The House - Week 31

Week 31 - May 25, 2015

This week was more finish work.

Wood flooring installed and protected (mostly).

The railing looks good without the paint protection.

All of the interior doors were painted in the backyard garage.

Kitchen/family room painting complete. We also delivered all of our light fixtures that we had purchased on our own (most of them) and had delivered to our house in Foxboro. It took a few trips to get them all up here.  We had a bid allowance of $5,000 for light fixtures, but we ended up spending at least double that amount which we just paid out of pocket for.

Lyla walking the plank.

The back view.  24 solar panels installed.  (As a side note in the last 13 months we've produced more than 9.6 Megawatt hours of energy!).

Little did we know at the time that getting RMP to set our electrical meter was going to be a royal pain in the butt.

This gateway allows us to monitor our solar PV production over the internet.

Our big rock wall saga: City code only allows for retaining walls to be a maximum of 9' tall.  Due to the circumstances out of our control (ask me in person for the details if you're interested), our retaining wall ended up being about 11' tall (look at the size of those boulders along the bottom).  We had to request a variance from the city for the taller wall, then we had a hearing in the city council chambers and this is Alison's ecstatic response after we found out that our variance had been granted.

We got our solar panels through Intermountain Wind and Solar out of Woods Cross.  I've been extremely pleased with them and give them a hearty recommendation!

Next week: Cabinets and speakers.

Outer Banks - Day 10 (Repeat)

June 13, 2015

June 13th was already included in our last post, but we made it to Washington DC early enough to still have some fun.

We drove directly to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian Institution.  It is located adjacent to Washington Dulles Airport, which makes sense as the museum houses a number of large aircraft that would be very difficult to get to the main Smithsonian campus in downtown DC. We got there about 1 hour before closing time so it was a bit of a rush to see the highlights.

Above is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.  I had a micro machine of this plane so it's always been one of my favorites.

The main reason that I wanted to go to this museum was to see the Space Shuttle Discovery.  Only 5 functional space shuttles were built. Two were lost (Columbia and Challenger) and the three have been retired to Florida, Los Angeles and DC.

This beauty was massive.  It was awesome to see it in person (and not strapped to the back of a Boeing 747).

One of the twenty supersonic Concordes built.

The Enola Gay, which dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.

After the museum, we made our way back into DC where we stayed right downtown in the Hotel Monaco.  This hotel is located in the General Post Office Building that was built in 1839. It was a perfect spot, located halfway between the capitol building and the White House.

It was a late dinner, but we at on the patio at the Shake Shack, and finished off the meal with ice cream.

Lyla loves her ice cream.

Kate really loves her ice cream.

Ada loves her ice cream, but doesn't get nearly as much on her face.

Ice cream brings out Lyla's demons.

Oh Lyla!

And, there are no words for this one, except that this is only one photo of about 20 that we took together in our tiny, tiny room...  (Can you spot our photobomber?).

Tomorrow, we make our way to the museums and sites that we missed from the last time we visited DC, only about 9 months before this trip!

The House - Week 30

Week 30 - May 18, 2015

Not a ton going on this week.  Still lots of painting, and some spring storms.

Ongoing painting in the family room and kitchen.

I stopped by the house one day after work and it was right when a big Utah thunderstorm passed over.

Lots of mud out in the backyard.

Then the hail started.

Look at the gutters across the street.  You can see the amount of water coming down the hill was overwhelming the storm drains.

Water heaters are in.

Wood flooring starting to get laid out.

Wood flooring getting acclimated to the house (although the HVAC system wasn't yet up and running).

Next week: More wood flooring, painting and solar panels!

Outer Banks - Days 4-10

I've grouped the week that we spent at the beach house into one post.  Be forewarned, there's a bit of a photo overload!

After spending a lovely night in Delaware and a breakfast at The Original Pancake House we spent most of the next day driving down the coast (including the Cheseapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel).  It was a long drive (around 7 hours), and we arrived a day later than the rest of the family, but, I think we would argue that the Belmont Stakes was worth it!

After lugging our luggage into the beach house, we made a quick stop at the beach.

The next day was mainly spent playing at the beach...,

making mud pies...,

swimming in the ocean...,

being buried...,

walking to and from the beach house...,

swimming in the pool at the beach house...,

tossing a football...,

and tossing children.

Alison and I went on a little drive to see what else was in the area.  We were just a couple of miles south of Corolla.

Two babies joined us on the trip.

On Tuesday we made our way down to Kitty Hawk to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial.  Having lived for 3 years in Dayton, Ohio, I've always had a bit of an affinity for the Wright Brothers.  Fittingly, I was also reading David McCullough's newest book about the Wright Brothers while we were on this trip.

Family photo at the monument.

Ada, Kate and Grace.  It was hot and humid!

Ada at the replica airplane.

We stopped by Rita's Ice to cool off.

Scott and Hyrum hung out with 7 women in the hot tub.

Sunset on the Outer Banks.

On Wednesday we headed back to the beach.  The house we were staying at was about a block from the beach.

Kate working on her sand castle.

That evening we took the girls mini-golfing.

Kate.

Ada.

Golfing girls.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

On Thursday we used our reciprocal membership for the Children's Museum in Salt Lake to get into the small Children's Museum in Kitty Hawk.  It was pretty small, but the girls loved it.

Putting on a show.

We took a break from the Children's Museum to visit the Bodie Island Lighthouse. Once again it was a scorcher of a day.  We didn't want to wait in the heat (or climb the stairs in a hot tower), so we didn't visit the top.

Bodie Island Lighthouse. After the lighthouse, we actually returned to the Children's Museum.  The girls wanted to go back more than the beach or swimming in the pool.

That night we had family pictures on the beach.

The Squires.

This is more like it.

On Friday we hung out at the beach and pool and finished the night with a dance party.

Another stunning sunset.

Once the sun went down we went out to hunt sand crabs.  Poor little guys.

Here is the beach house with all of the rental cars & vans. We were sad to leave.

Kate made sure to say goodbye to the babies.

She seems to have a thing for babies.

The kids with their American flags.  Soon after, we pulled out and made our way back to Washington DC (about a 5 hour drive when there isn't any traffic).  On the way out of town we stopped by Duck Donuts, and let me tell you, my biggest regret of the trip was not stopping by this place every morning.  The donuts were fantastic.

The whole crew.

Another one of the us.