It is so nice that Alex’s employer has added President’s Day to the list of company holidays. Those extra days off make such a difference. We had a thoroughly relaxing long weekend at home and enjoyed taking Monday off.
Friday night we went out for dinner at none other than Bottlehouse. Prior to dinner, though I spent some time in the kitchen whipping up some salted caramel brownies. Alex is a MAJOR chocolate lover, whereas if I have chocolate it’s got to have something with it, like caramel or almonds or cherries… I am more into the fruity sweet desserts, so I thought this would be a nice Valentine-ish dessert we could both enjoy. The brownies sure were tasty, especially alongside the divine sea salt caramel gelato we happen to have in our freezer!
Saturday morning started quite early. I woke up before the sun and enjoyed my one cup of coffee in Alex’s leather chair while he snoozed away. After a while he rolled out of bed and decided to take Jackson on a “stairs” run – there are all sorts of staircases in our neighborhood that are basically vertical {our part of the city is quite hilly!}, which provides the perfect ski training exercise. The run completely wore Jackson out for the remainder of the weekend and he was nearly a perfect dog!
That, unfortunately, is where the good news stopped. Just after Alex got out of the shower after said run, he came downstairs and realized there was an enormous leak in the ceiling directly below our brand new bathroom. After hours of deliberation, counsel from my father, investigation and waiting it out, we found the leak and were able to make it stop, then today, a plumber came and fixed it for good. Now we have some ceiling repair to do, but I’m happy to have the full use of our bathroom again! {In the above photo, you can see the ceiling is sagging from the water build-up.}
We got to spend the evening with these two babies and their parents, along with our friends Carrie and Patrick. It was a great to catch up with everyone!
One of the elements of pregnancy that has been the most fun for me has been scouring the internet looking at all the adorably cute nursery furniture and furnishings and imagining what our baby’s nursery will look like. Sunday marked the day when we headed to Pottery Barn Kids and made some final decisions on things we wanted to see in person, like a crib, dresser and rocker. We made some great choices and I am excited to get started on our nursery in the coming weeks! {And no, we are not registered at PBK, despite the best efforts of the sales ladies at the store.}
A big precursor to the nursery is doing a major closet overhaul in our house. Starting that process was on the docket for the weekend, so we spent some quality time cleaning out unnecessary stuff that had accumulated over time. After we were done de-cluttering we took some measurements and put together plans on how we will re-organize the closets. We’ll need to get new shelving for the closets in the guest room and office and make some minor changes in the shelving in our bedroom. Hopefully next weekend, if everything goes according to plan, our master closet and guest room closet will be finished!
The weather on Monday provided a perfect opportunity to get cozy in the living room and catch up on some reading. Until this weekend I was feeling like Alex and I hadn’t really done much to prepare for this little one’s arrival, but we both started reading our first parenting books {I’m reading “Bringing up Bebe” and he’s reading “The Happiest Baby on the Block”}. I’m looking forward to comparing the theories discussed in both books and figuring out what we think might work for us.
It wasn’t a hard transition back into the work week today, but boy was it nice to enjoy some time at home together and celebrate Valentine’s Day!