Friday, January 13th
Oh, where does the time go? This trend will only get worse, I'm afraid. We've been keeping busy with Derek, as one would expect. I went back to work after a week and a day, but I've been taking Mondays off to help Sarah and spend more time with Derek. He put on two pounds in the first two weeks!
Christmas Eve we went down to my mom's and had dinner with her, Jessica, and Steve. The next day we stayed in while Sarah's whole family came to us. We had a big Christmas dinner in the house and opened presents. The day after Christmas we drove up to have dinner at her grandmother's.
New Years was at Eriq and Meg's as we have for a few years now. They threw a great shindig with tons of tasty food and drink. Unfortunately, the next day Sarah and Derek both came down with a respiratory infection. Derek was looking ok at his checkup on Monday, but by Saturday we took him back in to the doctor.
The doctor said he had bronchiolitis, and didn't like his breathing rate and pulse-ox levels, so she sent us to the ER. Once there they monitored Derek for an hour or so and finally decided not to keep him overnight for observation. We were relieved to come home. He had a follow-up appointment on Monday and he was still very congested and wheezing so his doctor prescribed a nebulizer. Finally after a few days of treatments, the doctor said yesterday that his lungs were sounding much better and we can taper off the treatments. For his part, Derek has been eating tons. With him feeling better, both Sarah's parents and my mom are coming up this weekend to see him.
Beyond caring for the baby, I've tried to find spare moments to work on the basement demolition but haven't made much progress. I've come a long way in getting floor plans figured out and I'll be looking for an architect shortly. Assuming I get the basement ready in the sometime-future we'll also finally get our structural repairs done.
Otherwise we're settling into a routine and hoping that Derek will start sleeping for longer periods soon, since sleep has been sporadic for both of us, Sarah especially.
Monday, December 5th
Well, here is December already, and there's a lot to say. First, off, Sarah had the baby! Our beautiful baby son Derek was born on November 29th. He was three weeks early, but even so he weighed six pounds, fourteen ounces and was twenty inches long. Lungs, heart, fingers, toes all healthy, so we went home a couple of days later. Unfortunately he got jaundiced and so we had to come back to the hospital for a couple more days while he got phototherapy. We can go home again today, so we're excited about that.
Prior to that what have I been up to? We spent a lot of time with Steve and Kathryn with the LAN Party, pumpkin carving, and going out for dinner for Sarah's birthday. We had Jessica and Steve plus my mom and Jim over for dinner a few weeks ago , had Thanksgiving with her family and went to Nancy and David's for brunch. Matt B bought a house, so we went up to see it and had dinner with him plus Eriq and Meg. I've also been working on the basement demolition, floor planning, and going over to Dean's new house to help him with his remodelling.
I've been off work with the baby here, and I'll be going back on Wednesday. I'm planning to take Monday's off for a while to give Sarah some time off and so she can go to her weekly meeting at DePaul. I've been saving up time so I should be able to do that for a couple of months. There's probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting, but obviously there's been a lot going on.
Monday, October 3rd
Another couple of months gone and now it's time to play catch-up on the Journal. When I left off in July we were starting our push to get the house ready to move in. It took another month before everything was completed. At the end of July we had a party that was perhaps a bit premature but we had a good time anyway. Since the house wasn't ready we held it in the back yard. Matt B came down for a few days and helped us get ready and get the house painted. Finally we moved in on August 20th, two months to the day after we closed.
Since then we've been mostly getting settled and taking a short break. We went up to Eriq and Meg's for Meg's birthday party, we went camping at Apple River Canyon for a weekend, and we took a couple of weekends off. We also watched the first three seasons of Breaking Bad, which was pretty good. I started work demoing the basement, since the mold had gotten pretty bad and we wanted to expose the structure so the foundation repair guys could give us a better estimate.
This past weekend we met up with Scot, Shannon, and their two girls for dinner. The LAN party is coming up as well as the Halloween-time events. I'm trying to work on the house during the week so we can keep weekends clear.
The exterminator came out on Saturday and asked us to take everything out of our kitchen cupboards so he could spray. It was pretty demoralizing to be set back to zero on getting the kitchen organized, but it's coming back together. All in all we're keeping busy, Sarah is looking pretty pregnant these days, and we're chugging away at the house. That's basically all that's new with me.
Wednesday, July 20th
Oh, where has the time gone? Most of it's gone to the house, but we've done some other things as well. As noted, we went down to my mom's for my and my sister's birthdays. The following weekend we drove up to Sarah's parents property in Wisconsin and went to Noah's Ark in Wisconsin Dells. We had a lot of fun, and it was a needed break from the house.come
The next weekend Eriq and Meg volunteered to come down with Cayman and help us with the house. Sarah's mom, dad, and her niece and nephews have all made trips to help us too. With everything taking more time than expected and there being more to do than expected, I don't know where we'd be without all of their help. Things are coming along, but I don't think we'll be moved by the end of the month as hoped. If you want the details, it's all in our new blog.
Last weekend we drove down to my sister's house in Lafayette for a family reunion with aunts, uncles, cousins, kids, and of course my immediate family as well. It was a great time, and my sister put a lot of work into planning everything.
Now we're back in the grind on the house, with no reprieve until it's ready. I'm taking off a few days next week, more people have volunteered to help us, and with some luck it will all come together. In the mean time it's a hundred degrees outside and the going is slow. Wish us luck!
Thursday, June 23rd
It's been a busy few weeks. We had a great time camping with Eriq and Meg. It was cooler and rainier than we hoped, but we still managed to have some roaring campfires, eat s'mores, and bike along the Elroy-Sparta trail. I got a call the Thursday morning we were leaving from my mortgage company with the impression we were closing the next day. That finally got straightened out and closing was finally moved to the 20th.
Last Saturday we went up to Sarah's hometown for a birthday party for her youngest niece, who just turned 3. We also preemptively bought a new washer and dryer from Sears. Sunday we mostly took it easy since it was the last day to relax before the big project started.
Monday morning we did our walk-through. We had a fun time over the last couple weeks trying to get the tenants out of the house, which they finally deigned to do on Friday. We ate a diner breakfast, sat through closing waiting for the wire to come through, and finally got the go ahead and the keys. We went to the house and changed the locks before Sarah took me to work for the rest of the day.
Every night this week (except tonight) we're at the house working on cleaning it out. We're planning to move in the second half of July, so it's a bit of a rush. We've already tackled cockroaches, boarding up broken basement windows, pulling out carpeting and a particularly nasty kitchen cabinet. We have a big list of to-dos and we're making progress bit by bit. Saturday Dean is going to help me fix the toilets, since they aren't even attached to the floor and only one of them approaches working. Sunday we're going to my mom's to celebrate my birthday and my sister's. I'm a bit sore, but it's good to be finally working on it instead of just planning and waiting.