It's a girl!

We had the ultrasound this past Tuesday, and are happy to announce that we are having a girl. We would have been happy either way, but were really hoping for a girl. So, needless to say, we are very happy!

In other news, we are getting ever so closer to being the owners of a new home. The builder has been working rapidly and things are really starting to gel. All of the dry wall is complete, the wood floors are down, doors are up, all the railings are up, kick boards and cabinetry. This was as of Wednesday. We will go again this Saturday and anticipate that even more will be completed, including counter tops. The stone on the outside was almost complete Wednesday, and we are hoping that is done and that at least they started the outside paint. We'll post pictures soon...

Finally, we are ready for Christmas. We are spoiling the kids this year, they are getting a lot. It should be fun.

Oil

Our reliance on oil is pretty sad. Oil helps to fund terrorists, destroys the environment and causes extreme greed. The prices are sky high right now, almost reaching $100 per barrel. With China and India growing, oils consumption is higher than ever and will continue going up. I can see $5 per gallon in our future very shortly.

The thing that is amazing, though, is no one seems to take any of it seriously. Everyone bitches and moans about prices and we are all so concerned about terrorism, but we continue to buy gas at record numbers. No one even considers future generations. What will happen to my children? Will they run out of gas, and therefore their source of energy? Will terrorists become so rich they will rule the world? Will pollution via emissions kill plants and animals and therefore all food sources? We are selfish and only think of the now and us. Time to stop being selfish, people!

I don't claim to be innocent by any means, but I am trying my best and making an effort at least. The home we are building is green (so claims the builder). We are buying energy star rated appliances. Once the home is complete, I will start working from home as often as I can. I'm thankful that my company supports telecommuting, I wish more companies were that way. I currently drive a Honda Civic which has some of the best mileage and lowest emissions of the non-hybrid cars. I'm planning to buy a new car in about 2 years, after we pay off our latest car. I had considered buying an SUV, a luxury car and a sports car. But, in recent months, I realized that the car as status symbol is a bunch of crap. Instead, I will go the route of a low emissions vehicle. Lately, I have been considering the Toyota Prius. If Honda come out with an affordable FCX (Fuel Cell), I will buy that. (if you don't know what the FCX is, basically, it does not use gas at all. It runs fully on hydrogen, meaning no emissions, no funding for terrorism, etc.) No, I'm not perfect, but at least I am making an effort.

The image I included on this blog should speak volumes in itself. Our planet is made of about 70% water. The image shows our planet plunging into oil. Remember, water and oil don't mix...

Halloween and Other Things

I posted pictures from Halloween on the website. Bryan was Thomas the Tank Engine and Asa was a Dementor (from Harry Potter). The kids had fun trick-or-treating...so did I!

We went by the house this past weekend. Not too much to report, they put the house wrapping on and installed the windows. We ventured in and saw that they are about ready to do the duct work. We have an appointment on November 19th to do our first walk through. I assume this is for electrical.

I'm headed to New Orleans next week (November 12). It will be my first time there, and although I am going for work, I'm pretty excited. I'm looking forward to see the progress after Katrina and to see how Bourbon Street looks, enjoy the food, and maybe have a couple drinks while I'm there.

Latest News and Announcements

The big news is that Ivonne is pregnant. We've known for a while, but she just got through the 1st trimester, so this is the official announcement. We are excited and this is good timing. We will be in the new house for a few months by the time the baby is born, so we will have time to prepare.

Regarding the house, they are one month into construction. Supposedly, we have three months left. We hope it's speedy, take a look at the family website pictures for the latest photos of the house.

Countdown

Countdown to what? Well, to many things. They've finally broken ground on our new home. The builder claims it takes them only 4 months to build a home. So, we should be in our new house in late January. There are a couple of new pictures on the website of the hole in the ground, hopefully that will be a foundation very soon.

We have another countdown, but I won't announce that one just yet...

Otherwise, there are a lot of things going on. Ivonne is traveling, so I'm taking care of the kids on my own. My job is going well, I hired a new developer recently to help me out. I have a lot of side projects too, plus I am teaching this semester at CU Denver. Asa is doing well and is very active at school in a number of activities. Bryan is a little cutey as always and talks A LOT nowadays.

Come back soon for more pictures as the house progresses and we have more announcements.

New Photo Viewer

I've posted a new version of the photo viewer today.

A few things to note:

• It now opens in a separate window. This is so I can maximize the real estate for the window.
• The main picture now "animates" by scrolling through all the pictures for that selected picture group. There are controls to stop the animation, move to the next picture and move to the previous picture.
• The left side now has an "accordion" affect. Click on the darker blue areas to collapse the folders, for example, and open the photo strip.
• The photo strip works similar to before, but clicking on a picture while it is animating will start from that point forward.

Please test it out and send me comments!

In other news...we are now under contract on a new home. We will keep you updated here as things develop.

Home Sold

After almost 1 year and a half of being on the market, we sold our home. Closing was yesterday, everything went well. We are now officially homeless and moochers (mooching off of Ivonne's parents). There were a few minor hiccups at first, we thought we were going to have to bring $1500 more then we actually had (imagine the scramble for trying to get more money), but we actually ended up needing to bring $1000 less!

We have our eye on one neighborhood in particular in the Denver area, it's called Southshore (http://www.livesouthshore.com/). They are setting this community up to be like a seaside community and reminds me of Long Island a lot. The model we are looking at has 4 bedrooms, but there is an office we can make into a 5th. We are excited and should be making a decision on our new home soon.

New Blog

This is the new Blog for the Steigerwald-Roche family. Please visit our website at http://www.steigerwald-roche.com.