We started off our Christmas by spending the traditional Christmas Eve at my parents place.


Alexander got to open a few presents with his two nieces, ellie & ruby.


Don't they make a great team!?




Christmas Morning was spent just like i've always wanted: waking up in my very own, brand-used house! A beautiful lit up Christmas tree was there just waiting to help us celebrate this wonderful season.


Alexander got to open a few more presents from friends & family:








And then he got his favorite present of all: His very first car!



Merry Christmas to all!

Remember this little guy?!

Who's peeking out from under the scraper?



everyone know its Bradley.....

I am happy to announce that we are finally moved in to our new house!
It took 3 movers just under NINE HOURS to move the entire apartment into the house.
ridiculous.
I will concede, however, that at least some of the time was due to the skinny stairwell (the apartment was on the second floor). But really, there was just too much stuff. Using extreme care in my methodology, and meticulously applying the scientific method, a custom single-purpose algorithm of my own creation has helped me determine within 1/100th % the exact breakdown of ownership of crap moved from the apartment:


It can be clearly seen from this very scientific Pie Chart who the culprit is. The problem, outside of the latent pack-rat tendencies derived from her mother, is Sarah's aptly named "Closet of Shame." This was a MASSIVE space, deemed a 'closet' by some mischievous architect, that allowed Sarah to stockpile and save many many things that should have otherwise found their way over to a donation pile. This closet, along with her bedroom closet and the closet in the other bedroom, was home to waaaaaayyyy too much stuff. So now, with our house mostly livable, we have these fun things to go through:

The guestroom/office:


And the garage:


I know, i know, it's quite shameful. But Sarah and i have made a solemn pledge to get each get rid of exactly 1/3 of our items. Whether it be Craigslist, donations, or simply the dumpster, we refuse to be slaves to our crap!!

I just came across a story from the AFP with the following title: "Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man's best friend"
Of course i couldn't help but to read this nonsense. According to the article,

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.
Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.
"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.

And thus we have this climate change idiocy reaching it's final conclusion: Even animals, the very definition of nature, are "bad for the environment."

These morons have truly outdone themselves this time. I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that if the metrics that are applied to determine what is allegedly 'harmful' to the environment show that the environment is harmful to itself, then perhaps the metrics are wrong! Hello?! Idiot alert!
If there's one story that has really sealed the deal that all this carbon-emission-footprint hoopla is nothing but a but a buch of CRAP (pun intended), this is it.

"If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."
           - Mark Twain

A story from the Associated Press today discussed the irony of the climate conference in Copenhagen. As these 'delegates' from across the globe gather to discuss the alleged evils of carbon emissions and carbon footprints, most of them fly in on private jets and spend their days outdoors in the sun in private cabanas with the AC running. By one estimate, the carbon emissions of the week long conference will equal to the yearly carbon output of the country of Switzerland.
Thus you must always remember, do as our great and benevolent government says, not as they do. Why? Because of course, they know best!

I've just rounded third base, and i'm sprinting for the home plate!
I left a little early from work on Friday to start on the kitchen/laundry room floor. As with everything else, it takes much longer than you think, especially if it's your first time doing it. I figured i could throw in the floor in one evening. Not a chance. 9 hours later, i go to bed at midnight and the floor is just about 3/4 done. Saturday morning i finish. Here she is!


Then it was on to the upper cabinets. Luckily my buddy John came over and gave me a hand hanging them up. Because if there is one thing that physically cannot be done alone, it's hanging cabinets.
Here are the wall cabinets ready to go up.


BTW, did i mention i have the COOLEST neighbor in the world?? He's a dad with 4 kids, the youngest being 14. He's in the Army reserve, and he used to be a Marine. Anyway, he's a great guy, super nice, and comes over often to see how i'm doing with the re-build. Saturday he brought over a little honey holiday cheer in a bottle!


On Sunday, i assembled all of the floor cabinets and put them in . Here they are up-side down with feet.


All of our cabinets were purchased from Ikea, and i must say, after working with them for quite some time, i'm impressed with the way they are thought out and built. Oh, and the price, too!

So that's about it for this update. The move was once again postponed; this time until Wednesday. That gives me one evening to finish up the kitchen & clean up the house, one evening to pack everything i own in the apartment, and then Wednesday morning it's go time. My life will be a GAZILLION times better!
Wish me luck, peeps!

In addition, here's the story of a man who as a teenager survived the assault in 1941. He is 86 years old, and returning to Pearl Harbor for the first time since the attack.

So as you can imagine, we were supposed to already be moved into our new place.
ROLF.
There is still a TON of work to be done on the house. We still have no kitchen.
The good news is that all of our stuff has arrived and is sitting in our living room in boxes - appliances and cabinets. All we have to do is get a finished kitchen to put them in.
The wall colors have been picked out and the paints have been purchased. We'll start painting two of the rooms today, and the kitchen hopefully by this weekend. I still need to sand the walls, put on another coat of joint compound, and then of course, sand again. Once that is finished, the floors can go in, followed by the cabinets.
We're gonna shoot for next weekend (Dec 12) as the move date. Keep your fingers crossed!

The days of working on the house are running together in a blur. I've spent probably the last 5 days straight doing nothing but drywall. Putting up new sheets. meshing the breaks. applying joint compound. sanding. more joint compound. more sanding. even more joint compound. and still more sanding. This work is relentless and extremely monotonous, not to mention that the drywall dust gets everywhere. The only thing making this work even reasonable is a breathing mask & an awesome new shopvac to suck up all the powder.

I just had to go and buy another massive 5-gallon bucket of joint compound because i ran out again last night. This brings my joint compound usage to a total of thirteen pounds!