The Kallunki's go GREEN!

The end of April, we bought this new car. It's a Chevy Cavalier that runs on CNG (compressed natural gas) as well as on regular fuel. The great thing about CNG is that it is only 63.8 cents per gallon! Matt had been looking into information about CNG and figured with the difference in cost between regular fuel and CNG, we could make the car payment each month! We had a friend who was going to a government auto auction in Maryland to try and get a car and offered to get one for us as well. We got the car, sight unseen, and have loved every minute of it. Austin has even offered to pay to fill it a couple of times because it's almost always under $ 3 to fill (unless it is really empty). With gas here in Utah at about $ 3.88 per gallon today, you can see the incredible cost difference. Matt drove it to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago and it cost him less than $ 5 to drive from here to St.George!
We're so sold on the idea of CNG that we've been looking for a truck as well.

Matt and I were driving down State Street in Pleasant Grove on Tuesday and saw this one sitting on a lot. It had a big CNG sign in it so we quickly turned around to go look at it.

About three hours later we were parking it in our driveway!

Now we just have to sell our Buick and Suburban...

This is what the sticker looks like on the back of vehicles that run on compressed natural gas. Keep your eyes open...you'll be seeing more of them I'm sure!

The CNG fill-up stations are a little bit few and far between but we are lucky to have one just across the freeway on 8th North, about a mile and a half from our house.

Matt absolutely loves sending his money to the credit union instead of to OPEC!

Looking better...

The scaffolding has been taken down and things are starting to look better. There is still plastic covering the flower beds because the rock hasn't been done on the bottom of the house yet. We finalized the rock color yesterday so they should be delivering it soon I hope!

More Clean-up

The Webb's showed up this morning with a dump truck to clean up the brick and other construction debris from the project. It will be nice to be able to park our cars in the driveway again!

We have COLOR!

The final color is finally going on! We have had quite a bit of rain lately and the weather hasn't allowed the guys to work on the final coat until now. It is a nice light tan color called VanDyke.

My brother Travis mentioned that it looked pretty close to the color of their house so I took a sample over and checked...we must be related because I chose the exact same color that he has!

(Gary is in the top picture and Danny is in the bottom one)

Grey Coat

No...This isn't the color we chose for the house! This is what is called the "Grey Coat". It is the first layer of the stucco. This is what they were doing while we were gone to the park, etc.

A day away from the house

Our windows and doors were covered in plastic today so that the stucco can begin. This makes it very difficult to get in and out plus you feel claustrophobic because you can't see out! Matt is out of town for the weekend so the kids and I took Missy and left for the day. This is a picture of us at a park in American Fork. We stopped for Subway sandwiches and decided to eat them here so we could get Missy out of the car.

After lunch we took Missy to PetSmart and had here nails clipped. She was also lucky enough to get a bag of treats and a new harness so that she is easier to take on walks. Afterwards we stopped by to see Travis, Sally and their kids before taking the kids to their first day of training for Jr. Lifeguards at the Scera Pool.

Austin's Birthday Party

Austin wanted a football-shaped cake for his party so I borrowed one from my friend Tara.

I made a chocolate cake but unfortunately it fell and broke when I went to

unmold it from the pan!

I had a white cake mix so I mixed it up and while it was baking, I went to run a proof to a client.I was gone longer than I thought I would be and ended up burning the cake! I thought I could salvage it by cutting off the burned edges but that didn't work and the cake fell apart!
All was well in the end...I took the icecream that we were going to serve with the cake and just molded it in the pan instead! We added the frosting and decorations and it ended up being perfect. I think the kids enjoyed it more than they would have if it had been cake. I will have to remember to make icecream cakes in the future because apparently my baking skills leave something to be desired!
We held Austin's party with friends the week before his actual party. He wanted to take everyone to the Christa McAuliffe Space Center in Pleasant Grove and that ended up being the only time we could go. He invited his cousin, Jace and a friend named Seth from school. He also invited his good friend Kyle Baugh who used to be our neighbor. Austin was also nice enough to invite Alisha and let her bring a friend (Brianne Baugh - Kyle's sister).
After the space center we came back to the house for pizza, icecream cake and presents.

The boys spent the rest of the evening climbing around on the scaffolding around the house!

The yucky white brick is gone!

Mike taking off bricks while James supervises...Some of it came off in big pieces which was nice.
The right side was a little more difficult. Poor Danny!

A nice big pile in the driveway!

The original plan was to put the stone over the brick but the Webb guys (our neighbors who are doing the work) decided that it would be better to take it off. There isn't a lot of it...just in the front of the house so it took less than an hour to get it off.

To the dump!

This is just the first of two loads that was taken to the dump this weekend. Note the deck stairs and also the old swamp cooler (square thing towards the front of the truck). Matt also informed me a couple of days later that he had taken our BBQ too. I guess that's a really big hint that he wants to get a new one for Father's Day!

Time for the dump!

We ended up borrowing a construction-type dump truck from one of Matt's friends. This photo is just the debri from the deck and windows. There was another load of siding and other assorted stuff including our old swamp cooler and our barbeque. Lucky for us the trailer was one that just tipped to unload so once it was loaded, it just took the push of a button to un-load!

Scaffolding

Early Thursday morning the Webb's start setting up the scaffolding all around the house and then start removing the old grey-blue siding. Yeah! I'm not sure if it is looking better or worse at this point!
View from the back...

The blue shed gets moved

In order to stucco on the North side of the house, the blue shed needed to be moved. We stuffed all of its contents into the new tan shed for the time being. (Now you can't get to anything in the tan shed because it is packed!) This photo is of Matt and Gary working on positioning one of the four flat dollies that we put the shed on to move it.Once we had a dollie under each corner of the shed, it was just a matter of rolling it to its new temporary home in front of the tan shed.
It was kindof disgusting to see all the leaves and dirt that had been trapped under the shed!

Nothing two kids, a broom and a big dustpan can't handle though...

The neighbor's house

Did I mention that our next door neighbors, Jeff and Heather Price, are also doing stucco on their house? They actually started this whole thing! When we saw Gary Webb measuring their house for a bid, we asked him to bid ours also. They are leaving their brown brick on the bottom and re-doing their deck but they've already done the windows, roof and front door so their mess is a little less than ours.

Why not replace the front door too?

Matt replaced our front door about five years or so ago but we've never painted it (I know...we're slackers). Anyway, we've been debating about scraping the paint off the sidelight areas and painting the door but decided it was all showing too much wear. Solution? Replace the door! This photo is of our workers Dan and Nate starting to take the trim off above and around the door. The door is out...now the sidelights are going too!

What a nice big hole we have in the front of the house!
The space is framed for the new door and it is installed.

It looks like wood but it Fiberglass. With our West-facing exposure, the heat would just kill a real wood door too fast. It looks good though and we've already had complements from the neighbors!

The sides of the door and about a foot above the door will be stone so it should frame the door nicely. (At least that is what I'm hoping!)

Roofing continues - Windows come out

The work week begins with the old swamp cooler coming off and the roof being finished up. The windows on the back are all done (except for the sliding door) so now it's time to replace the bottom front windows.

The deck comes down!

Austin and Matt got to work early Saturday morning tearing down the deck. Matt makes a good foreman for the project and teaches Austin the most effective way to dismantle the deck.
This is the view looking down from the kitchen's sliding door where the deck used to be.
View from the backyard with the deck completely gone.

All new windows on the back are in place except for the sliding door which will be done in a day or two. (The wrong size door was delivered) This is the one we are most anxious for because our old one was such a pain!

New Windows

We had previously updated the big front window and the one for our office but now it is time to do the rest!

This is Alisha's bedroom window being replaced.

We hired our old neighbor Nate McArthur and his brother Dan to do the windows, roof and deck. Bathroom and kitchen window are done next.

Work begins...

Shingles are delivered. The old roof is a light grey. The new roof has tans and greys.

The railing on the deck is torn off.