Christmas

Well, Christmas this year certainly had it's ups and downs. About a month before Christmas, we got so fed up with our house not selling that we just decided to fly down early and do some work on the house. We (without looking at the house again) ambitiously decided to re-paint the entire interior, including baseboards and kitchen cabinets.


We all flew down to Reno on Dec 19th, and decided to drive out to Sacramento that evening because there was a threat of bad weather that evening. As we drove out, the snow was coming down pretty hard and heavy. We got into Sacramento around 8:30 PM with a very cranky 1 year old. We all had a quick snack, then settled down to sleep on our respective pack and play or air mattress.


The next morning we woke up early and did an assesment of the house. We boldly decided to not only take on all of the aforementioned painting, but we wanted to update the upstairs bathroom as well. This entailed re-grouting the tub, new lino, a new vanity, new faucet, new mirror and of course new paint. We then too off on our first (of many) trips to Home Depot. While gone, we received a call from a real estate agent. Evidently, he thought the house was vacant and just popped on by to check it out. I'm sure he was extremely surprised to see our stuff scattered all over, and promptly called. We had a good laugh over that... I only wish I could have been there to see the look on his face when he walked in to a room full of stuff.


We bought all of the stuff that we thought we needed, then proceeded to start painting. And painting. And painting some more. Friday brought Michael's dad to help out with the bathroom. Which was really lucky, because I don't know if we honestly would have finished if it weren't for him. He and Michael managed to get the whole bathroom updated in a day, which was awesome. Alyssa went to play with some friends from our playgroup in Sacramento, so I had the morning to go on a second run to Lowe's and get a bit of painting done. The rest of the weekend was a long blur of painting, taping, listening to Dave Ramsey and trying to entertain the baby. We wisely decided to stay in a hotel room to not have to breathe paint fumes all night (and air out the house).


We went to Kristen and Jason's for Christmas Eve, which was a nice break. We enjoyed dinner, and Alyssa had fun with her cousins for a couple of hours. Then it was back to the grind. We still had a lot to do, and it took until 6:00 AM Christmas day until we gave up. We got a couple of hours sleep (Alyssa let us sleep until 10:00!!!) and then did a couple of touch up things. It was as good as it was going to get, so we packed up, cleaned everything up and drove up to Michael's parent's for the rest of Christmas. We enjoyed a couple of days there, relaxing. Kristen and Jason were up as well with the boys, so Alyssa had 2 more days of playing with cousins.,br>

If you would like to see what the house looks like now, our agents have pics of the inside (and all of our hard work) at: http://www.team-kirk.com/DispListing.asp?ListingID=115746&AdminID=967&PropertyType=A&BuyerID=


Here are a couple of pictures and a video of Alyssa at Christmas

And a video of Alyssa opening gifts: