Finally made it home tonight after an intense work week in KC. I was out there for a variety of meetings. The last two days of meetings were the most important...and related to the business surrounding my new position. I haven't had any insight into my new role yet due to some legalities surrounding the contract bid that we've just submitted. As soon as 1/1/12 hits, I'll have much more insight though. Busy times ahead!!
Enough about work. Let's talk food!! Monday night, a few co-workers and I tried out this sushi place in Leawood, KS...Ra Sushi. Super yum with a very zen atmosphere and great happy hour food and drink specials!!
Tuesday Chad and I met up with our realtor to sign the lease on our new place and place the deposit. Very excited to move in to this modern monstrosity! Love, love, love the new neighborhood!!!!! After that Chad, Gene (a coworker) and I hit up Flying Saucer...a great place for craft beers not too far from our new place. Great selection!!
Wednesday evening, we had a group work dinner. Not too exciting, but the food was good. Jack's Stack is a BBQ chain in KC...that is pretty decent. I'm not a huge BBQ fan, but I do like this place. We went to the one in Crown Plaza, which has the best atmosphere...and best of all, it was free!!!
Lots to do this weekend to get ready to move. Wish my Chad was with me, but he will be soon. G'nite all! Happy Friday!!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Kansas City, here we come...
So this past weekend Chad and I headed to KC to try and find a new home. I've been able to transfer with my job to a similar position, and that job will begin in January. So we're anxious to find a new place. It's going to be a bit stressful paying for two places, especially with our extravagant tastes. ; )
Now of course it wouldn't be "us" if we weren't also looking for new places to eat! Ha!
Friday night we stumbled across this little Spanish Tapas place in the West Side neighborhood...La Bodega. It was super yummy!! Saturday morning, we opted for a big breakfast since we'd be out running all day long. A friend of Chad's suggested this quirky little place, Succotash. It was super good...and they serve brunch all day on the weekends. I ordered the Crab Benedict, which was fabulous!
OK, ok! I'll get to the good stuff now!! We started out at a place called 909 Walnut,which we were very excited to see. Lots of amenities! Here's some of the pics from the place and the view from it!
Now of course it wouldn't be "us" if we weren't also looking for new places to eat! Ha!
Friday night we stumbled across this little Spanish Tapas place in the West Side neighborhood...La Bodega. It was super yummy!! Saturday morning, we opted for a big breakfast since we'd be out running all day long. A friend of Chad's suggested this quirky little place, Succotash. It was super good...and they serve brunch all day on the weekends. I ordered the Crab Benedict, which was fabulous!
OK, ok! I'll get to the good stuff now!! We started out at a place called 909 Walnut,which we were very excited to see. Lots of amenities! Here's some of the pics from the place and the view from it!
Green space on top of the parking garage.
Another place we saw was Fleming Place. It's a much smaller building next to the Crossroads District in another part of downtown. It was a great place, but no amenities. It also didn't have indoor parking, and it wasn't close to very many restaurants, etc. It was very unique though. You could enter on the street level, which was the 3rd floor of the place or the first level, which was where the parking was. I might have been sold on this place if it had more natural light...very dark.
So the place that we actually decided on is in the River Market area of Kansas City...north downtown. It's a super cute area...very "neighborhoody" but still downtown. We can walk to so many restaurants, bars, wine shops, gyms and the best...the huge Farmer's Market one block from the place. It's even open year round! Here's pics from the outside of the building...
A cute little building across from the loft. There's also a coffee shop and Italian cafe directly across the street.
The living room...not the garage. ; )
There is a huge wall of windows with blinds that raise up or lower down. The entire place has finished concrete floors.
The cute little balcony, which will be just room enough for a bistro table & chairs and our gas grill.
The super cool kitchen with 6 burner gas stove.
The guest bathroom
The super cool master closet with custom cabinets.
...and finally...the drum roll...the crazy, not-so-private, Master Bathroom. This is the view from the bedroom. Ha!
(We're going to have to get over the privacy issue, but I can't get over how cool it is! Jetted soak tub (which I'll never use) and a steam shower with two heads!)
So we should know Wednesday night or Thursday morning if the HOA Board approves us. Keep your fingers crossed. If everything goes well, we'll be moving the first week in January!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Going once...going twice...
Not sold!
Well, I thought we sold the house this past week, but I was sadly mistaken. On Friday, we received a very unwelcome phone call from our realtor stating that they "buyers" were pulling out of the contract. The supposed "buyers" were pre-approved for a FHA loan. I even had a copy of the pre-approval letter! Somehow though they couldn't come up with the 3.5% down payment. So onward and upward...at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself. I just buried St. Joseph in the yard. So now it's time to get this house SOLD!
After much deliberation, we are still keeping our reservations for KC this coming weekend. We have contacted a realtor who specializes in the downtown area. So hopefully we will have more of an idea of what/where we will be living soon.
Our Thanksgiving holiday was very nice, but we spent a good part of the days running errands and doing chores at our house in between visiting relatives, visiting Grandma in the convalescent center and being on-call for work. I didn't even partake in the Black Friday shopping as usual. It was a different holiday, but still very nice...just not quite as relaxing as it usually is.
I'm very thankful for all the family and friends in my life. I hope everyone had a great holiday!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
If you like it, then you better put a ring on it...
...and so he did! Finally!!!!
With Chad set to leave this past Monday, I had made reservations for us at Charlie Gitto's on The Hill. We had been there once...a few months ago...with the Travers family and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!!! So since Chad and I had only spent time together with the basement remodel lately, I wanted us to have some normal couple time. He surprised me Saturday morning by informing me that he had booked a room at the Four Seasons St. Louis! This was a complete surprise, but I didn't expect anything. I was too busy painting basement trim at the time. Ha!
We decided to check into the room before we went to dinner. It was a phenomenal room. Chad did an awesome job!!! There was even champagne in the room...and it faced the Arch. Check it out!
He surprised me after we got settled and "popped" the question! Yay!!!! Then we were off to dinner. He surprised me again when we arrived at Charlie Gittos. They already knew that he had proposed!!! He had called the day before to inform them. He must have been pretty sure of himself. ; )
They made quite a fuss of it all, which was super nice and flattering. He even made sure we got the waiter we had the first time, Tim. I whole heartedly recommend Tim! The Travers family had even called ahead and had a bottle of our favorite wine sent over to us! How sweet!!! They are such a great family!
Tim made sure that we got an extra special serving of our favorite...creme brulee!
It was truly a fabulous night!!! In the morning we woke and ordered room service. It was a superb break from the basement work that we had been enduring...but had to go back to Sunday morning.
This past Monday, Chad left for a month of training in Madison, WI. I have completely mixed feelings about this. I'm soooooo happy for him! He deserves this new job more than anyone I know. He's worked so hard for it!!! But I miss him terribly! He'll be home on Thanksgiving pending the Wisconsin weather. Keep your fingers crossed!!
With Chad set to leave this past Monday, I had made reservations for us at Charlie Gitto's on The Hill. We had been there once...a few months ago...with the Travers family and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!!! So since Chad and I had only spent time together with the basement remodel lately, I wanted us to have some normal couple time. He surprised me Saturday morning by informing me that he had booked a room at the Four Seasons St. Louis! This was a complete surprise, but I didn't expect anything. I was too busy painting basement trim at the time. Ha!
We decided to check into the room before we went to dinner. It was a phenomenal room. Chad did an awesome job!!! There was even champagne in the room...and it faced the Arch. Check it out!
He surprised me after we got settled and "popped" the question! Yay!!!! Then we were off to dinner. He surprised me again when we arrived at Charlie Gittos. They already knew that he had proposed!!! He had called the day before to inform them. He must have been pretty sure of himself. ; )
They made quite a fuss of it all, which was super nice and flattering. He even made sure we got the waiter we had the first time, Tim. I whole heartedly recommend Tim! The Travers family had even called ahead and had a bottle of our favorite wine sent over to us! How sweet!!! They are such a great family!
Tim made sure that we got an extra special serving of our favorite...creme brulee!
It was truly a fabulous night!!! In the morning we woke and ordered room service. It was a superb break from the basement work that we had been enduring...but had to go back to Sunday morning.
This past Monday, Chad left for a month of training in Madison, WI. I have completely mixed feelings about this. I'm soooooo happy for him! He deserves this new job more than anyone I know. He's worked so hard for it!!! But I miss him terribly! He'll be home on Thanksgiving pending the Wisconsin weather. Keep your fingers crossed!!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Moving!
Holy cow! I can't believe it's been almost a month since I posted last!! I'm going to have to get better about this when after we move. Yep, that's right! We're moving!!! Chad found out a couple of weeks ago that he had gotten the job in KC! Great news!!! Unfortunately, we had to wait until I had informed my CEO before we announced the move. Chad will be working for the University of WI but located in KCMO at a National Weather Service training facility. He will be working with a new satellite that forecasters will be using in a year or two. It's been an exciting but extremely stressful time for us. He head's off to WI for training two weeks from today. Until then we (mostly he) has been feverishly working on the house to prep it for sale (or rental).
We met with a realtor a couple of weeks ago just to get an idea of what to expect. How depressing!! Looks like we will definitely lose money if we sell the house. Currently there are 122 homes for sale in a 1 mile radius of the house, which makes it almost impossible to be competitive. The other downfall is that I lost square footage in the basement. I guess when I bought the home there was about 450 sq. ft. of finished area in the basement. There was some paneling and wallpaper from the 1970s and some nasty, dirty carpet that the previous owner had just laid down over the floor. (It wasn't even tacked down.) I guess it was just enough to qualify for finished square footage. When I moved in I immediately removed the nasty carpet...and the cracked asbestos tile that was under it. It's been a clean, concrete floor since. However, when we met with the realtor, he said that if we don't have the finished square footage in the basement, then we're going to lose even more on the house. *sigh*
We couldn't decide what to do...lose more $ or spend a few $ to finish it and get more $ if we sell or rent it. With the help a family & friends, we came up with a way to finish it (even better than before) for not too much dough. At least we had already scheduled Woods Basement Systems to come out and waterproof, which definitely had to be done if we were going to finish the basement. We were told the basement would take 2 days to waterproof...but of course there were issues. It ended up taking 4 days!!!! The good things with Woods is once they give you an estimate, it is set in stone no matter what else they find.
It took a bit of effort to prepare for the waterproofing. We had to take the old paneling off the walls and pull everything else away from the walls...including the stairs. I won't bore you with all the pics, but here's a few...
We met with a realtor a couple of weeks ago just to get an idea of what to expect. How depressing!! Looks like we will definitely lose money if we sell the house. Currently there are 122 homes for sale in a 1 mile radius of the house, which makes it almost impossible to be competitive. The other downfall is that I lost square footage in the basement. I guess when I bought the home there was about 450 sq. ft. of finished area in the basement. There was some paneling and wallpaper from the 1970s and some nasty, dirty carpet that the previous owner had just laid down over the floor. (It wasn't even tacked down.) I guess it was just enough to qualify for finished square footage. When I moved in I immediately removed the nasty carpet...and the cracked asbestos tile that was under it. It's been a clean, concrete floor since. However, when we met with the realtor, he said that if we don't have the finished square footage in the basement, then we're going to lose even more on the house. *sigh*
We couldn't decide what to do...lose more $ or spend a few $ to finish it and get more $ if we sell or rent it. With the help a family & friends, we came up with a way to finish it (even better than before) for not too much dough. At least we had already scheduled Woods Basement Systems to come out and waterproof, which definitely had to be done if we were going to finish the basement. We were told the basement would take 2 days to waterproof...but of course there were issues. It ended up taking 4 days!!!! The good things with Woods is once they give you an estimate, it is set in stone no matter what else they find.
It took a bit of effort to prepare for the waterproofing. We had to take the old paneling off the walls and pull everything else away from the walls...including the stairs. I won't bore you with all the pics, but here's a few...
We had to take the steps off, since they are next to the wall. So here's how we've been getting up and down the stairs. Safe, huh?!?!
Day 1 - Lots of jackhammering and problems
Day 2 - More jackhammering
Day 3 - Drainage system and rock installed
Day 4 - Concrete
So this weekend we've been busy starting on the remodel of the basement. It's looking great!! More pics to come. Hope everyone has had a much more relaxing weekend than I've had...but at least it's been a productive one!
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