Erin's Halloween costume

We went to a Halloween party last weekend. Here's Erin's costume.

Baby shower

Alright, finally time for another blog entry. I was just looking at the blog and realized that the last post was over a month ago. How shameful. I started writing this post early last week, but got busy at work and of course didn't have the energy by the time I got home so it had to wait until the weekend to finish. A lot has happened since then, so here goes. The house construction is coming along, but Brian wrote a a nice detailed post about that. He gets to write about the construction since he is doing all of it. I guess I will start with my surprise baby shower. Was I surprised! I thought that Brian and I were meeting his parents at their house and then the four of us would go out for lunch to celebrate my birthday. On the way, he was getting text messages, but he played them off and I wasn’t suspicious at all. We got to the house and he opened the door, I followed him in and everyone was standing there looking at me. At first I just stood there stunned with my mouth open, then I said “Holy Crap!” as I walked the rest of the way into the room. I just wanted everyone to stop looking at me. As if I wasn’t still reelling from shock of my friends and family all in the same room staring at me, my parents walked into the room! I had no idea they were even in Florida, but of course that was the point. They called me the day before on my birthday from the airport on their way to Florida to wish me a happy birthday and then I talked to them again that evening when they were already at my in-laws house. Sneaky devils. Anyway, when I saw them, I cried. A lot of things were working against me at that moment. I was still reeling from the first surprise, my pregnancy hormones were raging in full force, and of course I was happy to see them. I can’t believe that the party had been in the works pretty much from the moment we announced the pregnancy and no one spilled the beans. I was really impressed! The rest of the party was a blast. It was great to see everyone. Brian and I hadn’t seen a lot of our friends in a while. We have kind of been hermits lately. We have been working on the house and I haven’t had a lot of energy for socializing. How lame. Check out the link for horribly unflattering pictures of me at the shower.

Long overdue update

Wow. It's been over a month. OK, I agree that's unacceptable. Actually, a lot has been going on (more the reason for frequent posts) but both Erin and I keep passing the buck to post something. "You, no you, no it's your turn." (Actually, Erin is WAY behind on posting, so really...)

Baby update: Somewhere around 36 weeks. All is well. Approximately 6 pounds in utero with long legs (doctor's words). Don't know where those came from. Maybe the dog? Another ultrasound next week so hopefully Erin can put up another pic. She must now push the coffee table away from her when getting up from the couch. Quite humorous. I'm thinking of installing a hoist.
Room(s) update: Well, there was a problem with the flooring. We had the old carpet and vinyl garbage ripped up in hopes that the underlying pine could be salvaged. Turns out that more than half of it was damaged beyond repair. So, new plywood was laid and horizontal carbonized bamboo was installed. It looks fantastic, but cost more than we planned (isn't that always the case?).

The parasite's room is DONE. Well, mostly. After the floors were finished I painted the baseboards, finalized some touch up painting, re-installed the closet doors and replaced door hardware. I previously replaced the ceiling fan and light fixture. After much nagging, I finally allowed Erin to start cluttering up the room with parasite paraphernalia. It looked so nice all empty and airy... Now the only things left to install are a closet organizer system (maybe next week.) and window blinds. Oh, and a parasite to take it all for granted.


The front soon-to-be-office room is also coming along, albeit at a slower pace than the parasite's room. I laid the track for the multipass doors, so that it is flush with the new flooring. Looks great! The baseboards are in but I haven't yet painted them. I just got some track lighting and will try to install it this weekend. I replaced all the receptacles and switches with decora versions and stainless steel switch plates. I never realized how cool the stainless looks. Such a great accent. I'm going to use them for future projects. Still have a lot left to do in there but it's mostly the boring aesthetic stuff like painting, blinds, etc. Not difficult but time consuming.

One sort of drawback... now that the flooring has gone in, it looks like it's time to fix up the adjacent dining room. SIGH. One room leads to another. So that project will be tackled sooner than planned. Which will in turn lead to the kitchen...

That's all for now. I'm going to nag Erin to post soon, since she's much further behind than I am. And since most of you care more about her and the parasite than my adventures. She's got a good story to tell about her baby shower and other misadventures.

Toodles.