Happy New Year!

Our holidays are ongoing (yeah, still Christmas shopping, even), since the Grunzingers will be joining us in a couple of days. But we did actually get to see my entire family for Christmas. No great pics of the family per se (although an amusing video of my nephew Steven soloing in Rockband), but Mika provided amusement as usual, proving that a dog will chase a laser pointer (!) and that a five-squeaker toy can be reduced to a three-squeaker toy in under 20 seconds (note the severed leg next to her).

From New Album 12/31/08 2:25 PM

It was great to see everyone, and it's rare for both pilots to make it in when all the normal people do, so that was a pretty good Christmas present unto itself.

Ray has continued his home improvement and we have a functional shower, so here are the updated pics. We do have an amusing video of him soldering - soldering right next to the fire alarm is sort of entertaining. For the first few joints, anyway. But until I figure those out, here is the current state of the shower (and maybe some help figuring out where it is):

From New Album 12/31/08 2:25 PM

From New Album 12/31/08 2:25 PM

Jimmy has reserved it (and the murphy bed) for tonight after the New Year's party next door. We'll see if he's brave enough to use it without the hallway door (there is a pretty blue curtain).

Things are pretty calm here otherwise. Hope everyone is having a great holiday and has a fun (and safe) New Years!

Happy Holidays!

This probably isn't a surprise to anyone who knows us, but we didn't get holiday cards out this year. Or ever, really. Although we are enjoying all of the updates and pics that we have been getting, we are slackers (sorry!). Hopefully you'll all get cards from us soon enough anyway...

In the meantime, I did want to send out happy holiday wishes to all of you! It's a spread out holiday- I think we've got people from Maine to California this year (with the usual concentration in the Midwest). I hope everyone has a good holiday, good cheer, and as much snow as they want (you can have some of ours!)

Ray is, of course, flying on Christmas. But we will make it down to my parents' to see my whole family, which is rare with two pilots! And then we'll get some portion of the Grunzinger clan here soon thereafter. So that's a pretty good holiday in our books.

Wishing you all the best!

Crazy Busy

So, with classes, end of semester, work, and heavy home improvement, we haven't posted much here... Some highlights that we need to post:

-Ray is continuing the house improvement. The upstairs pantry now has a shower pan and a drain, so you could take a shower there if you had a big bucket. An actual spigot and tile will be forthcoming. For now, it looks more like this (except the showerpan is down and the drain is in):

-Friday night poker saw a rare Royal Flush. Wasn't either of us, although we did plenty well anyway (doubled our money!! both of us!!!) Congrats to Ken Lehman on his 1:220,000 hand. 

-I'm pretty sure no one wants to hear about all of the child-associated classes at the hospital that have been sucking up our weekends. But hey, perhaps we're more prepared. Maybe. I've never done CPR WITH a video before.. don't recommend it.

-We did get a fun new camera with video, but I won't torture with the video of Ray doing Rock Band. Yet, anyway.

In the meantime, if you want cute, all I can offer is this... at least one family member is quite mellow. :) Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season, and I promise more. Soon.

Glad we went early

As an update to the veggie farming post - they opened up the farm for free this weekend so that everyone could clean out the fields. Forty thouand people showed up! Dang.

Denver Post Story

Ray has Skills. And I think we're staying here for a while...

After I've spent months thinking about how to do this (and maybe his subconscious was working on it, too), Ray spent 3 days and built a Murphy bed in the basement. Yay, we have guest accommodations again! (Well, we will by the time any of you need them... I have some cleaning to do.)

In the last few months, we have constructed a closet, redone the kitchen, rearranged and somewhat refurnished the basement.. and next up is the new bathroom. I think recent events have given us a large sense of permanence in the current home. Not entirely sure where in the metro area I may be working next (or when next may be), but we'll be in this house for while! And Ray is doing an amazing job of making it home. Or home away from home - your bed awaits!

The wee one's new place......and the wee one

  

Work on the baby room is mostly complete.  Just need to clean out the closet and decide which mattress will be the most anti SID.  Not sure if the cats understand that they get a new roomate or not.  

Speaking of new roomates.  The wee one seems to be taking up more of the bed and makes snuggling a little harder.  The big belly shot everybody loves is available in the Picasa album (click on any of the pics in this entry to get to the album).  Enjoy.   

Vegetable Farming

Laura won a gift certificate to one of the local farms (Miller Farms). So the two of us and Jimmy went out to try our hands as vegetable farmers.  The farm has lots of little things for kids.  We got to enjoy those first. There were cars, airplanes and tractors to climb on..... I cannot decide if the farm did a good job replicating Towmater from the movie cars or Pixar did a lot of research on dead trucks in Colorado Fields.

The big deal was that they drove you around on a flatbed, stopping at various fields, so you could pick your own vegetables.  More like you picked up the root vegetables they already dug up with the tractors.  I think it allowed the farm workers to be amused that people would pay to dig in the dirt for food. We did get several bags of potatoes, carrots, onions and squash.  Plus four beets because everybody harassed us about not getting off the truck at the beet stop.  :P

We finally got to experience a corn maze. Turns out it is sort of like walking...

aimlessly....

through a field of corn...

Add in a bag of yummy kettlecorn and its pretty good entertainment.

All said and done, it was a great way to spend a gorgeous Saturday (upper 70's!). Laura turned a lot of the haul into filler for the new chest freezer, so we have a start on frozen dinners for the next few months!

(de)Construction

I'm hosting a fru-fru baby shower for my friend Ann this weekend. So, two weekends ago we decided to do this:

Obvious choice, right? Well, with the help of IKEA (countertop supplier), Ray's parents (countertop movers), Resource (sink supplier), and a lot of trips to Home Depot, we now have a new countertop, newly painted cabinets, and a new sink and faucet. And yes, pregnant ladies can paint, *if* it's low VOC paint.

Of course, I totally got out of the two days of polyurethaneing the counters. :)

Anyway, it now looks FABULOUS, and I sooo glad to not be dealing with the darn (constantly stained) beige laminate, never mind how much we both enjoy the gloriously large sink (which also made the disposal quieter, yay). Now, about that microwave and dishwasher....

You know, I always thought it was insulting that people would suggest appliance as gifts for women. Huh. Goes to show what I knew, huh? Several solid days of effort and Ray creates a redone kitchen and I'm ecstatic!

Rock banding all night....and recover the next day

A couple time a year we try to head up to St Cloud, MN to hang out with Bob and Jen.  

Bob and I got to Rock Band all night long.

...then we got to recover by watching the Vikings get crushed by the Titans.  But at least there was nap time and a chance to eat some chips.

Chicago- Museum of Science and Industry

Laura and I decided to make a day run to the Chicago museum of Science and Industry.  Early flight on Southwest and a 45 minute bus ride and we were there.

The huge model train set was great.  Laura found some kayakers and had to share with everyone.   I saw this German war plane as we walked in and was hoping this Fokker was a Messerschmitt.  But alas it was a Stukka.  So much for bad jokes.

Both Laura and I found our jobs in the Museum.  I think all my family would have found their work in the museum. Even my sister,  believe it or not, they had a patent and industrial law display.

The main reason we went to the museum was to check out this house.  Which you can have built if you want.  It showed off a number of eco friendlier ways of design and material use.  It is a modular home, box rooms built in the factory and put together on site.   It was sweet.  Denver has a townhome site being built on a lot of the same design principles.  I am going to check out how much that would be.  

After a long day and no state fairs for me this year.  I at least got to rest in a John Deere wheel.  Ahhhhhhhhhhh

ps from Laura--- I have to note that the first picture is me pouting because we could not, in fact, go see the giant heart that I have heard about since I was 3 - they're redoing all the human body stuff. And Laura Rose- the patent law display was a climbing wall. L:)

There's the tallywhacker!

So... it's a boy.. we think? It was a pretty indecisive ultrasound - started out a girl, then ten minutes in the tech says "there's the tallywhacker" (this tech cracks us up). We won't torture you with the grainy pics, but everything else looks good, so we'll take it. I guess we're registering in green and yellow anyway... And we'll see how long it is before Ray stops popping up with "There's the tallywhacker" at utterly random moments.

Soon...

So I'm about ready to tattoo "no, I don't know the sex yet" on my forehead...but the sonogram is Monday, so soon I'll have to decide if I'm holding Ray to his promise not to share. As if I can. 

In the meantime, the minion has chosen to make his/her presence known - first distinct kicks. Apparently, Poptarts were the key - a couple of you will find that amusing. 

Busy!

How did we let a whole month go by? I still haven't added Heather's pics to the last blog..

Things have been busy- a bit of kayaking and camping, some nesting, and a trip to NYC for me. I was sampling air on the subway platforms. Here's a fun pic of Kristen (the technician) and I sampling at 14th and Union Square (note the trains! and no comments on the um, fit of my fashionable sampling attire):

We sample the City Hall station, which was one of the first subway stations in the city but now serves only as a turnaround for the 6 train (due to design issues). Because it was the City Hall station, this station is really interesting, with chandeliers, arches and sky lights. They were going to open it as a subway museum, but then 9-11 made everyone less eager to open access up right below City Hall - but I'm glad the MTA people are kind enough to help us sample there. With no people, I tried for some arty pics. Here's one I like:

And finally, for the pics - we stayed in a new hotel - right between Grand Central and the Chrysler Building. Sadly, we had a west (Grand Central) facing room, but I still got to see the reflection of the Chrysler Building:

Things will slow down for me this month, but there's still plenty of nesting to be done. :) Ray has his usual work schedule, and the world is still not safe from the German empire (he's been playing some Civilization in his off time), but I think we're out of camping plans, so between the two of us, maybe the house will actually get worked on. Maybe. :)

Estes

We took a day trip this week to Estes Park with our friends Heather and Pete

It was a long haul to the top, but worth the effort.

Views from the top.   Lack of Oxygen makes you smile goofy, but the cool weather was much better than the 95F Denver was experiencing.  Still a little bit of snow up there.

We also got to see the yellow bellied Marmot and some Pika.

Americana

So, I haven't gotten ahold of the Bahamas photos yet.. and I really wanted to share one last batch from the honeymoon. One of our missions was to see all the kitschy Americana we could... and I think we did well. If you click on any of the pics, you should see the Picasa album, which also has a couple of other shots.

Monterey provided our first shot- Rappa's seafood came with this old salt:

And the closest we could find to fitting Ray into a John Deere tire (ala the MN state fair) - penguin egg at the aquarium.

Along with the drive-through tree, the Shrine Tree had a "three little bears house".

Our absolute favorite - the Treehouse of Mystery (or some equally crazed name) was all about "The life and adventures of Paul Bunyan and his friends and dog". For those CU fans - Babe bears a certain resemblance to the Ralphie on Baseline....For the Minnesotans, I will note that Ray was pretty offended by the crazy Californians' hubris.

And of course, what would it all be without a T. Rex?

Beyond all that - I guess I have to table the appliance debate for a while, as Ray finally let me demo our weird hallway-closet thing and is helping me build a walk-through closet. So I'm using my home depot allowance for the month, I think..but I still think the stove needs a pretty friend. Not avocado green - geez! :)  And I'll be baking my first bread on the new stove tomorrow.