Progress!

Today our friend Austin came over and helped us get a LOT done on the house. He really knows what he's doing (he's a professional framer) and so he dug right in. This last week Rick rented a jackhammer and got all the concrete up around the plumbing but wasn't able to get a hole through the outside wall of the foundation. He was also able to dig a trench from the laundry room across to the bathroom wall, which is what our plumber asked us to do. Austin brought a tool to get the hole through the foundation done, so Rick was able to do that first today while Austin and I worked on getting all of the rest of the kitchen floor tile up. 

Our sad living room, filled to the brim with displaced stuff and construction items

The trench that Rick dug and the hole through the foundation

The exposed plumbing after jackhammering

Austin, standing where our pantry used to be, and Rick standing where the fridge normally goes, getting rid of our pantry

We decided to remove this wall in our kitchen to open it up, and we plan on putting cupboards in, and a little kitchen breakfast bar for some seating. I can envision it now...

You can see where the wall used to be (we still need to move the electrical), looking towards the front door, you can also see all the tile is gone

The newly opened up kitchen

And another view

The growing construction garbage pile in the backyard

Rick and I are so glad Austin was able to help us so much today. We are SO exhausted after a day of such hard work. Tomorrow our plumber is coming to do the plumbing that goes in the trench. We are hoping Rick's Dad can come and help us pour concrete Friday to fill that all in. Austin will come back Saturday evening to frame everything in, and hopefully the plumber will come back first of next week to do the finishing plumbing. Then we will be ready for finishing work!! So we're getting closer!

We are also looking forward to Dave, Erin and Royal being in town this week and going to Angelie's (Dave's sister) wedding. We also have my Grandma's 91st birthday next weekend, which I am also looking forward to!

Hope all is well with all of you!

house update

My friend Makelle's Dad is a plumber and came and looked at everything for us on Monday and it looks like we have more work than we thought. The genius that lived here before us did some poor plumbing (what a surprise!). It is definitely not up to code so he is going to help us get there. Basically the plumbing from our laundry room goes outside, under the deck, alongside the house and into the kitchen/bathroom to drain. There are some bizarre angles and its amazing the water even flows correctly! So we had to rip the deck up to expose the plumbing, we are going to have to jack hammer out the concrete floor in the kitchen/bath to expose all the piping etc. Then Gary (Makelle's Dad) is going to come and re-route the plumbing to the correct location. Then we'll repour concrete and let it cure. Then our friend Austin will come in and re-frame everything. Then Gary will have to come back and do the finishing plumbing around the framing. Whew. Aren't you exhausted just thinking about it? I am. We're hoping to get the concrete removed this weekend so Gary can come back first thing next week and we'll be able to get Austin out here by the following weekend. I am very optimistically hoping we might be back into our house by the 2nd week of May. Keep your fingers crossed. Not everything would be done by then I don't think, but we'd probably have running water at least.
The plumbing is costing us a LOT more than we thought it would, even though we are getting an amazing deal from Gary. We just didn't know that we'd have to worry about all this external plumbing. Big surprise! I just have to keep thinking how great it will all be when its all done.
So just an FYI, we are selling our portable dishwasher for $200 if you know anyone who is interested. It's such an awesome solution if you don't have room for a built in one. And they sell for about $350 new. I will be thrilled when we have a built in one soon! Hooray! We will also be selling our fridge, but we're not quite there yet, since we have to have a new fridge to transfer all our food into.
All else is well. We are VERY excited for nice Spring weather this weekend. I have 3 birthdays to go to on Saturday, which is crazy. School is plugging along also!
Let me know if you know anyone who might want that dishwasher :)
Lauren

The twins' 1st Birthday!

My girlfriend Amber has twin boys, Kash & Jaxson and they turned 1 this week!! Their party was at Amber's and it was fun to watch the boys eat their cake and open presents. I can't believe it's been a year since they were born. Kids grow so fast :)
Their cakes

It was 50's themed, so that's why Amber is dressed this way

The boys and their cakes

I thought this one was cute

Amber and Kash

Jaxson getting cleaned up

Misty's youngest, Bryse, inhaling a cupcake

Faith & Alison watching the boys open presents

Kash walking

Jaxson pushing Eva in his new dumptruck

The boys playing with their new toys

Rick, Dylan and little Eva

A cute one of Eva laughing

Misty and her boys

One of all of us ladies
L-R Faith, me, Jen & Eva, Misty, Alison and Amber

Happy Easter to all, hope you are enjoying your day! Rick and I had dinner with my Mom at Macaroni Grill and are back home now. No Easter candy for us, which was a little sad, but we're living :)
Hope you are all well!
Lauren

Kitchen

This is what our kitchen used to look like. Granted, it wasn't pretty...

But neither is this!
This is after Rick and his Dad ripped out all the cabinets

And look what they found! A whole wall of dry, moldy dry wall! It was so bad Rick could stick his finger through it.

Our kitchen all taped off

Rick's Dad removing the dry wall

So now all of that is ripped out, and the studs are removed. I got all the tile off the bathroom floor so we are in the position of needing a plumber now since our plumbing is really bad. Hopefully that won't take too long, so we can get in there and start re-framing. Once that is done then the finishing work can begin!
Here's one to make you laugh! Shannon and I went to the DaVinci exhibit at OMSI last weekend and this was at the end. Hee hee! I am the Mona Lisa!

School is back in full swing, I already have 2 weeks down! I am taking a Supply Chain Negotiations class, a film class on nature and animals in movies and a Women's Studies class on Gender/Class/Culture. So far all my teachers and classes are pretty good and the best part is I have NO tests all semester. I think I deserve an easy semester, I haven't had one in a long time. Plus I have to go to summer school, so hopefully this will make it a little more tolerable. We have been slammed for work and this week I did 100% capacity, so that is great news. Hopefully next week will look the same. We definitely need the money, to pay for all these repairs!
Hope all is well with all of you!
Lauren

The rest of Chicago

Sorry its taken me awhile to get the rest of these up. School started, and we've been busy of course!
So Monday of our trip we got a rental car, and drove around Lake Michigan up to LaPorte, Indiana, where Rick's grandparents live. We were able to spend the day with them, and then part of the next day. I found Indiana to be really interesting. Besides Chicago, I have never really been to the midwest and it is just so different than it is out here. Everything is so industry driven and people rely on industry so much more than we do out here. There are much more depressed areas and it is hard to believe that Americans can live so poorly. Going around the lake, it is just foundry after mill after factory. It's not like that here, so it was just a lot different. People live much simpler there it seems.
Anyway, Rick's grandparents-Charles and Doris Enochs were so welcoming to us and we had a nice time visiting with them, as well as Rick's uncles and cousins. I was glad we were able to do that while we were there.
Here is one of Rick with his Grandpa and Grandma

And one of both of us with them

I took this from the car on our drive back into Chicago-that's Soldier Field where the Bears play.

One of Navy Pier from the Freeway

This is the view from Dave & Erin's apartment on the 20th floor of their building. Nice view of the Lake and of the Chicago River.

Royal and I

Rick and Royal being silly at dinner

Royal getting to taste some of his Mom's chocolate cake

Our last night we were able to go to a Bulls game. They have standing room only tickets, which were kind of a joke. We thought it was pretty funny to be up at the very top of the arena. Luckily it wasn't sold out and we were able to sneak down and sit in normal seats.
The gang at the game

It was a fun game. They hand out coupons for free Big Macs if the Bulls make 100 points and win. Unfortunately they only scored 99 points. They won, but the whole crowd was boo-ing because they didn't get their Big Macs. We thought it was pretty funny.

The Enochses in Chicago :)

Our last morning hanging out

Royal wearing my coat

And that's it! It was so much fun. Thanks again Dave, Erin & Royal for putting up with us! We loved spending time with you guys and can't wait to see you again in only a couple weeks!