more snow, knitting, and super friends...

just a hodge-podge of random notes...

It snowed again yesterday, but instead of being a light dusting overnight, it was pretty much snowing all day and we ended up with close to a foot of powder. Luckily Thursdays are a normal day off for me, so I didn't have to drive anywhere, but Jay decided to go into work and it took him about an hour just to get to the train station! It will be really nice when the new one opens in a month that is practically right down the street.

Ella absolutely hated going outside while the snow was actually falling, and it took all my patience to stand out there with her in the cold to wait for her to go to the bathroom. Once it did stop snowing in the afternoon, she had a blast romping around in the snow that completely covered her legs! Unfortunately I did not get a picture of that. But here's one thru our window while it was cold and snowy (that is our driveway/parking lot)


So, what does one do at home all day while it's cold and snowy outside? Why, knit a baby blanket of course! (Actually, I began this new project about a week ago and have been steadily working away. But the snowy day gave me lots of time to really make some progress). I found this super cute yellow and white yarn with a patern on the label for a baby blanket. The yarn is supposed to be self-striping, so it does the work of making the stripes for you. But don't be fooled, this is not what I'd call an "easy" project (contrary to the label indicatior). There is a border going around the entire blanket and it involves counting stitches and knitting and purling. I'm pretty impressed with myself for actually attempting to follow a patern (though I did have to call my friend Erin to get some help with abbreviations). I have actually screwed it up several times already, sometimes just letting it slide and trying to work it out, and a couple times actually un-knitting my work and backtracking and doing it again the right way. So here's a picture of the work in progress...


And finally for the best part...the friends. Jay already mentioned in the last post about how blessed we've been with friends. The people we are renting this condo from let us borrow some of thier furniture, our friends the Heldts let us borrow a TV and antenna (so we don't even have to pay for cable and we get about 10 stations!), a new friend from my church women's group gave us a laundry basket full of kitchen stuff, and now the latest, my friend from high school just sent me a bunch of maternity clothes! It's awesome, there are 3 pairs of jeans and a pair of pants that fit now, plus 3 more pairs of jeans that will fit when i get more of a belly! Plus a ton of shirts which will also fit when I have a belly. So thank you to everyone!!! Jay and I feel so blessed and even though circumstances are not what we were planning, we know that it's all in God's hands - He shows us every day that He takes care of us according to His plan!

Move #2!

We're all moved into our condo in Aurora. Despite being a lot smaller than our house, it feels like a mansion compared to that extended stay hotel room. We've got an actual kitchen, a seperate bedroom and living room, a fireplace, a little deck, and a view of the mountains... much better...

We moved just in time, because it snowed a few days later for the first time this year (after being in the upper 70s the day we moved in). Ella was not happy about the cold white stuff at first, but has come to love romping in and chewing on snow. And as I suspected, her particular coloring pattern gives her the perfect camoflauge in a light snow. Can you find the dog in the picture below?


The couple we are renting the condo from was generous enough to let us borrow a bunch of their furniture - a bed, a dining table and chairs, a computer desk, and a dresser, along with some plates and cups and whatnot. Jenna had also mentioned at her Thursday night group at church that if anyone had any extra kitchen stuff we'd love to borrow it. That weekend at church a girl took us out to her car and gave us a big basket full of brand new kitchen utensils, plates, cups, silverware, dish towels, etc... that was a huge surprise and incredibly nice.

So between that and a few trips to the thrift store, some garage sales, and walmart, we've pretty much got a fully furnished place with all the fixings. We're borrowing Mike & Rachel's extra TV and antenna, and I just picked up a surprisingly nice Crate & Barrel couch today at the thrift store for $20... which was cool because we had given up on finding a decent couch for cheap and I was heading down there to pick up an ugly floral print couch we'd seen for $25. We're still washing the cushion covers (just for good measure since its a used couch) so no pictures of the place yet. I'll take some sometime this week (maybe).

The place we're in is in a pretty convenient location. Its across from another park with another pond, only this one has ducks instead of geese. Ella is just as excited about the ducks as her prior goose encounter, as you can see in the picture below. Its also about a 5-minute drive from the new light rail station that opens in a few weeks, and a few blocks from a dog park, and the Cherry Creek Reservoir.


So we should be fairly comfortable for a while waiting for our house to sell (other than the general lack of money and the rising credit card bill)

The Justice League (er, Center)

As mentioned in a previous post, my firm is involved in the new Denver Justice Center, specifically the new courthouse in downtown Denver, right next to the US Mint. It is a really high-profile project, and will be a major fixture downtown. Steven Holl won an international competition with us to design the courthouse, in an effort to bring "world class" architecture to denver (he was named world's greatest architect by Time magazine in 2001 according to an article I read).

Well, things somehow went awry between Holl and the city, and while I can't say exactly what happened (partly because I really don't know much since I wasn't involved in any of the politics, and partly because its semi-confidential), Steven Holl has left the project, and we now have a mandate to redesign the entire thing from scratch, under budget, with their newly rigid design preferences, still creating a "world class" building, and we have about 8 weeks to do it. The image above is Holl's design, which will be scrapped.

It could be a huge breakout project for us, but still we're all pretty bummed that there isn't going to be a Steven Holl project in Denver. He got along really well with everyone at the office, and I don't think there was really a design issue with him like the press seems to be implying. Contrary to the fears expressed in some of the articles, though, I happen to know we have a really great design in the works (don't worry, I'm not in charge).

Here's links to various articles about it:

Rocky Mountain News 1
Rocky Mountain News 2
Rocky Mountain News 3

Denver Post 1
Denver Post 2
Denver Post 3

If you're really interested, you can watch a video of him presenting his design here

good news, I think

Well, since we aren't moving to a purchased house, and after carefully weighing the pros and cons of buying something cheap just to live in for the time being, we've decided to rent a condo and wait on any purchasing until we can afford what we really want. The good part is that at least we're getting out of this tiny hotel room. The other good part is that we are renting a condo from friends of friends who are aware of our situation and they are willing to do a 3 month lease w/month to month after that. And the 3rd good part is that they even have some furniture they are letting us borrow! So now I don't feel totally trapped, especially with the holidays coming up. Oh, and the 4th good part is that there is an actual, real kitchen, so I can even make holiday feasts if I so desire! (Hopefully with kitchen supplies and dinnerware supplied dirt cheap by local garage sales or Goodwill). The 5th good part - only one flight of stairs and a fireplace to boot! I could just go on and on...but really the best part of all is that we're moving this saturday!!!! Of course we could still use a bit of prayer that our house sells soon and that we don't go broke in the mean time (the new place will end up costing a bit more than we pay now as we'll have to pay utilities on top of rent). Sorry no pics yet, but once we're in and get some internet hooked up we'll post again with some pics so you all don't feel too disapointed in viewing our pictureless post.

No Dice

Well, our prospective house is no longer a prospect... Our house still hasn't sold, the news is still bad in OC, and the builder wants to close on the new one in less than a month, which means we're out.

I still can't figure out what's going on in OC. Not much in the world has actually changed since March, but somehow housing is worth 10% less than 6 months ago? And STILL no one has decided it might be a good time to buy a house? What are they waiting for? Ours is listed at 20% less than 5 months ago, and still almost no lookers... that's a lot of money, and its still an awesome house. It don't make no sense! But apparently whining about it hasn't helped.

On the theme of whining, we're getting really, really tired of hotel/apartment living. The place we're living in has started wearing away at our sanity bit by bit, like chinese water torture. Here's a fun list of annoyances that has led us to our respective breaking points:

• Its on the 3rd floor, so we're walking up and down steps multiple times every day to come and go, and to take Ella out for walks (the funny thing is, she tries to exit on the second floor every time - she still hasn't figured out how stairs work)

• The fitted sheet over the mattress somehow doesn't stay put, so every morning I wake up with bare hotel mattress in my face.

• The "kitchenette" (pictured in a previous post) is so absurdly tiny, you can't wash the dishes without banging your head or smacking your elbows on the wall 6 inches from the sink.

• There's no couch, so we watch TV in bed, which is completely uncomfortable and gives us backaches

• The fan in the bathroom sounds like a jet-engine

• Our neighbor feels the need to slam his door as loud as possible every time he enters or leaves, and yaks on the phone with a booming arab accent every night around bedtime (the walls are too thin would be another gripe). No joke, he just slammed the door as I was typing.
  

• The gas barbeques don't work at all

• There's a huge dog across the way that has an enormous bark. And there's also a bird in the same room. Every time the dog barks - which is totally jarring if the window's open - its followed by a bird call (or more like a squeal).
  

• They're doing construction on the three rooms across the hall from us, so there's construction workers, tools, cigarettes, yelling, sawing, banging, etc., all day long that Jenna has to listen to the days she's here alone.

So... we're starting to consider finding an actual apartment somewhere around here to rent, since it looks like we're in it for longer than we ever could have imagined... The thought has also occured to us, since you can buy a 1 bedroom condo here for $50-80K, that we might just buy one and keep it later as an income property, since the monthly payment would be much less than the rents we're seeing... but we'll see. That might be a genius idea, or totally stupid, we still need to research it.

All that to say, we're not exactly in the best of spirits. We are looking forward to seeing our friends Steve and Jill from Maryland this weekend and checking out the new art museum that opens on Saturday (and beating Mike Heldt at fantasy football)

My thoughts on this Pregnancy thing...

Since I've been feeling a lot better lately, and looking at a monitor no longer makes me quite as nauseous, I decided I would share my thoughts about our pregnancy. I've also been reading a pregnancy journal on one of those baby websites, and they are blogging every week, so I thought the least I could do is maybe once a month or so!

First off, I am really super excited. This kinda comes as a surprise to even me, as I'm not the oogely-googely baby type, and really don't have that much interest in kids in general. But good ol' mom was right - I DO feel differently now that it's my own! I'm sure the pregnancy hormones really rev up that maternal instinct. And, seeing the ultrasound was simply amazing - there it was, a real live little person moving around inside me! That was definitely the coolest moment of pregnancy so far.

One of the challenging parts right now is not having health insurance. Jay's work has the customary 90 day waiting period, so we won't be insured until Nov 1st. So, for the first dr visit, we just paid cash, and then we were able to schedule the next visit after Nov 1st. We have temporary, emergency-only insurance, which of course does not cover pregnancy. And even if it did, the deductible is so high it would not be worth it to actually use it! The only thing that is a bit scary about it is what if we/I/the baby needs something before Nov 1st...though I'm sure it will be fine, and I know this is just another one of those "tests" God throws our way to make sure we are fully reliant on Him and not our own little helpless selves, as much as we want to be the ones in control!

Other things Jay and I have been doing/experiencing since becoming pregnant - Getting bombarded with free magazines and pamhlets and advertisements from all sorts of baby and parenting sources; Getting free formula and diaper cream samples and passifiers from the OB/GYN office and the maternity store where I bravely entered to buy a "belly band" (a contraption designed so a newly pregnant girl can wear her normal pants unbuttoned when she is just feeling a bit fat and bloated, but not big enough for maternity wear); Starting a list of possible boy and girl names; Thinking about baby furniture and decorating a baby room which we will hopefully have soon; and, Trying to figure out how we're going to cope with (and be good parental figures to) a tiny newborn, a baby, a toddler, a preschooler, a grade schooler, a jr-higher, and a high-schooler! God help us!!!

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are the pics of the 2 home pregnancy tests I took (Jay didn't believe the first one), and also a profile of me with a barely pregnant, just starting to pooch out stomach (oh, and ignore the date on the pic, we hadn't set the date thingie on the camera yet - who knew it didn't just come programed with the correct date?!):

Ella's Adventure

Today it was gorgeous out, the sky was crystal clear and the mountains were freshly capped with snow.


It was in the upper 60s, so we decided to take Ella on a walk to the local park we found recently. There's a pond in the park with signs that say "please don't feed the geese". I've never seen geese in it until today. Neither had Ella. Here's a pic of her gazing longingly at the geese that were parading around in front of her:


Shortly after this picture was taken, she decided she couldn't take it anymore and dove into the pond! Ella hates water, she normally avoids puddles and runs from the rain, but in this case apparently the drive to destroy the birds taunting her overrode that natural tendency.

She had her leash on (and choke chain), so midair she was spun around and was out of the water about as quick as she was in it... but it was hilarious. That water couldn't have been warm, either, its been in the low 40s every night for the past few days. The funny thing was, she didn't give up there. As we walked around the pond, she never took her eyes off the geese. I let her get close to the edge again, and she kept crouching down like she was stalking them, ready to pounce. She tried diving in a second time, but I yanked her back midair and she landed back on the ground. Needless to say the geese weren't too thrilled... here's one batting its wings


So we've decided if we ever want to train her to swim, all we need is a fake duck or something and she'll go right in!

Also, there was a field with a ton of prairie dogs right next to the park (which surprisingly Ella had no interest in). Here's a picture of one of them poking his head out and nervously chirping to warn the others that I was intruding on their territory.


So Ella will definitely be having some good dreams tonight. Lots of critters to dream about killing.