Spending time with GG

This year, we once again spent Thanksgiving weekend in Chicago to celebrate the Holidays with family and friends – a great way to kick off the Holiday season! We spent a day with GG, eating lunch at a nearby Polish buffet (yum!) and opening presents. The following day, we had breakfast with Karen’s godmother, dinner with the Belousek family (and meeting our new cousin, baby Joshua) and in between we played for a few hours at a nearby children’s museum. We then concluded our whirlwind trip with brunch with the Chmuras (aka “Uncle and Auntie Chooch” and Amanda) before making the trek back home.  See the Thanksgiving 2011 in Chicago album for the photos.

We continued our Christmas holiday celebration in the following weeks with performing at the church Christmas Concert, an awesome Advent calendar (Lego Star Wars!), a Christmas play performed at the Stages Children’s Theater, and Brunch with Santa at Macy’s with some of Zach and Alex’s friends from New Horizons and their families. You can find all of these pictures in the Nov-Dec 2011 album.

Also added – some pictures from our church’s Fall Festival in September, courtesy of Grandma Pat, and an update to the basement project! We’ve hired a contractor to finish the walls downstairs to the point where we can paint, and it’s almost done! The pictures in the Basement album show the rooms with the drywall up – what a difference that makes!

Tags: basement, Belouseks, Chicago, Christmas, GG, Santa, Thanksgiving

In order to make room for the boys, I need to move my office downstairs. Before that happens, we need a finished basement. Now that I have a good idea of what I need to do, I am working part-time on finishing the basement. I say part-time because I am lazy, so things don’t happen as quickly as Karen would like to see. I have 80% of the framing complete and should be done with the electrical in mid January.

Click the floorplan below for a larger image

If I manage to make any progress, you can check out photos here.

Tags: basement, home, Joe