Prepare to Be Floored!

I know you won't believe me...because flooring is not a necessity, right? But Rus and I just threw caution to the wind two weeks ago and blew a chunk of change on some wood flooring anyways. (We live on the edge.) I didn't hate living with concrete floors for the past nine months as much as I thought I would, but I am so SO happy that they are covered!
My parents were planning on being in town this past weekend for my niece's baptism and decided that there was nothing they'd like more than to help us install our flooring. (Seriously.) So Rus and I started trying to level the floor the Wednesday before. I don't know if any of you have ever leveled a concrete floor, but it is a horrible, messy, time consuming process, especially when your floor was apparently laid by drunk concrete workers. On Wednesday Rus and I used a six foot ruler to find any dips in the flooring that were more than 1/8". (There were many.) On Thursday while he was at work I read all of the instructions on the concrete mix that we were going to use and thought to myself, "Rus has never done this. He'll read the same instructions as me. Why can't I just start on this now before he gets home. Then he'll come home and it'll be almost done, I'm sure."
Ha.
So I made the mix, dumped it in the appropriate spot, and then spent 1.7 minutes confidently spreading it out.
And then it started drying at an unbelievable rate and I immediately realized that I had made everything worse, not better, and in a few minutes it would be hardened and stuck there and Rus would walk through the door and I'd have to find a hole to crawl in...
So I did the only logical thing...I ran to the garage, grabbed the flat shovel, and started scraping the crumbly stuff back into the bucket that I had just poured it from.
And then Rus walked in, I told him that the concrete people were idiots, cried for good measure, and sent him off to buy something that worked.
He came back with four more bags of the same product and later showed me exactly how to do it right.
Ug.
I think he will admit that the stuff was horrible to work with, too, though. We had to pour it, let it dry, and then sand any rough edges, and then remeasure, and then pour some more later. Our house was promptly covered in dust everywhere. You'll be happy to know that laying the actual flooring was really, really easy. We bought an engineered Quick-Click flooring and it was great to work with. It's Brazilian Koa.
Anyway, now that you have the saga, here are some pics:
Living Room BEFORE:

Living Room After:

 And another view, Before:

During:

After:

My mom paid the kids in animal cookies for helping.

 Oh, did I say kids? I meant everyone.

 Here is a close up of the wood. I am so happy with it!

 And here is a close up of the dust. Yuck.

 And a finished view looking back at the kitchen.

 We spent Wednesday night, Thursday night, and Friday leveling the concrete in these two rooms. We started laying the flooring at 10am on Saturday, took a break from 3 to 6pm, and finished at 10:30 that night. All that is left to do is putting the trim back on.
Hooray!
Thank you Mom and Dad! It was really fun to work with you!