Baltimore and house projects

We have two separate updates for you this week. From Wednesday through Saturday, Kim was in Baltimore for a conference. She had a great time meeting other people in her field, attending socials/networking events and enjoying Baltimore. Her hotel room was right on the inner harbor, and this was the room out of the hotel window - gorgeous!



She also got to listen to a steel drum band play along the harbor, eat a LOT of fresh seafood and discover this gem:



While she was gone, Eric held down the fort at home. His big project was working on the attic. There was only plywood down on the floor over half of the attic, so the other half was unusable (not to mention that the drywall wasn't installed on the ceiling very well). So we decided to expand our usable storage space - and fix the drywall in the process. Eric and Kim's dad got most of the work done on Saturday...until Kim's dad got in a fight with a roofing nail (and lost). Five stitches later, he's fine...and he's even on speaking terms with Eric! They were able to finish the project and install the drywall today, so now we just need to tape, mud and paint the seams.

This morning, we also got some more painting done on the exterior trim. Kim painted the "low" parts (i.e. everything but the peak) on one side of the house. Now we're down to the four peaks: one over the garage, one over the den, and the two sides. Wish us luck with that.

And of course, we cheered the Bears on to victory this afternoon. It may not have been pretty, but a win is a win. Go Bears!

Current gas price: $2.35/gallon

Wedding weekend

Not sure how it got to be 10:30 p.m. so fast... Must be one of those weekends!

As for our week, Kim went to an appreciation dinner for her office on Thursday night. She enjoyed having dinner with her coworkers - especially since they served filet! Eric worked from home on Thursday since the exterminator came to check on the nest in our attic. It turns out it was a massive yellow jacket nest...but it was dormant. I'm not sure who was happier to find that out (Eric or the exterminator!). They also sprayed a bee's nest in the backyard, so hopefully there won't be as much activity out by the patio.j

On Saturday, we got up early and worked on painting more of the exterior trim. We got one of the peaks finished, as well as the trim around the garage door. We still need to do both sides of the house, and two more peaks in the front. With any luck, we'll be able to finish it all before it gets too cold to be outside.

After we finished painting, we quickly got ready to go to a wedding for our friends Julia and Tony. They had a beautiful ceremony and reception, and we had a great time celebrating with them.



This morning we had brunch with Kim's parents and grandparents (who are in town for a few days). Then we watched football and cheered the Bears on to a win over the Steelers! Definitely a good day in our house. Kim also (finally) finished her 2008 scrapbook, so she's caught up to the current year...just need to get caught up on the last nine months, now.

Current gas price: $2.49/gallon

Festival weekend

The weekend after Labor Day is a famous one around here. Afterall, what's not to like about several huge festivals (including Greek, Italian and Popcorn) all in a 48 hour period? So like any good citizen, we took it upon ourselves to visit (i.e. eat at) several of the local festivities. The food at the Italian festival was amazing, as you'd probably guess, and there was also a live band, so it was fun to wander around, eat pizza/calzones/cannoli/pasta fagoli and enjoy the atmosphere.

We didn't spend all weekend eating, though! We noticed the exterior trim on the house was looking pretty faded - and worse in some places. Given what we know about how the rest of the house was maintained, it probably hadn't been painted in 15 years. So, we made a stop at the store to get our paint color matched and then set to work. We got the entire back of the house done, as well as the walk way to the front door. Of course, that leaves us with the hardest part to paint - all the peaks. Oh well...that's what next weekend is for! (And maybe the next few weekends after that...)

The highlight of our week, though, was the voicemail that was waiting for us on Friday morning - our nephew was born on Thursday night! We've seen a few pictures, and he's a cutie. Can't wait to see more.

Current gas price: $2.43/gallon.

Watching grass grow

There's not much better than a four-day weekend. Especially one with such beautiful weather. As for the title of the post, our grass seed started coming up this weekend (yay!). It looks really funny since there are just tiny groupings of grass all over the lawn - but hopefully it'll grown in more over the next week.

Yesterday, Eric worked on installing a new garage door opener - so hopefully the garage door will actually open and close when it's below 20 degrees this winter. As fun as it was to manually have to put the door down and run out to the car in the car.

In the afternoon, we met up with Mike, Erin and Leah and headed to a local festival - where we had more than our fair share of fair food ;-)

Today we worked on a lot of jobs around the house, and drafted for our family fantasy football league. Tonight we made our delicious chicken stuffed shells for dinner and relaxed...and we're so happy we get to do it all over again tomorrow!

Current gas price: $2.42/gallon

Where should we begin?

We spent the early part of the week over at Kim's parent's house. We took on the task of painting and decorating her brother's room since he's at college and won't be home until Thanksgiving. It took us awhile to pick the exact paint colors (yes, colors) we wanted to use, and we finally got the first coat up on Monday. A second coat followed on Tuesday (and a third coat on one of the walls), and the trim got a fresh coat of white paint later in the week. It looks pretty darn good, if we do say so ourselves. Now we just have to put everything back together...that's the plan for this week. We'd give away more details of the room, but it's a surprise...and you-know-who reads this blog ;-)

On Thursday night, we went over to Mike and Katie's. We enjoyed a delicious plate of chocolate chip cookies and cookie skillet ala mode. Mmmm! It was great to catch up and see pictures from their vacation.

This felt like a long weekend (in a good way!) even though the real long weekend isn't until next week - neat! On Friday, we went to a concert with Julia and Tony. The opening act, while they have good songs, was not so great in concert. However, we really enjoyed Creed. (Eric has seen them three times now, but he was a good sport and took Kim to see them since she'd never been.)

The rest of the weekend has been a mix of errands and relaxing. We picked up around the house, weeded the garden, went shopping (Eric got 5 new shirts, and none of them were gray!), sat on the new patio, went for a walk, played the Wii, drafted for one of our Fantasy Football leagues and cheered on the Bears.

Current gas price: $2.49/gallon

Celebrations

If you remember from our last post, our new patio still needed to be sealed before we could use it. While we were supposed to have the sealer applied on Monday, Mother Nature had other plans - and we ended up getting 2 inches of rain. Fortunately, with as hot as it was this week, the concrete dried pretty quickly, and we were able to get the sealant applied on Tuesday before the next wave of storms rolled in. Notice what a huge difference the sealer makes - the color really pops now!



And here's the finished look:


This weekend, we were able to help Addison celebrate her first birthday. It was really nice to have seen Addison twice this month, too. She definitely recognized us when we got there - and broke out in a huge smile. Talk about melting our hearts!



Addison's first birthday party was held that afternoon, and Melissa did a great job with the cake!


Addison clearly loves sweets and devoured the entire cupcake. (She then proceeded to have a sugar high for the rest of the afternoon...)


After brunch today, we did a mini photo shoot with the world's cutest subject. She's clearly not camera shy!






Current gas price: $2.49/gallon

Introducing...our new patio!

There was a flurry of activity at our house this week, and we have a new patio (and tire treads in the grass!) to show for it. So, here's a look at the patio progress:



Putting small stones into the framed out hole for the patio.


Cement truck arrives with 3.5 yards of cement.


Cement is poured into the patio frame and spread out.


Cement is smoothed out.


And more smoothing with a different tool.


Putting down the color release and stamped pattern.


Fast forward 24 hours...and Tony is now spraying off the color release (which turned our grass a lovely rose color!)


And the almost finished patio! It gets a sealed tomorrow, and then we'll be able to put our patio set and grill on it. So excited to host a cookout. And many thanks to Tony and Mr. Thompson for their hard work!

Current gas price: $2.49/gallon