5 weeks old and one month check up

Well, Anya keeps getting bigger and older. At her one month check-up she weighed 11 lbs 5 oz. and had grown a half inch. She has been a little sick, but seems to be doing better today. The doctor said it wasn't anything major, just a bug she must have picked up somewhere. The attached pictures are at 3 weeks, 4 weeks, and a scattering around those two.

House progress has stalled a bit. We did a walk-through with the electrician, which went well, but there were some mix ups with the estimate as far as what we were paying for out of pocket and what was supposed to be covered. We straightened out who is paying for what, but the estimate needs to be run again.

Dad is counting down the days until school starts on Tuesday. Aunt Kari is coming to Minnesota with her boyfriend Brian to meet Anya for the first time. They have seen pictures of Anya, but are excited to meet her in person.

1 month old!

Well, Anya is now 1 month old. She will go next Thursday for her one month check up. I can't wait to see how much she has grown! We will try to put more pictures up of her and the house soon. I'm still trying to figure this out (Mary). Anya has been doing good over night now. Last night we fed her at 9:00 and she slept until 3:45! Then she ate and went right back to bed. She's such a good girl. She has already been to the outlets at Albertville, to my school, to target many times, both grandma and grandpa's houses, and has been baby sat by Auntie Kelley and Uncle Dan while Dan and I went out to eat. She loves to go for walks in her stroller and look all around. The picture at the top right is her first play date with a neighbor friend's daughter who was born about a week earlier.

The house is making good progress. The new roof is on, all of the rooms are framed in, the pluming and electric and being finished up, and next will probably be sheet-rock and hopefully siding soon. It's really nice to walk in and get a good idea of what the finished product will look like. We should hopefully know by the end of the month a better estimate of when it will be finished, but we are hoping for Christmas break.

Anya is 2! . . . . . . . . . . sort of

As you can see in the picture, Anya is 2 weeks old. She is doing well, as are mom, dad, and Aebo (our Golden Retriever). Progress on the house continues, and many of the issues and errors we saw before have been taken care of. Today also signals a strange day for dad. After coaching volleyball for 12 years as an assistant and then head coach at Apple Valley High School, today is the first day of the volleyball season and I find myself at home. I cherish every moment I have with little Anya, but I really miss heading into the gym to be with the many wonderful young women I have had the chance to work with. I will have to learn to make the transition to being a spectator, and can't wait to see the girls play this fall.

Some pictures Kelley took while watching Anya

Here are some pictures Kelley Duemke took. Our niece Hailey is the one kissing Anya on the head.

A few pictures of the house

The house is a little farther now (even with the mistakes that need to be undone) but here are some pictures we took the day before Anya was born.

Some new pictures of Anya.

Here are some more pictures of our little lady. If you are checking this site out for the first time, make sure to check the older posts to see all of the pictures.

House moves two steps forward, one back

Well, we went out to the house pleasantly surprised to see them making good progress. The new roof trusses are up, both the garage and the house have been re-shingled, and framing has begun inside. We did have a setback when we stopped by the house the night before Mary was induced. We went inside to find that on the main floor only some of the floorboards had been replaced insted of the whole floor, a closet that was supposed to be expanded was not, several windows were in the wrong spot, and the stone mantle was just plain missing from the fireplace. We went downstairs, which had been framed in already, to find that NOT A SINGLE WALL was in the correct place. In fact, we are adding a bathroom in the basement, and there clearly was not a bathroom framed in. We called the contractor and set up a plan to meet with him the following week and then put it out of our minds while we were at the hospital.

Monday of this week I met with the contractor and the site manager at the house. Basically, a whole bunch of people had made mistakes. The site manager had given the wrong set up plans to the carpenters which was why there were so many mistakes. When we walked around with the correct plans, we saw that the person who drew up the plans had incorrectly measured the location of a major load bearing beam and the locations of support beams, and as a result changes needed to be made in the basement. The flooring was supposed to have all been replaced, the site manager apparently just didn't know it. As far as the mantle, no one knows (well, someone does, but we don't know who) what happened to it. The site manager remembered seeing the week before, but now it had disappeared. If I had to guess, I bet someone dropped something and cracked it and didn't want it attributed to them, so they ditched it somewhere in the huge dumpster in our driveway. Otherwise, they just flat out took it.

The good news is that they owned up to all of the mistakes and issues, and they will be taken care of. As of today (Friday) the upstairs is CORRECTLY framed in, all of the flooring has been replaced, and they are getting plans corrected for the basement to be re-framed. Despite the mistakes when we look around we are starting to get excited for the new home we will have.