Christmas Festivities

Here's our Christmas tree as it looked for about 4 hours. This is little Zora's first Christmas with us, and she, well, got pretty excited about all of those ornaments, especially the soft ones. In fact, she wanted to take down each one (as well as the tree) and play with it. Now the Christmas tree is in the living room again, sans ornaments. She's behaved appropriately since the re-installment.

Our lights, which Amy and I strung up on the day after Thanksgiving (when I was also strung up because of student papers).

Check out Peter the Polar Bear. He looks even sharper now with the snow we've received since this picture was taken.

And two pictures of the two bestest kitty-kats in the whole wide world.

Photos from Fort Ridgely

From a couple weeks back. Oh, the glories of Autumn in Minnesota. Gracie, the American Eskimo, belongs to Nate's parents.

Amy & Nate Give 5 ouf of 5 Stars to the Dano Circle Bed & Breakfast

We were in Marshall, Minnesota, for a wedding this weekend, and we had the pleasure of staying at a fine establishment. The accommodations were comfy, the Wii was fully functional, the coffee was freshly ground, the apple pie was tasty, the Opeth was pummeling, and the hosts were both entertaining and generous.

Unfortunately, we can't disclose anything else about this B&B because we want it to stay our little secret.

So to the Dano Circle Bed & Breakfast we give our rarely awarded 5-out-of-5 star rating!

More Photos!

We've had Zora about 1 1/2 weeks now, and she and Flannery are adjusting fairly well. Here are some pictures Nate took in the past couple of days.

"Such a thoughtful kitty"



"Aren't I the cutest thing?"




"Family Cuddles"




"We may look as if we're resting, but don't mess with us!"

BIG NEWS!!!

As you may have gathered from the new title of our blog, as well as from the picture above, we have a new addition to our home: Zora. So named after one of our favorite authors, Zora Neale Hurston.

We've owned her for about 45 minutes as of this posting. After filling out paperwork for the Heartland Humane Society, we scheduled an appointment to have "Zora" brought over to our house. A woman from the shelter came, as did the foster mom of Zora.

It was quite a treat to watch Zora explore the house with Flannery following right along beside her. There was no hissing whatsoever. We couldn't believe how well they were getting along. Right now as I'm writing this, they've started to play with each other a little. We haven't seen Flannery move this much in a LONG time. They've batted at each other a little, but that's to be expected.

Because Zora is only 4 months old, she's in that rambuctious kitten stage and is already testing limits. I can hear the two of them tearing around upstairs right above me--Flannery's gonna be a little bit thinner in the coming weeks and months.

More house stuff

We recently decided to get a little creative with our two upstairs bedrooms. The one the previous owners had used as a master bedroom was too dark for us, so we settled in the other bedroom. (They are about the same size.) Feeling a desire for change and becoming annoyed by noise from the neighbors' backyard, we decided to move to the other room, after painting it a lighter green. Amy did all of the painting (1 coat of primer + 2 coats of paint) over Memorial Day weekend, and we moved the furniture on Memorial Day, before leaving for our trip to Portland. Nate is ecstatic about having a room that serves as a library!

Home Repairs

Back in March, we noticed a lot of water on the floor of the basement bathroom, which we rarely use. A plumber came and was able to get into the wall by sticking his fingers through it because it was so wet and warped. He fixed a leak behind the sink, and we have lived with the mess for a while now because Nate and the neighbor had plans to patch up the wall when Nate's semester ended.

Our neighbor Delmer is a former contractor and now is in the business of testing and lowering radon levels in homes. He installed our radon mitigation system in January, and has been very kind to us throughout the long process of tinkering with it to get the radon down to a harmless level. He recently offered Nate a job as his assistant, so Nate is having fun learning a lot about all sorts of tools and the radon mitigation process.

Taking some time out from radon jobs, Delmer and Nate have spent several days fixing the bathroom. When the wall was opened, we discovered that someone failed to pour concrete on that section of the basement, under the stairs. So Delmer and Nate mixed and poured concrete before they closed up the wall. In the process of taking out the rest of the rotten wall, they discovered that another wall was rotten and termite-damaged, too, so they replaced that one as well. They also enclosed the radon mitigation system so we don't have to look at that green tube anymore.

The walls are back up and just need a little more mudding before we can paint them. We're really thankful for Delmer's expertise and willingness to help. The next project is to replace the monstrous utility sink by the washer and fix the plumbing so we don't have the washer draining into the sink.

This is part of the adventure of being homeowners, right?

Flannery has a new bed, thanks to Nate's mom!

Updated Pictures of Our House

We decided to post some pictures of our house with our things in it. We have been enjoying our new home very much, with the exception of the frequent attempts to clear snow from the driveway. We're ready for spring!

the upstairs office (Nate's writing desk)

the bedroom

the living room

the downstairs office

The Joys of Java (by Nate)

Here you'll see a picture of a new addition to the kitchen in our new house. Yes, we now have our own coffee cart. Take notice of the bags of coffee and the coffee grinder. I thought that only brewing freshly ground coffee was the height of coffee snobbery, yet we have topped our previous snobbery with this cart. It even has a towel rack on the side and features locking casters. So if you happen to attend a lunch or dinner function at our new home, there's a good chance the cart will get wheeled out and will be put to good use.