Today, we have finished the nursery… our baby boy (name still a mystery to the outside world) shall be able to cry and poop in the lap of luxury.   My super amazing wife, who is doing great, took some photos of the newly finished room.  Click the thumbnails below to see a larger version.

Copies of these can also be found in the baby gallery (click here).

The greatest B movie actor of all time (one of my favorite actors period) has become the spokesperson of Old Spice.  Take a gander at the man, the myth, the legend... Mr. Bruce Campbell! Notice the chain saw by the fireplace!

I leave you on this... "Klaatu, Verata, Nickle... Nectar... Noodle... Necktie.  Definitely an N word." 

We hit the ultrasound machine again today now 20 weeks into the pregnancy, and it is a boy!  The baby and mother have checked out, all is looking good and healthy.  When I heard, I nearly fell over.  That is all I have to say about that... you can see the little bun in the oven below.  We also set up a new gallery just for our baby, a link to that is below as well.

The house has been going well.  We got quite a bit done over the last few weeks thanks to Anne and both Honore's and my parents.  We have completely gutted and replaced the downstairs bath room.  We finished painting the living room and dining room (put a new massive light fixture in the dining room as well).  I'm almost done with replacing the floor and toilet in the upstairs main bath, getting rid of yet another green carpet.  We also replaced the toilet in the master bath.

I would like to thank Fred for his help in our bathroom endeavors and training me on toilet installation.  Thank you Fred for your help!

In addition to all that we have begun the next big endeavor to date... the hallway.  This is by far the largest job we have done, enlisting both families to help.  First we got the ceiling painted downstairs.  Then we removed the wall paper both up and down stairs (that is me on the ladder scaffolding combo type thing).  I have also spackled downstairs as well. 

That is what we have done so far. 

This weekend we are going to finish spackling the upstairs, sand the walls, then wash the walls.  We will also get the upstairs ceiling painted as well.  All of this work will get us ready for the next big step, painting.

Just for fun, I below is the before and after photos of our dining room!

I leave you with this...  "Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails... that's what little boys are made of."

Our lawyer was great (thank you John) and after signing our names over and over and over... we closed on the house on Friday, Nov 17th around 11:30am without incident. My lovely pregnant wife and I then took a ride over too our new home, looked around, and said "what the hell have we just gotten ourselves into?"  The good... the house was state of the art in 1962 with steel i-beams, intercom systems, and everything.  The bad... the house was built in 1962 and hasn't changed since. Enjoy some lovely photos:

Nothing proves it is my house like a shot of my WRX in the garage (I am so happy to have a garage).

We have done a lot of work in the house already, and more would be done if I didn't get food poisoning from bad lunch meat the day of the move (was sick for two days after).  However this is what we have gotten done so far.

1. Cleaned (and I mean CLEANED) the whole house including carpet and window washing.
   
2. Painted the ceiling in the dining room, office, and main hallway.
3. Ripped out the rug in the office, cleaned the linoleum floor and repainted the room.  This is the only room 100% done.
4. Poured some concrete for a new mailbox pole, and put in a mail box.
5. Tried to fix a leak in the toilet on the downstairs 1/2 bath.  Ended up gutting the entire bathroom ripping out the sink, the busted toilet, the carpet (yes carpet), and the wall tile.  We have just finished putting in the new sub floor and drywall.  Next step is to sand down the walls, re-tape the drywall, and lay down the tile floor.  After that we can install the new commode and paint.
6. Replaced the refrigerator, the old one stank.
7. Unpacked almost every box except for the dining room and fine china.  The dining room should be completed this week so we can finish that room.
8. Installed a new main shut off valve to the master water line.
9. Organized all of my new tools.
10. Repainted and built new shelves in the pantry so we can store food.
11. Ordered new toilets for both upstairs bathrooms.
12. Ran new coax cable through out the lower rooms of the house, the old cables were nasty and sticky.
13. Installed new dead bolts in both front and back doors and put our door-knocker on the front door.
    
14. Cleaned the old apartment.

Honore and I would like to thank all four of our parents, Anne, Matt and Colynda (and baby Nadia for entertainment), Fred for the plumbing, and Ruby.  Thank you all very much for all of the work you guys have done this week for us. 

In addition to all this crazy house stuff... on Friday morning at 8am (yes the same morning we closed on the house) Honore and I took a ride up to the doctors to check on the "bun in the oven".  For the first time we heard the baby's heart beat.   New House... New Baby... whats next world?

Lastly I hate football, Notre Dame got rocked, my fantasy team took a nose dive, and the Giants who blew a 21 - 0 halftime lead to the friggin Titans.  That sucked.

I leave you with this... "It was no picnic but those guys are work animals. Well everything looks pretty much under control." {Curly from the movie The Money Pit}