Where Have We Been?

We've been moving!

That's right...after buying our first house, doing months of repair work on it (including a full kitchen remodel), and getting settled, we've moved. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that 900sf is smallish for 2 adults, a baby, and 5 cats. The main reason, though, is that we had an opportunity to share a house with our friends Megan and Christa (links to their blogs are on the sidebar). Christa's parents own a house in the foothills (which, at 8000 feet, are higher than NC foothills, to say the least) that they plan on moving into when her mom finishes her PhD. In the meantime, though, Christa and Megan have been living there. There's WAY more room there than those two take up, though, so we're renting the basement and two bedrooms.

The benefits of this are numerous: a safer, more exciting place for Eli to explore (ten acres of land, no cars whizzing by on busy streets), friends to keep Jessa company, more space for us to move around in (the basement and the two bedrooms have more space than our house did), and a much prettier environment to live in (see the pictures below).

So this past Saturday, Megan, Christa, and our new friend Mattie came over, and together we moved our junk out of our Yuma house and into what we're calling The Mountain House. (We also moved about 40% of our stuff into a storage building, but that's another saga).

Since we know you don't come here for the writing, here's the photographic documentation:

The last days of the old house. Eli, as you can see, is growing like a weed and is now sitting up happily in his bumbo chair. He even sits up without it for 10 or 15 seconds at a time if you set him up properly. Usually his sitting session is done in by a desire to chew on his feet, which propels him forward.
Eli also loves his exersaucer, especially the fake cell phone attached to it, and the blue/green thing on a stick in the foreground, which he LOVES to chew.
Moving is HARD. Here, Eli is tuckered out from a day of getting our new spaces ready before we moved. This is in the big living room space, which is usually closed off in the winter so we don't have to heat it. Yes, that's a Christmas tree in the picture. Don't ask.
The moving crew breaks for lunch. Note the weather: it was a gorgeous, 73-degree, sunny day. More on this later.
Eli got his socks really dirty walking around on our driveway (with some help from dad, of course). We think he's going to be an early walker; he's been doing this since he was weeks old. He was also really interested in our Subway; its going to be time to break out the rice cereal soon.
Here's the house (photo credit: Elisabeth). This is the outside of the room you saw above. Our bedroom is the last thing on the upper back side, in the top left corner of the shot.
So remember that 73-degree, sunny moving day? The next day it snowed 14 inches. That's how it is in Colorado. So while we got the stuff moved from our old house to the new house, the stuff that was going to the storage building got delayed (there's just no way to drive a moving truck through 14 inches of snow). Here, Eli is bundled up for a venture out to the driveway. Clothing by our friend Selena's mom.
Eli, of course, was very helpful during the move. He LOVES books....
....they taste great.
Jessa organizing our tv/play room. This is in the basement, and this is where all of you who come to visit can stay, in accommodations far exceeding what we had in our old house.
The view from our bedroom, looking south-southwest. The deck is in the foreground, and if you squint you might be able to make out a trampoline and small playground under all the snow. By the way, there's a deer that sleeps under the deck at night.
The view from our bedroom, looking southeast. Just over that hill, on a clear day, you can make out the southernmost parts of the Denver metro area.
Eli hanging out on the bed in his mom and dad's (still not put together) bedroom. The wall is for passive solar heating, and the loveseat in the corner is going to be a reading nook. Also, the bathroom is amazing...trust us on this (no pictures).
Eli approves.

Come visit us!

Weekend Warriors

The MVP of the weekend goes to Eric's dad, who drove up from Abilene TX to help with home improvement. Over the weekend, we:

--power washed and stained the deck, including replacing several rotten boards,
--power washed the house,
--installed air conditioning in Jessa's studio,
--installed two fluorescent lights in the ceiling of Jessa's studio,
--hung a door to the baby's room,
--installed the elusive bathroom light/exhaust fan combo
--some other stuff I can't even remember now.

Although we hesitate to speak in such terms, the house is getting....close to done. Not done done, but done enough to bring a baby home to.

Previous MVPs of home improvement are Eric's mom, Selena, and Tommy.

Just to keep the presses rolling:

House and life updates:

--The bathroom now has a new sink (pedestal) and toilet. These are major upgrades, as the last sink was a boxed-in monstrosity that took up half the bathroom, and the toilet was old, leaky, and kind of gross. So the bathroom, which is really the last room to come together, only needs a few more things to be finished.

--Today is studio day. When our potter friend Tommy was here a couple of weeks ago, he got a lot of work done in the studio (which is in the garage): built a wedging table, built a kiln room, built a spray booth, built a packing table, and generally re-organized the whole place. Today we're putting the finishing touches on the whole thing by setting up the wheel, putting the last of our spare boxes and stuff into the garage's attic, replacing the hinges on the garage attic door, and cleaning the place up. By this evening, Jessa will be making pots.

--It's hot for the next few days in Denver--87 today and 94 tomorrow-but there has definitely been a break in the weather. Last week there were a couple of genuinely cool days, and in the 10-day forecast things are in the low to mid 80s, instead of the low to mid 90s, and there are even a few 70s days in there.

--Fun Denver fact: the average first snowfall is the last week of September or the first week in October. Due date: September 30th.

--Because I like posting pictures on this thing, here is a picture of us at Lily Lake up in Rocky Mountain National Park back in July.