What Is Our Next Adventure?

Well as most of you all know, Dan and I are having a baby. We are very excited for this next chapter of our lives. I realize that I am now almost 25 weeks pregnant and I haven’t posted anything since our pool was finished back in May. You see May was the month we found out about our little one and after the excitement of the positive pregnancy test set in, so did the 24/7 nausea. That lasted well into my second trimester making me a little bitter about being pregnant. But now the nausea has finally left and I am just getting bigger and bigger!!

As you can see out little boy (yep, that’s right, a BOY!) is settling right in and growing fast! This picture was taken up in Greer, Arizona where the Merrill Clan gathered for an AWESOME weekend in the mountains to celebrate Dan’s father’s 60th birthday. We had a blast being up in the huge cabin with everyone together (although we missed Nonna!!). Besides being with everyone, one my favorite parts of the trip was the cooler weather up there.

With much deliberation, we have decided on a name for out boy. . . Dylan Jack -----Jack after my step-grandfather and Dylan because we like it. So we can now all refer to the baby in my tummy as Dylan.

We are starting to get the house ready for Dylan and we have started with his bedroom. Grandmother Doris has been generous enough to start it all off with the bedding for Dylan’s crib:

Next we have finally picked out a color for the room and have painted the walls:

Don’t worry Dan did a lot of the painting and we only let me up on the ladder once.

Now that the room is all painted we are going to add trim around the window and we have purchased some fabric to make the curtains.

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates on our exciting adventure!!!

Pool Time

Well our pool is all done.  In fact it’s been done for quite a while, but I’ve just been super lazy and haven’t posted any completed pictures.  So here it goes. . .

Putting in the PebbleTec was pretty cool to see.  The morning they came to do it, this is what I woke up to:

Looks pretty crazy, huh?

Once the guys were all done, the filling began.  Because our pool is so many thousands of gallons of water, it took several hours to fill completely (~24 hours!!).

. . . . still filling. . . . .

. . . . . still filling. . . . . .

 

. . . . . . splash!!!!  It’s all done.

 

As you can see, Dan was very anxious to get in the water.  As soon as the pool was filled, he was out there  swimming.  That first night it was all full, there weren’t any chemicals in it so it was like a giant bath tub!!  FUN FUN!

The bubblers on the big baja step are quite a hit with the little ones.  Even Kendell who can’t quite talk can say “bubbles”.

Chris came for Memorial Weekend so of course we all had to go swimming to try out the new pool.

Daniella can swim (thanks to her Aunt Sara), but she thinks it’s pretty fun to float around in the baby seat.

I love this picture of Kendell.  He loved the water but he would get cold pretty fast so he’d go warm up for a few minutes, then jump right back in!

The weekend before July 4th, we had all of Dan’s family over for a celebration.  It was really fun to have everyone out at our house.  Dan made a yummy pork loin roast on the grill (it had a homemade rub, was cooked on a cedar plank, then toopped with a pineapple salsa . . . Yum! Yum!), grilled corn, bratwursts, hot dogs, chicken, potato salad, fruit salad, soda & homemade ice cream (a 4th of July tradition!!).  Needless to say, none of us left the party hungry.  Dan got a grill to prepare for super fun party and he sure loves to cook on it (he’s pretty good at it too!!)

Everyone got in the pool and I think the kids had a blast.  Even Allen was able to overcome some of his water fear and wear a life jacket to swim around.  Go Allen!! 

Thank you to all who made this gathering possible!  It was really fun and think we had better do it one more time before the summer is over!

New York & Philadelphia

One of Dan’s good friend’s at work was getting married in New Jersey and we thought  that would be a good excuse to go to New York City and Philadelphia.  We stayed on Manhattan Island near Time Square and we had an absolute blast.

Here we are the day we got in New York.  We checked into our hotel and hit the streets . . . .  However we forgot our camera at home so the first thing we did was buy a camera so that we could take all these wonderful pictures.

We got pretty hungry as we started walking around so we stopped at little Thai Restaurant for dinner.  It was pretty yummy!!

We walked to Central Park, but it was pretty dark so we decided to just stop for a little while at the southern part and then headed towards Rockefeller Center.

But. . . we were tempted by the look of the pretty cupcakes at a little shop so we stopped for some dessert, a coconut cupcake.

We found Rockefeller Center so we headed for the elevator to get a view of the city from above.

The Empire State Building was lit with green lights in celebration of something about trees . . . ?? Can’t remember exactly.

It was a little windy and chilly up there, but it was an amazing view.

The next morning we walked to the harbor and took a 2 hour semi-circle harbor tour around Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  We didn’t make it on the two smaller islands. . . that will have to be on the next trip.

The cruise was pretty cool and it was fun to see the island from the water versus the street where you had to look up to see anything.  Except . . .

 

. . . we had this “brick wall” sitting between us and the island for the first half of the tour so it was kind of hard to take some pictures.

Luckily he finally moved!

Behind me is Ellis Island.

You’ll have to pardon the hair, it was a little windy. 

The Statue of Liberty

We walked back to Central Park after the Harbor tour.  On the way we stopped and had street food . . . a yummy gyro.  We met some of Dan’s friends/co-workers and their wives and then took the subway down to Little Italy for some pizza at Lombardi’s.  That pizza was the best I think I’ve ever had!! Fresh tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, Yum! Yum!

Then off to the Museum of Modern Art.  Guess the artist. . . . Yep Picasso!

Can’t forget about the famous Campbell’s Soup Cans . . .

Yew! Time for a break at Bryant Park.  This was really close to our hotel and a nice place to relax.

Ahh, how romantic!! They’re at the top of the Empire State Building.  Looks like they got a little too much sun on their Harbor Cruise/Tour!!

Off to Philadelphia

We left New York City on Saturday morning on the Amtrak.  Once we got into Philadelphia we took the subway to the airport and rented a car to get to our hotel and the wedding the next day.

In Philadlephia we didn’t do a whole lot but we did go to Independence Hall and see the Liberty Bell.

Dan outside of Independence Hall.

The Liberty Bell

  

We couldn’t leave Philadelphia without eating a Philly Cheesesteak.  We actually ate them twice during out stay.  They were a little greasy, but tasty!

The Pool. . . It’s Almost Done!!

Well the pool is supposed to be done in about 2 days and boy are we super, super excited!!

The pavers around the pool are complete along with the tile.  Here are a few pictures to show the beautiful work:

Tomorrow they come to do the Pebble Tec.  Then Tuesday they acid wash the Pebble Tec and then start filling it up!!  I am definitely not looking forward to the water bill for this month . . . . . But I’m sure excited to start swimming!!

The Building Continues. . .

After the plumbing was all done, they came to place all the rebar.  They did this in one day!  Pretty amazing.

 

After the rebar, the pool had to be inspected by the city.  Once we passed the inspection, the shotcret came next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with the shotcret is that it takes a couple days to cure and you have to water it a couple of times during the day to slow the curing process. 

Here’s Dan watering the pool.  We were even lucky enough to have Anna come help us one day to keep it nice and moist!!

They are now working on the coping around the pool for the pavers.  You can’t see that well in this picture, but they have the pavers placed along the raised wall.  Oh and look at the waterfall!!  It’s all coming together; can’t wait to start swimming!!

Make sure to check back soon because as I am blogging this, I can hear the workers outside cutting more pavers!!