Moving, moving, moving

This weekend was the big weekend of moving. We moved Sam out of her place and into our house, or at least part of it. This is the view we saw many times heading with loaded cars to the house. Weather was great and it didn't rain.

The cats were pretty spooky as we emptied out the apartment but they had lots of things to check out at the house.
Moved in, not organized, but moved in.
Kind of looks like a house.
Gives new meaning to breakfast in bed.
A little work got accomplished on the bathroom too. I finished installing and grouting all of the tile. Tomorrow I will clean everything up and install the fixtures cause we have to use it.

We tiled all the way up to the ceiling, it looks pretty cool.

Dirty Duo Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from last saturday's race. I did the slip and slide like it was my job. I managed to empty most of the water.

Sam wasn't so sure about the mud.

Nope I didn't loose a tooth, that's just mud in my mouth, and eye, and ear, and a few other places that I am still finding it.

The winners!
Needless to say I was tasting mud for a while afterward.

More of the same

Not perfect but much cleaner.

The shower after two groutings. After Sam got off of work we unloaded some stuff and hung drywall.

Elbow Grease

We are now at the point where everything we do takes a little bit longer since it's what we have to look at. We took a few loads of things down to the house and realized it needs to be cleaned before anything goes in. So while John kept at the tile, I started cleaning. First: vaccuum and steam clean the carpet in the living room.

Before:


During:
Can you tell which side had been cleaned?

After: Oh wait, it's still drying. We'll post a pic after it is dry and re-vaccuumed. It only took 4 hours and a whole bottle of carpet cleaner before the water was less gray. You wouldn't believe what 15 years without a steam cleaning will do to beige carpet.

John started grouting the tile. It looks completely different with the grout. The depth of color is much better. This was time consuming, especially when John realized he had to grout everything twice.

Here is after the second time, with the top area buffed as well.
When all is said and done, this is going to be a spa-quality bathroom. And I have to say, John is damn near professional when it comes to installing tile.

John also mounted the light in the shower so he'll have more light to work by. The shower is no longer a cave.

Here's a picture of the back of the house at night. If you look carefully, you can see me mopping the kitchen floor.

It was a successful day - the majority of the tile is grouted, the light is installed, it's safe to walk barefoot in the living room, the kitchen was completely wiped down, vaccuumed and mopped. Side note: the central vac is awesome. Hopefully the rest of the tile will show up tomorrow so we can finish that, and then we start to move!

Mud, Tile, and Tired

Saturday morning started doing the dirty duo adventure race. It was a 6 mile course that alternated biking and running with obstacles at each transition. There were over 300 people in the race and the coed division was the largest, which WE WON! They had some pretty good schwag for winning so getting started on the house late was worth it.

The last obstacle was a giant mud pit you had to crawl across together on your stomach and run to the finish.
Ok, now on to house stuff. It was 2pm by the time we started tiling so it made for a very long night. The tiles seem to change color depending on the light and what color they are reflecting. We started by tiling the wall by the toilet for practice.
I put in the big sheets and Sam cut the detail tiles on the tile saw.
End of the night (or early morning) shot of the tub. Last week we changed our minds and decided to tile a little more area and had to order some more tiles. We used up everything with only a little left to go.
Things left to tile, inside of the shampoo box, inside of the window, above the shower.
There was a party going on next door so around 11pm we gave a tour to some visitors which was a nice time for a beer break.

One last rehash

John, I swear after this, no more race talk (fingers crosesd behind my back). They posted race photos, which some turned out great, and they posted final splits.

Overall Time and rank: 5:52:01 20/51

Swim 43:53 24/51

T1 2:11

Bike 3:06:00 15/51

T2 2:20

Run 1:57:37 20/51 (run was only 11 miles if you're calculating pace)

Using my run time, had I been able to finish, it would have been 6:14:28. 6:30 was my goal.

It looks like I know what I'm doing! Their photographers were great - easy to see and out of the way.

I was just informed the course was closed and I would not be finishing.
I think this photo is so appropriate and says it all: eyes closed, shoulders slumped, exhausted, barely holding the "finishers" medal.
They sent out an email saying we can register for next year at the early bird price of $175! Act now!! Yeah right. I'm going to hold out for the Barclays North Ironman 70.3 at Lake Stevens WA next July. And now, back to the house.

Getting Old

Sam has been working hard this week finishing the window in the bathroom. Since we never uploaded pictures of the tub and toilet, here they are. The tub is a Kohler with a pop up drain and slotted overflow. This is absolutely the largest tub that would fit in our bathroom.

You know you are getting old when toilets are exciting. This is the dual flush kohler sitting in our garage awaiting installation. It is normally a 0.8L water saver but if needed it will used a standard 1.6L, pretty cool.
Tomorrow we start tiling the tub surround.