New car

Eric and I have been talking about getting a new car for awhile. We have grown tired of getting stuck in the snow in our neighborhood every winter. And it seems that the car that we decided on, Toyota Venza, would start having availability issues this fall due to the earthquake in Japan. Anyway, I used the Internet to help find the right car, and Eric used it to negotiate a great deal.I am pretty sure that I am cut off the Internet forever now though. I also found our house on the Internet. Whenever Eric hears the words "I have been looking on the Internet", he has a little heart attack!

Vacation to the glorious spot in the picture not included. And we got the green one.

I heart my negotiating husband

Eric is currently negotiating a new car deal for us over the phone with 4 different dealerships while I am able to get some of my hideous amount of work done (instead of being holed up in a car dealership). I completely love that!

Eric keeps telling me that I keep surprising him about different things. Now I can say I had no idea he was such the negotiator. My dad would be so proud!

Everyone loves the heated floor

I have been an awful blogger of late. Some of that is that Eric and I just needed a break from house work and some is work/school. We took last weekend nearly completely off, which was really fantastic and much needed. I even stopped thinking about work problems by about noon on Saturday. This is a great achievement on Eric's part!

However, while I was doing school work on Sunday (darn!), Eric hooked up the floor heat in the bathroom. Let me just say everyone loves a heated floor. Right now as Eric is in the shower, all the cats are snoozing on the floor living it up. The genesis of my fear of cold floors was my master bathroom in my Lafayette condo. It was directly over garages, and in the winter, I could often been seen running across the cold tile to get to the little rug. I even considered getting a custom-shaped rug in there so that I did not have to walk on any cold floor.

Of course, this summer when we are boiling in our house, you will find Eric and I sitting on the cold tile floor with a passion fruit lemonade ice tea trying to cool off. Yes, I have very specific dreams!

Things left in the bathroom: towel bars, cabinet knobs, and a little touch up paint. Last item to be completed will be molding, but I expect we will wait for that until we do it everywhere in the house.

Ryan loves the floor:

Weekend progress

We had a fantastic weekend with my parents coming up to see the new house for the first time. We had a great time! It was so nice to see them after a very abbreviated Christmas visit with just me. Remodeling really does take over your life.

My dad and Eric got the sprinklers working, and they started the sump pump installation. We were not sure we would need the pump - I will just say we do. The sprinklers had to be completely hooked up again so it involved making another trench in my yard. Luckily it was filled in promptly. We still have the trench in the back from the utility burial. Not as much of a hazard as the deck beam though!

My mom and I painted the laundry room a very nice soft blue. It is very pretty. We have picked out tile for the floor, but I really need to give Eric a break. He has worked so hard, and he is definitely out of steam.

Rainbow spiral

We had our first sighting of my favorite balloon, which I call rainbow spiral. My feeling is that to be a really good balloon you need some yellow and lots of color. Rainbow spiral fits the bill.

A fully functional bathroom!!!!!

The 4 (or maybe 5) functions of a bathroom are all done:
Toilet
SInk
Shower
Mirror
Outlet (that is the maybe one - we had an old house before and one of the bathrooms did not have an outlet in it)

Pictures to come later - work and school are kicking my butt right now.