BEFORE AND AFTER

When you buy a fixer-upper, you never really know what you're in for. And one of the hardest things, I think, is finding contractors that you like, that specialize in what you are looking for, are honest, and do a thorough job.

Because of this I had to make a post about Eric Frishcosy for anyone out there on the hunt. I've known Eric for a few years and I gotta be honest, I usually shy away from hiring friends for various reasons but hiring Frish is the BEST decision we've made in this whole house project.

Scraping ceilings, ripping out floors, painting walls, putting in new floors...the list is endless on what he is helping us with. I was just so impressed with him! If anyone out there is looking for a contractor, or handy man, or someone to remodel for them - call Frish. We've been begging him to move into our spare bedroom :)

Eric Friscosy
OC Home Remodeling and Repair
714-478-6198
frishcosy@yahoo.com

Here are the first before and after pics of our lovely little fixer. We'll have a series of posts as we finish more projects. We'll start with the living room. Thanks Frish.

BEFORE





IN PROCESS - The Man Himself





AFTER




Gotta do the edging on the step down still and finish some details on the baseboards but we're getting there!

Baby Iron Man

Tofer cracks me up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpR7U_kP9K8

The Happys and the Sads

I'm not sure I've ever gone over a month without posting. Just goes to show how crazy life has been. Too many things to discuss so I will just say we are living in our house! It's a major work in progress. We basically live at Home Depot and I spend my days chasing Tofer around the construction zone so he doesn't kill himself. We have some great before and after pics I'll post tonight. Recessed lighting in the kitchen today. Woohoo!

News of the past month:

1. Christmas at "Sunny Acres" - post to come
2. Tofer's first steps
3. Miscarriage at 9 weeks :( - it was sad but I'm ok. More time is good. Life is too crazy right now.
4. Moving into the house is a biggie
5. So many friends who have helped us along the way. I LOVE YOU ALL!
6. Two of my girlfriends are dating pro-sports players (ok, they would get mad at that statement so I'll say....they are being "befriended" by them. HELLO!)
7. Tofer's musical debut - post to come

Life has been so good. Living out of boxes is tricky though. I haven't been the most pleasant wife on the planet.... Found my blowdryer after TWO WEEKS of living here. You can imagine how beautiful I've been looking... We still haven't unpacked most of our stuff because we are finishing floors and walls, etc etc etc. But I love the house! More posts to come!!! Heres's Tof in the construction zone! Seriously, he's the love of our lives.

Happy Birthday Super Star

Let me tell you a little known fact about Kris and one reason why he is a super star (besides it being his 29th birthday today). When Kris was in high school someone thought he looked just like James Dean and told him they would pay for acting classes if he would just agree to take them. So he did and then off they shipped him to New York City to perform in front of a bunch of producers.

Turns out they really liked him and thought he would be great for some show. He had already been accepted to BYU so he would have had to drop out to do this. I, naturally, was wondering why he didn't take them up on it! I mean, shoot, it's not every day producers in NYC are wanting to make you famous, right?

But he chose going to BYU instead. Didn't even hesistate, in fact. It just wasn't the life he was looking for. I've always been impressed with that.

And so I say thank you dear, for not becoming famous so I could meet and marry you. You will always be my super star.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU!

Worst Anniversary Ever

Besides the fact that I haven't slept for about two weeks (took Tofer off the reflux meds to see if he's ok without them and he stopped sleeping for a week so we put him back on...THEN two days later he got sick so he hasn't been sleeping this week either) we also had to move out of our rental yesterday. Yesterday being December 1st, our two year anniversary. Awesome.

Since the house doesn't close til the end of the month but we had to move out, we are homeless. Thanks to our dear friends the Pobsts, we have a place to sleep. Kris and I spent all day packing and moving stuff to a storage unit and feeling sick. We are all sick, the three of us.

We also spent the entire day fighting.

Last year for our anniversary we went to the St Regis resort in Dana Point for the weekend. The memory of that made this year suck even worse (if that's humanly possible).

This morning we felt bad for being such wrecks and our conversation went something like this:

Cathy: I'm feeling remorseful for being such a brat to you yesterday.
Kris: Yea, me too.
Cathy: Do you love me less now?
Kris: No. Do you?
Cathy: No
Kris: But I sure don't love you more!
*long pause*
*laughter*

I like how Kris makes me like him. Dude, yesterday sucked so this is NOT a warm fuzzy post, just get that straight...but in an effort to be repentant I will say, I do appreciate how he makes me like him even when I really don't want to.

Happy Crappiversary Dear.

You guessed it!

Nope, not Irvine! But I knew that would throw some of you off because of the great schools and "safest city in the country" - I think since 2007 Irvine has actually carried that title.

MISSION VIEJO!

I had no idea that Mission Viejo was so AWESOME! We feel really blessed and are so excited! Only trouble, moving tomorrow.....don't close until the end of December....which means we are homeless until we leave for Christmas vacation to Virginia. Thankfully we have some great friends who are helping and an old landlord who is super cool. Blessings.

The house needs a lot of work so we'll do before and after remodel pics just for kicks (i love that kind of thing). And although it will be overwhelming, we are super excited!! As we are not blog privateers I may only post a few outside pics of the house. Don't want the paparazzi banging down the door ;)

P.S. The winning guess goes out to Miss Hermana Anderson (Mission Companion Extraordinaire and dear friend for life ;) love you!!!)

Announcing....

Through a series of miracles (literally) we FINALLY found a house and in a place we had actually never even considered!! Yayayayayayay! Bank owned, KILLER deal, 6 offers in two days and the highest was $35K higher than ours and we STILL won. It's an awesome story actually.

ANYWAY! AFTER we offered we realized more and more awesome things about the city and neighborhood. I even broke down and cried as I was learning. Anyone wanna guess where it is??? Here are some clues and some of the things I found out after the fact...

1. In 2007 Newsweek voted this city the safest city in the country
2. This city is the largest master planned community in the country
3. The high school is in the top 2.5% in the country
4. You CANNOT walk to the beach :( but it's still close (relatively)
   
5. The average high in August is low 80s
   
6. The neighborhood has a big park and backs up to a reserve with trails
7. There is a lake across the street from the neighborhood that we have HOA access to
8. Around the corner is a youth athletic center where they have all the t-ball games, etc
   

Any guesses????????



P.S. This is NOT our house....but it IS a Tudor style and this house is my inspiration. Pics to come.

Cookie Monster

Still Sleeping!

It's 9:15 AM and the baby is STILL sleeping (and breathing, yes I've checked like three times).

How is this possible? I had to document.

P.S. Halloween Pics to come. He was a hit.

To Eat or Not to Eat

Who really knows these days!

Out of the mouth of my crawling little munchkin has emerged:

1. A hair ball
2. Pebbles
3. Jelly Beans
4. Thread
5. Paper of every kind, including toilet paper (if I can get it out before he swallows it)
6. Baby Food - of all these things, I think baby food is his least favorite - go figure
   
   
   

Tofer with his little friend, Emma Claire. Likes older women, just like his Dad ;)

Check out Kris's new Temple Pics!

Kris took some amazing pics of some of the temples around here and is starting to actually sell them to random people on the internet. I think it would be so cool to be able to create something that people would want to buy. Anyways here is a link to see some of them. I know he'd realy appreciate comments on there since it helps his pictures look more popular.