new home. new stories.

I proudly introduce us (jake and kaecee) into the homeowners club! 


We did it! How about those 4 months of dealing with the government? Well, they sucked. But it doesn't matter anymore. We now own the cutest house on the block..as far as I'm concerned.

Recent conversations with my father-in-law, we'll call him Verne:


Jake: We have a pink toilet.
Verne: Haha! Welcome to being a homeowner!


Me: The house smells kinda funny.
Verne: Haha! You guys are homeowners now!


Jake: There is water dripping from the basement ceiling.
Me: What do we do?
Verne: Well, haha, it's your home! Figure it out.


Jake: I learned how to put a new toilet in!
Verne: Isn't it great being a new homeowner?


Me: The outside of the house is really dirty. 
Verne: Rent a powerwasher, you learn so many new things being a homeowner.


Jake: The drain is plugged downstairs.
Verne: Hahahaha!


Me: (on the phone) Hey Verne, there are roots plugging the main line, what do you think?
Verne: (also on the phone) Haha! That's what you get for being a homeowner. 




Needless to say, Verne has gotten a kick out of us trying to fix things. Maybe this joy comes from '5 months of mooching while living in their basement' revenge...but it's hard to say.


Alas, I have good news. Most boxes are unpacked. The roto rooter guy came today to fix the drains. AND we have internet. 


Life is comin' together.

Project Past Times

While Jake and I have been staying with my parents in Preston, I have kept myself busy working on different projects. Jake finished his class and I made decorations for our home...(hopefully we have one soon.)  :) Here is what I've made:

 

I have also been working on a kitchen table with my dad. We are getting close to having it finished. We have one more final coat to do. Here are some pictures of the table after being stained, but it does not yet have any filling or final coats on it. We built it out of mahogany. 

pompeii

Buona Notte!

Today was pretty awesome. We took a train from Naples 45 minutes to Pompeii and the base of Mount Vesuvius. We spent hours walking around the city of Pompeii. It was absolutely amazing. They had people that had been petrified by the volcanic ash on display as well as a dog that had been petrified as well. We saw houses, arches, the city park, the bathing house, and the amphitheater. On our audion tour guide it told about one house that had stables in it where a horse skeleton was found with a harness on it. The city was really amazing to see..so much of ancient Itailian, especially Roman, lifestyle has been preserved.

After touring Pompeii, we came back to Naples and ate at a local ristorante. We ordered spaghetti with a side of octopus salad. We ate octopus!! I thought the octopus salad was going to be a salad with some octopus. Nope. It was just cut up octopus tentacles.

After dinner we went further into the city on the train to the archeological museum. It was really fascinating. They had 2nd century statues and artifacts found at Pompeii.

We just got back to the hostel and are going to chill out for a while. Then we are going out for some pizza tonight!

naples

Our next stop is Naples. We were going to go to another town in Sicily called Siracusa, but the train was scheduled to leave too late in the day. So we decided to skip it and head straight to Naples. It was an overnight train, but we weren't able to get a bed. We "slept" in a coach that had six seats and four people. It was very uncomfortable. I would wake up every little while with a dead leg or tingling arm. We made it to Naples at 5 this morning. We found a hostle nearby and crashed. There is an LDS branch about 3 kilometers away that we were going to try to catch at 9:30. At 1 this afternoon we woke. I guess we weren't going to church.
We walked down the street and found a pizzeria to eat at. Naples is the place where pizza was invented....and the pizza here is amazing!! But the whole city is really dirty. There is garbage everywhere..all over the streets and sidewalks. Dumpsters are tipped over with garbage scattered everywhere. It is really gross. Tomorrow we will be going to Pompeii. It should be way fun!

italy trip. may 2011.

Jake and I have been backpacking around Italy for three days now. We left late Monday afternoon, took a train and went to Rimini, a cute town on the Mediteranian Sea. We got there late Monday night so we stayed in a hostel called 'Sunflower Getaway' or something hippy like that. The whole place was themed off of Austin Powers the Spy Who Shagged Me...yes, I got pictures.
On Tuesday we walked along the beach then took a bus to a country called San Marino. The whole country is basically a medevil castle. Really cool. We waked around the fortress for the rest of the day. That night we caught a night train to Messina, Sicily. It was close to 15 hour bus ride. The train had coaches with bunks in them. Ours had 4 beds total. Our two other riding companions were both guys, one of which would have won gold in the olypics for snoring. Once we got to Messina, we caught a 2 hour train to Paleremo. We got there later yesterday afternoon, so all we had time for was wondering around...which led us inside a really old catholic cathedral, which was still being used for worship. We also ate at a real Italian restaurant for the first time! It was really good. Neither of us could read what was on the menu, so we asked the lady what was good. Jake ended up with spaghetti with bacon in it. It was really good...tasted similar to Mac and cheese. I got spaghetti with shrimp, roasted tomatoes, and clams in it.
Today we spent most of the day in Palermo. It was really cool. We went to a cathedral that had gold everywhere, and murals, and was really old. We also went to the catacombe del cupacini, also known as the catacombs of the cupichans. Hundreds of skeletons that are amazingly preserved. There is one in there named the bambina (little girl) who was so well preserved that it looked like she was lying there asleep...all her hair was there and skin..everything. It was really amazing.
We then took a train to Agrigento, Sicily. We found a cute little hostel for the night owned by this really old lady who doesn't speak a lick of anything that is not Italiano. Tomorrow we will be sight seeing all of Agrigento and then catch a train to our next stop..wherever that may be. The famous spot in Agrigento is the Valle Dei Templi, which means the Valley of the Temples. There are four temples that are still standing today located within a mile. There are also tons of ruins, including the ruins of the great Temple of Zues

The Capitol of the United States of America

On Saturday, we toured the Capitol building. A friend of Jake's from USU has an internship with Senator Hatch and pulled a few strings to give us a personal tour. Michelle, Reed, Christy, and the kids joined Jake and I on the tour. It was really fun. Isaac had a lot of really cool facts to share.

 After our tour, Jake, Isaac, and I went to We The Pizza, a restaurant opened up by a guy who was on America's Top Chef. Super. Good. I highly recommend it. We talked for a couple of hours then caught the metro back home. What a fun day!!

This is the stop we got off at. It is on the same line as us and not too far away. 

Capitol

Freedom statue on top of the dome of the capitol building

Freedom Statue

Looking at the ceiling of the dome from the inside. The dome is 180 feet from ceiling to floor. 

A close up on the mural in the center of the dome. This picture takes up 1400 sq feet.  It features George Washington on a throne with justice and fame on either side of him. There are 13 virgins surrounding him representing each of the first 13 states. Around them are 5 pictures of attributes. I can't remember them all, but there is liberty, strength, science, etc..

All the around the top of the wall is a mural showing different events in the history of the USA. It is 8 ft tall, though it doesn't look like it. This section shows the building of railroads.

This section shows Cortez. I am not sure why this is on the wall of the Capitol building..

Each state gets to choose two important people from their state to have a statue made of them and put into the Capitol Building. Utah chose Brigham Young as one of its statues. I think the requirements to have a statue made of you is you have to be dead for 21 years.

This is the statue room. Statues of the representatives from each state surround the room.

Me, Jake, and Brigham Young.

This is the Supreme Court building.

Date Night

Tonight was date night! It was probably one of the funnest nights EVER!

I picked up Jake from work at 6:45, then we came home and made pizza together for dinner. We ate it all up before I had a chance to take a picture of it. This is all that is left..

After we made pizza, we made a FORT in the front room! I put Jake in charge of the construction...he was SO excited. We pulled chairs together and draped blankets over everything. Jake "laid the carpet" on the inside, while I pilled the pillows.

(NOTE: the 'carpet' was just another blanket.)

I made some popcorn while Jake got the laptop set up with a movie. We crawled inside and watched "Strange Brew".

We slept in our fort.

THE FORT

Inside our fort!

We were sleeping...

"laying carpet"

The Entrance