Victoria's Birthday

Victoria is now officially two! Yay! Two years have gone fast. On Thursday December 4, 2008 John and I took Victoria to Jungle Jim's Playland where she was able to ride on their rides as many times as she chose. Her favorite was the one in the background of the first picture. It spun you around in an airplane and would go higher if you held down the lever. Victoria sometimes did not realize how to get higher, but she loved going on that one and went at least 5 times.
Then, Saturday December 6, 2008 we threw her a Bug Party. She had some friends over and we did some games. From left to right: Mila, Jace, and Maverick.

First they played "Put the Dot on the Ladybug" which is exactly like "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" except for it's a dot and a ladybug. Then, they all went on a Bug Hunt and collected bugs that I had hidden. Whichever bugs they found they were able to keep.



Next they ate bug cake which I made to look like bugs. And of course, the presents. Victoria enjoyed all her gifts (and is still enjoying them) and had a great time playing with her friends. Happy 2nd Birthday Victoria!
Also, here's a picture of Mikayla at Jungle Jim's Playland because I know a lot of you would like to see how's she's coming along.

November 2008 Challenge

Last month's challenge was kind of a combined challenge broken into three parts: things to be done before Mikayla arrived, things to be done after Mikayla arrived, and things to do in general. We were successful in completing the following: installing most of our doors with latch plates, planning Victoria's upcoming birthday party, following through on Thanksgiving plans, clearing our yard of trees that we had cut down, and taking care of a lot of our Christmas gifts. Also, my challenge was surviving the month with a newborn...which I successfully accomplished. We did sell our Crown Victoria too. Yay!
Victoria really loves her new sister and is nice most of the time. She has however figured out how to climb into her old crib and now tries to wake Mikayla up when she's sleeping. So I've always got to watch what she's doing. The other day we caught her in the crib with Mikayla's binky in her mouth and a blanket on her. We fear she is regressing in her development. We've been setting up for Christmas as well. Victoria has a "Little People Nativity Set" curtousy of her Grandma Pereira. Sunday while she was napping I set it up. John reminded me that she would just take it all down after her nap. I said I knew that and that is why I took a picture of it. So it was looking nice for probably an hour. Merry Christmas!

The birth of Mikayla Isabella Riley

That's right, she's here! Mikayla Isabella Riley was born Thursday November 6, 2008 at 4:52AM. She weighed 6 lbs 1 0z and was 20 inches in length. Wednesday at about 3 PM I began having contractions, but I thought nothing of them because they were irregular. So of course they were Braxton Hicks right? Well, they continued to be irregular for 5 hours and I thought that was a bit long to be having them. Around 5 PM John and I went to DI because I figured they would go away and they didn't. I finally went to the hospital at about 9:30PM to be checked. The nurse checked me and said she thought I was dilated a 5 or a 6! What?!!! Well, she wasn't sure so she had another nurse check me and she confirmed that I was dilated 5. Wow! So I guess even if your contractions are not regular you could be in labor. Mostly Mikayla's been sleeping all day and night except for when she wakes up to eat and things are already tough. We'll get on track though. Thanks to everyone who has been helping us out or giving us calls for congratulations. Here's pictures of the lovely Mikayla. Victoria loves her new sister/shopping buddy.

October 2008 Challenge and Halloween

So John comes home one day with an idea. We have "monthly challenges" for ourselves. Each month we choose a challenge. Something that is a goal, ambition, or whatever it may be that we try to complete by month's end. This was our first month and our challenge was to de-clutter our house by selling or getting rid of the things we did not need or want. In doing this we made $195, which we then used to buy Victoria's winter clothes and had a little left over for whatever. This was of course a bit lower than we expected to get because we were trying to sell our car, but we'll keep trying to sell that even though the month's over. There are also a few of our "junk" items we are trying to sell so hopefully we'll be rid of those soon. It was a good time to do that because we'll be having a new baby soon also. So, yay for challenges!
Now, as for Halloween, Victoria was a ladybug this year. I was a 9 month pregnant lady (which actually is quite scary) and John was a chemist at a Nuclear Power Plant. Here are some pictures. I would had one taken of me, but our batteries died and well I didn't feel like changing them. Sorry for the blurriness.

Peanuts for now, other presents later

Victoria already got her presents for her birthday and Christmas from Grandma Pereira, but she doesn't know it yet. No matter though, we think she was perfectly fine with her box of peanuts. Yay!

Drumroll for...

...the new baby name. We're pretty sure the name of the new baby girl will be:

Mikayla Isabella Riley

We look forward to having Mikayla in our lives. We think that "Lizzie" (from V's middle name Elizabeth) and "Izzie" (from Mikayla's middle name Isabella) will have a blast together. Victoria is excited as far as we can tell. We've explained it to her and think she understands. Thank you for your votes.
Also I think I said I'd let you know what we decided on potty training. Well we decided to go for it and V was doing pretty well. She loved the praise when she was successful and when sometimes tell us when she needed to go, but in the end she truly was not ready. She would still go in her diaper whenever she needed to and eventually did not care for it anymore. So we'll be having two kids in diapers, but oh well. When she's not ready, she's not ready.

Name picking time...

Ok so we've narrowed it down to names that we like. We're no longer taking suggestions, but would like to see what everyone thinks of our narrowed list. Vote in our poll for which name you like the best. :)

Disclaimer: Final decision is still John and Katrina's. We are just curious as to what you all think.

We may be broke, but at least we do it in style

That's right...that's our new 2006 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer edition! A few days ago the Crown Victoria would not start again. We'd been having a few problems with it before, but decided to keep the Crown Vic to save money. Well we got tired of it. We've got bigger and better things to do than to worry about cars. Plus if we ever were looking to get one now is the best time to do so because it's definitely a buyer's market. Just to give you an idea of how good a deal we got let me tell you the price of a brand new Ford Explorer that's NOT Eddie Bauer edition = $40,000 at least. Now guess how much we paid for this one? It has 21k miles, leather interior, a clean record, is still under warranty, and not to mention looks brand new. Ok, we paid approx. $18,200 including taxes and registration! Isn't that amazing?!!! I'm so excited and relieved to have this. I feel so much safer and lucky. More pictures...yay!

So now all we've to do is get rid of our Crown Victoria and sell John's 1970 Ford Mustang and we'll have covered most of the cost...hopefully. I'm sure we won't be able to get a whole lot for our cars, but one could hope. Also, we finally finished our kitchen mosaic and we're almost done with the kitchen...we need to do crown mouldings and seal a few more things before we're done. Did I even mention we were doing a mosaic? Well, we were and it takes a while. So here that is.

Video of Victoria and such

In honor of the new Riley baby to come we now have a pink page. Yay! We are still deciding on a name and still taking suggestions. We have a few picked out that we like, but we are not going to say what they are until we've narrowed it down. Also, my new camera that takes pictures also does really awesome video recording. This was our first take last night of Victoria. It's not that exciting, but we were just trying it out. Let me know if it doesn't upload and enjoy!

I now present to you, Victoria Riley...


In other news when we were in Provo working on painting the exterior of our Provo duplex Victoria got paint in her hair. A lot of paint actually. Here are some pictures of the damage. There is still a little left to get out and yes, I have tried peanut butter. It did nothing except maker her hair smell like peanut butter!

Ultrasound results

Today we took a break from our "Provo Vacation/Work Week" and came back to Salt Lake. John had to go to work and I had an ultrasound appointment. I'm sure you all are curious of the results. It's a hermaphrodite, none of you guessed it. Unbelievable! Ok I'm joking of course, but a surprising amount of you were incorrect. It's a girl! We're excited that we don' t have to change a lot and we think that V will enjoy having a sister. We plan on them having a lot of shopping sprees together and spending all of our hard earned money. :) As of this point we have no name picked out because we didn't want a recurrence of what happened with V when they told us it was a boy and then changed it later on. So we will now begin looking at girl names again. Yay! Suggestions for names are welcome unless you suggest really bad names. If you are consistent in suggesting bad names we will veto all further name comments from you. So don't suggest a bad name! Also, we haven't had enough opinions on potty training for V so if you could take our poll (to the right) and give an opinion then that'd be awesome. Thanks.

Little known facts about us...hopefully

We were tagged by Daniel and Kristen to give six facts about ourselves so here goes:

John:
1. I hate blogging (Katrina is even typing this for John).
2. I like to watch Hannah Montana when my wife leaves the room.
3. I should've studied architecture in school. In retrospect, I should've become an architect.
4. I really really REALLY want a pool, but my wife won't let me get one until we have our final home.
5. I swore I'd never live in Utah growing up.
6. I speak Thai and Laotian fluently and am learning Spanish, Bermese, and Cambodian so that I can take over Southeast Asia.

Katrina:
1. I love to watch Broadway shows and plays. Also, comedy shows. Oh, and shows about crime because I am trying to understand the criminal mind, but my husband thinks I'm trying to kill him.
2. I get really cranky when I'm hungry. If you feed me you're my new best friend. If not, back off.
3. I can't "sit around" all day and do nothing. I'll go crazy.
4. I think John is the most talented person I've ever met and he's teaching me lots of new talents like how to tile, caulk, patch holes, etc.
5. I speak Spanish and a bit of German and am learning Thai (very slowly b/c of lack of time).
6. I want a new car. SUV really. I like the new Mercury Mariner. Want to buy me one?

We tag:
Everyone who reads our blog.

The Rules
A - Each person has to list 6 facts/habits about them.
B - After part A, go to 6 people's blogs and leave a comment letting them know to read your blog, and that they have been tagged.
C - List at the end of your posting who you have tagged.

Potty Training?? Please give opinion.

So I've been going back and forth about whether or not V is ready for toilet training. The first time I ever put her on the potty and asked her to go she went! I was amazed. Perhaps, she is ready. Since then, she's gone a few times consistently in the morning and about once or twice since then in the afternoon. Granted on our NY trip we were unable to "train" her, but she's shown a few signs she's ready. Sure it would be AWESOME if I could train her before the new baby arrives, so my dilemma is this. If I wait until after I have the baby then it'll be a while since there is an adjustment period with a new sibling for both her and I, but if I start now would I just be backtracking when the new baby does come? And of course if she's ready, why not? So I need your opinion. Here's a checklist of what are signs for them being ready from Babycenter.org. I'll let you know where she's at and you give your opinion...please. :)

Physical signs:
Can walk and run steadily. YES
Urinates a fair amount at one time. SOMETIMES, mostly it's still whenever
Has regular, well-formed bowel movements at relatively predictable times. NO IDEA
Has "dry" periods of at least three or four hours, which shows that her bladder muscles are developed enough to hold urine. NO

Behavioral signs:
Can sit down quietly in one position for two to five minutes. YES
Can pull her pants up and down. YES
Dislikes the feeling of wearing a wet or dirty diaper. SOMETIMES (she'll care one day and not the next)
Shows interest in others' bathroom habits (wants to watch you go to the bathroom or wear underwear). YES
Gives a physical or verbal sign when she's having a bowel movement such as grunting, squatting, or telling you. YES, well sometimes
Demonstrates a desire for independence. YES
Takes pride in her accomplishments. YES?
Isn't resistant to learning to use the toilet. YES, she likes sitting on her potty
Is in a generally cooperative stage, not a negative or contrary one. YES

Cognitive signs:
Can follow simple instructions, such as "go get the toy." YES
Understands the value of putting things where they belong. NO
Has words for urine and stool. YES
Understands the physical signals that mean she has to go and can tell you before it happens or even hold it until she has time to get to the potty. NO

NY Vacation

Roll out the red carpet 'cause we're back! We went to NY to visit my grandmother, uncles and a few cousins. I felt sick most of the time because of the humidity, but we walked around NY city and saw a Broadway show (Hairspray). "Wicked" was sold out so we couldn't see that.
Victoria was good and spoiled the whole time. One day we went to Playland and she went on all these kiddie rides, some of which were a bit rough for such a small person, but she's a daredevil. She loved it! I got sick when John made me go on one that spins around in circles. I told him I didn't want to do that one and that I would get sick, but he made me and well I got sick.
It was nice to see family and do a few things, but it was hard to coordinate things because of lack of a ride so at times we were at the mercy of others. Next time we'll probably take a shorter trip. But, bottom line, we're back.

4th, ok it was the 5th, of July party

This year as usual we went to Provo for the fourth and watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks from our Riley house roof. Victoria enjoyed them a lot, but then fell asleep next to John and didn't see a lot of the show. She was so tired because she did not take a nap that day and it was passed her bedtime. After the firework display we jumped in the pool for a while because we were waiting for the traffic to clear up. It took so long for it to clear up that we didn't leave until 2am. Anyway, we had planned a bbq at our Salt Lake home for the next day so we had our own barbeque on the 5th with our Salt Lake friends. Here are some pictures from it. Above our friend Dani was trying to say it was the 4th (hence the 4 fingers) but it wasn't. Please ignore how tired and big I look in the last pic...I was tired and I blame pregnancy. If that counts for anything. :)

Swimming

I did it! Well, John did it. We finally figured out how to transfer pictures from my new camera. It turns out my laptop ports are going bad and not always working properly so we transfered them using John's laptop instead. Here are some pictures of Victoria swimming with her friend Maverick. Everything was going great until he pushed her over and then she didn't want to swim anymore. Go figure. :)

V's Vocabulary and Katrina's Birthday

People usually ask me what V can say these days. So I've decided to make a list of things that she currently says. Lately she's been catching onto words really fast...about one a day if we take the time to teach it to her. So next time you see her she'll probably know lots and I won't be able to keep up. I thought she'd like to know what her first words were one day. I tried to keep it in the order that she said them, but some of them are out of place. So here goes:

Dada, Mama, Whoa, Wow, Up, Pop (soda), Bop, Dog, Boo, Eye, Uh-oh!, That, Cheese, No, Open, Shoe, Juice, Hello, Bye-bye, Whoo-hoo, Ewww, Dude, Ow, Milk, and her latest...'Thank you'.

Keep in mind these all sound like a baby saying it so, for example, "hello" sounds like "lello" and "Thank you" sounds like "tank jou." This, of course, makes it cuter. :)

Ok so for my birthday John got me a new camera. Yay! So hopefully I can finally post some good pics and more...coming soon (when I figure it out). Also, a much looking forward to professional pregnancy massage at a spa because some days your back is just about to die and I'll be needing it. So there you go. That's the little update on us.

Anxiety at the Hospital

I tried to post this earlier, but it didn't save. I told you all I would keep you posted on all baby happenings so here I go again:

Monday, May 19th I started to spot a little blood, but didn't think much of it because I did with Victoria as well. I was told if it got worse I should go get myself checked.
Tuesday, May 20th around 4:00PM I was bleeding a lot. I got scared and decided I should go in to the ER. I thought I was having a miscarriage. I called John and waited for him to come home. We went in and waited...a lot. I think I waited almost 2 hours to even get checked in. Victoria was running around the waiting room and John chased after her. I just sat nervously. When I get called in I get my blood pressure, temp, and heart rate taken. The EMT responder asks what's wrong and I tell him. He types it in the computer and leaves. Another person comes in and asks me what's wrong. A little annoyed I tell her. She types it in and leaves. A third person comes in and takes me to a room. In the meantime, John sniffs oxygen to pass the time. He gets high. I'm told to change and wait for a nurse. I do so. A nurse arrives and takes my blood for tests. I wait again. Another nurse comes for an ultrasound. Finally I can find out if the baby is alright. Thankfully the baby is ok...for now. It is healthy. "What a beautiful alien/skeleton thing!"
I go back to the room where another person is getting insurance info from John. Waiting and more waiting. For what? Test results and a pelvic exam so I can know why I'm bleeding. Victoria is cranky. It is passed her bedtime and John doesn't believe me when I tell him it'll take forever for the doctor to come in and that he should just take V home. 30 minutes later he finally does. I fall asleep waiting. I'm starving and I can't have food because if they decide to do surgery on me I can't have had food for at least 8 hours. Boo.
A nurse finally comes to save me from my misery. She explains she's waiting for a RhoGham vaccination. The doctor comes. I'm checked and she can't tell why I'm bleeding. She says it may just be a popped blood vessel. I now wait for my RhoGham shot. After I get it I have to wait 20 minutes to see if I have any side effects. Finally, finally, I am discharged. It is about 11:00PM. John comes and gets me and we go home. So in summary, everything is ok. I'm supposed to just sit around for a few weeks and try to stay off my feet. I'm finding this hard since I get bored just sitting around (go figure). And there you go. John is still high.

The Official Unofficial Announcement

To all those that don't know yet this is the official unofficial announcement that I'm pregnant again. Yay! I'm currently 12 weeks along and am doing alright. I'm throwing up a lot like I did with Victoria, but I'm better prepared mentally for the task, which is good since I also have to watch Victoria. I waited to tell people this time because miscarriages are common (about 1 in 3). So don't feel like I was holding out on ya. I was holding out on everyone. We're excited and looking forward to another beautiful baby. And yes it was planned. We don't know the gender yet, but we'll keep you posted on all baby info. In fact, perhaps we'll do a poll for those that would like to guess (Sorry Kristen, I'm copying you).

Good Riddance

Deleted by request of John

Our most recent purchases

So as of today we have no money, but a brand new investment property instead. This is the house that is next door to our Salt Lake Duplex where we currently live. It is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home. The previous owner only had it for a little over a year and did the following renovations: all new windows, new paved driveway, new electrical, and had the furnace fixed. Sure we paid for his "fix-ups" considering we wanted to purchase this house before for a lower price, but I guess on the bright side we did not have to do all the dirty work and to be honest we really wanted the land more than the house.

Plus, we already will have new tenants beginning in May because as the Lord works in mysterious ways He's done it again. A family that is in our ward has been wanting a bigger place for a while now. My husband discovered this because he was doing he's home teaching as he should (it still surprises me when he goes, but don't tell him I said that) and they had mentioned it to him. John then told them that we were about to purchase this place and that they could move in to it. They decided they could afford it and so we'll thankfully be having a LDS family move in next door.

As for another "big" purchase we have failed to mention... John received an exceptional bonus this year from work. It was way more than expected. In fact, it was four times more than it was last year. We were very excited and decided it's time we reward ourselves for all of our hard work. John has been wanting a big screen HDTV since who knows when and I told him he could get one with his bonus from work even if it wasn't enough to pay for it. We got one of course. Well, John got himself one (I'm not too big on things like that...I'd rather have a nice and reliable car. So drop him a hint for me). It's a Samsung 52" LCD tv and Blu-ray movies look awesome on it. Movie party anyone? Pirates marathon coming soon. :)

We thought you all should know...

Friends and Family,

I don't know how to start this so I'll just come right out and say it... John and I are getting divorced. I know this may come as a shock to most of you, but let me explain. Over the past two years things have not been going as well as we have portrayed them to be. With John working so much it's just become overwhelming. We've had no time for each other. No time to grow. We'd been fighting a lot and we've decided it's time to move on. We've tried to work things out before and keep things going for Victoria's sake. We've even been in to talk to the Bishop, but nothing has worked. We've just got too many things going on in our lives separately that it's gotten out of control. We decided we will share custody of Victoria and that I will take one of our homes in Provo to live in. Perhaps I'll even finish school so that I can get a job. Who knows. All we do know is that we need your support at this time in our lives and anything you can do to help will be appreciated. Thank you.

Oh yeah, and ...

APRIL FOOLS!

The Adventures of the Kitchen Remodel

So since we've moved in we've been working on our kitchen remodel. After our experience with re-doing the cabinets that were downstairs we decided it was worth it to just buy new cabinets. It took us way too long to finish re-doing the ones downstairs. First, we had to take them down without breaking them. Then, we sanded them down and stained them the color that we wanted. Then, we re-installed them. We also wanted to just make our own cabinet faces because we wanted the "mission - style" cabinets. So we had to cut those out and glue them together to make the new faces and of course stain those. Then we added new hinges and handles and finally it was finished. To the right and up is a picture of our basement kitchen remodel.

All that work led us to just buying new cabinets for our upstairs kitchen remodel. It was a lot easier and it actually turned out for the better. We wanted the Honey stained Alder ones, which compared to the oak ones that you just had to stain yourself would have been a $1000 more expensive. So, after much deliberation we decided to go with the cheaper oak ones and just to stain them ourselves, but at the last minute John decides we should go ahead and get the Alder ones to save us the trouble of staining and working on those. So he buys them and a few days later when we traveled to another Lowe's to buy the remaining cabinets that we would need we saw that they had them on sale for %50 off! We were not about to pay full price for all the other ones we had already bought. We said we'd just return the other ones and get all of them at the Bountiful store where it was %50 off, but Katrina decides that there is no harm in just asking the other store if they'd just refund our money since it would save us a lot of trouble and they would still have good customer service. So we call and ask and they agreed. So all of our Alder cabinets ended up costing us only around $700, which was even cheaper than the oak cabinets that we would have had to stain! Yay! Below, is a picture of the work in progess. Notice, the loveliness of the Alder cabinets. :)

Also, due to the value of granite countertops we decide to go with granite. We've haven't been able to do those yet, but we will be installing those tonight. We are only a few days away from being finished with our new kitchen (Katrina is way excited because that means she won't have to wash dishes in the tub anymore). Victoria has been helping out a lot as well. She helps to get the old adhesive off of the wall (well, she thinks she is, but she's really just cleaning it with a wipe) and sweeps the floor because John makes it all dusty in there. Isn't our Victoria the best?

Questionaire Extraordinaire

So I stole this from Kristen who stole this from someone named Emily. So yeah, it's just stolen.


What's his name? John Bolton Riley
What's her name? Katrina Marisol Riley
How long have you been together? since August 2004, so 3 years 7 months
How old is he? 27
How old is she? 22
Who eats more? It depends on who is more hungry at the time
Who said I love you first? John
Who is taller? John
Who sings better? Uh, perhaps a music person could tell us
Who is smarter? Street smarts: Katrina, Book smarts: John
Whose temper is worse? I blame the lack of chocolate on my mood swings
Who does the laundry? Katrina
Who does the dishes? Katrina
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? It depends on the situation
Who pays the bills? Victoria. Her face sells millions of photos a year
Who cuts the grass? Whoever gets tired of the long grass first
Who cooks dinner? Katrina
Who drives when you are together? John
Who is more stubborn? Suprisingly enough John is...I never thought I'd meet someone more stubborn than myself
Whose parents do you see the most? John's because John's dad travels a lot for business
Who kissed who first? John kissed Katrina
Who asked who out? John asked Katrina
Who is more sensitive? Katrina
Who wears the pants in the family? Katrina wears pants more often because she gets cold. We try to make decisions together.
Where did you meet? Where every mormon couple meets...Provo, Utah
What was the first thing you said to your husband? "Your blender is broken?"
Where was your first kiss? First half-kiss was in the movie theatre, but first real kiss was at John's house
Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement? We were engaged for 5 months...is that long or short?
Where did you get engaged? At a park
Where were you married? Bountiful Temple, Bountiful Utah
What do you do now? Katrina is a mom, sells stuff online (which is what she's supposed to be doing right now), and remodels our homes. John is an engineer at a pharmaceutical joint and also remodels our homes.

Hi! We are the Rileys!

Yay for us finally getting a blog so people can get updated information on what the Riley's are up to. If you haven't heard already here's what we do:

John (27) currently works for a pharmaceutical company in Salt Lake City called Watson's Pharmaceuticals and has been working there for about 4 years. He is also a remodeler of homes.

Katrina (22) is a stay-at-home mom that helps to remodel in anyway possible (which is mostly painting, patching holes, and caulking stuff).

Victoria (14 months) is the best looking toddler EVER and already knows how to use it to her advantage. She can sign for "milk" and when she has pooped. She says "whoa," "up," and "wow" along with "mama" and "dada."


And now, a little about our past to bring you to the present:

When John first moved to Provo he purchased his first home (now deemed "The Riley House") and began renting to BYU Single men while upgrading it. One year later he met his future wife Katrina who finally after a little protest agreed to marry him (I thought it was a really mean joke on me at first...full version of the story to be told later).
About 8 months into the marriage John decides to purchase another home, but this time with a friend. This is how we own half a home. We refer to this home as the "B House."
A year after being married John and Katrina decide (or Katrina was held down and convinced) it's time for a little rascal even though Katrina was not finished with school. 10 months later Katrina's stomach cringes with sharp pains of Victoria delight and 7 hours after that a wiggly rascal is born all while John sips Red Bull and watches the news.
About 3 months later John and Katrina decide it is silly to be living in Provo when John's job is in Salt Lake and Katrina is no longer in school and so John begins searching Salt Lake for yet another home. Finally, we find one that is suitable although it needs a LOT of fixing up and we buy our 2nd home ("The Salt Lake duplex"). Immediately we saw the potential with this home because it has a huge backyard. We could and may build another home in the back. But anyway, Victoria spends a lot of time with a babysitter while we fix up the basement of this home so that we can move in.
A few months after that John takes Katrina cruising for future home purchases and Katrina spots the next rental. It is a beautiful, historical, Victorian-style side-by-side duplex that Katrina insists they buy. This home is now known as "the Provo duplex."
After living in the basement of the Salt Lake duplex for about a year and being done with the remodel we set our sights on the upstairs which should bring you to about where we are. We've moved to the upstairs of the Salt Lake duplex and rent out the basement. We still hope to build a home in the backyard, but here is the great thing. Our neighbor has a huge back yard just like ours. We originally wanted both for this reason. We could build more homes if we had more land. And so now...what most people don't know yet is that our neighbor put his house up for sale. We made an offer and he accepted so now we are in contract to buy our 4th home. So yes we will own 4 and 1/2 properties by April! We are excited about our business ventures and love fixing up places so that we can rent out to others. The Lord has blessed us in many ways and we hope to keep moving forward. Thanks for everyones support and I hope you all enjoy our blogging.



This is "the Salt Lake duplex" where we currently live.