We do still have kids

Among the faves, Natalie pantsless at Ikea. There was a blowout with no backup gear on hand. Luckily it is a short walk from the store to the car.

She also loves climbing into Elliot's Dora luggage and going for rides around the apartment.

More house shots

We've gotten great help from lots of friends and fam. Here are Daddy Hobbit and Rat in action from late January.

Happy Nata

Elliot's own tool box

Aunt Bean bought Elliot a tool box for Christmas. Elliot had to carry the box to the house and, of course, wear saftey glasses.

A 50's kitchen

So a stove and sink and a pantry with a small refrigerator in the middle were apparently all you needed in kitchens back in the day. And linoleum was a hot new technological advance. Let the serious demolition begin. Elliot kept thinking a chimney sweep from Mary Poppins had come to his house when we came home after knocking out walls.

A romp room

Elliot and Natalie already love the basement. According to Geoff's colleague, basements are awesome for slumber parties. Hooray!

Yellow plastic bathroom tiles

Apparently in 1952, the last time that 2023 was rehabbed, plastic tiles were the rage. Grandpa Owie recalls putting some in a bathroom with his dad in 1959. This stuff was floor to ceiling.

Auntie Deb (my sister) spent Christmas with us and is an amazing demolition chick. We began our tile removal project by attempting to chip off each tile, then asked dad if it be okay for us to grab a sledge hammer and just knock out the walls. A sledge hammer is such a satisfying tool.

Cats fall on their feet, not humans

The garage was growing vegetation and had holes all over the roof. Grandpa Owie looks and says, "we can save that, it's easy". Geoff gets over his fear of heights and climbs up with a nail gun. By getting over it, I mean clings to the roof and walks gingerly.

At one point Geoff really got over the fear (mainly due to being tired) and attempted a graceful leap from the ladder to the roof. Attempted move failed and Geoff ended up on his back on the neighbor's porch. We decided not to tell the already-terrified-something-awful-would-happen Grandma Bonnie. Weeks later, after Geoff had gone to the doctor to be assured nothing, other than bruised innards was wrong, Elliot ratted us out to Grandma Bonnie. Ah, no secret is safe anymore.

On the plus side, Geoff now knows how to shingle.

We bought a fixer upper...

So sorry about no new pictures for the last couple of months. We bought a house (as most of you know). It's a bit of a project...by a bit I mean a huge one with 2 kitchen remodels, a garage with holes in the roof, yellow plastic tiles (oh the horror!) and plaster. After knocking out a couple walls and hauling away the plaster, the other walls started looking great just as they were. We were casually looking for a place in the city (in my (Julie's) casual yet mildly obsessive way) and about to give up when we stumbled upon this place a block and a half away from our current abode. It needed a lot of work that we couldn't really afford, but wait, there's Grandpa Owie. More about Grandpa Owie's ability to fix most anything later...