Kristin's Business Trip to CA

I had a business trip out to Irvine, CA at the start of August, and got to have some fun along with the business meetings.

One of the evenings we went to Disneyland. Paul and Angela came out and met us there. One of the very cool things we did was go to a restaurant called Club 33. It is a members only club in Disneyland, but one of the people we were meeting with had a membership there. It was very cool! It is a five-star restaurant and the food was great. It also has a lot of great Disney antiques and memorabilia. The club started out as a place where Walt Disney could take his clients and friends, so it is filled with his style and decor. We got to watch Fantasmic from the balcony of the restaurant, looking out over everyone else's head. That was a nice perk! The whole experience was awesome, especially for a Disney fan like me!

Paul and I under the big sun at California Adventure
Angela, Paul and I at the door to Club 33.
The elevator inside the club. Walt Disney actually saw this elevator in a hotel in Paris, and asked the hotel owners if he could buy it. The hotel owners said no, so Walt sent his Imagineers over to Paris for a few weeks - they stayed in the hotel and record every detail about the elevator, and recreated it exactly in Club 33.
Joan (my co-worker), me, Paul and Angela at our table
Plate at Club 33
Part of the dining room. The picture doesn't show it well, but it was really beautifully decorated.
This harpsichord was commissioned by Lillian Disney for club 33. Lots of famous musicians, including Elton John, have played it when they visit the club.
Inside of the harpsichord
The chandeliers over the tables in the Trophy Room looked like this. The Trophy Room is a smaller dining room, which used to be used by Walt's VIPs. Walt was nosy and wanted to know what they were talking about at all times, so the middle of the chandelier has a microphone in it. Besides listening in on conversations, Walt would also use the microphone to play jokes on his guests...
... the jokes involved these birds, which are animitronic birds perched on the walls above the tables. Walt would listen in to what his guests said, then the birds would comment on the conversations. Apparently this didn't last for too long because people were not fond of being eavesdropped on!
The toilet in the ladies room was very fancy!
Paul took a call in the phone booth.

I stayed at Paul and Angela's place for a couple nights. We had some great dinners and spent really nice time together. I got to meet my "nephew", Riley the dog. He was very cute, well-mannered and knows great tricks!

We took Riley for a walk around the Venice Canals. What a cool area!
Paul and Riley on a bridge over the canal.
We went to Hinano Cafe. Hinano is the beer that is made on Tahiti, so Tim and I had lots of it on our honeymoon. The Hinano Cafe is the only place in the US that sells Hinano, and it just happens to be right around the corner from Paul and Angela's apartment. It was nice to have a Hinano after such a long time!
Hinano bottle

During the day on Friday, while Paul and Angela were at work, I got to spend some time with my friends from college, Matt and Beckie. Beckie had to work so we had breakfast with her, then Matt and I hung out at his place, and then went for a walk up in the hills overlooking LA. We found a really cool old military installation that was turned into a park. It was a place that had radars during the Cold War, and it would watch over downtown LA and was ready to launch missiles if needed. It was very cool, and there was a great view over the entire area.

This was the sign at the entry to the park. Until we read it better, we thought we couldn't go in.
An explanation of how the installation worked.
Looking out from the radar pad, over the valley.
There are tons of hiking trails and bike paths all over the hills. Very cool!
Looking around the park.
Ready to protect the city!

All in all, it was a really great trip, even though it was so short. I was happy to go to Disney, and get to see both friends and family. Gotta love business trips that can turn into vacations!!

Playing catch up

Yikes, has it really been more than three weeks since we made a post? Ooooops...

We have been REALLY busy this month! The first week in August, I went to California for a business trip, then spent a couple extra days with Paul and Angela. The second week in August, the entire Kinsella family went to Lake George for a family reunion. And then, the third week in August, Tim went to California.

On top of all of that, we are both still building the house (which is coming along great) AND selling our current house. In fact, we put our house on the market last Friday. We had one person look on Friday night and another come on Saturday. On Sunday, we had an offer!! The only problem with the offer was that it was below our asking price and that the buyer wanted us to move out on October 30 (when our new house probably won't be done until December). So we made two counteroffers - one was meeting the seller halfway, price-wise, and we would move out early. The second counteroffer was that we would take his asking price, but get to stay in the house until our new house is ready. The buyer took the first offer, which we were okay with. That was, until today when we heard that he might have changed his mind and take the second offer instead. So we are still in a state of flux, but either way it looks like the house is SOLD!! It went so quickly and so well - on the market for less than 48 hours - and we feel really lucky. The best part is that we don't have to keep the house "open house" clean any more!!

Plus, on top of all of that... Cam has been amazingly cute lately. It is ridiculous, the things he says and does and thinks of. Here are a couple Cam Cutes:

1) After I was gone for a few days in CA, then Tim was gone in CA, Cam was a little bit disconcerted about all the airplane travel. On Sunday night, Tim was rocking with Cam before bed. Cam turned to Tim and said very seriously, "No airplane Dada... please, no airplane." He just kept repeating it again and again. Well, Tim's heart just about broke as he reassured Cam that he wasn't going on an airplane, Mama wasn't going on an airplane, no one was going anywhere on an airplane. Poor sweet boy... I guess we need to be more cognizant of our travel now that Cam knows what is going on!!

2) Last night we were eating dinner over at Nana and Papa's. Matt was over too, telling us about his trip to Disneyworld. We had pizza for dinner, which Cam loves but always destroys before he eats it. He was working on eating it and making a mess of it, and while doing that he pulled the cheese off. All of a sudden, he put the cheese into the bowl of his hand, and used the other hand to touch the cheese with two fingers. We had no idea what he was doing. He turned to Papa and said. "Turtle, Papa, pet turtle" - so the cheese in his hand was a turtle shell and he was petting his turtle. What a sweet, imaginative boy!!

We will hopefully have lots of picture posts soon, include Kristin's trip to CA, our week in Lake George, and some cool house pictures. Plus, I am sure we will get some great pictures this weekend when the Borsts come up for the weekend to go to the Fair.

New House: Too much rain!!

Well, not too much has been finished on our house in the last week because it has been raining non-stop. We don't have the roof on yet, so there is a lot of stuff that can't be done. We had the electrical placement walk through last week, where we told the builder where we wanted the plugs, lights, switches, etc. It is tough! Especially trying to figure out where we want to put the switches. We didn't have to upgrade too much, so hopefully the extra price won't be too much. We did upgrade to get fans in all of the bedrooms, the office and the family room. Tim and Cam get warm quite often though, so I think the extra air movement will help. The plumber also came through and started running pipes. It looks like this week there are four days of sunshine, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that they can get the roof on.

We have chosen our roof color (Barkwood, aka dark brown), our house color (Clay, aka medium brown, and the least offensive of the mainly ugly siding color choices) and our stone accent color (Warm Springs, aka... hopefully a mix of browns). We got some granite samples, and need to go check out the tile place soon.

No pictures to post today, since most of the things that have been finished are not really picture worthy. Hopefully there will be roof pictures soon!!