Stupid Contractor

So remember how we were having work done on our condo...

And remember how the guy started in early September...

And how he quoted us 10-14 DAYS...

Well, it's almost Christmas, almost 120 days later and the contractor is still not finished!

He still has the glass to put in over our master bathroom door, the door handles on 3 doors, and our bathtub faucet, which is fine because it's not that much...

But he won't answer our phone calls, he won't answer our texts or emails and he is being an overall FLAKE...

And he has a key to our home...

My co-workers said we should have fired him a long time ago because he has taken so long, and he makes decisions on his own without consulting us- example: he picked out our shower door (without having us pick it out) and it is way too short for our tall shower, so whenever we shower there's a draft and it's just too cold.

Beware of contractors- make them sign specific contracts and don't let them take advantage of you- fire them early on if you hate their service

Birthday Part II

My birthday week is getting much better.

Eric and I have been celebrating little by little this week and my parents are coming over tomorrow with a birthday cake and dinner!

E and I had Red Robbins tonight because I had a free happy birthday burger and man, we feel so gross. Those burgers are way too big. I bet they have over 1,000 calories.

Birthday

December 2 was my birthday. It was one of the most suckiest (is that a word?) birthdays for one reason... work. I HATE my job. The past Tuesday and Wednesday (Dec. 1st and 2nd) were HELL at work. For some odd reason, except for the full moon on Tuesday, work was INSANELY busy. And not only busy, but busy with problems and irrational patients.

I woke up to Eric yelling at our dog for peeing inside- something she never does anymore (we later found out she had a UTI and thus explaining the odd behavior). After the scolding and clean-up of Ella's stinky pee we ate a birthday breakfast of french toast. Yum!

I then had work from 10:30am - 7:00pm... hell, hell, and more hell.

At 7pm Eric picked me up from work and took me to a GREAT Korean restaurant a pharmacist, Kyong, I work with recommended. Dinner was wonderful. Such delicious food and a perfect respite from my aweful day.

But at least this year my grandma remembered my birthday and gave me the "birthday girl" phone call I always look forward to (last year she forgot and I was so sad about that). She was definately surprised that Eric tried the kimchi and liked it too at the Korean restaurant (she doesn't like Korean food).

So when we finally arrive at home after a long day I start making my birthday cake...we only had 1 egg and the recipe called for 3. Sighhhhh. Ok, so I just take out half the batter and everything is fine and delicious.
Eric goes to bed and I sing myself happy birthday and blow out the candles we have out for decoration. Haha. It was pathetic but Eric and I laughed about it the morning after.

I've had two sucky birthdays in my life: 18 and now 24. Hopefully no more!

This is what we do for fun

Saturday night we met up with Westin and Katrina for dinner at the Texas Roadhouse in Parker. Madhouse! We had to wait for almost "3 hours" according to Westin (more like an hour), but it was worth it for the delicious rolls and baby back ribs.

Earlier that day I went to Katrina's salon and she did a color and cut for me that looks gorgeous! She's a really good stylist and I've never had my hair done by someone I know, but it was worth it. We had to celebrate my diva looking hair by going out to eat (paragraph above).

After the restaurant we went to W & K's house and played the Wii. Guitar hero for a little bit and then Wii Fit. So much fun! Who knew that a bunch of med students and their diva wives could have so much fun playing Wii Fit on a Saturday night. I've posted some videos of how cool we look.

Here are some recent, random photos of our puppy:

Ella's new toy, a hedge hog.

Ella waits patiently for her food until we give her the go ahead to start eating

Dog Park- Sunday

After this video, Ella kept chasing the gigantor Great Dane and trying to hold her own weight against him. She did pretty good. This is saying a lot because she used to be deathly afraid of other dogs when we first got her.

Happy Halloween!

The only way we were able to put this on Ella's head was because she was too exhausted to fight it from being at the dog park all morning.

Eric was a streaker! He won funniest costume at his school's partay and got a $25 gift certificate to Target.

Dog Park

Ella and I went to the dog park for the first time today...and loved it!

Ella is THE best "puppy gog." She ran so hard and played with all the other big dogs and most importantly, she came to me when I called her...even when she was playing with the other dogs.

The only naughty thing she did was jump up on me when we first got there, and because of all the recent snow (almost 2 feet in October) and then sunshine, it was pretty muddy. She somehow splashed mud on my coat and face. I thought I had wiped all the mud off of my face, but after about 1.5 hours at the dog park, I got back to the car and looked in the mirror...I still had a mud splotch on my face! And I had talked to a handful of people. Oh geez.

Ella and I are pooped now. After tromping around for miles in deep snow, we are tuckered!

Eric's BJJ

Eric is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guru.

The club he started at BYU, which has grown tremendously, flew him out for a conference this past weekend. He was there for a BJJ party on Friday night, and then a woman's self-defense workshop on Saturday. The club now has 40-50 people attending regularly! Everyone wanted to meet Eric and roll with him. He's so talented.

Eric also has started a BJJ club at his new school (Rocky Vista Univ). He has about 8 people who come regulary and also has bought a set of mats to roll on.

Good job Eric.

Livin' and Loving the Journey

Life is so good. Eric and I have each other, we have great family, great friends, the church and heck, even our glasses are in love (above picture). We have a new family member, Ella, and our lives feel so complete. Eric is in school, I have a job and prospects of pharmacy school. The holidays are coming up and time spent with family will be so wonderful. Life is good.

Eric eating his cereal out of the packet. Sometimes it's just too inconvenient to get a bowl...

Etudie avec le chien

Dr. Stevens and his patient

Strike

I work at a King Sooper's Pharmacy as a pharmacy technician.

Lately there has been talk of a strike/lock-out for all unionized workers at King Soopers, City Market and Safeway stores. That's 17,000 employees.

If we go on strike, which is proposed for the holidays, we suspect it will last 3-4months! I'm excited for a break, but not for 3-4 months. I would love a one month break for the holidays and a break from all the mean pharmacy customers. But I do feel so bad, if we do go on strike, for the employees who depend on their wages on a day to day basis, especially with the holidays coming up.

It just feels so Europe-like or blue collar to be going on strike. Come on people, can't we find a better way to deal with this??

Potty Trained!

Our puppy Ella is so potty trained!!!!

Eric had the genius idea to put a bell up next to the front door so that whenever she needs to go outside, she rings the bell and we take her out. Perfect, simple, empowering.

Ella rings the bell every time she needs to go to the bathroom and also when she wants to go out and play.

Yesterday morning we got up at 7am, the usual time, and let Ella out of her kennel. Eric went to the kitchen and I went to the bathroom, but Ella couldn't wait for us to do our stuff or put on clothes. She was ringing her bell like crazy because she had to go OUT! NOW! So I just opened the door and she ran out, down the stairs, and peed in her spot outside. She is so awesome. No more messes inside, she's so smart.

Ella

Ella's first time with a collar and leash

Our new family member...Ella

We are the new parents of a 9 week old Weimaraner. We've been wanting a Weimaraner for awhile now, and Friday night when I was at work I was flipping through the Classifieds and saw an ad for Weimaraners...and on Sunday it was official. She was born 7/14/09 to a hunting family, as you can tell by the antlers in the picture above. They had 3 Weimaraners and 2 other hunting dogs of their own. The dogs were all so beautiful and well behaved. We picked Ella over her brother because Susie, the mom, was so good and friendly.

Eric and I with the dad- Romeo

Ella and her Momma- Susie

Ella's homecoming- notice her kangaroo legs...she's so lanky but beautiful!

Ella's first night

Monday morning cuddle

Big Mess

We've been having repairs/painting done on our condo for the past week, and this is the mess we've been dealing with. It seems like our guy is moving very slowly, although we are very grateful to have him do a quality job. I have no idea when the work will all be done, but it doesn't seem like anytime soon...

This is the new paint. Our painter painted this room with the color we first picked out but it ended up being a little too pink for our taste... so we had to have him redo it. We LOVE the new color.

Second bathroom

Second bathroom painted

Our favorite corner in the condo- beautiful colors!

Parker is the city to live in!

Eric and I LOVE living where we live. We chose the best place to buy our first condo and have zero regrets. We see so much wildlife, we have a pool and workout facility at our clubhouse, we have a biking/running trail that goes for miles upon miles, and we have some great neighbors.

Eric's 26th birthday was August 5 and I think he had a great birthday. I started him out with his favorite muffins and a birthday gift of Tropicana OJ (what he calls, "CK1 in a bottle").
He went off to his 3rd day of med school and then had a 3hr lunch break! So we went and had birthday lunch at Qdoba's (I can't believe Utah doesn't have this restaurant chain- it's too good not to have).
Eric went back to school and then for dinner we had some delicious Thai/Viet food from IndoChine, a new restaurant we found on Main St. in Parker (downtown Parker- so cute cute cute).
I made him his favorite cheesecake and then we chilled for the rest of the night. Happy Birthday Eric!

We recently upgraded to a new table because we felt we outgrew our old one (in always having our dinner guests sitting on our couch to eat).

Old table

Working on the new table

Completed new table!

This video is the source of this blog posting's name:

My knight in shining armor who makes me so happy

France Trip part 3

Modern day Mona Lisa

Wax Museum...Jimi!

Wax museum, Lara Croft

Etienne, Eric's cousin, in the wax museum

Sacre Coeur, the basilica that sits atop Montmartre

After Paris we were in L'Orme (southern France) from July 10-14. We went back to Paris for the 15th and left for home sweet home on the 16th.

Eric's aunt owns a 600 year old small chateau where he spent many of his summers. There was a family reunion this summer and most of Mimi's siblings were there- Olivier, Laurance, Marion and their kids. We had picnic lunches every afternoon that consisted of carrots, cucumbers, french bread, lots of cheeses, fruits (nectarines and apricots) and yogurt. And after each lunch and dinner we had delicious desserts either home made by Marion or bought at the local bakery.

Irene and Fred (Eric's cousin and her beau) love the circus and used to train for it. They brought their accordian and juggling sticks which we tried to play but struggled at. There was also a pool that we took afternoon swims in (and were hoarded by flies). And when in France do as the French do??? Although there were topless swimmers I justcouldn't bring myself to join in.

We played some fun games of boules where Eric totally rocked. But in the end we had two teams, the French v. Americans and unfortunately we got spanked.

There was a Frambois en Folie (Raspberry craziness) festival where they concluded with some awesome fireworks.

One night we went on a walk to their great aunt's house, tante claude, and we carried lanterns with candles! It was so old school but so incredibly fun.

I didn't take pictures in L'Orme but Mimi did so if I get those pics from her I'll post them. L'Orme was a rolling farm town with breathtaking hills and mountains and pastures that you see in all the pictures from France.

France Trip part 2

More from Versailles...the picture below is of a tour guy who had interesting hair...

Posing inside Versailles

View from Sacre Coeur

Eating delicious nutella and banana crepes in front of Sacre Coeur

Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Sight seeing from the Open Tour Bus

Flat building

From the Open Tour Bus

Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge

We found the cutest baby store and vowed to come back when we have kids

In hunt of the famous, delicious gelato

Centre Georges Pompidou with Kandinsky and Calder exhibitions

Outside Pompidou

Outside Pompidou