Now that things have finally settled down for us, we finally have the time to work on our condo. Our Corridor-Style kitchen leaves us with limited counter space. Thus, our first large project is to install an over-the-range microwave, as our current microwave takes up almost one entire counter by itself.

You know what that means? Yes…Another trip to Home Depot.

Our current set up is an standard exhaust vent and a cabinet too long to work with an over-the-range-microwave.

After getting a better idea of the severity of this project by doing a little Google research, we purchased all the needed tools, electrical outlets, boxes, and a really nice over-the-range stainless steel microwave by LG. I also ordered a new cabinet from a local AristoKraft dealer/show-room here in town. The cabinet should be built and shipped shortly.

We have all the puzzle pieces, and yet somehow I am still left staring at a wall of our kitchen for hours….probably not a good sign for things to come.

…Stay tuned for as this project progresses

This past weekend my grandfather passed away. You can read his obit here. He was a really good grandpa and a pretty cool guy. I learned so much about him over the weekend and everything he did. He built up the farm, raised 6 kids on one income, keep current on politics and baseball, and knew a ton about the area and the families in it. He was amazed that his grandkids could accomplish so much, but I think we are just taking the traits he had like intelligence, work ethic, honesty, and duty, and putting them to use in our current world. I hope that as we all start families, we can keep those traits and traditions going.
His funeral was wonderful too. The Sons of Norway where there, David Fischer sang one of his favorite songs, and we drove the funeral procession past the farm. It was so personal and really reflected his life and our family. Here’s a copy of the speech that my family put together and that I read at his funeral. Grandpa Ernie’s funeral speech When it’s our time to go, I hope we all have such a warm and loving send off.

A few months ago as a wedding gift, Caleb and Amanda Olson (Newlyweds and Best-man in our wedding) bought us tickets to see Monty Python’s SPAMalot and a weekend get-away in St. Paul Minnesota. Yesterday was the culmination of the two month-long wait.

For those of you not familiar with SPAMalot, it is the musical rendition of the classically hilarious movie, Monty Python and the Search For The Holy Grail. This show debuted on Broadway in 2005 but premiered in England before landing in the Big Apple. Included in the all-star cast was Tim Cury, Hank Azaria, and David Hyde Pierce.

This musical is absolutely fantastic! All the classic movie characters remain the same, new characters are added, and all the characters that you wished had greater character development, get their chance in SPAMalot. (aka. Not-Yet-Dead Fred, the Tower-Trapped Boy who wants to sing, The Frenchmen, and more)

WARNING: The songs will get stuck in your head for weeks!

If you have the chance to see it GO.

Thanks Caleb and Amanda for a SPAMtastic weekend!

Alright, I need to post this before the hilarity is lessened.

I begin by posing this question, “If I were a dead thing where would I be?”

Apparently in the life cycle of buying a house (condo) there comes a brief hazing period for new homeowners. Jess and I can attest to this first hand.

We have had this …well, odd funk coming from our basement for a couple of months now. The smell comes and goes and is more noticeable at certain times than others. As our cat hides down there during thunderstorms we assumed that the smell was coming from …well, her. However, this weekend Jess and I went on a “Find that smell” adventure.

We searched Hi and Low in that basement. We re-organized, swept, swiffered, and washed the floor. We thought we were in the clear… that is until last night when we were doing laundry.

The smell was back, and like a Bruce Willis film, it came with a vengeance. That’s it. I had had enough and I put my nose to the grind-stone in hopes of winning the “finding that smell” game. I had noticed a faint smell when I went to fill the dryer earlier this month. I assumed that with our cat, Katie, and wet clothes, 1 plus 1 = 2. This made sense considering I described the smell to Jess as remotely like “wet dog” or “wet animal.”

This brings me back to my original question. “If I were a dead thing where would I be?”

The answer…as you probably have already guessed…The Dryer.

We stopped the laundry and pulled up the lint trap to find living “bugs” and a few small hard white things in with the dryer lint. “Are those… bones?” asked Jess.

After a slight freakout, I with tools and Jess with a gloves & a bucket-o-chlorine, we attacked the dryer. Yes, no need to call the coroner, at 10:30 last night Jess and I removed not 1 but 2 WAY dead (we think) chipmunks, their “bug” friends, and more fur than I care to discuss from our dryer.

Gross…freakin aye, yes.

Apparently they had crawled into the outside dryer exhaust vent, traveled down the air chute, and got stuck at the base of the dryer exhaust. I could not tell you how long they had been there…but it was pretty aweful. Jess and I spent 2 hours removing dead parts, chlorining, scrubbing, and washing the Bejesus out of our dryer and surrounding floor. In fact, it was a good thing that today was garbage day, because we were able to get everything out of our house, including a few dryer parts that won’t be missed.

Needless to say, I will be making a home depot run after work so we can finish our laundry….animal free.

For those who doubt the power of the Cooper:
Last night, we went to Ikea and bought a bookshelf I’ve been looking at for months. At about six feet tall and with 16 compartments, it’s huge- I have a lot of books. The cost of shipping was almost as much as the cost of the shelf itself, so we decided to measure Ace and see if she could handle it (For those who don’t know, my car’s name is Ace). It looked good in theory, but would it work? We headed down there, grabbed the shelf, and pulled up the car.
About 5 minutes and several sounds of laughter from the other customers, it totally fit! I could even shift, see out the back window, and see all my blind spots. Boone was squished against the from window a bit, but not too terribly.
Here’s some photos for those out there still doubting- I know I won’t be anymore. 🙂