At Last!

We made it. Our bed never looked so beautiful!

For blogs sake

We arrived in MN at 10:15 Sunday morning, bringing us one more step closer to being permanent residents of MN again. 24 hours from now we will have signed the papers, or at least in the process of signing, and will be home owners!

Baby steps

We made it out of Chicago (a little later than planned, and almost missed picking up our cashiers check for our Monday closing...we made it with 2 minutes to spare!) and arrived at the cabin last night...and went to bed!

The fall colors are just starting become vibrant here and it is very pretty, even though it is cloudy.

View from the VUE

Eme and I work well together...especially when it comes to putting jigsaw puzzles together!

That's Lauren Walter standing by the car. It's been fun to be a part of her life as youth counselors and now living with her family for the past 5 weeks.

Crises...what crises?

Going through the mortgage process has given us an intimate view of the banking/mortgage industry fallout. We have had to tweak our mortgage product a couple times, we've had to put more money down than originally planned, and we've had to endure through a few other headaches. But the good news is that the interest rates have fallen more than 1.2 percent over the past 7 weeks! So that is excellent.

Overall, this process has allowed us to see that God is truly in control! Its pretty cool to see how things are working out. But we will be happy once we sign the papers on Monday and get this mortgage process behind us!

The last supper

Our week of lasts has continued this week. I had my last leadership team meeting at church on Monday; we took our last trip to woodfield mall (dinner at Cheesecake Factory) with our friends The Schneiderwind's; we enjoyed one last evening with our friends Chris and Jen; we both worked out for the last time during lunch in the gym; and tonight we had our last meal with the Walters...Chicago deep dish pizza of course!

Tomorrow is our last day in Chicago and we have mixed feelings, but we are mostly excited! And Monday night we get to sleep in our own bed!!!

Huge if by land, none if by sea

Eme and I were out for a walk this weekend enjoying the beautiful weather when we came across this creature. I'm not sure this thing belongs on land...in Illinois!

Week of Lasts

On our final Saturday in the Chicagoland area, we thought we would go downtown and enjoy our favorite hot spot for one last time. The Tea Gschwendner - on a cold day it would have been hot tea, but since it was a beautiful day, we both got a cup of iced tea and walked the few short blocks to the lake.
Now, we are on our week of lasts - our last Sunday morning at DeerGrove Covenant Church; our last week of sleeping on someone else's bed; and our last days in Illinois. It was difficult to say goodbye to our friends and the youth that we spent the last 3 1/2 years with, but feel blessed to be able to start this new adventure with God leading the way.

Got Me Thinking

Preparing to buy a house has certainly taken me down some unexpected twist and turns in order to get everything together. Yesterday I was looking for my past 10 years of residences to compile to have for our closing, I'm not precisely sure why, but I thought, "yeah, I can find those." I started searching online for information since I thought you can find just about everything online and we don't have any of our documents that I would have used to find the information (it's all in MN).

2 things you might be wondering:
1) how does she not know everywhere she has lived in the past 10 years.
& 2) Why would you want that information on the web to find?

The answer to number one is that I was under the impression we had to have exact street addresses and there was one residence I simply did not remember. And for question 2, you don't, but I figured I would try anyway.

After about an hour (yes way too long I know), I could not get one single hit on either my maiden or married name. CRAZY! I do not exist on the web. Now please, if you find something, you may have a different technique to search or you're a crazy computer wiz and can hack anything, but me... nothing. I then started searching everyone else I knew. Sure enough, they all had something. By that time, I was baffled by this idea that I successfully evaded being placed anywhere on the Internet. While I was confused and almost upset about it, Jon simply reminded me that I should feel thankful. Thankful that my name and information isn't scattered out there waiting to be found. Thankful that people can't find my past addresses by a click of a button. And that I must have done something right.

So I just have to ask - what pops up when you google your name?

So here's what I do...

Since Jon set the precedent by sharing what he does... I would love to tell you what I do! Except, there is so much to tell, that it would be more than I prefer to go into detail about on a blog, but here's the gist.

I have been working at Mortenson for almost 3 years. I've progressed in my position, and have been able to take on gradually more responsibility which also provides more variety. One major part of my job is preparing proposals for new work. I get an RFP (request for proposal) and in either a 3 day to 4 week period, I turn it around and deliver it by a deadline - there is no being late. Here is a small glimpse at a few of proposals I've put together.

It takes asking the right questions, an eye for detail, and managing people to get me the right information when I need it.

I have also gotten involved with our project events, i.e. groundbreakings, dedication ceremonies, and hard hat tours. I love being involved with our customers to help orchestrate these events and then working with our PR consultant to create a story. In May, I helped initiate and plan a hard hat tour at one of our libraries nearing completion and was thrilled by the turn out. Many community members and library patrons showed up to get a sneak preview of their new library.

These are only some of the many things that I do. If you want to know more, you'll just have to ask!

Hazzah for Socialism!

Wealth Redistribution

A list of delightful pleasures

Things we are looking forward to enjoying in 11 days(not in any particular order):

- A garage
- A bed (not sleeping on the floor)
- A kitchen
- Being able to watch/listen to the Twins at will
- A place to put our clothes (other than in a U-haul shorty wardrobe box)
- Being close to family and friends again
- The ability to watch the Vikings on any given Sunday (not depending on when the Bears or Packers play)
- Lower taxes!
- Shorter commute
- Minnesota!
- No traffic!!!(well, a significantly reduced amount of traffic anyway)
- Proximity to the cabin
- Our own backyard
- Cheaper gas
- A place to call our own!

Work in Progress

You probably all know that I am an estimator and Eme is a marketing coordinator. But what do we actually work on? Well, I'll let Eme explain what she has been working on...but here are a couple projects I am working on until we make the move to MN:

Silver Cross Replacement Hospital
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago (Replacement Hospital for Children's Memorial)

For Silver Cross I am quantifying the casework/millwork (base/wall cabinets, counters, wood wall panels, display cases, wood trim, etc.) and receiving budget pricing from subcontractors.

For ARHLCHoC I am basically going from space to space (the total building area is 1,200,000 gross square feet) and pricing different options proposed by the architect in order to get within budget. This morning I just finished pricing a Servery option that added about $95,000 in premium finishes from our original estimate...only to VE (Value Engineer) them out to get back to a net $0 change! The total construction cost is about $632,000,000...the largest project in Mortenson history.

It has been fun to have worked on so many healthcare projects while I have been in Chicago. I have worked on 3 total replacement hospitals, 1 major hospital expansion, 2 Children's hospitals, countless Medical Office Buildings (MOB's), and other various interior hospital build-out projects. Of course there have been other projects for universities, jails, librarys, and stadiums, but healthcare has been my main focus in Chicago. It sounds as though I might be working on some of our Federal projects when I move up to our Mpls. office, so that will be interesting!

Hope I didn't bore you too much!

The Anticipation...

is killing us! With just over 2 weeks to go we are about at our tipping point. We have been bouncing around for a little over a month and have been without our own precious space for about 9 1/2 months. But we are VERY grateful for our friends, Tim and Lori Schneiderwind for letting us stay at their home. We are also thankful for Gary, Nancy, and Lauren Walter for now letting us take up residence in their basement. We are happy to be living with such a great family and to have a place to lay our heads at night.

Doesn't this look cozy?

Politics in a word

After watching both the dnc and rnc I have come up with one word descriptions of the four main candidates (in order of appearance)...

Joe Biden - boring

Barack Obama - polished

Sarah Palin - feisty

John McCain - steady