Well there haven't been many, but some. We have an extremely long to-do list involved in getting our house ready to sell and getting a new house ready to move into. We had a reality check after talking to a realtor and now we're kind of in stress mode. And i don't do stress mode. I'm barely stressed, and I don't feel too stressed right now, but that's because i'm not really thinking about it.
Here's the low down on what's up at the brubaker house..
This weekend we painted a bunch. Luckily, Laurel and Courtney came over on Saturday to help. They painted a whole room which i finished on Sunday. Friday night, I re-cut the 2nd floor hallway/1st floor living/dining room.. looks way better now. After painting, we headed over to a friends to hang out/watch the first 3/4 of the ugly truth. pretty funny. Saturday, up around 7.. shower, study, class 9-11:30. back home to have some lunch, clean and get ready for our meeting with a realtor at 1. she charges 7% commish so that she can have 4 and the buyers agent can have 3.. i don't blame her, she works hard. but this is a lot of money.. money we have but don't necessarily want to spend. ho hum. so we didn't sign, because we knew at 5 pm we would have a private showing which i will go into in a couple more sentences.
Laurel and Court came over at 2:30 and we painted until 4:30.. they worked on the on the 3rd floor back room and I cut in the front room.. this needs another coat. The paint is old and 'gloopy' and i really should just go buy a quart to paint with instead of using the old stuff. i may do just that! And Alex started the hallway which I took over but we didn't complete before 5:00.
The private showing went well? We don't really know.. because we were outside while they explored. They seemed super nice and they asked a bunch of questions.. they said it will either be within a month or later in the fall that they want to buy. But they said this is the nicest place they saw so far with a nice backyard, etc. So maybe that will help. We told them we'd hold on getting a realtor for a little so they could decide.. this really only helps us because it will save us money. We're going to fill out a sellers disclosure tonight and send it to them tomorrow and tell them they have until friday to let us know if they're serious. Which means i need to call the realtor and tell her we're going to wait until the following monday to make a decision about listing. It would be so nice if this couple wanted to buy it.. total wishful thinking but really.. could we get any luckier in life? that would prove that we could.
So after the showing, I relaxed, Alex went and fed the sheep at his parents and then i went to meet Laurel and Court at Rita's for the free ice. They didn't end up getting one, but i did.. mango, mmm! We headed over to Martin quick to show Court our new place. We will live 3 minutes from Ritas.. niice. And of course 3 minutes from Saigon Cafe which Alex loves. Best Pho in Lancaster he thinks. After that I headed with the girls to Marion Court for dinner and drinks, then bed by 10:30.. it was a long day.
Sunday we woke up at 8 am.. I did some more painting, finished the white room and the top trim in the front room after hitting Lowe's for some more white paint. I even painted some of the hallway.. not much left to go! Then we headed up to Harrisburg, lunch with my sister Jess and niece Makayla at Passage to India, over to my parents to chat for a while, then eventually went to my grandparents for my grama's birthday dinner. Headed home and watched the new series Life on TLC.. shower, bed.
So all that's left to do in our house (that we'll be working on this week) is:
-2nd coat cut on the 3rd floor front room
-finish the hallway/stairwell walls/trim
-paint the floor in the hallway
-paint the master ceiling
-touch ups in the master and guest room
-bottom trim in guest room
-quarter rounds on 2nd and 3rd floors
-packing and moving stuff to Martin (boxes and small furniture)
And then we're done! Can't wait for that moment! Then of course, the painting begins at Martin..
-paint the living room, master bedroom (after removing paper border), family room/kitchen (after removing wallpaper), and 2 upstairs bedrooms .. we have the whole month of april to do it, lots of empty weekends to fill with painting/moving stuff
Have a good week! Easter is almost here!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Paint colors
I'm not exactly the best room decorator, but i'm going to try really hard with this house to make it pretty. There is a struggle though.. or struggles. First, Alex is having a hard time picturing it as our house because he spent so many years there as a grandchild. I can understand this, but the reality is.. we're moving in. So let's get used to thinking about it as our house. I obviously have no problem with thinking of it as my house.. but the other struggle is that it's mainly traditional. The kitchen hardware has gold in them, which irks me but it's something i will not/cannot change. Gold hardware is my nightmare. As are the lights in the hall on the 2nd floor and the chandelier. I digress.
Alex and I decided on paint colors last night.. surprisingly painless considering our paint color dilemma with our first house. But the good news is, I will never pick the same colors from our first house so things can only go up from here.
We choose (these are all Valspar):
*Summer Wish (yellowish cream) for the office (which is the formal living room).
*Ancient Scroll (tan-ish) for the family room/kitchen
*Tempered Gray (purple hued gray) for the master bedroom
*Quiet Mint (which is a light blue mint) for one of the upstairs bedrooms
*Apple Slice (light pastel green) for the other upstairs bedroom
I definitely need to see a wall swatch of the yellow one, i really struggle with yellow on walls. Painting all of these rooms and the family room ceiling is going to be a giant project. But at least we get to tackle it prior to moving in.
Tomorrow I'm taking a half day to work on our current house and we have a meeting with our lawyer to talk business. :) I hope to get a lot done tomorrow and then on Sunday as well. Painting our little rooms shouldn't take any time at all.
We're thinking about getting a realtor to sell our home. I asked my teacher the other day about FSBOs and she basically convinced me otherwise, so I need to make an appointment with someone, don't know who yet, to get it sold for the best price and fast. If we have to pay a buyers and a sellers commission.. we need to make a pretty penny on the property :)
Happy Thursday!
Alex and I decided on paint colors last night.. surprisingly painless considering our paint color dilemma with our first house. But the good news is, I will never pick the same colors from our first house so things can only go up from here.
We choose (these are all Valspar):
*Summer Wish (yellowish cream) for the office (which is the formal living room).
*Ancient Scroll (tan-ish) for the family room/kitchen
*Tempered Gray (purple hued gray) for the master bedroom
*Quiet Mint (which is a light blue mint) for one of the upstairs bedrooms
*Apple Slice (light pastel green) for the other upstairs bedroom
I definitely need to see a wall swatch of the yellow one, i really struggle with yellow on walls. Painting all of these rooms and the family room ceiling is going to be a giant project. But at least we get to tackle it prior to moving in.
Tomorrow I'm taking a half day to work on our current house and we have a meeting with our lawyer to talk business. :) I hope to get a lot done tomorrow and then on Sunday as well. Painting our little rooms shouldn't take any time at all.
We're thinking about getting a realtor to sell our home. I asked my teacher the other day about FSBOs and she basically convinced me otherwise, so I need to make an appointment with someone, don't know who yet, to get it sold for the best price and fast. If we have to pay a buyers and a sellers commission.. we need to make a pretty penny on the property :)
Happy Thursday!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
It's official: We're moving
So last week we made the big decision to move. We're headed out of Lancaster City and into a lovely home in East Petersburg formerly owned by Alex's late grandparents. It's a beautiful home and we're very excited!
Of course, through this excitement is the reality that we have to sell our current home. Before we can put it on the market we need to finish up some projects in order to make it fully presentable.
When we moved in, it wasn't in the best shape. It wasn't terrible.. but everything needed painted, there were holes in some of the walls that needed patched, then we decided to rip up all the carpet and underlying vinyl tile to get to the hardwood flooring, while having the full electrical system updated.
Here's what we need to do:
*Finish painting the 3rd floor bedrooms: The front room was light blue with dark blue trim... i'm on coat 3 with the trim.. i will never paint trim any color other than white because of this, i don't know what they were thinking (that they wouldn't be the ones to repaint, probably).
*Paint the 3rd floor stairwell/hallway
*Paint the master bedroom ceiling
*Some patching and touch up painting on the 2nd floor
*Put quarter rounds in on the full 2nd and 3rd floors (these were removed for the flooring project.)
*Clean clean clean, organize and pack
We plan to have this done in a couple weeks so we can go on sale on Monday the 22nd! Then since we're selling it ourselves I have to make some copies of our flyers to give out to local real estate offices and the hospital up the street since we're in the 'zone where people who work at the hospital can live at some sort of discount (or program)'.
After we complete this work, it's onto the next house.. paint paint paint. We're going to paint the living room, family room/kitchen, master bedroom and the two upstairs bedrooms. Of course there's some wallpaper that needs to be removed first, i ordered wallwick yesterday so we'll see how that works. Picking paint colors is very hard though.. Alex and I have very different taste in that regard. He suggested a deep raspberry for the office, which is what the living room is going to be for us. I just can't imagine painting a room with a dark color for some reason. We think that we'll be done with all the painting by the end of April. Then the estate sale is April 24th, which will clear out the house.. and we hope to move in the 2nd weekend of May!
We're very excited!
Of course, through this excitement is the reality that we have to sell our current home. Before we can put it on the market we need to finish up some projects in order to make it fully presentable.
When we moved in, it wasn't in the best shape. It wasn't terrible.. but everything needed painted, there were holes in some of the walls that needed patched, then we decided to rip up all the carpet and underlying vinyl tile to get to the hardwood flooring, while having the full electrical system updated.
Here's what we need to do:
*Finish painting the 3rd floor bedrooms: The front room was light blue with dark blue trim... i'm on coat 3 with the trim.. i will never paint trim any color other than white because of this, i don't know what they were thinking (that they wouldn't be the ones to repaint, probably).
*Paint the 3rd floor stairwell/hallway
*Paint the master bedroom ceiling
*Some patching and touch up painting on the 2nd floor
*Put quarter rounds in on the full 2nd and 3rd floors (these were removed for the flooring project.)
*Clean clean clean, organize and pack
We plan to have this done in a couple weeks so we can go on sale on Monday the 22nd! Then since we're selling it ourselves I have to make some copies of our flyers to give out to local real estate offices and the hospital up the street since we're in the 'zone where people who work at the hospital can live at some sort of discount (or program)'.
After we complete this work, it's onto the next house.. paint paint paint. We're going to paint the living room, family room/kitchen, master bedroom and the two upstairs bedrooms. Of course there's some wallpaper that needs to be removed first, i ordered wallwick yesterday so we'll see how that works. Picking paint colors is very hard though.. Alex and I have very different taste in that regard. He suggested a deep raspberry for the office, which is what the living room is going to be for us. I just can't imagine painting a room with a dark color for some reason. We think that we'll be done with all the painting by the end of April. Then the estate sale is April 24th, which will clear out the house.. and we hope to move in the 2nd weekend of May!
We're very excited!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Happenings
For some reason i've been loving italics lately.
On Feb. 22 i started a little 'get into shape for spring/summer' deal and so far it's been going well. I'm doing the south beach, sort of? i'll just call it a no carb diet. No carbs for 3 weeks, such as bread, sugar, fruit, potatoes, etc. Of course most food has a little bit of carbs so i consume less than 50g a day which seems to be working out.
This is week two. I have lost a total of 5 lbs.. most i'm attributing to water weight. I've been working on almost everyday. Last week I took a day off, friday. But this week I should be able to do pilates everyday and volleyball on Mondays. My goal weight is 130 lbs. I weighed less than this in high school by 5 lbs but 130 seems like it would be a happy weight. So 13 lbs to go! I've given myself until the end of April to achieve this. This week and next week are no carb, the following two-three weeks will include one carb once per day, like fruit or a potato or a slice of homemade bread. Then i'll hit up the no carb for another week or so depending on how the weight loss is going.
My reward for this is a new bikini for summer and a dress for a wedding in May. Not to mention the reward of feeling awesome at 130 lbs. I can't wait. Alex has been a tremendous help as well. There are bagels at my work right now about 5 feet away.. I love bagels, but I won't eat one because i have my eye on the goal. I've been tracking all of my food and exercise in my blackberry which comes in very handy as well.
In other news, I started my real estate pre-licensing courses last night. There are 2 courses required to take the state exam and I should have them completed by the end of April. It went really well.. we read chapter one and then had a question/answer session since it's a realtor that runs the class. She answered a lot of questions and i'm sure our class will have more over the next 9 sessions. She makes me excited to work as a realtor. Even if i just start part time, the possibilities are endless in terms of income.
Also, we may be moving. This is not a definite yet, the numbers need to be run and some questions need to be answered but it's a possibility that Alex and I are very excited about. If this does go through, we should be a year closer than we thought to starting a family! It's nice because with this realtor knowledge, I should be able to sell my own house, hopefully.. and save some money while selling houses part time so that Alex can stay home for a couple years to raise babies.
Alex is getting a raise in May and I should be hopefully be getting one soon as well. YES! and Finally! : ) That should help with our savings to eventually build a house on the Brubaker Farm.
So, not much else is going on i don't think.. I did list a lot of stuff above, so that's enough happenings to fill the next couple months.
I do want to share some recent recipes though that people who read this might enjoy. On Monday we made acorn squash soup which was delicious!
On Feb. 22 i started a little 'get into shape for spring/summer' deal and so far it's been going well. I'm doing the south beach, sort of? i'll just call it a no carb diet. No carbs for 3 weeks, such as bread, sugar, fruit, potatoes, etc. Of course most food has a little bit of carbs so i consume less than 50g a day which seems to be working out.
This is week two. I have lost a total of 5 lbs.. most i'm attributing to water weight. I've been working on almost everyday. Last week I took a day off, friday. But this week I should be able to do pilates everyday and volleyball on Mondays. My goal weight is 130 lbs. I weighed less than this in high school by 5 lbs but 130 seems like it would be a happy weight. So 13 lbs to go! I've given myself until the end of April to achieve this. This week and next week are no carb, the following two-three weeks will include one carb once per day, like fruit or a potato or a slice of homemade bread. Then i'll hit up the no carb for another week or so depending on how the weight loss is going.
My reward for this is a new bikini for summer and a dress for a wedding in May. Not to mention the reward of feeling awesome at 130 lbs. I can't wait. Alex has been a tremendous help as well. There are bagels at my work right now about 5 feet away.. I love bagels, but I won't eat one because i have my eye on the goal. I've been tracking all of my food and exercise in my blackberry which comes in very handy as well.
In other news, I started my real estate pre-licensing courses last night. There are 2 courses required to take the state exam and I should have them completed by the end of April. It went really well.. we read chapter one and then had a question/answer session since it's a realtor that runs the class. She answered a lot of questions and i'm sure our class will have more over the next 9 sessions. She makes me excited to work as a realtor. Even if i just start part time, the possibilities are endless in terms of income.
Also, we may be moving. This is not a definite yet, the numbers need to be run and some questions need to be answered but it's a possibility that Alex and I are very excited about. If this does go through, we should be a year closer than we thought to starting a family! It's nice because with this realtor knowledge, I should be able to sell my own house, hopefully.. and save some money while selling houses part time so that Alex can stay home for a couple years to raise babies.
Alex is getting a raise in May and I should be hopefully be getting one soon as well. YES! and Finally! : ) That should help with our savings to eventually build a house on the Brubaker Farm.
So, not much else is going on i don't think.. I did list a lot of stuff above, so that's enough happenings to fill the next couple months.
I do want to share some recent recipes though that people who read this might enjoy. On Monday we made acorn squash soup which was delicious!
Monday, February 22, 2010
It's been a while..
I haven't really been all that busy since my last post, I just kind of forget about this blog sometimes. Especially since I don't use the email that it's associated with anymore.
Here are some updates with what has been happening:
After we returned home, Alex's grandfather passed away. Super sad. Apparently Vegas is bad luck. It's always nice to see his family, but under different circumstances would've been nicer.
We had a blizzard. We got 22 inches over the weekend of the 6th but made it out by Sunday to enjoy the super bowl at Matt & Marci's.. then during the week we got another 12-18 inches and missed 2 days of work. Snow in the city is kind of a nightmare. But it's thawing now.. and soon it will be all gone! Being snowed in is nice for a day.. but not a bunch of days. Although I did get to put 2 coats on the trim in the front bedroom on the 3rd floor.. sucks that it needs another coat though. It was navy blue prior to my painting. Alex rolled the walls, which I will have to put a 2nd coat on as well.
We definitely have some house projects to tackle over the next couple weeks. Painting, putting down quarter rounds. We're thinking about selling so we need to get it ready.
Last tuesday, we got our kittens fixed. Domino was back to normal the 3rd day and Kali chewed/licked out her stitches by day 3.. so i had to take her back in just to make sure everything looked fine. they gave me a cone for her to wear, which she hated. i also felt bad putting it on her because she was so freaked when she had it on, she'd barely move. Luckily she only wore that for 2 days and 2 nights and now she seems to be healing. The vet told me they can't run or jump but it's un-preventable.. they chase each other all the time! Such an experience!
We hosted a dinner party with friends on the 13th. It was a wine pairing dinner, each couple brought a dish and a wine to pair with it. I kind of wished it was more structured, but what can ya do! The food was fab and the wine was good, plus good company.. success! Lots of dishes and clean up the next day though, so we probably won't be hosting one of those again for a while!
We saw Avatar on Valentine's day.. which we really liked. I hope there's a decent sequel. We did a lot of visiting on Valentine's day and on President's day which was nice. Plus it's always nice to have a 4 day work week.
This past weekend we had dinner with my parents and Alex's parents at Symposium. Delicious! Then Saturday we went to Victory Brewing Co with the Lancaster Homebrew Club for a tour and lunch. It was very good. We hit a couple of other spots too while we were down that way.. Ron's, SlyFox and the Drafting Room. When we got home we headed out to the Brickyard to celebrate Courtney's birthday with some drinks and dancing. Afterward we headed home because we had to wake up for brunch on Sunday.
Brunch was insane. We went with the Herr's and the Hix's to Eden Hotel..... it's probably the best all you can eat breakfast buffet in Lancaster County. They had a carving station, omelet station, waffles, pancakes, french toast, other hot breakfast food.. a pasta station, hot lunch station, fruit cheese and salad station and the largest dessert station ever! It was crazy good. Alex and I might have to go again in the next couple months. It's seriously insane how awesome it is.. oh and classy too! lol
After brunch we headed to Matt & Marci's so that Alex could help Matt bring in their new bedroom furniture. Afterward we went to Hoss's for dinner, back to our house to hang out before we went to the movies to see Shutter Island. Very good movie. Totally got me with the twist at the end.. the preview didn't do it justice. Without Matt & Marci, I probably would've never seen it because the preview didn't suck me in. But it was very good and I highly recommend it. It's not scary as it's portrayed in the preview.
This week is going to be pretty relaxed. Wednesday the brew club elects new officials. Alex won't be president anymore and I won't be the newsletter editor. It will be nice to have that off of our shoulders. Friday we're heading up to Harrisburg for my friend Nicole's birthday dinner, should be fun!! And then Saturday Alex's Aunt and Uncle are coming in for an early Easter. Sunday, I hope to get some more painting done on the 3rd floor.
March 2nd I start real estate pre-licensing courses. Since i've been interested in that for a while I thought I should just do it already. I have an idea for a business that will go hand in hand with real estate and hope to get into some appraisal stuff as well. I should be done with the courses at the end of April, then I can take the test and maybe find a part time gig somewhere that I can sell houses on the side of my current job. At least until I get some other stuff moving along.
I cannot wait until springtime and summer. We have a few weddings this year and we're so excited for them. Weddings are so much fun! Hopefully March will fly by just as fast as February did and i'll try to keep this up to date!
Here are some updates with what has been happening:
After we returned home, Alex's grandfather passed away. Super sad. Apparently Vegas is bad luck. It's always nice to see his family, but under different circumstances would've been nicer.
We had a blizzard. We got 22 inches over the weekend of the 6th but made it out by Sunday to enjoy the super bowl at Matt & Marci's.. then during the week we got another 12-18 inches and missed 2 days of work. Snow in the city is kind of a nightmare. But it's thawing now.. and soon it will be all gone! Being snowed in is nice for a day.. but not a bunch of days. Although I did get to put 2 coats on the trim in the front bedroom on the 3rd floor.. sucks that it needs another coat though. It was navy blue prior to my painting. Alex rolled the walls, which I will have to put a 2nd coat on as well.
We definitely have some house projects to tackle over the next couple weeks. Painting, putting down quarter rounds. We're thinking about selling so we need to get it ready.
Last tuesday, we got our kittens fixed. Domino was back to normal the 3rd day and Kali chewed/licked out her stitches by day 3.. so i had to take her back in just to make sure everything looked fine. they gave me a cone for her to wear, which she hated. i also felt bad putting it on her because she was so freaked when she had it on, she'd barely move. Luckily she only wore that for 2 days and 2 nights and now she seems to be healing. The vet told me they can't run or jump but it's un-preventable.. they chase each other all the time! Such an experience!
We hosted a dinner party with friends on the 13th. It was a wine pairing dinner, each couple brought a dish and a wine to pair with it. I kind of wished it was more structured, but what can ya do! The food was fab and the wine was good, plus good company.. success! Lots of dishes and clean up the next day though, so we probably won't be hosting one of those again for a while!
We saw Avatar on Valentine's day.. which we really liked. I hope there's a decent sequel. We did a lot of visiting on Valentine's day and on President's day which was nice. Plus it's always nice to have a 4 day work week.
This past weekend we had dinner with my parents and Alex's parents at Symposium. Delicious! Then Saturday we went to Victory Brewing Co with the Lancaster Homebrew Club for a tour and lunch. It was very good. We hit a couple of other spots too while we were down that way.. Ron's, SlyFox and the Drafting Room. When we got home we headed out to the Brickyard to celebrate Courtney's birthday with some drinks and dancing. Afterward we headed home because we had to wake up for brunch on Sunday.
Brunch was insane. We went with the Herr's and the Hix's to Eden Hotel..... it's probably the best all you can eat breakfast buffet in Lancaster County. They had a carving station, omelet station, waffles, pancakes, french toast, other hot breakfast food.. a pasta station, hot lunch station, fruit cheese and salad station and the largest dessert station ever! It was crazy good. Alex and I might have to go again in the next couple months. It's seriously insane how awesome it is.. oh and classy too! lol
After brunch we headed to Matt & Marci's so that Alex could help Matt bring in their new bedroom furniture. Afterward we went to Hoss's for dinner, back to our house to hang out before we went to the movies to see Shutter Island. Very good movie. Totally got me with the twist at the end.. the preview didn't do it justice. Without Matt & Marci, I probably would've never seen it because the preview didn't suck me in. But it was very good and I highly recommend it. It's not scary as it's portrayed in the preview.
This week is going to be pretty relaxed. Wednesday the brew club elects new officials. Alex won't be president anymore and I won't be the newsletter editor. It will be nice to have that off of our shoulders. Friday we're heading up to Harrisburg for my friend Nicole's birthday dinner, should be fun!! And then Saturday Alex's Aunt and Uncle are coming in for an early Easter. Sunday, I hope to get some more painting done on the 3rd floor.
March 2nd I start real estate pre-licensing courses. Since i've been interested in that for a while I thought I should just do it already. I have an idea for a business that will go hand in hand with real estate and hope to get into some appraisal stuff as well. I should be done with the courses at the end of April, then I can take the test and maybe find a part time gig somewhere that I can sell houses on the side of my current job. At least until I get some other stuff moving along.
I cannot wait until springtime and summer. We have a few weddings this year and we're so excited for them. Weddings are so much fun! Hopefully March will fly by just as fast as February did and i'll try to keep this up to date!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Recap:: Vegas
Let's see.. Thursday morning we left our house around 4:15 am to Harrisburg Airport to catch our 6:30 am flight.. off to Cleveland for our connection for Vegas. All went well.. no plane issues, though flying gets so boring! Luckily on the way out we got breakfast and watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and then other various comedies like The Office. We arrived in Vegas around 10:50 am. Off to baggage claim, then to the Taxi line and onto the hotel.
Once there, i changed clothes and made a poor decision to wear heels.. walked over to the convention center in the rain (with an umbrella but still) and spent a good 30+ minutes just trying to find the booth. Kohler had a huuge booth that was in front of ours.. huuge. I spent the rest of the day at the show. Alex got lost in the rain on the Vegas strip.. i shouldn't say lost, more like turned around. He wanted to find some beer place and eventually got there, by cab i think. That night we went out with some of the guys at the show, very fun group! We went to Gordon Biersch Brewery.. delicious beers and food. Afterward we headed back to the hotel, I went to bed.. Alex stayed up with the guys for a few more drinks. I learned my lesson at the first trade show I ever went to.... just go to bed, drinking is not a good idea when you have to wake up early....
The next morning, I had breakfast at the bar in the hotel and then made another trek to the convention center, luckily it was sunny out on Friday. The show was from 9:30-2:00 with breakdown to follow. The last day of the show is always slow... in this case, extremely slow. And the chairs there were very slippery so it was hard to sit without extra effort. At 2:00 we began breaking down.. we took down the large background display and moved some other stuff around. The thing about trade shows is, you have to wait for the crates to come out to pack up. There's no telling when the crates will arrive. My coworker Dave decided to stay behind and wait for the crates because he was catching a Red Eye that night and had no where to go anyway. He let me go have some fun in Vegas since Alex was around and he didn't want me to waste time sitting there with nothing to do. He had his laptop so I'm hoping he maybe had some stuff to pass the time. After I left I relaxed in the hotel for a little while, then headed to the Mirage to meet Alex who had been playing in the poker room there. Then we decided to take a walk down the strip to see what's what. We walked and walked and walked and walked.. we stopped at the Monte Carlo restaurant The Tap, where we got 2 for 1 beers and an appetizer. We walked some more.. I lost $50 in black jack.. Alex won some in slots, just a little as we're both pretty anti-slots.. We really couldn't figure anything out to do, our feet hurt and we were extremely tired. We decided to go back to the hotel to rest then come out again for dinner later on. That didn't happen.. we ended up going to bed around 10. I blame jetlag :)
Sunday morning we woke up to be at the convention center around 8:00 am to pack up the rest of the booth. We finished in about an hour and headed on our way. Back to the hotel for breakfast and up to the room to get ready for the day. We watched the end of Meet Dave and then showered. Took the tram to MGM Grand and some other trams to get to Mandalay Bay. I guess we were hungry again at some point after all the walking so we stopped for lunch at a noodle house in the casino. mmm very good. afterward we put $10 on red at the roulette table for my mom.. lost it.. then played some poker in the poker room there $2/$4 limit texas hold'em.. of course we were playing with some beginners. A friend was teaching 2 friends how to play.. this meant that his friends didn't know they should fold a 2 4 or a 7 2 or had enough sense to just fold instead of calling. I know it's only 2 or 4 bucks to call but still... it messed up a lot of my hands to them 'should've been' folding. Regardless, I won the last hand we played there for $100 and that helped me break even. After our poker fun we wanted to go to a beer store for Alex so we took a cab outside the city to Lee's Liquors. Alex found some great buys and we caught another cab back to the hotel. We shared some brewski's and relaxed until heading out to dinner.
We walked to the Tram and took it to MGM again.. luckily that's where our restaurant was. It was Diego, which is a mexican restaurant.. authentic actually. We had some awesome food and some good conversation with a couple that sat by our table.. they were from Texas and told us this is the most authentic mexican food you can find in Vegas. We were satisfied with that. After dinner, we walked around a bit and decided to head back to the hotel.. we had a flight to catch in the morning.
Our first flight went off without a hitch.. we ate breakfast in the terminal and had a 5 hour plane ride to Philly. Our plane landed 10 minutes late and the gate wouldn't attach, so that set us back another 20 minutes. We arrived in Philly at 5:00 and our connecting flight to Harrisburg was at 5:30.. boarding started when we landed. We got out of that plane at 5:20 and booked it from gate C to gate F.. that means riding a shuttle, a sloww shuttle at that. Needless to say, we ran through the airport and didn't make the flight.. it had left 10 minutes early. Damn US Airways.
At this point we're seriously out of breath (or i am) and sweating profusely (or i am) and we aren't sure what to do. Not one person at any of those desks said, "Oh what happened, you missed your flight, what can we do? do you want to find out when the next one leaves?" etc. They basically just had the "oh that sucks for you" look on their faces. We had to ask all the questions.. where do we get our bags now? when's the next flight? where can we catch the shuttle to the train? where do we go to get refunded for the flight we didn't make and don't plan on taking?? how long does the shuttle to the train take? when does the next train leave for lancaster? Lots of questions we asked.
We ended up not getting the ticket thing figured out, they gave us an email.. or as i call it, an open forum to bitch them out about their poor customer service. I mean, we got off the plane and had the gate call the F gate to hold the plane for the 8+ passengers that were trying to connect but never made it.... that's not customer service. I'm looking to get the whole flight refunded, including the one from vegas to philly.. they should be able to handle that. We did find out that our bags would fly to harrisburg on the next flight.. they couldn't pull them (from where ever they were sitting at that moment (on the tarmac) for some reason, though they should've known exactly where they were.. it's called, computer systems) anyway, we decided to take the train to Lancaster but first we had to take the shuttle to the train station. Let me tell you, we cut it close.. as we walked down the stairs to the loading dock the train guy (idk what they're called) was calling 'all aboard'.. we would've been really really mad had we missed the train too.
We got home and greeted the kittens, we found pee on both couches with some #2 in there as well.. apparently there was a litter box problem. But we put on the fabric cleaner and then Alex's parents came to take us up to Harrisburg to get our bags and my car. Luckily when we got there, the plane that had our bags was landing in 15 minutes. We waited and thankfully got our bags, got the car and left. So happy that it was all over with. Not to mention we hadn't eating anything since 8:00 am west coast time because US airways doesn't feed you on the plane.
We're thinking for future trips we might as well walk to the train station, take the train to 30th street, hope the shuttle to the airport and forget about the whole car situation to save time and money.
Overall it was a good trip, I don't count our misfortune at the end against the fun we had in Vegas. I will say that i'd probably spend no longer than 4 days there on average, especially in the winter, there just isn't enough to do on a low budget. Summertime at least you can sit out at the pool. Maybe we'll see you again someday, Vegas.. but probably not anytime soon :)
Once there, i changed clothes and made a poor decision to wear heels.. walked over to the convention center in the rain (with an umbrella but still) and spent a good 30+ minutes just trying to find the booth. Kohler had a huuge booth that was in front of ours.. huuge. I spent the rest of the day at the show. Alex got lost in the rain on the Vegas strip.. i shouldn't say lost, more like turned around. He wanted to find some beer place and eventually got there, by cab i think. That night we went out with some of the guys at the show, very fun group! We went to Gordon Biersch Brewery.. delicious beers and food. Afterward we headed back to the hotel, I went to bed.. Alex stayed up with the guys for a few more drinks. I learned my lesson at the first trade show I ever went to.... just go to bed, drinking is not a good idea when you have to wake up early....
The next morning, I had breakfast at the bar in the hotel and then made another trek to the convention center, luckily it was sunny out on Friday. The show was from 9:30-2:00 with breakdown to follow. The last day of the show is always slow... in this case, extremely slow. And the chairs there were very slippery so it was hard to sit without extra effort. At 2:00 we began breaking down.. we took down the large background display and moved some other stuff around. The thing about trade shows is, you have to wait for the crates to come out to pack up. There's no telling when the crates will arrive. My coworker Dave decided to stay behind and wait for the crates because he was catching a Red Eye that night and had no where to go anyway. He let me go have some fun in Vegas since Alex was around and he didn't want me to waste time sitting there with nothing to do. He had his laptop so I'm hoping he maybe had some stuff to pass the time. After I left I relaxed in the hotel for a little while, then headed to the Mirage to meet Alex who had been playing in the poker room there. Then we decided to take a walk down the strip to see what's what. We walked and walked and walked and walked.. we stopped at the Monte Carlo restaurant The Tap, where we got 2 for 1 beers and an appetizer. We walked some more.. I lost $50 in black jack.. Alex won some in slots, just a little as we're both pretty anti-slots.. We really couldn't figure anything out to do, our feet hurt and we were extremely tired. We decided to go back to the hotel to rest then come out again for dinner later on. That didn't happen.. we ended up going to bed around 10. I blame jetlag :)
Sunday morning we woke up to be at the convention center around 8:00 am to pack up the rest of the booth. We finished in about an hour and headed on our way. Back to the hotel for breakfast and up to the room to get ready for the day. We watched the end of Meet Dave and then showered. Took the tram to MGM Grand and some other trams to get to Mandalay Bay. I guess we were hungry again at some point after all the walking so we stopped for lunch at a noodle house in the casino. mmm very good. afterward we put $10 on red at the roulette table for my mom.. lost it.. then played some poker in the poker room there $2/$4 limit texas hold'em.. of course we were playing with some beginners. A friend was teaching 2 friends how to play.. this meant that his friends didn't know they should fold a 2 4 or a 7 2 or had enough sense to just fold instead of calling. I know it's only 2 or 4 bucks to call but still... it messed up a lot of my hands to them 'should've been' folding. Regardless, I won the last hand we played there for $100 and that helped me break even. After our poker fun we wanted to go to a beer store for Alex so we took a cab outside the city to Lee's Liquors. Alex found some great buys and we caught another cab back to the hotel. We shared some brewski's and relaxed until heading out to dinner.
We walked to the Tram and took it to MGM again.. luckily that's where our restaurant was. It was Diego, which is a mexican restaurant.. authentic actually. We had some awesome food and some good conversation with a couple that sat by our table.. they were from Texas and told us this is the most authentic mexican food you can find in Vegas. We were satisfied with that. After dinner, we walked around a bit and decided to head back to the hotel.. we had a flight to catch in the morning.
Our first flight went off without a hitch.. we ate breakfast in the terminal and had a 5 hour plane ride to Philly. Our plane landed 10 minutes late and the gate wouldn't attach, so that set us back another 20 minutes. We arrived in Philly at 5:00 and our connecting flight to Harrisburg was at 5:30.. boarding started when we landed. We got out of that plane at 5:20 and booked it from gate C to gate F.. that means riding a shuttle, a sloww shuttle at that. Needless to say, we ran through the airport and didn't make the flight.. it had left 10 minutes early. Damn US Airways.
At this point we're seriously out of breath (or i am) and sweating profusely (or i am) and we aren't sure what to do. Not one person at any of those desks said, "Oh what happened, you missed your flight, what can we do? do you want to find out when the next one leaves?" etc. They basically just had the "oh that sucks for you" look on their faces. We had to ask all the questions.. where do we get our bags now? when's the next flight? where can we catch the shuttle to the train? where do we go to get refunded for the flight we didn't make and don't plan on taking?? how long does the shuttle to the train take? when does the next train leave for lancaster? Lots of questions we asked.
We ended up not getting the ticket thing figured out, they gave us an email.. or as i call it, an open forum to bitch them out about their poor customer service. I mean, we got off the plane and had the gate call the F gate to hold the plane for the 8+ passengers that were trying to connect but never made it.... that's not customer service. I'm looking to get the whole flight refunded, including the one from vegas to philly.. they should be able to handle that. We did find out that our bags would fly to harrisburg on the next flight.. they couldn't pull them (from where ever they were sitting at that moment (on the tarmac) for some reason, though they should've known exactly where they were.. it's called, computer systems) anyway, we decided to take the train to Lancaster but first we had to take the shuttle to the train station. Let me tell you, we cut it close.. as we walked down the stairs to the loading dock the train guy (idk what they're called) was calling 'all aboard'.. we would've been really really mad had we missed the train too.
We got home and greeted the kittens, we found pee on both couches with some #2 in there as well.. apparently there was a litter box problem. But we put on the fabric cleaner and then Alex's parents came to take us up to Harrisburg to get our bags and my car. Luckily when we got there, the plane that had our bags was landing in 15 minutes. We waited and thankfully got our bags, got the car and left. So happy that it was all over with. Not to mention we hadn't eating anything since 8:00 am west coast time because US airways doesn't feed you on the plane.
We're thinking for future trips we might as well walk to the train station, take the train to 30th street, hope the shuttle to the airport and forget about the whole car situation to save time and money.
Overall it was a good trip, I don't count our misfortune at the end against the fun we had in Vegas. I will say that i'd probably spend no longer than 4 days there on average, especially in the winter, there just isn't enough to do on a low budget. Summertime at least you can sit out at the pool. Maybe we'll see you again someday, Vegas.. but probably not anytime soon :)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
What happens in Vegas
will probably end up on this blog because I don't plan on doing anything crazy.
However there's always the off chance that Alex may 'Ruffie" me.. but pretty unlikely.
Anyways, we're getting very excited. I keep forgetting that i'm going out there for work and that I have to work Thursday and Friday. But Alex will have a good time on a hunt for great west coast beers and I will get to join him in the evenings and then we have a free day on Saturday to explore and it's back home Sunday.
We have a couple things in mind to do but I think we're basically going to wing it. Hopefully we can do some gambling.. some sight seeing.. some food/beer tasting (hopefully he hasn't tasted it all while i'm away at work) and overall we just want to do as much as we can in the short amount of time that we're there. Luckily the show doesn't start until 9:30 every morning, so I won't have to be there until 9:00 am.. plus the Convention Center is just a couple blocks away from the Marriott, so technically i'll get to sleep in a little bit.
I'm praying that my new flats are on the doorstep waiting for us to get home though, otherwise i'll have a slight shoe situation. Also, the temps there are just around 50 so it's not ideal when it gets colder in the evening but at least it will be an improvement from here.
Tonight will be filled with laundry, cleaning, packing and just generally getting ready to leave. I'm currently trying to get my things together from work so that I don't forget anything.
Whew, but we're taking the camera and we're super excited, just not too excited about waking up tomorrow morning at 4:00 am!!
However there's always the off chance that Alex may 'Ruffie" me.. but pretty unlikely.
Anyways, we're getting very excited. I keep forgetting that i'm going out there for work and that I have to work Thursday and Friday. But Alex will have a good time on a hunt for great west coast beers and I will get to join him in the evenings and then we have a free day on Saturday to explore and it's back home Sunday.
We have a couple things in mind to do but I think we're basically going to wing it. Hopefully we can do some gambling.. some sight seeing.. some food/beer tasting (hopefully he hasn't tasted it all while i'm away at work) and overall we just want to do as much as we can in the short amount of time that we're there. Luckily the show doesn't start until 9:30 every morning, so I won't have to be there until 9:00 am.. plus the Convention Center is just a couple blocks away from the Marriott, so technically i'll get to sleep in a little bit.
I'm praying that my new flats are on the doorstep waiting for us to get home though, otherwise i'll have a slight shoe situation. Also, the temps there are just around 50 so it's not ideal when it gets colder in the evening but at least it will be an improvement from here.
Tonight will be filled with laundry, cleaning, packing and just generally getting ready to leave. I'm currently trying to get my things together from work so that I don't forget anything.
Whew, but we're taking the camera and we're super excited, just not too excited about waking up tomorrow morning at 4:00 am!!
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