We're done!

Well, we finished our MBA's! Our presentation went really well and our professor said that our business plan was good enough to take to outside investors now and we'd be able to start this business very easily. He said this was one of the best projects he's even seen both in this class and in the business world. Yea!!!

It is such a nice feeling to be done, so even though I need to get up tomorrow at 4:30 a.m. I think it will be nice not to have school on my mind!

Here is a picture of us in front of our computer, it is hard to see but the page says Congratulations because we are in the last week of the course.

Another Late Night

Yesterday we went out to the lake again to bring the vanity for the downstairs bathroom as well as the microwave for above the stove. Another great job by our Vibe to fit everything in one car load! I was resolving myself to the fact that I'd have to sit in the front seat with this large microwave on my lap from the Buffalo Menards to the lake, but no, it fit in the back with the 48 in vanity!


Dan had a frustrating day with his speakers. The first two went in ok (one in the upstairs hallway and the other outside under one of the dormers), but the last dormer one was a pain. Apparently when he was drilling he hit a stud and so couldn't fit the speaker in the hole he drilled. He's going to have to figure something else out and try again later.

I spent the day finishing the 2nd coat of trim on the last set of trim boards as well as the three interior doors our builder hung. Plus, we took out the four bi-fold doors for the guest bedroom closet and the pocket door and got 2 coats on those as well. I've now used three gallons of that Min-wax smelly stuff and think with one more gallon I'll be able to finish the remaining 7 interior doors plus the big french doors for the office. The tough part isn't doing the finishing itself, it is sanding down the wood between coats. I have a couple slivers in my hands to show for my efforts :(


After Dan got done with the speakers he continued on his quest for a horrible day and started putting together the IKEA cabinets for the wet bar. We'd heard horror stories about those cabinets before, but he did his best. Throughout the day I could hear him muttering to himself about us not getting the parts we needed, and that the pieces we did get were flimsy, and all in all he just felt stupid. After I was done finishing the wood, I came down for moral support. In the end I do think we are missing a few pieces, agree they are flimsy (we need to get some super glue for a piece that broke), and because our builder didn't build the area completely to scale we put together a cabinet that isn't going to fit. Fun times!

We finally got home around 1:30 this morning and luckily we're not going out to the lake again today. Instead, we're going to do errands, wrap presents, and get ready for MBA presentation tonight at 7 ct. They we'll be done! This will be a happy ending to a hard weekend.

Heather's finishing work on the knotty pine interior doors

Dan: "I love IKEA cabinets"

Lots done today

Dan and I both took the day off of work today and went out to the lake to try and "catch" our builder in action. But, alas, he was not working today so we couldn't get some of our questions answered that we've been emailing and calling him about all week. He was going to have the basement ready for us to paint, but I received an email saying that next week he has a crew of people coming out to help him finish mudding and they are also going to paint instead of having us do that. So, while we were ready to have Dan's parents help us tomorrow, not having to paint at all I guess is a better situation! I'm not sure what our builder does, but it always seems like it is less than what he promised at the beginning of the week. I am very thankful that I am no longer stressed about the building process because it would drive me crazy if I felt like I had to plan around his timelines! There is no rhyme or reason to how he's getting this project done, but I am sort of happy to get out of painting the basement because he didn't get it ready for us in time :)

So, instead of painting we finished the LAST pile of trim work and a couple of doors that he hung upstairs. We also finished the pocket door and closet doors for the guest bedroom. I did all of the finishing work while Dan cleaned up after our builder to try and make things a little neater downstairs (the pictures were taken before he started cleaning). Tomorrow we'll go out again, bring the bathroom vanity and do the 2nd coat on the last pile of trim.

On Sunday we give our final presentation for our MBA's!! I think we're really prepared and our group feels good about it. So, by about 8:00 CT Sunday night Dan and I will be done with school forever. Too bad I have to fly to Seattle the next morning on the 7 a.m. flight otherwise I'm sure we would go out to celebrate.

mudding and taping started in the basement guest bedroom

View of the family room/wet bar area in the basement

Basement sheetrocked!

Granite

Yesterday at the lake the granite countertops were installed in the kitchen and the master bathroom. I don't think the two guys who came out to do the installation were expecting to have to carry each slab down our snowy hill, but since we don't park in our driveway we don't shovel it either after it snows. There was a path, but it looked tiring to carry those big pieces! It was fun to watch them work so quickly, install the sinks, and buff out any scratches that happened during delivery.

Dan and I spent the day cleaning up the basement and taking home the cardboard boxes from the siding. The guys that did the exterior took away ALL the scraps so we didn't have to deal with that, just the boxes. They finished up the front steps last week and the railing. We really like the outside.

Our builder had another week of personal issues, but did get everything sheetrocked except for the family room walls and the stairway. We were hoping to have painted this weekend, but since it wasn't done we couldn't - maybe next weekend? Since he hasn't started mudding and taping downstairs I don't think its likely, but we can always hope :)

He did hang three doors upstairs so I spent the day sanding them and getting them ready to finish. Our brushes were a little hard from last weekend - we must not have rinsed them well enough, so I did a top coat on one of the doors and it took forever so we decided to wait on the rest until next weekend. We thought about going out again today to do some more finishing work, but we like to bring a carfull of stuff to leave out there, and since the basement still has so much work to be done we thought bringing more things would just be in the way. Instead we'll go out again next weekend with a load and hopefully more will be done.

This is the last full week of class! We are practicing our presentation this week and proof-reading our paper. Next Sunday the 16th we do our presentation at 7 p.m. and then we are done! I'm so glad we had a good group to work with during this last class. It could have been a lot harder if we didn't have other students that wanted to do a good job.

We had a fun week of Christmas parties; for work, two associations I'm part of, our church Momentum party, and then a birthday party for our friend Jeremy last night. Lots of yummy food!!

Have a good week.

School

As our small group knows, we've been really worried this week about getting into the final course we need to graduate with our MBA's in December. Well, I got a call this afternoon and they squeezed both Dan and I into an online course in the same section! What an answer to prayer. There was availability at a St. Louis Park campus, but with my travel schedule I would have had to miss a few weeks of class and in an 8 week course that is not good. We've heard this class takes between 30-40 hours of your time each week so needless to say its going to be a busy fall. But, in January we're going to be very excited to take some much needed time off after this hectic school and cabin-building pace. I don't think we'll be going back for our Doctorate degree anytime soon.

The cabin is going ok. Our builder fell last week and landed on his cell phone so we couldn't get a hold of him for a few days. He felt worse on Friday and ended up being in the hospital for a few days with a deep hip bone bruise and bruised kidneys. He's back now but that did put us behind. Last weekend Dan and I brought out 5 hay bales to lay on the yard since we won't be planting grass seed until the spring. The county doesn't want too much run off in the winter. This weekend we'll be doing more painting, but we won't be taking off time next week to be out there. Its a combination of my travel schedule for work and also wanting to utilize our weekends more instead of taking off vacation days. So, if anyone has a Saturday or Sunday and wants to come out to the lake and help there is lots of painting, staining of trim boards, putting together IKEA cabinets to do :)