The Mallorys Online

WHEW!  Where should I start this post?

Jennifer and I have had the greatest time over the last couple months.  The last post was our Halloween photos and so much has happened since that day.  We have spent a good portion of this year planning how we would get out of our house and into a bigger place in an area with better schools for Jacob.  We only planned on being in our house for three years or so and then the bubble burst and trashed any hope we had of selling our house any time soon.  Well, we persevered and worked with an amazing realtor, Mike Bailey, who was able to put us in the house of our dreams.  We moved a few miles east of Sacramento to Roseville.  Our neighborhood is everything we wanted with highly ranked schools and families all around us.  We are at the end of a cul-de-sac with a huge yard for Jacob.  We are blessed that it all worked out in the end.  We are still settling into the house and will get some photos up soon to show our friends and family that are out of town.

Thanksgiving started with our annual tradition to participate in the 5k walk for the Run to Feed the Hungry.  Jacob woke up with a cold, but we faced the elements (foolishly) and Jacob let us know how unhappy he was with our decision the entire walk.  I ended up carrying him over half the walk, adding a quick 25lbs to my body for a couple miles… ouch.  After the walk we headed over to Grammy Barbara’s for a great traditional meal.  Her boyfriend Les greeted us with some of the best egg nog we’ve ever had.  Jacob had a good time relaxing after our tough morning.  The next day we headed out to Nani Karla’s for a second round of Thanksgiving with Jacob’s great grandparents and cousin.

Jennifer and I have been going back and forth on where to put a play area for Jacob. Our house doesn’t have any spare square footage, but we wanted somewhere we can put him down and keep an eye on him while he entertains himself. We finally decided to give our breakfast room a makeover. We took the table out, put down foam alphabet floor tiles and gated the area off. Jacob loves crawling around and playing with all his toys in one spot and it’s right in the center of the house so we can watch him while we make dinner or clean up.

Update 12/16/09

We have owned this vacuum for about a year and a half.  I posted this review with no idea about the amount of traffic it would attract.  It seems a lot of people need a vacuum for pet hair!  Well I’m sorry to say that I just got word from Best Buy that my third (yes, third) replacement is ready.  When this vacuum works, it’s amazing.  However, there is an issue with the beater brush motor and I’ve had the same problem on two different machines now where the beater brush stops spinning with any resistance.  Thankfully I got the Best Buy repair plan when I bought the vacuum.  I can no longer recommend the vacuum due to this big issue.  There are two critical elements to successfully picking up dirt: suction and disruption.  Without the beater brush the vacuum is extremely inefficient at picking up anything, let alone pet hair.  The search is still on for the perfect vacuum and it seems a few commentors have been pleased with their Dyson.  I’m still struggling with the price, but I’m a lot closer to spending $500 than I was a year and a half ago.

Jennifer and I have been using the same, inexpensive vacuum since we moved into this house four years ago.  The carpet has since been replaced so there shouldn’t be too much dirt in the carpets, right?  Well, we have two long-haired cats with dark gray fur.  They like to chase each other around and pull out clumps of fur all over the house.  The old vacuum was good at getting most of the surface level stuff, but we could tell it wasn’t doing a great job.  Jacob will be playing on the floor soon and I don’t want a bunch of dust and dirt in our carpet.  We finally decided it was time to get a new vacuum this week.

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Since we’re doing everything but the cabinets and the floors I figure I’ll call it a remodel.  The granite is in and the walls are painted, but we don’t get our appliances until tomorrow.  I uploaded the pictures of the kitchen counter tear-out.  I will post pictures of the final product tomorrow once the new appliances are in!  Check the pics out in our photo gallery.

Well I just finished my tenth run with my Nike+ gear. Today I finished my first non-stop 2.5 mile run at an average pace of 10′08″, which is much better than my first run of 1.35 miles @ 10′57″ pace! My best mile so far is a measly 9′15″ so I have a long way to go before I can even think 5k. Here is a shot of my runs by distance.

Jennifer and I are also excited to get granite counters installed this weekend! We decided on tropical brown, which just happens to be what our friends have in their new house! There are so many variations of granite that it’s hard to show you a sample, but picture this with more black. I said I would post shots of the carpet so I’ll just wait until the granite is in and post them both at the same time.Â

Wow, I never thought about the work involved with prepping the house to re-carpet. I basically had to move the entire house into the backyard and then move it back in. The process did give us a chance to really clean the house out so that was good. It only took the carpet installers 4 hours! These guys were quick and did an amazing job. The carpet makes the whole house look brand new, we love it! I’ll be sure to post before/after pics once I take the after shots tomorrow.

I have a couple bids on granite counters for the kitchen so that’s the next project.

We’ve refinanced and we’re ready to upgrade a few things in our house. We picked out new carpet. The carpet the last owners put into the house reminds me of cheap apartment carpet. We picked out a frieze style Stainmaster carpet that will look amazing. They come out to install it this Saturday!

The second improvement will be in the kitchen. For years we’ve dealt with white tile with white, unsealed grout. If you spill ANYTHING on this tile, it’s going to leave a stain. You could spill bleach and it would find a way to stain the grout. We’re going to put in granite countertops with stainless steel appliances. We haven’t settled on the color of granite yet, but I’ll be sure to post pics once we’re done.