Food Coma and Moldings

My mom arrived yesterday and since then we have been cooking and eating a lot of food.

Today we made frijoles and pozole. Yumm. We went in search of ox-tail which we easily found. We had a harder time finding Nixtamal for the pozole. We had to use a large can of hominy instead. It came out super good. After our food fest I fell asleep on the couch. It feels good to have my mom here.

Kevin has been working away ignoring us as we roam around the kitchen. He put up the moldings and toe kicks. They look great! My wine refrigerator came in too. It holds 38 bottles - I can't wait to use it. Overall, our kitchen is now usable. We are using the stove daily and eating fresh meals. Thank god - Daniel and I were so tired of eating out.

Knobs

Just a small detail but an important one especially if you actually want to use your cabinetry. I found some nice knobs and pulls at Restoration Hardware. I tried Ikea but the look didn't work and both Kevin (contractor) and Victoria (kitchen designer) said that it was "too much." So today Kevin has been working away on installing the knobs I purchased yesterday. I'm so happy to be able to put food away and actually use the drawers.

And yes, I'm still pregnant. Due date is somewhere between July 31-August 7th. We'll see how it goes -one thing is for sure: he'll come when he's ready.

Baby Shower

Thanks to Gwyn for providing some photos of the baby shower Cheryl and Laurie hosted for us 2 weeks ago. Does anyone know how to manage the posts so that i can put this "blog entry" in order?

Back to the shower - it was a very nice day and Laurie and Cheryl outdid themselves. They provided so much food and Jackie provided tons of wine. I think everyone had a nice time. It was great for Daniel and I to catch up with friends since we have been underground for the last several months dealing with the kitchen and ongoing construction and all the required coordination.

So there is Daniel wearing one of the baby bibs.

The next photo is of Raquel, myself and Sarita. We all went to high school together in Smell - A. Go Jesters!

Then we have a photo of Robyn our niece, Raquel, Sarita and Cheryl (the host).

Lastly is a photo of our backyard filled with friends. The day before it was filled with 3 truckloads of construction debris. What a difference a day makes -

Kitchen cabinets

So last week Kevin installed the kitchen cabinets. Ah - love them! This week he had company in from Ireland so not much has changed. I'm still pregnant and this is what the kitchen looks like. Tomorrow we will have the drywall finished and the appliances installed.

The appliance I most want connected is our stove and for Daniel it is the coffee/expresso machine. Daniel and Jerrod are standing next to the one touch whatever you want to drink machine.

Floors

I was secretly hoping we would get our floors in but didn't expect it. Kevin worked it out. He put in the subflooring and had a group of guys he's worked with in the past install and seal the floors in 3 days. They even used a water based stain to minimize the toxicity. I left for the day and by the time I came home the smell was gone.

animal and baby gear update

So this month we also experienced Chili having major dental surgery. They took out 5 of his teeth so the photo of him is when he returned from the hospital. He was not very happy for several days so he slept with Robyn for comfort. This was great for us. Daniel and I finally got to sleep without any interruptions.

My brother and his wife Jennifer mailed us the baby bassinet which took me about 8 hours to put together and in the end I had 4 screws leftover. So Jerrod came over last Sunday, read the manual and figured out where i went wrong. The bassinet is now sturdy and baby proof (so he guaranteed).

Elsa mailed us the stroller and as you can see Daniel was trying to give Chili a ride in it. It didn't go over well with Chili so he jumped out as soon as Daniel had put him in.

Final wall - bye bye 1970's sliding door

This brings me to our last wall which also had to be rebuilt but went much much faster since there weren't any major issues. Daniel did have to pour concrete but it was straight forward and we din't have termites.

This wall used to hold a funky 1970's sliding door. Kevin got rid of the door and this weird little pocket square and created just one straight line. After that he put in our Marvin door. Picture of me was 2 weeks ago at 36 weeks.

July - we have a wall!

This has been a good month. Kevin put up our walls, the new windows and shingles. Daniel didn't have to deal with any more termites. I started sleeping again after seeing an accupunturist regularly. We had a baby shower, Robyn was here and the house started to come together. We also got the pocket doors installed.

Termites, framing, windows and a coleman stove

Here are a few more photos of the foundation work and framing. We moved our refrigerator, microwave and a camping stove into the dining room. We've been using it ever since. We are supposed to have a working stove soon so this little set up should be going away thankfully!

June 2008

June was a bad month!

We lost an entire wall and we found out we had termite damage. Daniel and James poured concrete all weekend long, killed termites, and earthquake proofed the new foundation. After all that Kevin our contractor was eventually able to put up the wall. He had to tear it all down and rebuild it. We weren't expecting this but because of the damage, it was the only way to move forward. So for about 3 weeks our house was wide open to racoons, squirrels and other Oaklandish animals.

These are all pictures of poor Daniel working very hard - this was not a fun month for Daniel. On top of all this work, he also switched groups at Oracle. June 2008 = S T R E S S.

May 2008

In May 2008 things really started to get moving. I was getting fatter and more uncomfortable. I was having a very hard time sleeping and experienced some pretty severe insomnia. However, we also started to get a wall up between the kitchen and formal dining room. What you see is the framing of the pocket doors and finally some closed walls (where the pocket doors are now and the wall where our original kitchen door entrance used to be). The other picture is of me finishing up my 2nd trimester.

Pregnancy and Kitchen, April 2008

As I write this the baby is moving. I can see my entire stomach shift from one side to the next. It's really cool and very sci-fi. Today we had our weekly with our midwife and everything looks normal. My due date is technically next Sunday but anything could happen. He could come now or in 2 weeks. I'm just sitting back, praying and hoping that our kitchen stove is connected before he makes his world debut.

Pictures: More of the wall coming down between the kitchen and formal dining room.

Photos 1: The original entryway into the kitchen is blocked by the red hutch. Daniel had this closed up so now in order to get to the kitchen you have to walk through the formal dining room and into the kitchen (walk through smallish white double doors).

Picture 2: Shows new hallway leading to our bedroom.

Picture 3: Me at 20 weeks.

Picture 4: One of our kitchen outside walls (which eventually is taken down).

Picture 5: Baby's first Lederhosen. Daniel's mom, Anne mailed them to us. I love them!!!!!!!