Building A Fence: Part 2

Friday, we woke up in Vegas and drove home. We parked the Mazda, got in the truck and drove to get Max from my parents house. After we got him home and situated, we got back in the truck and drove to Buffalo Wild Wings for some late lunch/early dinner, and then went to Lowe's to price match the remaining supplies needed for our fence. It was cheaper there than it was at Home Depot, so we bought the remainder of the supplies we needed. I was a little disappointed in Lowe's Customer Service - nobody asked us if we needed help loading these 300 pieces of wood onto the cart. But someone did help us load it into the truck, so at least they did that!

Jake was so tired from loading all the wood onto the cart, and then he got to load it into the truck! This cart has all the slats for the fence...

And this cart had all the other pieces needed for the fence

Saturday morning, Jake's dad and brothers came over around 10 and we started working on the fence. The first hour or so, we all stood around trying to figure out how to calculate the "gap" between slats, and eventually just decided we'd figure it out with trial and error. Our other side of the fence is done {the side we share with the Barth's} so we compared a lot of our measurements to that side, but for some things we just had to figure it out. Once we got that part down, it went pretty fast! Having a nail gun helped a TON. Having multiple saw's at the house helped a TON. Having Jake's dad and both brothers there helped a TON!

The first 3 sections in!

Dustin was pretty much the nail gun guy

Dad & Clint were awesome at measuring the angles for the top, bottom and middle boards and prepping the wood so that Jake & Dustin could just nail everything together

All the way done with 8 sections!

We made it a family affair - on the left, Clint, Mom & Dad were doing measurements while on the right Jake & Dustin nailed the fence together. I am so lucky to have such amazing in laws!

It looked like a party at our house - there were so many cars! Our truck was backwards and to the side, Jake's dad's truck was in the front...

Jake's mom's car was in the driveway & Jake's brothers truck was on the other side of the house!

After we got done with about 9 sections, we decided to stop and take a pizza break. I ordered Pizza Hut for everyone and we took a break to eat some lunch.

Jake's dad eating behind some pizza boxes

Pizza on the counter

After we got our fill on pizza, we went back out and finished the fence. We got the ENTIRE fence done - just needed to finish the gate! Jake & his dad went to get the supplies that night while I went grocery shopping and then on Sunday, Jake's dad, mom & older brother came BACK over to help us finish the gate!

Starting the measurements

Getting the slats in

And I apparently forgot to take a picture of the finished product - my bad! I will have to take one and post it in Part 3! We absolutely LOVE it! We need to put up one more piece on the front of the gate, and we need to put up some chicken wire in the back so that Max can't sneak out onto the golf course, but other than that we are DONE with the building part! Next step is painting & my family is going to help with that part! We are planning on painting this Saturday! Hopefully we can get that last piece of wood up first so that we can paint it at the same time! Yay for our fence being so close to done!

Building A Fence: Part 1

The weekend before our trip, we started our fence. On Jake's birthday. Yeah, that's how awesome my hubby is - he agreed to build a fence on his birthday. It was also the weekend of General Conference... Note to self - don't do that ever again. We didn't end up watching ANY of Conference. I kept thinking we would finish in time for the afternoon sessions, but we didn't. So yeah, not doing projects Conference weekend EVER again!

The day before we started, we went to Cedar Fence Company in Provo to get the posts & the concrete. It was a little more expensive than it would have been if we just bought the supplies ourselves at Home Depot, but the posts had the "cuts" already in them at the top, and the ones at Home Depot we would have had to buy things to go on top and it looks lame, so we were glad we bought the posts at Cedar Fence!

Truck bed of wood!

And concrete on top! The bed was REALLY dragging haha!

After we were done at Cedar Fence, we drove to Home Depot to get a wheel barrow. That's when we realized we could have saved a little bit by going there, but not enough to feel bad about it. Jake got the wheel barrow and asked me to ride in it and I was like "heck no!!" - I didn't want people to think I am lame! And part of me still feels like I weigh 300 pounds - I don't know how a 300 pound person would look in a wheel barrow haha. We went to go look at paint, and a guy in paint also is a "chiver" {it's a website like Pinterest but for guys - Jake loves it} and wanted to get a picture with Jake and the guy told me to get in the wheel barrow. Ok if two people told me to do it, I am doing it. So someone took a picture of the 3 of us and then we headed off to check out, with me still riding in the wheel barrow!

It was actually really fun haha - we got some funny looks

After we finished at Home Depot, we went to Sushi with some friends from the ward - SO much fun! Jake & I love sushi, so it was way fun getting to eat it, plus we had awesome friends as company so it was great! Afterwards, we came home and went to sleep. We woke up the next day to Jake's dad calling to say they were on their way, so we hurried and got dressed and went outside {that was an interesting night - see the post about Jake's birthday for more details}.

We didn't make it too far the first day - the first post had a sprinkler in it right in the way, and the 2nd post had a HUMONGOUS piece of concrete in it. After we got 3 holes dug and the concrete poured in and the posts in, it started raining. So we gave up for day 1 with 3 posts in and 8 to go.



Jake digging the first hole!

Post 2 & 3

The piece of concrete we got out of hole 2 - and this was just a piece of it - we broke most of it off. It was a pain in the BUTT!!!

Dustin {Jake's older brother} and Jake's dad came back on Sunday and we finished the other 8 posts and got them all in and set!

Posts 7-9

We were SO relieved to know that we got all the posts in before we left for our trip! That was our plan - to let the concrete "set" while we were away, and then finish the fence as soon as we got back...

Vegas Vaca: Day 4

Day 4 we woke up even later - by the time we got ready and were downstairs in our hotel to eat breakfast, it was around 4 PM. Granted, we slept for a REALLY long time {it's vacation - why not?!} and then it took me a while to get ready, but still - getting down to "civilization" around 4?! That's ridiculous haha. Our sleep schedule got WAY messed up while we were away but that's ok!

We decided to eat at Coronado Cafe, a restaurant inside the hotel. The food was pretty good - Jake got a steak that had me SO close to throwing up {WAY too bloody & fatty} and I had chicken strips. I tell ya, I'm a little kid - when I eat out and I'm not trying to make a healthy choice, that's ALWAYS what I pick. That or Mac N Cheese. Preferrably together :)

Us together at breakfast/lunch at dinner time haha

We decided to go to Mandalay Bay and go to the Shark Aquarium. On our way, we got sidetracked and went to the Vegas Outlets near the strip. Jake seriously felt bad that we hadn't spent insane amounts of money on me, so he kept encouraging me to buy something {read: purse} but I couldn't find anything I liked. There is a Coach purse that I REALLY wanted but they didn't have it in the right color in a single Coach store in Vegas. That was enough reason right there not to get anything :) We did end up buying some of those Energy Armor bracelets that they sell in Kiosk's - so far they aren't doing anything too diferent but we are hoping they will work.

Once we were at Mandalay Bay, we ended up at Starbuck's and got the coffee-free Frappacino's. SO delicious!!

Look at that handsome guy!!

MMMM chocolate...

Once we got to the aquarium, we realized that we can't take any outside food or drinks in, so we both drank our drinks as fast as we could and got major brain freeze. Then, it was time to see some animals! Jake recorded a lot of this on his Go Pro - hopefully some of it makes in onto YouTube and then I will come back and post links :)

Humongous alligator/crocodile that was hiding - from the other window you can't see him at all

Komodo dragon

Huge python - Jake sent a picture to his dad to freak him out {snakes are not Jake or his dad's favorite}

Big fish

HUGE fish

Lizard that Jake & I decided was dead and they just left it to look like something in the case - it wasn't moving AT ALL!

SHARK!

Another big fish

Gorgeous sea life

Stopped for a picture

Tunnel you walk through and sharks swim over... Not gonna lie - this freaked me out!

That's a big shark!

Awesome looking fish!

Sting Rays & Horseshoe Crabs!

Jelly Fish. These blow my mind - how are they even surviving?!

Star fish

Star fish & an Octopus!

Sharks!

Lots of sharks!

Yep, more sharks

The display is set up so it looks like you are in a sunken ship - SO cool!

After we were done at the aquarium, we started to drive back to our hotel to find something to do. And then we passed the New York New York and the roller coaster was still going - UH YES! So we found a parking place and went and rode the New York Roller Coaster.

Waiting to ride the roller coaster!

I started getting scared haha

Jake recorded it on the Go Pro - he said it was hilarious to watch because I was screaming haha. Once that's on YouTube, I'll post a link for that too!

Once we were back in our hotel room, we decided to go swimming. We always bring swimsuits, and we never end up getting in the pool. Well not this trip! We left the room, and I realized I had grabbed the room key for our St George hotel, not for the Vegas hotel so we had to go wait at the front desk for a new key. But we finally got one and went out to the pool. The pool was pretty cold, and the hot tub had a TON of people in it and was too chlorine-ey so we just froze in the pool.

Getting ready to go down to the pool

The part of the pool we swam in - the pool was REALLY big

FINALLY got a picture of the hotel!

After we were done swimming, we went back to the room and showered and cleaned up to go get some dinner.

He is totally making fun of me, and I have no make up, and yet I love this haha :)

We saw a "Cane's" right by the outlets earlier in the day, which were a few miles from our hotel and decided to go there. Our brother-in-law Blake {Brynne's husband} is from Vegas and he LOVES it there. We had their chicken fingers at Brynne & Blake's Vegas reception.

We wanted some ice cream too, and they didn't seem to have any on the menu {maybe we didn't look hard enough??} so we brought the food back to our hotel room and stopped at the Steak N Shake downstairs to get some shakes and then took it all up to our room. We ate our gourmet food on our bed while watching TV and then went to sleep - we knew we were going to need to leave for home on the earlier side so we called it a night early. It was SUCH a fun trip!!