Rebecca had braces put on her two front teeth today. She has been using an expander for the past four months to get some space in there. Now, those permanent teeth need to be put in place. This process should only take two months.

Rebecca turned 8 on Friday. We didn’t do much to celebrate on that day since she had a Girl Scout event that evening. No problem, her big party was on Sunday.

We gave Rebecca the option of either getting a new DS (DS Lite, not the DSi out in April) or having a birthday party at BounceU; she opted for the party. On Sunday Natalie and Rebecca and twelve of their friends bounced, bounced, and bounced some more. Continue reading →

The wind storm started Wednesday evening (around bed time). It intensified overnight and continued through the day on Thursday.

We really hear the wind noises in our house. This is somewhat disturbing to the kids. Around 12:30 AM on Thursday the storm was really loud and both kids woke. It was hard to get them back to sleep with the constant driving wind. Continue reading →

This has been a harsher winter than I anticipated. Of course, my anticipation was based on only one winter’s worth of data. The rest of the family arrived in April last year and didn’t get to experience winter in Western Pennsylvania (they experienced another Minnesota winter).

Winter here last year was an average temperature in the 20s (F) with a few ‘really cold’ days in the lower teens. There were a few snow showers, but mostly it was a few inches and would melt the next day when the temperature broke 30. There was a stretch of a week when the snow was a daily occurrence and the driveway needed to be shoveled. After that week, spring was just around the corner. Continue reading →

The annual Christmas party for work was held yesterday at the Fox Chapel Golf Club. It was a very nice, and profitable, event.

This was the first time Kate and I were able to attend this party. Last year, Kate was back in Minnesota selling the house; I didn’t feel like going solo. Continue reading →

Natalie’s birthday was the other day. Our oldest added another year. We are so proud.

The day started bright and early. Like a Christmas morning, opening presents were the first order of business; and in pajamas. Her gifts included the book The Tales of Beedle The Bard (a Harry Potter tie-in), Kids Bop CD, outfits for her Julie, and a new bathrobe. Continue reading →

The blinds were installed yesterday. We have had unadorned windows for well over a month since moving in.

The blinds are the Neat Pleat style from Bali. They were purchased from Lowes (the local one). The installer did a great job; which only took about 2 hours. We had over 19 windows covered; the most important ones were in the bathrooms and the girls bedrooms.

We did not cover the basement windows, the garage windows, or the two patio doors. Those will probably get some curtain or such when we get around to it.

The tile guy stopped by yesterday and fixed the tile in the laundry room. It looks good as new.

The first big project of the new house was to make a platform, of sorts, to raise the washer and dryer above the tiled-in drain area. This would allow the extra-capacity dryer to fit in the laundry room. The feet on the dryer are set back a bit so the platform just had to be high enough for the front of the dryer to extend over the lip of the drain area (raised about 3 inches). Continue reading →