Livin' in a Gangsta TLF Paradise

Want a tour of TLF? No? Well here it is! This is a picture of the outside.




We got an end unit, which is awesome. Not only is it a handicap unit, which means we have some additional space, it also doesn't have a shared door with the unit next to us. We have heard from friends, who have the shared door in the living room, that you can literally hear your neighbors breathing. Or their baby crying. Or very awkward conversations among married couples. And Troy and I do all three of those things. So we are very thankful that our neighbor can't hear us :)

Here is what you see when you walk in.



We chose to move the bed out of the bedroom and into the living room for several reasons. First, the bathroom isn't actually in the bedroom; it's off the main living area. Which means that if Troy and I stay up after Avery (which we do every night for adult time, quiet, and conversation) we would have to walk into her sleeping space and potentially wake her up to use the bathroom = no good. Second, there is only one window in there, making it easier to blackout for her naps. So move the couch in the living room we did. So far, it has worked out great.



Our efficiency kitchen. It is very small, but functional. I wish we had a dishwasher. OH but I do. His name is Troy. But for real. A dishwasher would be amazing. I am so grateful for a full size refrigerator. We also have this weird, small, poorly placed eat-in bar. We have shoved the chairs into the corner and only left one out for baby girl to eat. We don't have a high chair (oh I want one so badly), so Avery is currently eating in a strap in travel Munchkin seat in the chair at the end of the bar. She has been eating in it since we moved out of our house in San Antonio, just pulled up to a table, and it has been working great. It looks like this. We love it. Buy one for your little ones. It has storage and everything.



We are supposed to keep Optimus in his crate whenever we leave. We don't. The housekeeper loves him. Her name is Sonya and she is from Ireland. Optimus loves her accent. So do I. The maintenance people have also figured out that he sounds vicious from outside the door (after they knock), but he is just excited that someone is visiting him and that he's a big baby. Seriously. He still does the excited puppy pee-all-over-your-feet every time he meets someone new. And he turned 4 on February 20th. So technically he's 30 years old in human years. Peeing on feet at 30 is unacceptable. What's a mom to do?? Anyway. His crate stays in the living room and we use it to hold stuff, as you can see. It is the "drop spot" when we come in from errands. It holds things like the diaper bag, his food and leash, and shoes so that Avery doesn't put them in her mouth. Ew.

In the bedroom, we set up Avery's pack n play, laundry area, and almost all of our clothes. Troy keeps his work clothes in the top drawer of the TV stand in the living room, so that when he has early flights, he isn't waking up Ms. Avery at 5:30am. Here are pics of her room/the bedroom.



As you can see, the headboard to the bed in the living room is attached to the wall. Those sneaky tricksters. It's not a real bed. I would have had no idea. Except Troy moved it into the living room and now the faux headboard is still attached to the wall behind Avery's bed. So now her bed is fancy :) Or tacky. Whichever way you choose to look at it.



There is also a faux closet. When you open the bedroom door, you can't see it. Sort of. Troy and I keep our hang up clothes there. Avery's little girl clothes hang right behind the TV. The top 2 drawers of the TV stand are her clothes and the bottom drawer is her disposable diapers, swim diapers, bathing suits, and wipes.



Troy and I share the long dresser. He has the left 3 drawers and I have the right 3 drawers. We mostly wear gym shorts and t-shirts (Troy) and I wear jean shorts and tank tops. It is REALLY hot here. Like 100 degrees by 11am. Yuck.

Here is the view from the little hallway by the kitchen into the bathroom:



Just keeping it real. It's a little messy. Since we have a handicapped room, there is no closed storage with doors under the sink. A wheelchair has to be able to roll up under there! As a side note, the pipes should be insulated to protect nekkid legs from heat, I believe, but that is a question for my friends Sarah and Scott. So our junk is all exposed on the counter for the world to see. Poor Sonya. She moves all our junk every day to clean the sink. The room behind me is Avery's room.



This is the bathroom. The toilet and the shower. There are handicapped grab bars EVERYWHERE. Which is great. They function as bathing suit, bath toy, and towel dryers. In regular TLF rooms, there is another sink in the bathroom as well. But because we have the wheelchair accessible room, there is room for someone to do a toilet transfer (GO OT!!!) and transfer into the tub as well, which is lined all the way around with grab bars. Again, GO OT!! We use the bars to hold our shampoo and such.



So that's our room. You may have noticed there is no laundry in our room. I did right away. BUT WAIT! Right across the way there is a community laundry room, less than 30 yards from our door.



As many of you know, Troy and I have chosen to use cloth diapers, so laundry room accessibility was very important to us while in TLF. Unfortunately, we had an issue with our diaper sprayer hook up to the back of the toilet. Cheap toilet hardware + diaper sprayer = leaking toilet in the bathroom. Not good. We called the front desk and played dumb. After we took the diaper sprayer off the toilet and put it away. Anyway, we are probably going to have to go the disposable route while in TLF. So sad. But I can't stomach scraping poop off the diaper with a spoon into the toilet (sorry for the visual but you can now see why that is not appealing to me). Which I would then have to hand wash because we don't have a dishwasher.



See the wire rack looking thing all the way on the left side of the picture? It is a laundry cart. So that you aren't carrying wet laundry across the room to the dryer. It will forever remind me of this scene from "Friends.". There are 4 dryers on the left and 4 washers on the right. They are free :) There is an ice machine on the wall in the back and table to fold laundry in the middle.



Now you've seen where we are living until August 17th-ish. If you missed my timeline post, you can see that here.

Anyone else lived in a temporary situation and making the best of it? Have any tips to keep from going crazy while living in a 300 square foot area?

"Adult Time" in Vegas Without Baby Avery

So we finished with our house paperwork signing on Saturday around 4:30pm. So much initialing. And dating. And because I couldn't remember what day it was on EVERY SINGLE PAGE I kept asking what day it was. I think the office lady thought I was a moron. She sold me a house anyway. Maybe Troy came off well.

One of our friends drove us down to the strip so that we could check into our hotel. Weird thing about Vegas that I did not know? It is set up like a bowl with the strip at the bottom. Providence (where we bought our house) is on the northwest side of town and it is on the lip of the bowl. So what does this mean? You can see the strip from our yard even though it is 30 MILES AWAY!! So weird. This is our first time living on the west coast and we are used to rolling hills and tall trees. Where we are from, you are lucky if you can see to the end of the street, much less 30 miles away.

ANYWAY - so we check into our hotel, The Luxor, and this is the only picture I got of the inside:



As you can see, the INSIDE IS HOLLOW! I had no idea. I feel so fooled. The elevators run up the sides at a diagonal, very Willy Wonka if you ask me. Unfortunately, we were staying in the west tower, so we did not ride in them. I wondered if you could hear everyone's voices and the slots clanging from your room because it is open all the way down.

We checked into our room which was fitted with gold fixtures and complete with hieroglyphics. Very egyptian. And tacky. And appropriate. We also received a coupon book at check-in, of which we decided to take full advantage. We headed down to the hotel bar, where they were having an "all you can drink" evening for 25 buckaroos. With our coupon book it was $20. YES! The bar was very baroque. I didn't take any pictures but here is one from their website. Huge chandeliers, crushed blue velvet tufted booths, and some cool architecture. We hung out and had drinks and talked for about 4 hours. Which was SO great because sometimes I feel like since Avery was born, all we talk about is her. I felt like we existed in this little bubble, sitting in a huge booth for 10 just the 2 of us, chatting for hours. It was great.



Sunday we got up to explore. We walked around on the strip and had lunch at this awesome place called Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was a BBQ place that served drinks out of mason jars and had confederate flags everywhere. The live musician was really cool. He stood on the stage, just him, his guitar, and his Mac computer on a stool. He played a few chords on his guitar and recorded them. Then he looped them to play over and over again while he recorded new chords over the top of those. He recorded things one at a time on top of those chords like snapping, beat boxing, or knocking on the guitar until he had full music and percussion in less than 2 minutes. Then he played and sang over that. Very cool. I wish I had recorded it, but alas, I did not.

We also gambled. We played craps. And lost $100 very quickly...thanks to Truth Finck for building Troy's craps confidence. You can pay us back when you come visit you lucky charm you. After getting slapped down by dice, we tried our luck with roulette. My sister's husband, whose name is also Troy (oh, the irony), sent me a text saying "Put $50 on red for me" which we did. And WE WON!!! But then we were feeling lucky and played again and lost that too. The house always wins. We should have known.

Then we headed out to the pool. Which let me tell you, was THE BEST part of the trip because of the people watching. It was amazing. First of all, there was a sign outside the pool that said "$10 for alternative pool entry" and we were all "NO we already paid to stay in the hotel, we are not paying for pool entry also." So we go out to the pool deck and the bouncer girl was all "oh no, it's free for hotel guests unless you want to go to the pool party located inside the planter barriers and you two don't look like the type." I was SO offended. What? All of a sudden because we are married and have a baby we can't go to a pool party?? Whatever bouncer, give me a towel.

So we start looking for chairs and we end up finding a set of chairs near the forbidden "planter barrier." Suddenly, my head snaps up and I stare. I. Cannot. Stop. Staring. I am so naive. Alternative pool party. Meaning alternative lifestyles. Meaning a bunch of guys dancing in teeny tiny bathing suits on the pool deck. With each other. And drag queens in sparkly red carpet dresses. To Lady Gaga. Welcome to Vegas. You better believe I turned my pool chair in a complete 180 so that I could watch that. Forget the book I brought. Troy grabbed us a bucket of beer and we stared and had a grand ole time.

After pool time, we headed up to our room to shower. Then we hit up a Vegas buffet. It was pretty delicious. Troy bought tickets for us to go see Cirque du Soleil online. The tickets were $124 per ticket. They should have been printed on gold paper. Not the color. The 14 carat kind. We went to the show. It was "eh." Honestly we were both disappointed. $250 for a show and we expected it to be spectacular. Not so much. Sorry to disappoint.

We went back to our room and went to bed. We got up Monday morning and decided to take the hotel shuttle to the hotel for $7 per person rather than a cab, which the front desk said can cost more than $30. Crazy. The best part about the shuttle was that some of our "friends" from the alternative pool party were waiting as well. Troy and I chuckled.

We went to the airport together because my flight to Charlotte was at 2pm and Troy's to Phoenix ---> El Paso was at 4:30pm so we decided to check in, go through security, and have lunch in the terminal. We considered gambling (because yes, there are slot machines ALL over the airport) but then decided against it because we had already thrown some money at the casinos. We parted after lunch at Chili's. You read that right. The place I worked all through college. I LOVE AM OBSESSED WITH IT! I think most people NEVER want to eat somewhere they worked for 4+ years, but not this girl. Sidetrack over.

We parted. It was a successful weekend. Buy a house. CHECK! Stay on the strip. CHECK! Ogle an all boy dance party. CHECK! See a show. CHECK! Gamble. CHECK!

Fun was had by all. Especially Avery, who stayed with my mom and stepdad in South Carolina.

VIVA LAS VEGAS!

We Bought a House!!! (almost)

As many of you know, we went to Las Vegas over Memorial Day to buy a house. Talk about close calls. Troy flew into Vegas on wednesday the 27th and I arrived the next evening. We were both leaving monday morning. 4 days of house hunting. That's it. No pressure right?

We had made plans to stay with some friends that we had met at Troy's training in San Antonio, Dan and Holly Miller, on thursday and friday night. Troy made arrangements to stay at the Luxor Hotel (the Egyptian pyramid hotel on the strip) for saturday and sunday night. We were optimistically hoping that we would be done house hunting by saturday and could have relaxation vacation time starting saturday afternoon after only house hunting all day friday and saturday morning. SUCCESS!!

We met our realtor Leisl on Friday morning at 10am. She had made arrangements for us to see models in new developments. After doing some research about the area and viewing several school district ratings, we decided that building was the best option. The housing markets in Las Vegas hit a peak in 2005 and then crashed (along with the rest of the market). For us, this meant that homes that had previously sold for 400k+ were now selling for a whopping 100k. The "nice" and "safe" neighborhoods were now in a situation where the "riff-raff" were moving into the big homes because they were more affordable. The school and safety ratings had gone down down down. This left us with the option of moving further from "the strip" and towards Troy's new base (with the Indian Springs label) seen here:



We were looking build in the FAR northwest area called Providence. There are tons of COVERED parks, a YMCA that we get to use for free because Troy's base is SO far and there are no amenities there for families, and the schools are rated a bit higher than the other areas.

ANYWAY - we had appointments to go meet with 5 different builders on friday. The first 2 offices were a total bust. Based on our timeline, we wanted to be in our home by no later than September 1st. The office administrators looked at their builder maps and stated

1.) There was nothing available already under construction with our needs to be ready at that time.

2.) They could not build anything from dirt that would be ready by our desired move in date.

Well sugar. Onto builder #3. Where we came across this beauty.




They had 10+ more to choose from in various stages of build from framing to all the way done and ready to move in. Awesome. There was a house on a corner lot and the couple who designed/built it had backed out last minute for personal reasons but it was good to go. As far as lots go in Vegas it was HUGE.

Let me give you a mental picture of what MOST yards are like in Vegas. Picture this. You walk out the sliding back door. You can literally lean out the door and do push ups on the back fence. No space for a swing set. Or a pool. Or to do yoga. The side yard is big enough for the air conditioner. Thank God for that because you need some cool air. But that's it.

THIS yard is about 40 feet from back door to the fence. And because it is a side lot, the left side is the same size. It's huge for Vegas. Troy was sold. Literally.

BUT we still had to go to 2 more builders. The 4th was ok. The 5th one had a floor plan that made us giddy.






And to top it off, the office administrator said that they had a corner lot. After seeing the corner lot in the 3rd builder we were all "YES!! This is the house!" Then we go to the house to look at it. Wop Wop...same kind of lot as a majority of Vegas houses. What a downer.

By the end of the day, we were SOLD on the other house with the big lot at builder 3. So we went back and made a deposit to show INTENT of coming back to make an offer and sign paperwork the next day, Saturday morning. Here is a picture of the front of the house:



Here is what you see when you walk in the front door with the steps to go up (to the master and master bath, 2 other bedrooms, another full bathroom, the laundry and a loft) on the right (pay no mind to our friend's son or gawk at him because he's so adorable):



Here is a view of the kitchen, looking back towards the front door. You can also see Troy and our realtor Leisl:



Here is the view at the top of the stairs looking towards the loft and 2 bedrooms and the bathroom:



Here is the laundry room off the loft:



Our master bathroom connects the bedroom to the closet so here is a couple pics of the bathroom:





And here is an up close shot of the kitchen stuff so you can see the colors and details:



So those are the high spots in terms of pictures of the house. The people who "designed" it and then backed out at escrow picked several things we would not have done, but mostly things that we like a lot. For example, we requested that all the doors be changed from this:



To this, called a Santa Fe Plank door:



We are also changing all the door knobs, hinges, and the hanging fixtures from silver to oil rubbed bronze. We also requested the builder install a garage door opener...because really?? Why wouldn't the people who built the house put one in? SO weird. We are going to have to buy blinds and ceiling fans as well. The ceilings in every single room literally look like a pot light with a light bulb screwed into it. Kind of weird. And those are high priority items because:

1. It's hot and we need some circulating air and
2. It's hot and we need to block out the sunlight

We will definitely keep you updated on purchase choices for this as well installation. We don't have a ton (or any) of experience with DIY projects so my Dad (HI DAD!!!) will be assisting with some of these projects right off the bat.

We also plan to install a pool at some point. EEEEEE! Scary big project but again:

1. It's hot and
2. It's good for resale value

SO to refresh your memory, here is the layout of the house we bought:



You can see all the optional upgrades listed on the sheet. We have the extra cabinets (3 up and 3 down) in the kitchen and the double sinks in the master bath and full bath upstairs. The downstairs extra room is another bedroom and the 1/2 bath down is upgraded to a full bath with a shower. The loft is open. The master bedroom also has the option of a "master retreat." We are not crazy about that change in the floor plan because 1. We NEVER "hang out" in our room, not even to watch TV so that seems like wasted space and 2. We would rather have the extra bedroom. We asked the builder to put the wall and closet back in but they said that we would have to pay out of pocket for that. She also said that it would cost us more to use their builder to do it than to get a general contractor to do it down the line. So we decided that we'll try the master suite option for a while (or have it be Optimus's room) and if we aren't feelin' in, we can either hire a general contractor to do it or convince my Dad to help us do it (HI DAD!!!).

We are most excited about the backyard because there is space to have a pool (yay) AND a yard for little ones to play. Double points to Troy for insisting on the big yard. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), we have a hard core Homeowners Association. We have to have our yard landscaped within a year of purchase (um hello what about saving for our pool???) and have everything approved through them. BUT having a hardcore HOA saves us from having pink houses and ugly landscaping in our neighborhood which is good :) So we'll see how all this pans out.

Now you know what's up with the house situation. We are doing a remote close on June 26th and Leisel is doing the final walk through for us. We are hoping to having household goods delivered August 20th. Because we haven't had our stuff since February. Do the math...that's 6 months. And we're living in TLF. Can't wait :)