Exterior House Work

**This post sent a few days ago before I was finished with it, I deleted that one and am re-posting it**

Back in August or September we had these guys come out and give us a bid on a few things on the exterior or our new home. We ended up just picking the two most important items to move forward with due to costs of the project as a whole. 

They replaced the rotting trim on two windows and investigated the balcony joists for damaged, water intrusion then flashed the beams properly and re-patched the stucco. Here are some progress pics. 

Clearly rotted. 

They removed the rot and the old style weights from the previous windows. Filled it with insulation and re-trimmed the window. 

This is the second window (Isaac's bedroom)

We will be the ones to paint the two windows... possibly next spring as it doesn't seem like we are going to get to it before it gets too cold. But it looks amazing! I'm really impressed with their work. Looks better than the rest of the windows, ha. 

Here's the balcony work. They broke out the stucco around the cantilevered balcony. There was minimal signs of water damage inside our living room so we wanted to make sure the beams were okay. 

Everything checked out okay so they constructed the flashing pieces, which put things on a two or so week hold. They returned to get the flashing on (and in the meantime there were lots of rainy days...). 

Set up and ready to restucco. 

It was another week or so waiting for them to return then this past Monday after we  returned from Chicago, they came to apply the stucco. 

ALL DONE! Now they will just come back to resemble the balcony beams.

Now it's flashed properly (the lower sliding door and the window got flashed properly as well) and hopefully will eliminate any future water intrusion. Still a little dark as I took this shortly after they finished so it wasn't fully dry yet. It blends in perfectly now. I mean the house is already patchy, which was the full project of re-stuccoing the siding and giving it a face-lift. But that is for a future date.

Chicago Adventure - Day 3

Friday morning was exciting because the whole city of Chicago was celebrating the Cubs win! They dyed the river blue! 

Kyle had to be on a work call that morning, so he went downstairs to the cafe for free wifi, while the kids and I hung back and played in the hotel room. 

Isaac teaching Mary how to play Slamwich... unfortunately she ate three of the cards. :-| You can see the corner missing of one of the cards there in the stack.

The city was having a massive rally and parade that day. We decided not to hang around even though it was steps from our hotel. Instead we took a train north up to the Nature Museum and Zoo. We had to get across Michigan Ave which was a chore since all the buses were rerouted due to the parade. But once we got to the bus on State Street there were only about 4 other people on it and it was fun watching the city get swarmed with people as we headed the opposite direction.

This museum was also free with our MN Science Museum Membership. 

They had some live animals to see. 

And some fun play areas for the kids. 

Mary calls skeletons "mon-key!" which was suiting since there were monkey skeletons right next to this one. 

The butterfly garden was pretty cool! Isaac and I even saw a cocoon moving up and down. 

Next we took about a block walk to the Zoo. Which was eternity in the eyes of a preschooler. But to be fair we were all getting pretty hungry and had planned to eat a Chicago pizza place nearby but found out it was closed for lunch during the week and didn't' open til 4:00.




We did manage to see most of the zoo, but didn't lolly gag too much. We saw the sleeping lions. 

The bats. And monkeys. 

Flamingos, zebras, and seals. 

Leaving the zoo and headed out of Lincoln park we caught sight of the beautiful skyline. 

We made it into Old Town Triangle Neighborhood and stopped at a little cafe called Nookies. It seemed kind of expensive from the menu outside, but we were so hungry we couldn't go any further. After getting inside and looking at the menu, we got a lot of food for one entre so it ended up working out great. And the kids meals were only $3.50! Can't beat that. It was one of the best meals yet!




Emma is queen of the grumpy face, but most of the time she is just making the face then burst out into laughter.
 

Lots of team spirit everywhere! This biker was waving his W flag in the middle of the intersection as we cross the street back into Lincoln Park.

But this time the rally had hopefully dispersed so we headed back down by bus. 

When we got back to the hotel we took a little ride on the escalators. Isaac had been begging to check out the 'ballroom' button that he kept seeing in the elevator.

We were hoping the girls would relax and take a nap, but they weren't. So Kyle loaded them up in the stroller and went for a multi-mile walk around the city while they snoozed away. Since Isaac had been a trooper with walking and we knew he wouldn't stand another, him and I stayed back in the hotel.

Kyle saw the Buckingham fountain


The tall famous car garage building


They came back to the hotel and a friend of mine met us at our hotel. She lives about an hour outside of the city and I was so grateful for her trek in. Especially on such a crazy day! We walked to Gino's East to finally get Kyle some Chicago style Pizza.


It was great to visit and all the kids had fun too. Their daughter was the same age as Isaac and their older boy had fun watching Mary chow down on the meat lovers pizza. After dinner we strolled down Michigan Ave. It was so peaceful since it appeared the mob had their fill of the city and no one was hanging out downtown that evening. We walked to Dylan's candy store for an after dinner treat.




It was beautiful weather for the beginning of November, but we were happy it was so warm and we could walk the streets in comfort.