7weeks and counting....

Mark and I have made a big push to get ready for the arrival of our munchkin. Here are a few photos of the progress in the nursery. We (well I) decided to dive right in and make the room as girly as possible - in the end isn't the nursery for the parents!! I guess our theme is a french hatbox theme - we have chocolate stripes with a powder pink top and of course a capiz light chandelier. Our furniture is all white - you can see our little black cat testing out the changing table. Mark installed recessed cans (9 total) throughout the room and put them on multiple dimmers - we can definitely have some mood lighting going on.


We purchased and had shipped our favorite Pax systems from Ikea!!


Here is the crib set (dwell baby blossom dots and stripes) with a calder-esque mobile (silver feathers). We have our first user test starting tomorrow with the arrival of Niko. We hope he can help us see what we are missing ...

We (meaning me) have found that Cricket is the perfect size for 0-3 month clothes - here she is trying on a sassy pink outfit from Scott and Julie.
She doesn't really mind being dressed up...


We also started our 11 week Bradley Method birthing class. The bradley method is a natural birthing class which focuses on overall pregnacy nutrition, relaxation techniques and general involvement of a coach (Mark). I chose the class for the coach supported relaxation methods, not for the natural part (but I just keep my mouth shut during the class). Here is a photo of me - sporting a belly. Mark has tried (against my efforts) to document my belly growth over the months - I am sure we will like it someday...

All seems to be going well with the baby - we are both getting excited and extremely anxious about the arrival! We have selected a few names and hope that when the little muchkin arrives we can meet her and see what name fits.

Happy Tuesday!

The Denver Zoo...

On Saturday we headed to the Denver Zoo with the Spruill's. This was our first outing to the zoo and I was pretty impressed. It was one of our first days of spring like weather - almost 50 degrees.

Sophie was bundled up and ready to go...


Miss Emma (who turned 2 last october) is quite a chatterbox - I am amazed at how advanced her vocabulary is - I sometimes forget that she is only two. As we were walking back to the car, emma was walking as slow as a snail - I said "hey emma, lets walk fast like a cheetah and then I made some cat movements (they were pretty cute I must say) - Emma stopped and looked at me and said "Are you kidding me?" - Doh, I was just called out by a 2 year old.


She loves to ride on shoulders...
the lions were sunbathing ...


and the elephant was playing with some sort of ball on a chain - it was pretty cute. The animals were amazing, but its sad to think of them trapped in their cages ...


The kids were great - I think we might be able to do this parenting thing after all!

After blizzard number one...

I wanted to put up some follow up photos to our first big blizzard - We did have to cancel our trip to england. DIA was closed for 48 hours and our first confirmed seats out of Colorado weren't until Christmas Day, arriving boxing day in London. Orbitz called us to tell us that the second blizzard that hit on Thursday 28th actually cancelled our returning flight from Chicago.

We were sad to miss the UK crowd and tried to make the best of the fluffy white. Once the snow stopped we were able to get some great shots of the build-up:


We opened the patio door to find about 2 feet of drifted snow leading to beautiful Mount Sladden.


Our Patio furniture was sleeping under a fluffy white blanket (I sure hope Mark put extra weatherizing on that stuff):


more drifts on the patio:

We decided to do a little snow-shoe'ing on the pristine golf course (I think Beth our neighbor who feels she must turn everyone in for being on the golf course was out of town - thank goodness!)

I followed in Mark's footsteps which is much easier than carving your own path... Love the pink ski jacket!!

Mark and I both realized that being snowed in is pretty fun - especially if you work from home!

still snowing...

yup, its still coming down. Here is the great wall of snow in front of our house. We didn't even have to shovel it that way, all drift.


here is mount sladden that started accumulating in our back yard...



Mount Sladden is forming some harsh peaks...



Our table and chairs are officially snowed in. :)

Holiday Blizzard 2006!

This morning I woke up to find that Nine News decided to preemt the today show to bring us details of the giant storm that has hit Colorado. We were supposed to fly out to London today and were up very late getting all packed up and ready. Our flight at 12:30 was already cancelled but we quickly got ready to head to the airport to hop an earlier flight. We dropped our dog off at boarding and then were driving with horrible visibility - I called the airport on the way to find out that all flights were cancelled - we decided to turn around and head home. Here are some photos that we took at lunch time (only a few hours after the storm started). We are estimated to get between 12-24 inches in the denver metro area.

Since our flight was cancelled we have to get rebooked - the first flight we can get out on isn't until Christmas morning. We were were set to return to colorado on the 28th - so no we are deciding if we will make the trek. It's a crazy storm! It is fun to be snowed in, but we wish it wasn't while we were trying to fly.

here is the current visibility....


our table and chairs being covered in snow....


snow drifting on the patio...

A new library at 3002 thunder lake circle - PART 2 - the bookshelves and crown

When we left our intrepid decorators, they had completed the wiring and installation of the cans and spot light and painting the room. The next step in the grand project is the installation of built in book cases. For this we went to Home Depot and procured 10 (yes ten) sheets of 4x8 MDF... now I think MDF stands for "Medium Density Fibre" but as far as Mandy and I are concerned, I think it's "maximum density..." because lord knAs promised (though not as quickly) the followows that stuff is heavy! I even had to have Mandy help me load it onto the cart even though she was pregnant (I know - bad husband). Somehow, I later figured out that I could manhandle a sheet myself as long as I had gloves on.

The goal with the built-ins was to have the deep blue wall show through the stark white frame of the bookcases. Every face of the bookcase should also be the same width of 1 1/2 inches (double the thickness of the MDF).

So I set about building four MDF boxes that would make up the bottom set of deeper and taller shelves. Each box was assembled with double rabbit joints that were created using a router. You would not believe the amount of sawdust that routing MDF generates, it's almost as if MDF is a highly compressed composite of sawdust itself! I think we'll be finding sawdust in our garage for years to come!.

Once the boxes were assembled, I used a drill to attach the shelf in each one. Then I pulled each box into the library and set them on the 2x6 ladder frame to lift them off the ground a bit. I attached them with bolts and then attached the face frame of 1x2 pine. The final step of course is the wood fill the nail holes and sand sand sand before we started painting.

Meanwhile, I assembled the upper book cases and made the 10 shelves that would go into the two towers. To ensure accuracy and consistency on the shelves, I made a little frame on my work table into which I put the MDF lengths that I had already cut so they would be exactly the same length and width. Most of my cutting was done with a skill saw due to the unweildiness of the 4x8 sheets of MDF. But to ensure a straight line I clamped guides to the sheets to run the saw along... brilliant I tell ya!

Mandy was then kind enough to help me with some of the final assembly of the book cases, giving her a critical opportunity to get into the photos with her pink tool belt (this was during her October month of pink).

With the lower bookcases assembled in the library and the upper towers in the garage it was time to start painting. We chose semi-gloss aspen white to match the trim in the library (also known as McStain white because all the houses in our McStain neighborhood use it). We first used a couple of coats of white kilz primer because primer is our best friend when it comes to painting. Following that we did at least 3 coats of the white paint to make sure it would last. Once the paint had dried and hardened, Josh helped us hoist the two towers onto the base bookcases. They looked great, but there was one final step to finish up the job: the crown moulding.

The crown was there to attach the top of the book cases to the ceiling to give it a clean look from floor to ceiling as well as make the whole room look a bit more classic. We chose dental crown (which happended to be the most expensive we could find and the hardest to deal with) because we liked the art deco feel of it. After hearing about Scott's challenges a few years ago doing Crown, I felt it would be wisest to wait until Kevin's visit a few weeks later to get my primer on the best way to make it right. I satisfied myself with marking the line on the wall where the crown should lay.

Of course Kevin had great tips on how to make sure you're cutting the right angles and also how to make the right joins (the corners on dental crown have to line up pretty perfectly). We spent quite some time going back and forth from the library to the garage to get the crown cut correctly.

Kevin did most if not all the installing of the crown but I think next time I'll do it at least half as well as he did with all the advice and gotchas. I filled int he nailholes and did the final touchup on the crown and we were done... a remarkable makeover for a previously bland room. We got a nice big plant for the room and put back all the books we had (which turned out to look quite pathetic in the much larger bookcases) this time at least organized and alphabetized. We're ready for more books... and we're looking for some nice baskets to put in the big bottom shelves where we can store childrens toys out of sight when that room becomes more multipurpose!

A new library at 3002 thunder lake circle - PART 1 the lighting and painting

For those of you who have visited our home, you might have been unimpressed by the first two rooms in our house designated as the library and formal dining room. Part of the problem with moving into a house with "room to grow" is that there are a number of rooms that you rarely use or need and therefore sit there empty and unpainted while you focus on the rooms you actually use. The photo here shows how the library was, with the exception of the recessed cans that I have finished installing in this picture.

The problem in our house is that the library is one of the first rooms you see in our house and can be seen from the street. We'll talk about our overhaul of the dining room in a future post, but I wanted to show off our new library which involved a number of different subprojects including installing lights, a built in bookcase and crown moulding.

The first step was to get some lighting in the room. In keeping with our fairly minimalist/modern style, we thought recessed cans. Given how straightforward the recessed can installation in the office went, I thought this would be a piece of cake. When we were purchasing our house, we had the builders put a couple of switched circuits up in the ceiling, so all that was left was to cut some holes and tie the wires together. This turned out to be one of those learning experiences in the standard way houses are built.

Our office is on the 2nd floor and so the ceiling just has 2x6's and insulation lying on top of the drywall, but then crawl space above that. So fishing wiring from one can to another is pretty simple as you can just loop up through the insulation and over the ceiling jambs. The library is on the first floor and so the ceiling configuration is quite dfferent. There are floor joists that span from the 1st floor ceiling to the 2nd level floor every 16 inches with no holes to run wire through.

As you can see from the picture (with ceiling joists and planned cutouts added in) we had to punch through a total of four ceiling joists and then thread wire through these holes, all through a 4 inch hole in the ceiling. With a good 12 inch long 3/4" drill bit I managed to drill through the joists from the holes. Then using a wire fishing rod, some twine and a coathanger we fished the string through one joist, captured it from the other end with the coat hanger, pulled it through and then used it pull the wire back through the two holes. There were a total of four joists that needed to be drilled through and feed wire, but once they were done and the wire fished, the rest of the light installation was a piece of cake! I installed four cans for ambient light and one spot light for the picture area between the book cases.

Once the lights were in (and a pair of speakers in the prewired spots) it was time to get to painting. We have found that the secret to painting a room, especially in a bold color, is to use tinted primer - always. It will save you at least a couple of coats of paint everytime, and primer costs less! We chose a deep, dark blue for the library. The sort of blue that reminds you of the ocean under a slightly threatening sky, that causes you to think and reflect on life. Honestly, we just wanted a good contrast to the white of the trim and bookcases and I love blue - it's america's favorite color don't you know?
So this post ends with the room lighting completed and the walls painted. The next post will document the conclusion of this most excellent project with the construction and installation of the bookcases and the crown moulding, including hot tips from Kevin Richau on how to make sure you get your crown angles cut perfectly!

Pink is the new...

...BABY!!

Yes, its true the Sladden family is growing and yesterday we found out we will be having a girl. We are due april 12th and so far all is looking good. We had a big ultrasound yesterday where they take an in depth look at all of the anatomy including the brain, heart (all four chambers), fingers, toes, spine, etc.

All indications point to a healthy little firecracker (we can only hope that mark's patience somehow overtakes my stubborn craziness - although I like to call it passion!)

I have started to grow a bit of a belly, but to the outside world I am just chubby (daaang!). We are super excited!

Aquisitions in the air...

This is an exiciting week for the sladdens...

Today Mandy has officially become a Googler and later this week Mark will officially become an HP'er.

In May I joined Jotspot along with many of my X-mercury coworkers - in the 6 months I was there we accomplished a lot with 2 major releases (yes, at this company we release more often than every year and a half). I am extremely excited about the move to google - they actually have an office in Boulder on Pearl street. The Google campus in Mountain View is amazing so I look forward to visiting often.

The HP aquisition of Mercury has been in the news for a few months but we are actually nearing the final close (finally!!). Mark is pretty excited about the change - he will still work remotely from home (mostly in his jammies).

We are both very excited about the new opportunities with each company. :)

America's 300 millionth citizen

Yes, after a mere 28 years in this country and 19 years with a green card, I finally made it legal and became a citizen. Some of you may know that I've been going through this process for a couple of years now: I applied shortly after we moved to Colorado and passed my tests (history and language) almost a year ago, but getting my oath ceremony scheduled turned out to be surprisingly hard. So finally I got my invitation to the oath ceremony on October 18th in Denver and so off we went to join 300 other new citizens and their families.

The oath ceremony took place in a theatre and the first 20 or so rows were for citizens only with the supporters in the rear and balcony. The ceremony started about 20 minutes late, probably to allow us to get sufficiently revved up by the patriotic screensaver as we waited. It turned out that the 300 of us taking the oath came from 89 different countries (not counting my two) and the main speaker rhapsodized about how many of us had come here with just a suitcase or less to our name. I honestly couldn't say how many suitcases we had when we made the crossing to New York in the QE2, but it may have been more than one each. I was feeling like maybe my sacrifice wasn't so great. But then again, I was only fleeing the wet and overcast weather of England, not the janjaweed of Sudan or worse.

We then took the oath, and recited the pledge, and then sang the national anthem along with a prerecording of a singer who was not singing to be sung along with. It was like a mariah carey or beyonce who sings slowly, and uses their own syncopation to "make it their own" but turned out to be very hard to sing along to. After that we watched some montages of other people taking oath ceremonies to make sure we knew how we were supposed to behave at ours, and then there was an optional rendition of "proud to be an American" to stock images of America. And then we were done to much applause and photo taking. After it all I felt full of America - much like I feel when I eat too much creme brulee perhaps.

I then went straight away to give my newly acquired certificate of citizenship (I bet most of you don't have one of those) to the folks waiting to take my passport applications, so sadly I can't show you what it looks like, but it's quite official looking and even has a picture of me on it, which I was surprised by. I guess it's a fairly life-changing turn in one's life, so a good official looking certificate fits the bill.

On friday night, Mandy threw me a "citizenship ball" though I think she might have called it something different. IT was actually very touching how many people came and gave me the staples of american life. Dave Fish might have hit the nail on the head with baseball, apple pie and 40's of budweiser (not my old favorite Olde English 800). The Baros put together a remarkable pop-culture quiz which frankly was more difficult than the citizenship exam - I don't know who the 4th member of the rat pack is, nor did I know who shot JR, though that may be more a product of my age and distaste for soap operas than anything else.

Anyway, now that I'm american citizen I can vote - just not in this election because Colorado has a stupid 29 day registration cut off, so despite being encouraged to fulfill our civic duty at the oath ceremony, I'll just have to wait two more years. But then I can't even register my dislike of dubya as he's not even running again. Well shoot, I guess I'll just satisfy myself with agitating for now.

Hello Winter!

The weather man says rain, I say snow... Big flakes are falling, but not sticking to the ground. Our Ski resorts are also open (not much base yet). Its just freezing so not too cold... yet!

Handy Work

We have been busy doing some home improvement over the last couple of weekends, one project was to install a counter top in the laundry room. Before we had our Washer, Dryer and Lola's crate side by side - it was a perfect (snug) fit. When we installed the counter top we had to put in a support brace between the washer and dryer taking away precious space for Lola's crate.

Mark decided to build Lola a little dog area that was a tiny bit smaller, but very unique. He came up with a pretty futuristic design (the holes are for ventilation) and I added a special touch by sewing a purple velvet dog pad.

Lola isn't too sure about the house yet and we need to get some sort of gate for the front, but she looks beautiful. Even Cricket thought it would be nice place to sleep (in the lion's den). Mark is definitely handy - We are almost done with our bookshelves (just final touches and crown) and then we will post some photos - I think you all might be impressed with Mark's woodworking skilz!

Black cat day

Today is the cricket's (a.k.a. "boots") day and she is getting ready to party tonight. Coming from the south, she's a connoisseur of rye whiskey... something she enjoys on occasion with our mighty man cat Crenshaw.

Immigration Laws

So I finally got my oath ceremony rescheduled after a 7 month delay... they really operate on long time frames over there at the INS/TSA/DHS. The whole process of becoming a citizen (from being a permanent resident, which takes a good 3+ years) has been over a year, and that's after I had already been a permanent resident for longer than the required 3 years.

The final step in this process is to take an oath of allegiance, and answer these 7 questions regarding any activities that have taken place in the last few months since I was approved for citizenship. All pretty straightforward except the last one. It makes you wonder what sort of background checking they might be doing. Is this a trap? Do they already know the answer. Well, I'm going with "No", because I think that has to be the right answer. My oath ceremony is on October 18th, just in time for the mid-term elections!

Lola Update

Well its only been a few days since we have started Lola's new training regime and I thought it was time for an update. There are two main things we are working on Learn to Earn and Tether Training.

Learn to Earn forces Lola to earn her meals. Instead of just feeding her twice a day we measure out her food and then reward her good behavior (mind us when we ask her to "down" or "sit"). This she has quickly learned and will fall to the floor at the drop of a hat. We also make her earn her pets - so before we can give her praise or snuggles she has to do something for us. I woke up this morning to find her laying next to my bed waiting for a snuggle - such a good girl!

Tether training has been a different story. The idea here is that Lola needs to learn impulse control and how to quickly calm herself. Periodically through the day we are supposed to tether her on a 4' cable to give her a chance to rest. If she does something bad (like jump at the cats, or snap her alien jaws at her parents) we are supposed to say "Oops" in a happy voice and put her on the tether. Once on the tether we are to ignore her until she is quiet and lays down. When this happens we say "Good girl" and release her off her tether.

I stitched together a few clips of her on the tether...



We have been advised to stay away from the dog park and Day care for a couple of weeks to make sure we are watching all of her bahavior. Yes its hard to be a dog, and even harder to be tough parent.

On another note, Cricket and Crenshaw had a vet checkup today - I was happy when the vet said that Crenshaw is a BIG cat and slightly overweight - I expected to throw a few blows if she said Obese. My supportive partner Mark was quick to point out that I overfeed Crenshaw. I overfeed him because it makes him like me better!

Cricket: 12.2 lbs
Lola: 18.1 lbs
The big man: 17.7 lbs - he is part bob cat you know. Its probably illegal for us to have a wild cat!

Something you didn't know...

Pammy played the accordian in highschool! While preparing for the estate sale we found many accordians and Pammy gave us quick show.




Enjoy this quick video I snapped!

Babies!

Last week we had two new additions to our extended families...

On Tuesday, September 26th Nicholas Scott was born at 11:37 pm. Scott and Julie were in San Diego for the birth. We have waited for Nicholas for so long (he was due on the 15th) and when he arrived he was more perfect that we could have imagined.

Nicholas is home in Mountain View and doing great! Here he is singing his mom a love song...
...and being Mr. Schleepy-pants in the car. The world has redeemed itself in my eyes.


Then on Friday morning Sophie Christina was born. Jess, Yancey and Emma are doing great and yesterday we went up to toast (yumm champagne) to the new baby and hang out. We brought sophie a snuggly pink hoodie made out of some super snuggly baby fleece that is built in some secret lab under a volcano - how the baby clothes have changed since we were small.

Sophie had a high bilirubin reading and has to stay under the lights for an extra day - but here she is small and snuggly with mom.


Its been a great week for babies! :)