The Graduate

On Friday, Ethan had what will hopefully be the first of many graduations.  His preschool put on a little graduation ceremony.  Even though it seemed a little ridiculous, I have to admit it was pretty cute.  It does mark a transition for him--many kids are not enrolled for the summer, and in a few months he will be done too.
They prepared some songs for us, and each walked up to get "diplomas".

Afterwards, to celebrate, I took him to the SF Giants game.  He is really into baseball now, so he was super excited.  Can't believe he is headed to kindergarten soon!

Uncle Jeremy Comes for a Visit

About a week and a half ago, Uncle Jeremy came back from Brussels.  Conveniently, he had a conference for work in San Francisco.  He has extended his visit out here for three weeks.  The kids have had so much fun hanging out with their uncle, and Jason and I have enjoyed seeing him too.   He was in town on Father's Day, so we all went out for lunch downtown--and even great grandpa (who is amazingly hanging in there...) was able to join us.  Had to post this cute family photo!

Back Online

Well, after a hiatus, our computer is back up and running!  Our house is very close to being done--had the first meal in our kitchen on my birthday!  Photos coming soon--want it to be complete before I post.
We have been super busy "moving back in".  Not only does everything need to be unpacked, but also completely cleaned.  The layer of dust  is quite unbelievable.  We have been working at reorganizing for over a week now, and I still feel like we have hardly made a dent in the work.

Meanwhile...life has continued......

Alaina has been busy growing teeth, and FINALLY is working on walking.   She has taken a few unassisted steps, but still has a ways to go.  Alaina and I made a trip out to Chicago last week--had a conference which I was presenting at--so Grandpa Ferschl was a great babysitter for the day--and she got to hang out with my dad's cousins who were down for a visit.

Ethan's has a new love: "Frozen".  This Disney movie, which somehow I have avoided watching, is a real hit in his preschool crowd.  He came home one day begging for the soundtrack, and when we discovered that our local library did not have a copy, he decided to spend his own money to buy it!  Now weekend mornings are filled with him singing along (at the top of his voice) to his new CD.  

Construction Update

As I write this post, my fingers are turning white form the dust that is on the keyboard.   But the good news is that we are making progress.  We had a big day on Thursday--our cabinets came in!  Now we have a preview for what the kitchen will really look like!!!

Our master bath and guest bath are almost complete.  They will demolish the kids bath on Tuesday.   Almost all external work, including siding and painting is done.  We are pretty pleased with what has been done in about 10 weeks.  We are hoping that they are finishing up by my birthday....we will see.

Exterior all painted

Looking into kitchen

Kitchen looking towards family room

I have to say, this has been a bit more stressful than anticipated.  Mostly because we have the contents of our entire house scattered in 2 rooms.  Finding anything is a challenge, and the piles of "stuff" are out of control.  And, of course, it is all covered in a inch of dust that keeps settling the moment it is cleaned up.  Not child friendly, to say the least!  We are also really sick of microwaveable dinners.  But, I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.....

Good timing

Two weeks ago, they began sheet-rocking our remodel.   I didn't really know what that meant, but I was warned by friends that this was the dustiest part of the project, and were not looking forward to it.   Long before we knew the timing of our project, we planned 2 weeks off in May.  We were lucky that our time off corresponded almost exactly with the sheet-rocking, and thus we avoided being home for the bulk of it.

At the beginning of our vacation, I had a conference in Southern California.  Jason and the kids joined me at the end of it, and we headed to Legoland, which Ethan has been begging to go to since one of his preschool classmates went.

Legoland was so-so.   We were really glad to be there during the low season--even though the park was not that crowded the lines were quite long, as the rides are quite inefficient compared to Disney.  Also the park, though nice, was not nearly as well maintained as we thought it would be.  Ethan, however, proclaimed it the best vacation ever, so at least someone was happy.

Afterwards we headed to Chicago to spend a week with my family.  Although we didn't realize it when we made our plans, we were in town for Mother's Day, which was really nice.   My grandma and Aunt Judith came down from Milwaukee...and I know that my mom would have appreciated us being there.

We hit the Chicago weather just right--when we arrived few trees had budded, but by the end of the week, almost all trees were growing leaves, and many were flowering as well--so beautiful.

And when we came home--we lucked out on timing again.  The day we left there was a fire in an air traffic control tower in Chicago.   The fire cause over 1000 flights to be cancelled, but somehow, our flight was able to take off with only a two hour delay.  

This week we learned of another reason our trip was well timed--serious wildfires have been burning in southern California near Legoland, and they had to close the park for a few days. So, overall we felt really fortunate that our time away was timed so well!

And when we got home....big changes to the house!  It is really beginning to take shape.

 But that will have to be the subject of another post.....

Uncle Brandon Gets Married

This past weekend we headed to Austin, TX to celebrate the marriage of Jason's brother Brandon.  Brandon met Jennifer about a year ago, fell in love, and decided to get married.   Jason was the best man in the wedding, and Ethan was the ring bearer.

Jason's parents also joined us for the trip.  The wedding was in a very beautiful setting and it was fun to dress up the kids.   Ethan looked particularly handsome in his tuxedo, and he stole the show as the ring bearer.  He was very excited and proud to be able to participate, and I was very proud of him for doing such a great job!!

Now, for anyone who has ever traveled across 2 times zones with 2 kids for a total of 43 hours including 7 hours on a plane, you may understand that our weekend was a little frantic and rushed.   But we were very happy to be there to support Brandon.
 

Holiday Weekend

This weekend, we got to celebrate two holidays: Easter and Passover!

On Friday night, we left the dust bowl that our house has become and headed to Sonoma.  We enjoyed spending the day with Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday, and that night we had a seder.  Alaina seemed to love the Matzoh ball soup!

On Sunday, we headed back to Marin for a birthday party...and what do you know, the Easter bunny came while we were in Sonoma!  A sugar-filled morning for sure.

Meanwhile, construction continues.   They seemed to make a lot of progress this week:  Windows in (except for window over sink, which we we planning of reusing from our old kitchen....turns out it wont work, so we have a new window on order.....).   Our master bath has been gutted, and the second story framing is done:
 

New Bathroom

 Office reconfigured to accommodate bathroom

Exterior minus kitchen window