Amy's work went all out creating a circus tent theme. Amy said she did most of the decorating in the bank and then everyone dressed up following a circus theme.
Amy and her boss.
The whole team.
The guy's sign on the end says, "Caution: 6 ft Man Eating Chicken."
I think it is fun that they have a lot of fun together as a team.
Misha didn't exactly plan to dress up for Halloween, but when she arrived at work on Thursday and noticed that she was dressed almost the same as her boss, she had an instant costume.
She borrowed his name tag, borrowed an eyeliner from a friend to draw on some whiskers, and tada, she was "Peter Bambini".
Our builder put up a camera at our new house so that we could see the progress. The downside is that it is solar powered and if it the battery is totally depleted on a cloudy day, the battery has to be charged electronically.
We haven't been able to see any progress for the past week.
Rear of the house
Linsey, the Alliance General Manager, stopped by to check on the progress for us and sent us some pictures. The workers are working hard to get all of the framing done, most of the windows are in, roof is being worked on, and today they are working to waterproof the front entrance and the deck.
Misha
Amy in Utah
In all of our different areas, Chris, Amy, Misha and I have all voted. Good to have it done. Am I thrilled with the people available to vote for? No! Am I ready for the political advertisements on TV and by mail to be done? Yes!
It is NEVER a good thing when the Mammogram Imaging office says you need to come back in for a repeat mammogram because there was motion when the film was taken.
Pretty much immediately your mind goes to "Oh no. There's something wrong with me!" I was thinking that for a couple of days because each time I called to reschedule, the scheduler had conflicting information such as orders were requesting further testing. And... I read that there was a suspicious looking object in the film in one of the preliminary reports.
So, yeah. I was feeling a bit nervous and alarmed. Chris was feeling nervous and alarmed, but we were both trying to be strong.
I was able to get in for my follow up today. Just routine. Everything is fine. Deep breath of relief now.
Mammograms. Get one ladies!
Side note - I walked into the office this morning and saw these two men sitting in the waiting room. Waiting. I just thought that was cool that they would bring their wives and be supportive.
Misha shared her recent artwork. An atmospheric perspective on a city where the builders get lighter the further away they are from you.
She shared her inspiration picture from downtown Denver.
This is the digital artwork she created.
Not only did I get my flu shot and shots with my endoscopy, but Chris and I both got our Covid boosters on Saturday evening. We figured we would have Sunday for a recovery.
He is off to Europe in a couple of weeks and wanted to have as much protection as possible.
I don't think Chris felt nearly as badly as I did. We went to Sacrament Meeting on Sunday and then came home after that. I don't usually nap in the afternoon, but I slept for some of the afternoon. I didn't really feel a lot better until Monday morning.
Amy and Zac went to a haunted house.
Amy posted a picture on the family chat.
Misha: I thought you hated haunted houses.
Amy: I do. I survived.
Chris and I were trying to figure out the last time we went to a movie. Couldn't exactly pinpoint it but thought it might have been Maverick.
We saw Conclave. Interesting movie.
Prior to our arrival, we had been at Costco and then Chick-fil-A. We bought a huge bag of popcorn at Costco but didn't think we could sneak that past the employees at the theatre. So, my idea was to fill Chris' Chick-fil-A bag with popcorn and then stuff that smaller bag into my purse. Worked like a charm. You've gotta be creative.
Our girls would have thought we were crazy I'm sure.
I am pretty grateful for the sprinklers to be blown out. Our water bill is astronomical in the summer.
I wasn't too worried about getting an endoscopy since, like a colonoscopy, you are knocked out and don't remember a bit of it.
For the past four years I have had a hoarse throat and I could no longer carry a tune. Seriously, my voice sounded awful. My doctor said it was just silent acid reflux. In the past six months, my symptoms have increased such that I hear crackling in my throat/chest when I lay down, I hear other crazy wheezing sounds too. Hiking this year has been much more difficult as I struggled to catch my breath.
I figured since we had already met our deductible with Amy's surgery, this was the time to get things looked into.
Chris drove me to my appointment at 6:30 am. I had to be there an hour early for prep and an IV. He went for a chilly walk and then hung out at Panera until I was finished around 8:30 am.
I don't remember a whole lot after getting in the car and driving home. For the rest of the day I felt pretty "meh". I think some from the anesthesia and other drugs and some from the lidocaine they had me swallow to numb my throat.
I won't know much for a couple of weeks, though I do know that one of my tonsils is enlarged.
I did not know this was even a thing until our dentist mentioned it to Amy—gum lasering. It would help to make her teeth next to her two front teeth taller so that they would look better aligned when she smiled.
She had a day off last week and had scheduled with her dentist in Utah.
Before
She is happy that her dentist has tv's on the ceiling. It takes your mind off what's happening in your mouth!
I did not even like to see her red gums. She was in a bit of discomfort for a few days while they healed.
Chris spent the night at Kevin's house. Amy had a hair appointment on Saturday morning and wouldn't be able to pick up Chris until about 9:30 or 10 am. Chris and Kevin spent time talking about home automations. Chris is focused on that right now for our new house and trying to decide what is the best to include.
Amy picked Chris up and Kevin and his family headed out to Idaho for Fall Break. I say family, but it was really just Kevin, Candace and Joseph as the three older kids are all in college now.
Amy and Chris spent some time talking about Amy's finances and future and what she could possibly hope and plan for. The goal at the point is for Amy to get into sales early on. Chris has connections within Logic Monitor where he can introduce Amy to a few key people and have her shadow some of them. All with the goal of making sure this is what she wants to do in the future and to begin making connections.
After December, the field is wide open for career choices for her. I think Chris did a good "sales" job on his own getting her excited about the future.
They had a late lunch, drove up into canyon close to her house, and saw dozens of paragliders.
Amy drove Chris back to the airport and he was back home in bed in Colorado by 10 pm.
Chris left Colorado around 3:15 on Friday afternoon. Once arriving in Utah, he hopped on the train to Provo/Orem where Kevin picked him up for the 8 pm starting football game. Since Chris hadn't eaten, they stopped first at Cafe Rio. Did you know that dishes at Cafe Rio in Colorado costs twice as much as they do in Utah?
Though it was pretty chilly, the game was pretty spectacular from the drone show to the amazing win.
From Chris' text to the family:
"Really fun ending last night. It’s about midnight and no one has left. We were in the lead, then they tied, then we scored a field goal. Up by 3. They wind up scoring a touchdown with one minute to go so we’re down by 4. Gotta score a touchdown too. Quarterback runs it like 40 yards. Crowd goes wild. Then a few bad plays. Finally, a 20 yard pass and run for last second touchdown. We win with 9 sec to go! It was so loud."
After our busy day in Monument, Chris and I stayed over at a hot spring and enjoyed some relaxing down time.
The views from our little trailer included an awesome rainbow on Friday morning.
Hot Springs
We left the hot springs just before noon and drove back to have lunch at our house and look around some more. We have a few more ideas to share with Jennifer and Christine.
After leaving Monument, I drove Chris to the airport where he was making a quick trip to Utah to see the BYU football game with Kevin and then spend Saturday with Amy.
Chris and I drove to Monument on Wednesday night for a Thursday AM meeting with our designer, Jennifer Baker.
Because Chris was flying to Utah on Friday afternoon, we both drove to the airport where he left his car in the Pikes Peak parking lot. I waited outside the lot for him (he was lucky to find a parking spot close to the entrance). From there, we drove together to Monument.
We stopped for dinner in Castlerock but anything that looked good had quite a wait. We settled on Chick-fil-A.
Jennifer texted us on Thursday morning that she was running late (she has just barely moved):
I am running about 10 minutes late, you’re going to have a whole entourage there though. Everyone is coming :-)
We really like the group we are working with through Alliance Builders. The entourage included Harlan our architect, Linsey the General Manager, Christine the Junior Project Manager, and Michael the Superintendent of our build.
It is so exciting to see everything take shape.
View from the front door through the living room onto the deck.
Now that the house is framed, it is actually nice to get different opinions on the layout and potential issues. We spent about an hour and a half at the house and then drove to Plush Cabinets to update our cabinet selections and choose knobs and pull hardware.
After Plush, we drove out by the Springs airport to meet at Arlun and finalize flooring and tile.
Busy day.