This little blog garden has moved to a new web-address...http://midwestkids.wordpress.com/

I've been blogging there for a couple of months.  You can catch up by going to the East Coast Offspring entry that was posted on April 12th and read our recent news!  Which by the title you should have guessed...yes we are expecting! 

And we have also been to Europe...

So you have a lot to catch up on if you have missed it.  This account will be closed, but don't fret...all old entries have been moved to the new wordpress account. 

See you on the new blog!

I have a new distraction...can you blame me for the lack of posts?  We have been cooking and enjoying our kitchen a lot since my last update almost a month ago.  Mom said she is tired of reading about our backsplash so I figured I better get back into the swing of things. 

I finally acquired a kitchen aid stand mixer.  She (yes I named it) is lovely and so far every weekend since her birth I've made an assortment of things.  Right now my infatuation is with bread.  The challenge of getting this yeast stuff to work is very addicting.  So far I have made rosemary focaccia, pita bread, french baguettes and pretzels.  All have turned out OK...each better than the last.  I think I'm going to re-try the focaccia this weekend.  Now that I have a little more experience, hopefully it will rise like it is supposed too.  I've also made my share of cake balls and last weekend I tried my first recipe of many for the perfect carrot cake.  We had carrot cake at our wedding and it is by far my favorite 'take to a desert island' dessert.  The recipe I used was from King Arthur Flour and although the exact recipe isn't online this one is similar.  Next up a recipe from Gourmet that was given to me thanks to an NIH co-worker.  Speaking of co-workers they have been the recipients of all these fruits of my labor...thank goodness because without them I would be 10 lbs heavier.

We have gone outside this past month...over the holiday weekend we went to see a couple of exhibits at the art museums here.  I heard about The Americans on NPR and while we were downtown we noticed adds for Feature Photography at the Portrait Gallery.

That's about the extent of our excitement.  Trying to save some money to get our savings back to the level it needs to be after the kitchen remodel so things have been very low-key.  Seems like everyone (OK 3 friends) are pregnant and expecting this year so hopefully this summer/fall we can get out of DC and back to the Midwest to see these new babies.  I also just booked our plane tickets for the Burns family Switzerland vacation in May.  We will also be stopping in Paris for a long weekend.  Staying with an old neighbor and Christine is going to meet us there from London.  Very excited!  I started brushing up on my French a bit last night on my long walk.

We are both ready for spring but this weeks snow was fun too.  Will be nice to get out and plant some flowers in the front.  Everything feels and looks so drab right now.  Doesn't help that the deer are feasting on our new bushes...poor little guys...they look so pathetic.  I need to read up on what to do because they really haven't grown much since we planted them over a year ago.  I'm sure the deer munching doesn't help.  Royce bought some spray for them...I guess it smelled horrible...made him gag...mental note to not spray that stuff on windy days.

Newsy post is over...I will try to be more diligent at keeping up with the posts.  It's just hard to compete with the excitement of a new kitchen.

Dave came over to put up our backsplash on Thursday.  I heard it was a pain in the ass to deal with (the tile, not me). 

We went with glass tile which is all the rage these days for kitchens and bathrooms and mantels and lots of other places you can think of to stick tile.  Check it out...it can get pretty insane.  When I first saw my tile (at HomeExpo of all places when we were looking for the floor) I fell in love.  The colors were perfect, they blended in the cabinets to our dining room.  It was subdued but it popped.  It just fit (even the snobby lady at Architectural Ceramics agreed with me).

Oceanside Glass tile - Tessera Collection - Mosaic Blend - Color:  Enchantment

It's pretty right?  The standard 1 x 1 pattern wasn't doing it for me though...I liked the variability of the random modular pattern (example below).  I guess installing this pattern was a lot harder than the standard 1x1 becuase of the way they ship the sheets...Sorry Dave! 

In the end I still think it is lovely.  These photos were taken during grout prep.







And this is a random photo of Charlie with his creepy rat like hair cut.  This is what happens when you go too long between trims...they have to cut him really short to get the mats out of his hair.  Poor Charlie.  He does blend in nicely with our new kitchen though

Paul the plumber made it through the snow & ice to hook up our water and gas lines.  Tonight we were able to have our first dinner in the new kitchen.  Royce described it as my sanctuary.  I can't complain...it is beautiful.  I still can't believe we waited this long to get this project going.  Cooking is my favorite thing after all.  We made a simple dish of vodka cream sauce.  All my hesitation about the new gas stove (I've never cooked on gas before) has been erased.  It is so responsive and WAY easier to clean up than my old electric coils.  I have a feeling this kitchen will have many more good meals to come.









Tomorrow our floors will be sealed and I think our backsplash is in so Royce will go pick that up.  We may have it all completed by Friday!

Our counter tops were installed today and they sure are nice.  We went with Silestone...basically manufactured granite.  Color:  Beige Olimpo.  The backsplash will be the focal point here so we had to go with a plain counter...which is fine...it looks smashing. Dave also installed the pulls we purchased this weekend.  More are coming in the mail...we could only find 28 in-stock and we need 34.

Tomorrow as long as the plumber can make it to our house (threat of ice) will be our 'go live' day.  He is hooking up the sink, washer, range.  Our first planned dinner isn't anything too difficult b/c I wasn't sure I would have all my tools in their proper places.  We plan on making a simple penne with vodka cream sauce.  Can't wait!





And I finally caught a photo with Dave...he is hard at work framing our window out with the pieces he stained that match perfectly to our cabinet.  Such detail!

For the long MLK/Inauguration weekend we decided to go out to WV for some skiing.  It's not that we don't support Obama, we do.  We just figured with no kitchen and 4 days left to ourselves without being able to go downtown to do things/eat wouldn't be an ideal use of non-work days. 

I'm a huge lover of winter.  Last year we went out to Shenandoah for some winter hiking.  This year we stepped it up a notch and went to West Virginia to try out hand at cross country skiing.  We rented a cozy one bedroom loft style town home complete with a working kitchen and fireplace in Davis, WV near the Canaan Valley and Timberline Ski areas. 

Our first day we went out to Whitegrass and our second day we were at Blackwater Falls State park.  When we were not skiing we were reading, relaxing, and cooking.  It was quite a refreshing vacation.  Needless to say we had so much fun that I'm going to get some gear at the end of season so that we can do this more often.  Click on the photo below to see more!

I feel like we almost have our house back!  The kitchen floor went in yesterday.  The 'bubble wall' came down today.  And I'm slowly starting to peal my protective plastic back from the living room furniture and vacuum around the areas.  I'm hopeful that this weekend I can get the dining room set back up and the living room back to a room for living, instead of a hermetically sealed off-limits room.  Tomorrow we are going to search for nobs and hopefully this weekend I can get them all purchased.  So far we are still on schedule for an active functional kitchen 6 days from today!

I can't believe this has happened so fast!

Contractor Dave (I really gotta get a picture of him!) was over yesterday doing small things to the kitchen.  The range hood went in, and he put in the over-sink lights and under-cabinet lights.  Which got me thinking there are A LOT of small things in addition to big things.  As to the big things that are left, I guess electrical should be finished on Monday, Counter-top man is coming Tuesday (when we will be attempting to drive back from WV) which means that a week from Tuesday (the 27th) our counter-tops will be installed.  Then Wednesday, Paul the Plumber is coming to hook up the sink, range and fridge. 

So our first projection is that we will have a functional working kitchen by Wednesday Jan 28th.  That means this entire process only took 23 days if everything goes right.  And here I was preparing for 4-6 weeks of no-kitchen.  We still have a lot of frozen meals to eat!  The only problems I see for thwarting our success are if the counter-top people don't keep their appointments, or if Paul the Plumber has an emergency plumbing thing to attend to.  Of course there is still many finishing touches that need to be done like the floor...backsplash...window.  I'm sure Dave has those somewhere in his schedule. 

In other news, Royce found our backsplash for $12 cheaper (than other tile stores in the area) at HomeExpo of all places.  And its scheduled to only take 2 weeks to arrive (compared to 4-8 weeks from the tile stores) and they ship it directly to us.  I guess it pays to shop around...and include all those places you never thought would be cheaper.  I'm not a fan of big-box stores but when we are talking about saving upwards of $500 on tile I'll happily spend my $$ there.

Next thing for me to figure out...knobs.  And geez there are a lot to consider!

The remainder of the cabinets were installed today.  It's starting to look a lot more like a functional kitchen now.  I of course made sure all the doors and drawers opened properly like a giddy kid.  Rumor has it our range will be hooked up by the time we return from West Virginia.  We are escaping the inaguration chaos here and are bunkering down in the woods.  Looking forward to some skiing and general relaxation not to mention being able to cook some food in the cabin kitchen.

More destruction on Day 3.  Removal of floor and construction of new sub-floor and new wall.




Day 8....cabinets and stove arrive! and spackling begins.




Day 9.  Sanding, ceiling painting, and the first cabinet installation.