Visitor at the Pitt

Over the Holiday we had a four legged visitor at the Pitt, Sophie. Sophie is Scamp and Pepper's cousin from Virginia and she happens to be Scamps BFF. Elizabeth got to take some great pictures while she was here:

 

On a house related note  - the siding is done! Stay tuned for pictures.

Deck the Halls

I vowed that would not get a Christmas tree until we owned our own place. This year we have our own place and have plenty of space for a tree. Those ornaments we got as gifts through the years, finally have a place to be hung. There was lots of buzz, cooking, baking and family. All in all - a good thing.

Baked Goods:

The tree and fixin's:

 

The Reason for the season (lunch box nativity scene):

 

The story of Bob's Christmas Gift 

Since Bob and I have been together, my mother manages to take every gift idea I have for Bob, and one up me. This is typically not a problem because we benefit by ending up with a nicer thing. This Christmas Maria did not let me down. I bought Bob a U of M Snuggie. This was the perfect gift. Bob is always cold and he doesn't own any Michigan apparel. I excitedly special ordered my purchase and waited for Christmas to arrive. I made no mention of this to Maria (my mom). I was on the phone with her a week before Christmas and asked, "So what did you get Bob?" She replies, "Vell you know Orsika, since Bob is alvays so cold, I got him blanket for couch. It vraps around like robe." Her blanket was indeed leaps and bounds beyond mine. it had zippers, clasps, fuzzy insides. So once again, Maria outdid me.

U of M Snuggie:

Maria Snuggie a like (Doesn't it look like something the pope or Kevin would wear?):

 

 

We hope your holidays were relaxing and filled with warm moments! To 2010 and beyond!

A Milestone

Dear readers, Bob and I achieved a milestone today; we parked both cars in the garage today. This is indeed a glorious day.

Things we are thankful for...

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. I mean yes, there were 8 people in a house with 1 full bath, an incredible "mysterious" smell coming from a room, but other than that things were great. It was great to see family and have everybody together. Things that we are thankful for:

• Good friends that stop by the night of the family arrival and help us get prepared.
• Good friends that help us borrow tables. (We'll return them, I swear!)
• Family Bingo. This was our first year playing, and we can highly recommend it. When we were getting ready for the big day, Bob and I kept saying, "So and so will say this, or do this..." Finally, a friend suggested that we create a bingo board with all the different scenarios and mark them off as they happen. The rules? We can't initiate the conversations on the board, and that the board remains a secret until the end of the event. It was great fun, and we would like to thank our families for being so predictable.
• A successful turkey with a veg roasting it. 
• Equal pie to person ratio. (Thank you Nuxoll's for teaching us the way).
• Getting all the food on the table within a reasonable time frame.
• Big house where everybody got their own room and a chance to spread out.
• Great family and great family time.
• Seeing the look on Annmarie's face when she first tasted the Ethiopian food.
• An almost finished master bedroom and a great dad that helped us get there!

All the helping hands in the kitchen:

The boys helping out:

The food:

The pies:

The niece and nephew:

Moving on....

As I mentioned, this year Bear and I are hosting Thanksgiving. Yes folks, I am making a turkey. So in addition to the regular construction preparations, we've been re arranging and decorating the inside. I use the term decorating loosely.  I successfully convinced my parents to give us their basement furniture, a tan sectional sleeper sofa. My family bought this sofa when we first moved to the USA. We shall call it, "The Freedom Sofa." The freedom sofa is giving us much needed additional seating for the extra family. Now that the bunnies are gone, we've rearranged the entire dining room/living room area to accommodate the extra seating.

Another Passing at the Pitt

Our little Shaggy has been devastated ever since Wini passed away. His eye wouldn't stop dripping, his back leg just got worse, and he was visibly lonely. We tried pain meds, acupuncture, warm water baths. He passed away during the day while we were at work. We left him in the morning like we usually do, telling him that we loved him very much, but something about today was different. I think that he's in a better place with our Wini and together they are frolicking in a field full of dandelion greens.

We have such fond memories of our Shaggy. He was the little man of the house. So gentle and oblivious to everything that went on around him. He had a one track mind and that was our Wini. Good-bye our little Shaggs. You were loved very much and you'll be missed.

Fun with Insulation

This year will be the first year Bob and I will be hosting our first Thanksgiving, and the first one at the Pitt. Since we have 6 additional people staying with us for a long weekend, we've been motivated and working extra hard to get everything in place. This morning we had some fun with insulation. You see, we bought all the necessary insulation to adequately insulate the attic, now we just need to get the insulation into the attic. There are three separate attic entrances in the house. One is in a bedroom where there is scripture quoted on the wall. Today we finally moved the insulation into the attic through that room. The best part about transporting insulation? The masks!

MUAHAHAHAHA. Am I scary?

"We're taking all precautions necessary to avoid H1N1"

In addition to the insulation we finally moved the tub into the storage room. Thanks Aunt Sue and Uncle Ron for the furniture dolly!

Phase II: House Wrap

It is incredible how much better the house looks with house wrap on. Gone is the plywood and gross old brown siding, and in is the new wonderful Dow Chemcial housing wrap. The best part, it's made in Canada. We are one step closer to not looking like the most ghetto house on the block.

We've enjoyed a warm fall, which has been a big help in getting the siding started and going. Since my niece is visiting for the next couple of weeks, dad won't be available as much as he has been, so production is slowing down. But once the first row of siding is up, the rest is easy. Stay tuned for Phase 3.

The Plywood Palace, Siding, Phase 1

We've been busy at the Pitt. We began the outside of the house and thought, a couple of weeks and BAAM we'd have siding. As you may know, things are not always how we think they should be at the Pitt. There were a billion repairs to do in the wall itself. And we had to build the wall for the new bay window in the kitchen!!

So we begin with pictures of the plywood palace. Our neighbors must be getting super excited that we are a step closer the real siding:

 We also had to tear down the front steps. They weren't level and water was flowing toward the house. So while I'm at work Bob calls me and says, "We just rented a jackhammer." I'm not going to lie, I was worried. Bob, Dad and the Jackhammer. Who would win?

Dad 1. Steps 0. Bob 0.

Phase II: House Wrap

A Passing at the Pitt

It's been a tough couple of days on the Pitt. Our sweetest Wini girl passed away on Thursday.

Wednesday night we noticed she wasn't eating (she was fine that morning). This is bad, because rabbits need to eat pretty much constantly. We took her to the nearest exotic animal emergency hospital (exotic? yeah, we know) which was all the way in Novi. She had gut stasis (again), a condition where she basically stops digesting. They medicated her and kept her overnight. By morning she was doing much better, so we transferred her to our regular vet for observation the rest of the day. She was doing better, but in the afternoon she took a turn for the worse and never recovered.

We miss her so much. And we know Shaggy misses her terribly. Wini gave us so much: she was our first pet together (and the only one that's been at all of the places we've lived together), she led to Orsi's nickname (Bun), she convinced Orsi's parents to get a pet (their dog Virgonc), she got us Shaggy and so much more.

So in loving memory of our Wini, here are some photo highlights from the last 6 years: