The Remodeling Project...

DESTRUCTION, Phase One

Well, the demolishing phase of remodeling the nursery/bathroom is almost complete. We started out with taking down the wallboard and old (1927!) doorways. We should actually have some doors (for the first time since we moved in) by the end of today! Kyle is coming over to put them in for us, and Justin and Rusty are coming over to take a look at the chimney. We want to make sure that if we knock the chimney down our house won't come down with it! We have about two months to complete this entire project, so wish us luck.

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

(Well, after we demolished it, anyway!)

Bathroom Before 2

Bathroom After 2

We are actually standing in the nursery looking through where the wall used to be. You can see the outline of where the old bathroom wall used to be on the floor. The green floor was a small closet connected to the nursery.






Jeremy asking me what we got ourselves into. He had just finished ripping down all of the wallboard that was covering up the plaster walls. Were not really sure what the three holes above the window are for. At least we know we have insulation! We were beginning to wonder...

So that's all for today. We'll update with more pictures after the construction starts taking place.

Oh, and by the way, I'm not sure why the formatting is always all screwed up on this blog, or why nobody can leave any comments. All of our settings are correct, it just doesn't seem to work right for some reason. If anyone is good at troubleshooting send us an email!

It's a Boy!

The results are in! Come July 24th or so we will be bringing home a bouncing baby BOY! Jeremy was very happy when the ultrasound technician announced that the baby was definitely a boy. He's been brushing up on his football moves for months now - just in case.

Practically everyone we know was expecting us to have a baby girl so the news was very exciting and somewhat surprising. All of the "Old Wives' Tales" pointed toward a girl...but NOPE! We are both very happy for the news, as we both have been secretly hoping for a boy since the beginning!

For fun, here are the ultrasound pictures. Annie was nice enough to scan them in for me. Its a bit hard to tell what the pictures are of. I'll try and explain as best I can underneath each photo.

This is the little guy laying on his side. The profile is of his right side with his head facing up (bottom left side of photo.) You can see his right arm and ribcage in the middle. One the right side of the image his knees are bent with two small feet attached to each leg. I'm not sure what the big white thing is above him. Probably my bladder - I thought it was going to explode in the middle of the sonogram!

In this one you can really only see his head and his left arm. His head is the round thing in the middle and his face is facing upwards (another profile image.) His arm is above his head and, wait...what's that? Yep, he's sucking his thumb!

This is another profile of the baby's right side (it must be his good side for pictures...) Pretty much all that is visible is his face. The back of his head is on the left side and his face on the right side. Mom's tummy was growling during this part. He must have been hungry, too, because his mouth is wide open!

Mom at 22 weeks.

Dad at 28 years.

That's all the photos we have for today. If anyone can think of any good boy's names let us know. We had a bunch that we liked for girls...but can't decide now that we know its a boy! Thanks for sharing in our special day with us. We miss you all!

The "Kids"

Here are some pictures of our kids. We have another one on the way, but for now its just the four furry ones and a few fish.

Augie...Momma's little dirtball. He doesn't clean himself very well and has really bad balance for a cat. Kind of sad, really.

Here's Jonas as a puppy. I think he was about 6 months old in this picture.

Rico and Jonas. Two peas in a pod. Poor Jonas, Rico is the only one who will snuggle with him.

Jonas the week after Christmas '07. Notice the green grass - and the toy he stole that he wasn't supposed to have. He was having so much fun with it I couldn't take it away! He wrecked it, of course, but it was worth it.

*sigh* Whenever Baxter escapes to the outdoors he likes to roll around in the dirt. He taught this move to Augie. For the record, dirt is harder to clean off a long-haired white cat than it is a fat grey one.

Jonas on his First Birthday! July 26th, 2006.

Some days I think we have one cat with three heads.

Jonas and Emily on the river this past summer. We had so much fun! Jonas was really tired out by the time we took this picture.

Jonas chillin' in the papasan chair.

The Koi. For the winter they are living in a cow trough in the attic. I'm sure they are happy Spring is coming!

Our 55 gallon community aquarium. We have lots of tetras (neon, cardinal, black-fin and rummy-nosed), 5 German blue rams, 3 yo-yo loaches and a huge plecostomus.

Our boring 46 gallon cichlid tank with three big, boring fish.

Honeymoon Photos - Sept. 15-17, 2007

Here are some photos from our Honeymoon in Duluth, Minnesota. We would have liked to stay longer than three days but, unfortunately, we both had to go back to work.

Most of the photos are really grainy. We didn't have a digital camera with so we took pictures with out video camera. They didn't turn out so well but he video turned out great. We stayed in a jacuzzi suite (WAY worth the money after walking all over creation on Saturday!) and visited pretty much all that we could squeeze in in two and a half days.

We left on Friday morning for the drive up to Duluth. After we got there we unpacked and set off for the pier. On the way there we ate at Red Lobster (mmm...cheddar bay biscuits!) and visited the Great Lakes Aquarium. We watched the boats at the pier for a while and toured the shipwreck museum where Emily almost fell asleep. Boats aren't her thing.

Jeremy at the Pier by the lighthouse and the lift bridge (Canal Park)

A way-cool Jellyfish at the Aquarium. Emily was transfixed and watched them for, like, 20 minutes.

Saturday we had a really busy day. We toured the Leif Erickson Rose Garden, walked along the Lake Superior waterfront, Visited the Glensheen Mansion (way cool!) and stopped at a roadside petting zoo on the North Shore drive to Gooseberry Falls and the Split Rock Lighthouse. Whew! The jacuzzi tub felt really good on our feet when we made it back to the hotel that night! We don't have many pictures from this day to post. We were too busy driving and walking all over creation to think about taking many pictures...

Emily and Jeremy at Gooseberry Falls. The water was a bit low...more like "Gooseberry Trickle" but it was still beautiful.

On Sunday we visited another mansion in Superior, Wisconsin (neither one of us can remember the name,) spent the day at the Duluth Zoo and drove back to Red Wing. Although the mansion adn the zoo were cool, the absolute bast part of the day was the albino squirrel that Jeremy spotted on the way to Superior. We actually took a wrong turn and got lost and he happened to glance at it in front of someone's house. They probabaly thought we were weird becuase we sat out in our car an filmed the dang thing for about 10 minutes. We really had to zoom in to catch a glimps so the photo is really grainy. He was so cute! If we could have caught him we probabaly would have taken him home with us... you know us and pets...

Rocko, the Amazing Albino Squirrel!

Emily riding a turtle at the zoo. Don't worry, he didn't mind.

Jeremy riding a frog (he was friends with the turtle, and also didn't mind.)

Wedding Photos, 9.9.07

Okay...so last time I tried this the whole page got screwed up, so we'll see how this goes. I thought I would post a few wedding photos to share since we never got around to posting any of them on the web like we meant to.

Enjoy! Thanks again to everyone who came, participated and helped out with the wedding. We honestly couldn't have pulled it off without you all.

The Wedding Party at Colvill Park, 9.9.07

A quick kiss under the arbor after the ceremony

Just the guys! Aren't they handsome? The two in the back on the right are single...ask me for phone numbers. ;)

The "Working Girls," Annie, Carol (the Rev), Emily and Stacey

Emma is in the picture, too...she's just not born yet. I got five Bridesmaids for the price of four!

Jeremy and his Best Man, Justin

Entering the Reception...the Happy Couple!

Not quite sure how this works...

So, neither one of us are quite sure how this works. A few of our friends have a blog here on blogger so we thought we would give it a try. All we really want it for is to post pictures and updates so hopefully it will suite our needs. For those of you that don't know, Emily is currently 22 weeks pregnant and has an ultrasound scheduled for Monday. We are hoping to post some baby updates on here once we figure out how to work it.

Congratulations to Darren and Jennie Asleson - and to their new arrival - Brynn Tressa Asleson, born Tuesday, 3.13.07 around 9am. We are also patiently waiting for Peyton Eckhoff's arrival any day now from Jeremy and Melissa Eckhoff. Congratulations to both couples!!!

And, of course, Emma Louise Neumann was born this past Thanksgiving to Derek and Annie Neumann. As soon as I figure out how to work this thing I will be sure to post some pictures of her - she is the cutest little thing I have ever seen! Emma, Annie and I all went shopping at the MOA yesterday and I think I was more tired than she was after the day was over. She is definitely her mother's daughter!

Well, that's it for our first post. I'll try and see if I can work this thing and put up a few wedding pictures that we never got around to posting anywhere else. And, of course, some pictures of "the kids..."