Bye, bye grass

Some of you have clued-in to the fact that we’re tearing out our grass. I’m officially done mowing a lawn — at least for as long as we live here.

We’re making a host of landscaping changes so stay tuned.

Here are some photos from a couple weeks ago.

Vance Michael is born

My sister and her husband welcomed their first child into the world early this morning.

He was born at 1:01 a.m. weighing in at 7 pounds, 5 ounces and 21 inches long. He’s got dark wavy hair with some reddish brown highlights — the perfect mix of Angie and Vinny’s coloring.

Mother, baby and dad are doing well and resting in the Vermont hospital.

Congratulations to Vinny and Angie! We were rooting for you all the way.

(I think my facts are straight and we were told an update would be posted on their blog later today.)

Now the Codella cousin clan is composed of five boys and one girl — yes, Eliana’s the lone cutie pie in the whole bunch.

My folks have a pretty good return on their investment: three kids, and now six grandkids all within six years (the same amount of time, incidentally, in which they had their three kids).

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An update at 2:30 p.m. (Vegas time). Vinny sent an email with some photos of Vance. Here they are.

A pretty happy kid

Dominic’s a pretty content little boy. He’s usually smiling and having a grand time. His latest tricks are pulling himself up on anything stationery and climbing up it if possible, as well as taunting his older sister and the dog. Funny how a one year-old can get the best of a four year-old.

Here are a couple mug shots of Dominic Joseph, mostly for his grandparents to enjoy.

The two rascals

Here’s a shot of the two rascals. They were enjoying an afternoon snack of apple wedges and Vickey took time out for a photo opportunity.

Counter productive

Those of you who have spent time in our home know that since we moved in the tile countertops have really bothered me. What a pain to clean grout and keep the countertops looking nice.

So, after six years we finally took the plunge and had granite countertops installed.

We spent hours strolling through stone yards looking at palates of granite for just the right slabs. We finally decided a few weeks ago on a stone called golden beaches, from Brazil.

The installation was scheduled for last week and being the dutiful homeowners we are, we gutted the kitchen to allow for an easy dismantling and installing project. But to our dismay the installers called the morning they were supposed to be here and postponed.

They actually postponed the project twice on us and our kitchen was dismantled for more than a week.

But after all the inconvenience we’re very pleased with the result. (Well, I can point out a few places where I’m not too pleased. Like Vickey says, it's tough being in my skin.)

So, here are some photos of the refurbished kitchen and family room/dining room ledge which also received a slab of granite.

Decorated front office

I finally got around to finishing the décor of the front of the office. Dave’s wife painted some fun contemporary paintings for above the couch and I picked up a few items and brought a large mirror from home to the office to complete the finishing touches.


Now when you walk into our office it looks like a decorated, finished room. It’s nice.


That's Kyle working at the front desk, answering phones and just being very helpful.


Vinyl signs for the front windows are coming in the next couple of weeks. We’ll be in there a year in November and our goal is to have everything complete by then.

Next on my list is to fix the bathroom floor (it’s nasty linoleum) and paint the hallway.