Abandoned My Blog

There has been so much going on here, that I didn't have much time to update my blog.  We had a lot of stress with the house for a couple of weeks.  That wore me out.  I didn't feel like doing much of anything since I was working my insane amount of overtime too.  I'll save the house stuff for another blog.  I could write a book about it.  I will completely relax once the keys are in our hands, which should be around September 5th since our our close date was pushed back a bit.

My birthday was on Thursday.  Heath & I took Thursday & Friday off so we could celebrate.  On Thursday, Heath rented a Porsche Panamera for me.  It was a neat little car, but it had so much technology in it.  I didn't know what half the buttons in that car were for.  It was fun driving it up and down Las Vegas Blvd.

We stopped in Gold & Silver Pawn (where Pawn Stars is filmed) in the morning before heading down to Fremont Street.  They weren't filming the show, so we decided to check the place out.  They had a few things I'd love to purchase, but I'd need to win the lottery first.  Once we left the pawn shop, we went to Fremont Street.  It had been a really long time since we were last down there, so I wanted to hangout down there for awhile.  We did some gambling, but didn't win anything big.  Boo!

For lunch, we drove to the Stratosphere to have lunch at Top of the World.  It's the restaurant in the actual tower that overlooks the valley.  It also rotates.  We got a view of the entire valley within an hour.  I ordered the salmon BLT for lunch.  It was the best BLT ever!  We had a mini red velvet cake for dessert.  For two meals, dessert and a few drinks, the bill wasn't that expensive.  Definitely going to go back there for dinner some night and enjoy some wine too.

After lunch, we headed over the to outdoor premium outlets not far from the Stratosphere.  I found a Dooney & Bourke outlet store.  I had to go in there and raid the store.  I love their purses, but rarely ever buy them because of the price.  I found a new purse in there that was half off.  Since it was less than $100 for it (after the discount was taken) I bought it.

On Friday, Heath & I went to Mount Charleston to get away from the Las Vegas heat.  It was a cool 70 degrees with rain in the forecast.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the lodge and had fried cheesecake for dessert.  Yes, you read that right.  Fried cheesecake.  Once we were done with lunch, we hiked on one of the trails.  It was so relaxing and the views were beautiful.  It started to rain on our way back down, so we had to end our hiking a little early.  We can hike another trail whenever we have time to go up again.  We don't go hiking anymore since Carleigh is too little.  Some of the trails up there are a little strenuous and I don't think it's a good idea to take a three year old in tow.

The rest of our weekend will be spent relaxing before going back to work.  It was nice to finally take time off for a little vacation.  The only other time I have off from work is when I am sick and curled up watching TV. So it was really great to get away from work to do something fun.  I hope there is overtime available on my return so I can collect a lot more money again.

I'll end my long post with some pictures from Top of the World & Mount Charleston.

Rainy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day!

Our weather is absolutely lovely today.  We have rain moving through the valley and it has cooled us down from the 105 degree days we were having.  The temperature is sitting at 77 degrees with a light breeze.  The smell of fresh air and rain is relaxing.  I am excited to have our A/C off in July.  We can thank our monsoon season.  I hope the rest of our rainy/storm days are like this.  I'm not sure if we can get that lucky though.  We would love to pay a little less to the energy company before we move into our house.

My parent's were in town last weekend for Carleigh's third birthday celebration.  They got into Las Vegas after 6pm on Friday, so we didn't do too much with them that night.  We brought Carleigh to the hotel to play with them.  Saturday was a big running around day.  We took my parent's out to our house to show them the progress and our soon-to-be neighborhood.  We drove them out to the community that had our house as a model home.  My parent's really enjoyed it and can't wait to visit us when our house is complete.

We had a little birthday celebration at our apartment for Carleigh on Saturday afternoon as well.  She picked out an Angry Birds cake from Sam's Club.  It was a delicious cake and we will definitely order more from them.  Carleigh received a lot of new clothing.  My parent's bought her 21 new outfits.  A few of those included pajamas, but you get the picture.  She is very spoiled.

Later in the evening on Saturday, we went out to Lake Las Vegas to watch the fireworks.  They had their show on the 30th.  The firework show was amazing.  I took some pictures of the show and they came out good for a simple little point and shoot camera.  All I did was upload them to the computer and haven't gotten around to editing them yet.

Carleigh was excited to see fireworks, but once the show began, she freaked out.  She was crying and chewing on her finger.  Heath took her up towards the casino area to help her relax.  Once the show was over, she felt better and told us the fireworks were too loud.  Poor thing.  I hope she will enjoy fireworks for the next Independence Day celebration.

On Monday, my parent's wanted to go to the M&M Store before heading out.  We spent at least an hour there.  Carleigh was in love.  She loves the M&M characters.  I found an M&M bathroom set on clearance and bought the set for her bathroom at the new house.

I have overtime available at work again.  Tuesday was really hard on me because it was my Monday.  I went into work at 5am and was ready to fall asleep by noon.  Of course today is a holiday, so no work.  Then it's back to work tomorrow and Friday at 5am!  I hate these screwy weeks.  It's no fun when a holiday falls mid-week.  My body will be back to its regular schedule by Monday.  That's when I'll really kill it with the overtime hours.  Our bank account will love us.

A recent picture (from Saturday) to end the blog.  The house should have the exterior painted by this Saturday.  Oh and I should add, Saturday is our five year wedding anniversary!  Time flies...!  We don't have any big plans yet.  Heath & I agreed on having a nice dinner at home with some wine.  Keeping it simple.

Guess Who's Turning Three

Carleigh is turning three years old on Wednesday.  It's hard to believe she's going to be three already.  She wanted a Super Mario Brothers cake, but she ended up with an Angry Birds cake instead.  We couldn't remember which store had the Mario cake, and we couldn't find that design in any of the store books when we went back.  This afternoon, we took Carleigh over to Sam's Club and told her to pick out something she likes from them.  The second she saw their Angry Bird cake, she wanted it and refused to look at any others.  We plan to go bowling for Carleigh's birthday party on Saturday.  My parent's are coming into town to celebrate the big three.  My mom told me she bought Carleigh 21 new outfits.  I think that's a bit extreme, but if she wants to buy that much clothing, that's her decision.  As of right now, I bought Carleigh an Angry Bird shirt and a stuffed Mario.  We gave her the Mario yesterday as an early present since she saw us buy it.  I'm going to go over to Walmart tomorrow or Tuesday and buy a couple of Leap Frog books for Carleigh's Leap Frog Tag.

It's been over a month since my last update, so I will post a picture of our house progress.  The exterior is almost complete.  The windows were installed last week.

Our estimated date of close is August 17, one day after my birthday.  I really hope that stays as our closing date so I can feel like I am getting a house for my birthday.  We saw our future neighbor's looking at their home on Saturday too.  They have a little girl who looks to be maybe a year old than Carleigh.  Our house will be completed before theirs.  If I remember correctly, their house is about three weeks behind ours.

I'm going to try to keep this blog up-to-date.  I need to stop being lazy.

Chest Sprain & Stomach Bug

I feel like I have abandoned my blog.  I meant to update the site last weekend, but I was in too much pain.  Last Thursday, I started feeling some weird pains near my chest/breast bone.  When I went to urgent care on Monday morning, the doctor said I more than likely sprained my chest.  Yeah, don't ask.  I'm not exactly sure how I managed to pull that off, but I did.  It's starting to feel better now.  At least I can pick up Carleigh without feeling major pain.  I only get a nasty pain when I lift her up too high.  I'm just glad the chest pain wasn't anything more serious.  I can live with a chest sprain.

Yesterday I missed work due to a stomach bug.  I started feeling like crap on Thursday night.  I felt very nauseated, but didn't vomit until Friday morning.  Not to go too far into detail, but I just could not stop throwing up.  I was going to go into work at 8:30am instead of 8am, but the vomiting would not let up.  I hate missing work.  At least we are not swamped and on mandatory overtime.  We have been low on loans, so I know I didn't miss too much excitement.  Today, I am feeling much better.  It would have sucked to have been sick all weekend.

We have been going out to our house for the last couple of weeks to track the progress.  The foundation has been poured.  Exciting!

It's funny how tiny the house looks at this point.  As you can see from the house next door, the houses are anything but small.  The house should be done by the end of August or first week of September.  Just one more summer in this poorly insulated apartment.

New Home Purchase

We finally did it! Heath & I signed the purchase agreement for a beautiful home in Mountian's Edge. We decided to go with new construction. The technology for today's homes is amazing. We bought a Beazer home. We went with a two story home, but the laundry room is upstairs next to the loft. That will make laundry much easier on my knees. I don't have to run up and down the stairs with a load of laundry six times a day. The home is 1,843 square foot, three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a two car garage. I am so excited that we can do new construction for our first (and hopefully only) home.

We went with all black appliances, saddle oak cabinets and baltic brown granite. We are picking out our flooring next weekend and plan to go with a nice hardwood floor for the downstairs. Carpeting is okay for upstairs. We are not a fan of carpet in the high traffic areas. The carpet in our apartment looks like crap even after having it professionally cleaned. Our second choice for downstairs flooring is ceramic tile.

The master bedroom has a huge walk-in closet and the second bedroom (Carleigh's room) has a walk-in as well. Her closet won't be as large as ours though. It's a nice sized walk-in closet for a soon-to-be three year old. She's so spoiled. I never had a walk-in closet until I moved out of my parent's house.

Our yard is on a premium lot, so we will have a larger backyard. It will be big enough for a swing set, small garden, and some patio furniture. The home is also situated near the end of the cul-de-sac. We are two houses from the very end. If we walk past those two houses, we walk out onto the walking trails for the resident's of Mountain's Edge.

We looked at Lennar & KB Homes as well, but they could not match the value of Beazer. We are very excited with our purchase. We don't have a date when construction will start yet since our contract has to be approved by our sales persons boss. Once the contract is approved and permits are good, construction will take about four months.

We hope to have the house before Halloween so Carleigh can go trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood.

Moving on, we still have overtime at work for the time being. Our queues are getting lower though, so I'm sure OT will be cutoff for a little while. I hope to get 20 hours of OT in this week before we are cutoff until it gets busy again. We want to keep piling up our savings account for anything we want to purchase for our new house!

Learning Phonics

Carleigh was pulled aside for some one-on-one with a teacher at daycare. The teacher showed Carleigh letters to see how much she knew. Carleigh got all of the letters correct on the first round. She was the only kid in her class that got them all on the first try. The teacher was impressed and knew it was time to move Carleigh onto something a little more advanced. The teacher suggested Carleigh start a phonics class. So this week, Carleigh will be starting her phonics class two days a week with two other girls in her class. I'm very excited for her. She catches on quickly. I give thanks to Preschool Prep Company. I bought Meet the Letters, Numbers, Colors and Sight Words 1 & 2 from them so far. I plan on purchasing Meet the Phonics: Letter Sounds next. These DVDs work wonders. Carleigh loves these movies and asks for them all of the time. I'd like to buy her the workbooks too.

I'm still working a lot overtime. I put in 16 hours of OT last week and hope to do the same this week. My original goal was to do 20 hours of OT, but I cut it short because I was getting worn out. Turns out getting up at 3:30am and working until 5:30pm can make you sleepy by the time Thursday rolls around.

Tomorrow, I'll be faxing our updated loan application to our loan officer. We are hoping to have a pre-approval letter by the end of this week. We would like to start putting offers in on the houses we really like. The sooner we get out of apartment life, the happier we will be. I just want my own private yard and no shared walls. Of course, that also means a cheaper monthly payment compared to what we are paying here. This place is robbing us every month.

Influenster Love VoxBox

Influenster is a community for trendsetters. When you register at Influenster, you are able to unlock badges that fit your lifestyle. The more active you are, the better chance you have at receiving a VoxBox. The VoxBox is a complimentary package chock full of goodies.

Recently, I received a Love VoxBox from Influenster. It was really cool that I qualified for this VoxBox since I had just joined the site. My Love VoxBox came with the following items:

• Gillette Venus & Olay Razor
• Kiss Nail Dress - Fashion That Sticks
• Stash Tea Herbal Tea Sampler (18 pack with 9 flavors)
• Ghirardelli Gourmet Milk Creamy Devotion Bar (as well as a coupon for $1/2)
• Truvia Natural Sweetener

The first product I tried out of my Love VoxBox was the Gillette Venus & Olay razor. I enjoyed using this product because I didn't have to use shaving cream. It was a huge time saver for me. It left my skin feeling smooth and there was no need to use lotion after shaving.

Of course Heath & I dug into the Ghirardelli chocolate. I'm usually not a fan of dark chocolates, but this Creamy Devotion Bar was to die for! I'm in love. My Love VoxBox included a $1 off two Ghirardelli bars coupon, so I will definitely be picking up some more Gourmet Milk Creamy Devotion Bars in the near future. Maybe this coming weekend if I can hold out that long.

I haven't used anything else out of my Love VoxBox other than the first two products mentioned. I'm going to take my Stash Herbal tea to work with me tomorrow. There are nine different flavors:

• Acai Berry
• Blueberry Superfruit
• Chamomile
• Cinnamon Apple Chamomile
• Lemon Ginger
• Licorice Spice
• Mango Passionfruit
• Peppermint
• Wild Raspberry Hibiscus

I'm looking forward to trying the Acai Berry the most. I'll probably make myself a cup of tea at 6am. Is that too early for tea? I guess it doesn't matter when you're working 5am-5:30pm.

The Kiss Nail Dress product is a stick on nail designer. I'll use these once my nails have grown out a little longer again. They are very 'bling' looking without spending a fortune at the nail salon. I may be working a lot of overtime, but I still don't want to shell out my extra money to get my nails done when I can just do them at home for free.

Last, but not least, is the Truvia zero-calories sweetener. I'll use my Truvia to bake Fudgy Brownies for Carleigh & Heath next weekend. I've never baked with Truvia before, so I am curious to see how well the brownies turn out. We probably won't even notice a difference.

Sign up at Influenster today. Become an active member for your chance at a VoxBox.