Zoo time!

Posted by Amber

Just ask Matt - I've been dying to go to the zoo for weeks, mostly since the weather has been good enough to go really. Yay for holiday weekends! Memorial Day weekend was awesome. You already know we went to the aviary Saturday. Sunday we actually made it to church (I hate 9am church) and had a nice day relaxing with family (It was good to see you Kevin and Karrie!). Then Monday, we went to the ZOO!

Even more fun was we took Devan, Michelle, Jennifer, and McKade. :) It was a long day, but we had fun :) We took most of the usual route, but McKade helped give us direction. (He really wanted to see the elephants and penguins). It was a super crowded day with the holiday, so there were lines for the bird show and the Nature's Nightmares exhibit, but we ended up hitting both.

It apparently had been awhile since I'd visited the zoo (not quite a year actually) because some things had changed. The old capuchin monkey wasn't there anymore. The black bears are at another zoo while they begin building the new bear area. Most of the African animals (zebras and such) were gone, presumably in preparation for the new build as well. The crocodiles had moved indoors (they're going to be laying eggs soon! I love animal babies!) The cougar was missing and instead, there was a bobcat sign at that exhibit . . . but no bobcat was visible. The ugly pig-like things were replace by an aldabra tortoise. See? lots of changes. Oh! and the penguins were much fewer, and I'm pretty sure a different breed... (Does this make me a complete zoo nerd to have noticed all of these things? Well, it's only going to get worse because we got our MEMBERSHIP! Woot!)

Anyway, now for the fun part - pictures!

McKade and the elephants

Mama Christie and baby Zuri

I was so excited to finally see Zuri! She was either about to be born or just recently born when we last went, so she wasn't out for people to see.

The red panda was actually awake! However, he promptly found a comfy branch to take a nap on.

McKade at Asian Highlands

Waiting in line to go through Nature's Nightmares

McKade as an orangutan

Jennifer as an orangutan

As we were leaving, we decided Devan was a monkey, then we had to figure out which he was....

Fingers are too short to be a gorilla...

McKade as a gorilla

Then again, maybe Devan is a gorilla. :)

So we ended up taking the back path up to the south entrance, which spits you out at Asian Highlands (again).

Devan at Asian Highlands

Waiting in line for the bird show

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Fly Away

Posted by Amber

I LOVE getting out with my hubby and doing something! Not that sitting around and watching movies or playing a game is bad, but I think I've had too much of that with the extended winter weather. So two weeks ago we went to the aquarium, yes? So much fun! Well yesterday, we decided to go to the Tracy Aviary. We initially were going to go to Bird World - I guess it's like a giant pet store with more birds and stuff, but then we found out it is in Bountiful. (That, and they have quite a lot of bad reviews for the quality of their animals - which makes me sad :( ) Neither of us had ever visited the aviary, so we looked it up online and discovered it was cheaper than either the zoo or the aquarium ($5/adult versus $9). We called Matt's siblings to see if any of them wanted to go, and Jennifer took us up on the offer. :)

Golden Eagle

We found it pretty easily - I'd never been in Liberty Park in SLC before. The whole idea of having various attractions within the confines of the park was weird to me, but Matt loved it. Guess I'm not a city girl :) We wandered the whole park. Some displays were cooler than others. Example - the eagles were not behind bars. (All of them had or have had wing injuries that make it impossible for them to be released into the wild . . because they can't fly . . so they just sit there and stare :) )

Bald Eagle

They also had a wetlands exhibit where you went in the giant caged area with some of the birds.

Black-necked Stilt in the wetlands exhibit

My favorite though was a little hut area you could go in and be so close to the birds there.

Monk Parakeets in the hut exhibit

Matt's favorite I think was when two trainers brought out Patty, one of three Patagonian Burrowing Parrots. She was trained to fly back and forth between them. While she did that, one of the trainers told us about her and her species.

Patty, the Patagonian Burrowing Parrot

About 2:30pm, we headed over to their little amphitheatre for the new bird show (Fly!, just opened this weekend, show times are 11am, 1pm, and 3pm - If anyone is interested.) I took a survey for them about the show and got 10% off a membership (also much cheaper than the zoo - which we'll be getting tomorrow anyway. $30/double ($27 with my survey discount) versus $60/couple at the zoo).

This Lesser Canada Goose was honking like crazy - so we stopped by to visit him. He stopped. As soon as we walked away, he started up again. We discovered that all birds are sort of alike. (Bhuvan will squak whenever we leave the room, too.)

A little plug for the aviary membership - it's part of a reciprocal membership program. I guess the zoo's membership does the same type of thing, so some of the perks may overlap) Regardless, the aviary offers more perks within Utah . . and since I don't really go to zoos or aquariums out-of-state . . . . this will do. The cool thing for us is that, September through May, with the membership, we get half off at the Living Planet Aquarium. The aquarium is not cool enough for us to visit lots, and definitely not for us to get a membership, but with the reciprocity, we may visit more . . . come September :) Anyway, visit the websites (Aviary, Zoo) for membership benefits if you're interested.

These Guira Cuckoos were in lots of cages. I saw them on the website before we came and decided they were my favorite - mostly because they look funny :)

For this outing - I actually remembered my camera (go me!), as if you hadn't noticed...so here are some more highlights:

I love ducks - they make me laugh :)

I knew this guy was familiar . . . Laughing Kookaburra

(Yes, I've been to Australia.)

Turkey Vulture - apparently they do this to keep warm and to kill bacteria on their feathers after eating. We just thought he was posing. :)

Swainson's Hawk - let's face it, hawks are so cool! This guy was in with three Turkey Vultures.

This is Andy, the Andean Condor - food and a toy were in the present. :)

This was one of the King Vultures. He was another testament to how alike birds are across species. He could see Andy getting fed across the way (we were on the back side of Andy's cage, right next to these guys), and we were not paying him much attention. In order to remedy this (and probably in hopes of getting some food, too), he was antsy. He tried climbing up the fence, and he would happy dance back and forth. Just the night before, Bhuvan was doing the same thing in hopes of being let out. :)

Southern Lapwing in the hut exhibit.

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Fishy fun

Posted by Amber

Hmm, so 30 minutes have elapsed since I posted the condo update, and still no Matt....and he's not responding to text or call. After checking in on some of the private blogs (that are so hard for me to follow because they don't update in my blogger feed), I suppose I will post about the aquarium.

Two weeks ago, I decided we were going to the zoo. Matt agreed (though I don't think he felt like he had a choice). We hadn't been in awhile, and it was supposed to be the first nice weekend all year (or so it seemed). However, Matt gave himself a nasty carpet burn, and didn't feel like going - and we slept in. Around lunchtime (like maybe 1pm or 2pm?), we decided to make the stupid US Bank card payment (I hate that card - one day it will be paid off and the card will be in a block of ice in the freezer) and go get some lunch. It was a little bit late for the zoo, but we saw a billboard for the penguins at the aquarium. So, using my nifty new phone and data plan, I looked it up and found their hours were later than the zoo's (and the price was the same), so we decided to go to Sandy instead. The only other time we had been was on our honeymoon, and it was kind of lame. However, we figured 2.5 years later and the addition of the penguins made it worth going again. This time, it was lots better :)

We arrived in time for the shark feeding. That part was actually kind of lame, but a nerdy worker was there telling us about the sharks and other fish in the tank with them, so that was fun. Then said nerdy worker informed us of their rainforest educational thing happening like 15 minutes later, so we headed over there to get seats. Matt was super excited to see the birds at the aquarium :) He's a total bird-lover. So we learned about some rainforest creatures (hissing cockroach, tarantula, snake, a green bird that I don't remember its name, an African gray, a blue and gold mackaw, and a scarlet mackaw).

Us before the rainforest lecture

(Don't blow it up - it's super fuzzy)

Dusty, the African Gray

After that, we decided to actually do the walkthrough of the aquarium, starting with the boring Utah fish. I wanted to get Matt's picture with the frog statue, but every time it would free up for a millisecond, some other little kid was playing on it or getting their picture taken. We gave up and moved on. The jellies and seahorses are still probably my favorites, aside from the ray pool :).

These have NOT been enhanced - just straight from the phone.

We hung out at the ray pool for awhile until I'd had my fill of the soft, squishy creatures. Then we moved over to the other touchy-feely creatures, where nerdy worker had moved to - he was so funny! So I got to touch a sea star and some other stuff that I don't remember :)

Then it was on to the new South American portion - with a giant anaconda to greet you. :p The penguins were so much fun to watch. Matt's favorite was watching them poop underwater because it would sort of create a cloud. He laughed every time. I took some video on my phone, but the format (mpg4) doesn't like me :p, so I can only play it on my phone. (I had forgotten my camera entirely, so all of my pics are with my phone, but it's not too shabby for being a camera phone :)) Then we made the stop at the gift shop, where we didn't buy anything (as per usual), checked out the penguins again (less crowd), and headed back home. It was a pretty fun day.

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Back

Posted by Amber

It is okay, we did not die, fall in a hole, get lost, take an exotic vacation, or anything else nearly as exciting. We have, however, had quite a ride on the emotional rollercoaster of life. :)

Condo - done. Finished. Pretty. For ages.

Loan - fail.

New loan - should hear back this week *crosses fingers*

So, some of you are probably confused now. That is because I've not felt like posting this to the world for awhile. I've been meaning to post for a week or two now, but haven't found time since I lately only get on the computer during breakfast. Since I'm always late to work anyway, I thought it wise not to make things worse by trying to blog during that time. (The days I try to catch up on the blogs I read usually put me an extra 5-10 minutes behind - I'm horrible, I know.)

Okay, so we got to do our final walkthrough of the condo at the end of April. They were then going to do the touchups/fixes and clean - and it would be ready as soon as we closed. :) Well, then we had loan issues. A - Chase is stupid. With the rural housing loan, we had to include a portion of our student loans, even the deferred ones. Between that and the way they figured our income (a three year average for two 20 somethings who have worked little hours while going to school or changed jobs and so have had varying pay rates doesn't work out so well), our debt to income ratio was too high - no loan. Not that it mattered anyway because apparently rural housing was out of money about that time too. So much for that.

Next - FHA loan. Matt was quite resistant. Finally I found out why (umm, he dropped two classes during the semester without telling me, leaving him like 7 credits - and he was pretty sure he failed a class - leaving 4 credits, which is not half time - the required amount to keep your loans deferred), so we still had to include student loans. Oh the joy. Well, we figured, "What's the point?" Especially if our income was figured in the same way. So we didn't do anything for a week or two. We started looking for pet-friendly apartments instead. :( We (I) decided to still give it a shot though, because you never know. Before doing that, we wanted to ask some questions of the mortgage guy so we knew if it was worth attempting . . . but we couldn't get ahold of him.

We decided to look at some apartments, and that very day I was going to call on some, low and behold, mortgage guy finally calls back. He answers my questions sufficiently, so we signed the FHA papers and got him the necessary documentation for everything - again. Needless to say, we didn't look at apartments.

THEN, since Matt's student loans are in grace after this semester, we needed to get the estimated payment amounts for his loans from each lender. Wells Fargo was easy enough. UHEAA sent a fax in a timely manner. FedLoan, on the other hand, sure struggled with sending a simple email. Matt called a couple days later, and it was in "verification" and they said we should have the email within 24 hours. We didn't. The next day, Matt was going to call again, but the email finally showed up. So everything was in. We thought.

My pay had dramatically increased, so I needed to explain why (I graduated, therefore freeing up my life to be able to work 40 hours a week - shoot me now) and I also had to show when I graduated. Did that - mortgage guy wanted it revised. :p Yay for my smart phone - because I had to get my email with the attachment on the road (we went to the aquarium - perhaps that will be the next post), open it, retype the letter (good thing it was short), and send it back. I wouldn't want to do that frequently, but it sure was handy to have that capability on my phone. All done!

Okay, not really (I'm never buying a house again...) One last thing - they needed to pull our credit again showing the cars were paid off. That, or show documentation for Matt's parents paying off his car to add to our first credit pull. Matt opted to just pull it again because it was easier and we don't anticipate needing to use our score for anything in the near future after this. So we did that - and then had to sign the credit disclosure (my score is pretty dang good :) - Matt's . . . . is okay. I know it's not your fault, hun :) ) and we had to sign the FHA addendum to the purchase contract. So we did all that yesterday and it went to the underwriter. Now we are just waiting to hear. Asked loan guy today, said he'd see what he could find out . . . and we heard nothing back. He's getting another text tomorrow :) And that is where we're at.

It's late, and Matt's still not home from band. Maybe I'll post about the aquarium now....

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More Condo

Posted by Amber

The days are drawing nearer to when we will be actual homeowners! Well, condo-owners anyway. That's okay, though. It makes my insurance cheaper :) Speaking of, Matt and I are both studying for our personal lines license - so we had fun getting the quote for our insurance. . . . and moving from HO-4 to HO-6 (Tenant Occupied vs Condominium Owner) lol. Moving on.... Things are coming along swimingly. The current projected complete date is April 12th, and it looks like they just might hit it :)

We got our loan stipulations back yesterday. Easy-peasy. Matt dropped off the required stuff this morning.

It's nice to swing by one day (yesterday) and see what my parents got to see a few days before. (Condo was locked when Matt and I went to look the day or two before that.) Then stop in again the next day (today) and have stuff actually be different! Woot! I vote the construction industry work more often ;) (Side note - looked like someone was getting their wood floor in on the third floor today :) )

Now for the pictures!

The day we were locked out - lights in the walkway 04 03 10

Appliances and countertops! Oh! and a Lazy Susan :) 04 07 10

Dishwasher 04 07 10

Prep for our floor's sinks and toilets 04 07 10

Laundry room 04 07 10

Sprinklers uncovered 04 07 10

Hall bath - sink and toilet! 04 08 10

Backsplashes! 04 08 10

Counter in the window 04 08 10

Shower plumbing - Master bath 04 08 10

Yesterday, the 7th, I had taken the paint samples Matt and I picked up a couple days ago. I spent lots of time trying to figure out which colors I wanted to use. I discovered I have to wait for the carpet to be in before I can make a decision in just about all of the rooms. I also have to be able to see my wood floor before doing the kitchen and dining room. Master bath - my issue is the shower surround trim. It's too cool for the color I want to put in there. However! I did like the color I got for the hall bath. I think it even goes okay with our towels - now I just need to compare it to the shower curtain....which I have no idea where it is... So, it was a little upsetting for me to not know which colors to go with. I think I'd feel a lot more prepared then - so we could paint right away instead of me going through this agony some more when we get the condo. Okay, I might still have a small window between completion and ownership, but still.... Don't worry, when we get all the colors situated and on the walls, there will be more pictures :)

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Condo Update

Posted by Amber

Hello world,

Okay, I think that intro is because it is Friday and I'm not at work. Usually I end up sending an email near the beginning of my shift to my Cebu editor friends that typically starts out with "Hello everyone." I'm enjoying my day off, but I will not be enjoying the itty-bitty check later. I know I've mentioned the condo some, but have not posted pictures. Sorry. Lately, my posts have been quick, I-should-post-something posts, which doesn't leave me a lot of time to actually sift through pictures and post them. :) So with my new found extra time (when I really should be exercising - I have for the past three days - go me!), here's some of the latest pictures of our condo. Sorry they're poor quality. My last few stops by have been as I was coming home from work, so I didn't have my actual camera, just my phone.