats.

We had fastpasses for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train which allowed us to bypass the long lines. It's a decent ride. Not too thrilling of a roller coaster, but you do go slowly through the mine as the dwarfs sing and the jewels sparkle.  It fits well at the park.

We went to the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor.  It's an interactive comedy show hosted by Mike Krzyzewski (or whatever his name is) where they spotlight and interact with the audience.  As we were sitting down my picture was put up on the screen with a caption that I didn't see in time.  They told the story of Monster's Inc. showing people in the audience and Lyla (sitting on my lap) was shown as boo, and then Ada and Kate were shown on the screen to help with the jokes.  I was able to catch some of it on video. It was a packed house, but it was fun to be so involved.

We made sure to stop and see Mickey at the front of the park. We heard there was an animatronic Mickey who talks to you and greets you by name, but we were stuck with the regular old Mickey in his magic costume.  Mickey #5.

Last of all, we couldn't leave the park without getting a picture in front of Elsa's ice castle. It looks spectacular!