May was a busy month

In early May Max was in Michigan doing some heavy lifting of Elise for Brandy, and I was back in Cincinnati using our fabulous new kitchen, cooking amazing dinners of scrambled eggs, microwaved hot dogs, or turkey sandwiches.  I am pretty good at executing cooking plans.  I just am not so good at planning meals so I tend to eat whatever is in the refrigerator.  But as Mother’s Day approached I headed to Michigan to pick up Max so we could drive to Arlington, VA.  This year Mother’s day fell on the same day as Reeder’s first communion.  Since Reeder was Max’s maiden name and Max is her God Mother, it made sense that we be there.   Once the service was completed, we headed for the National Mall for pictures and a picnic lunch 

The reason for the party

 The Kappels

A proud Grandma with Reeder

Lunch on the Mall

 followed by the Natural History Museum, Reeder’s favorite Smithsonian museum, but also Weiler's favorite place too I think. 

It was a hot day and ice cream on the Mall was enjoyed by many.

 Not a drop wasted

Weiler got the comfy seat.

Hayes went for the cone.

And I guess Reeder was just too fast for me to get a picture of her favorite frozen desert.

On Monday we got a tour of the Pentagon (sorry, no pictures allowed) and then on Tuesday we went to the National Zoo and were lucky to find Bao Bao, the Zoo’s newest baby Giant Panda during her first week of viewing.  Bao Bao posed for us and then called her mom (Mei Xiang) out for a family photo shoot.

Bao Bao munching on some bambo.

 Bao Bao and Mom

The next weekend was graduation weekend at U. Pennsylvania in Philly so instead of driving back to Michigan and then back to Philly 3 days later, we stopped in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and spent a few nights in a B&B.  Rehoboth Beach was nice for a mid-Atlantic beach, but the weather was wet and windy and the camera never made it out of the bag.

Philly was where my camera got a workout.  First of all we got to meet Sarah’s mother, Nazek.  As you can see, Nazek and Max got along quite well.

And then came graduation.  The Nursing School commencement was held in the Kimmel Center in the city center of Philly.  Penn Nursing is rated as the best nursing school in the country (as well as the world) and to  have two family members getting their Ph.D’s made it all the more special.

Getting Ready for commencement

Graduates and parents

Sarah being hooded by her advisor

Matthew being hooded by his advisor

Post graduation relaxing

And to finish off the month of May, Amber delivered Marshall Rudy Dushman to the world.  He is a big boy and is making his presence felt in the Dushman household.

A short nap in his cradle

Loved napping on Grandma's lap

An awake moment in his swing

Enjoying a joke from his Grandpa

And of course, the proud parents whom Marshall is breaking into parenthood.

And finally, a couple of pictures that I just really like:

A Rose Breasted Grosbeck sitting on my Paw Paw tree

Amelia peeking from around a tree.

On the Road Instead of at Home.

Now that we have our house back and have resumed cooking in our kitchen and using any one of our three remodeled bathrooms, we are hoping life becomes a bit more routine.  Max has started her food blog again and, even though the title is In the Kitchen with Don, Max's blog is pretty much her own creation.  I do help in a very small way in pushing a shutter button, but the recipes, views and descriptions are all her creation.  Consequently, she suggested that I take over Windows on Wentworth in order to share our lives more broadly to friends and family.  Consequently, allow me to rewind back to March.

There is nothing like a spring drives across the country side, but our spring driving has been about 5,000 miles.  Since March we have motored multiple times to and from Chicago, Michigan, Arlington VA, Delaware, and Philly.  It has been a very busy spring.  We delivered baby stuff to an expecting Amber, baby sat for a Red Sox baseball game in Detroit, sat in on two Ph.D. dissertation defenses in Philly, attended a baby shower in Chicago (only Max), helped Brandy during her recent surgery in Detroit, went to Reeder’s first communion in Arlington and toured the Pentagon while we were there, killed some time on the beach in Rehoboth  Delaware before heading to Philly, met Sarah’s mother, Nazek who was in Philly for Matthew’s and Sarah’s graduation, attended and then celebrated their graduation, drove back to Michigan to drop Max off to return to the heavy lifting of Elise during Brandy’s recovery, drove to Bluffton to celebrate my grandniece, Baily's, high school graduation and finally drove back to Chicago to meet Marshall Rudy Dushman, our newest grandson.  In the few spaces in between driving we had visits from Marianne et.al. (except Clint) and our good friend Gay from Florida.

I didn’t get pictures from all of these events, but I'll give you a sampling of what pictures I did take.  Since I am covering several months I'll include March and April in this blog and May and June in a second one.

Marianne et.al. (Clintless) visit in late March:

The Kappels came for Max's birthday just a little late because of a snow delay for the original party.  We needed lots of indoor stuff to do in March since the weather was very wet.  Roller tracks are great fun

And bowling is a sport anyone can play...

And it doesn't really matter how you get the ball going in the right direction...

Or how long it takes to get there.

And nothing ever seems to stop Marianne.

Our new kitchen sink will  hold a large load of dirty dishes or other dirty things...

 But our new "Guest Tub"  was made for grandkids.

And because the Kappels were supposed to be here for Max's birthday, but prevented by 12 inches of snow in Virginia, they decided we needed to celebrate "appropriately" for Max's enrollment in Medicare.  And yes, there are 65 candles on that cake.  She needed lots of help in getting them blown out.

And finally these last two are here because the Lenten Rose is always our first flower of Spring

And because I just like this picture a lot

A Quick Trip to Philly:

It's a real treat to have one of your kids graduate from college, but we have been fortunate enough to have all seven graduate, some with multiple degrees.  Our group "thus far" has accumulated 2 Associate Degrees, 6 BS degrees, 6 MS/MA degrees (2 more in process), and 1 Ph.D. (1 more in process).  Max and I were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to sit in on Matthew's and Sarah's dissertation defense at U. of Penn School of Nursing, Matthew one day and Sarah the next.  They certainly made it easy for us to be very proud of what they have accomplished.  Below are pictures from the those days and it should be obvious from all of the smiles that their defenses went very well.

Clint even drove up from D.C to join  us.

This is Matthew with his Adviser (in the grey dress) and one of his committee members looking at some of the data he analyzed for his project.

And this is Sarah with her Adviser just before she began her defense.

I'll stop here for now and begin again with our marathon trip in May.

Seven Months of Construction

It has certainly been a while since we posted anything on this blog. Fifteen months and 4 days if you really must know. Not sure what prevented us from doing so, but maybe we just got lazy. Lazy is probably the best explanation.  But I really must place a bit of blame on Facebook.  It seems in my laziness I can slap a couple of pictures shot with my phone up on my "Wall" and then somehow believe that is real communication.  But everyone knows that Facebook is never REAL communication.  It is a "cocktail party" at its best.  But we all know that a "cocktail party" is never a substitute for a real conversation.

 Nonetheless, we are back and have something to talk about, our recently remodeled kitchen and bathrooms. 

I initially started this blog post to describe what Max and I just went through in the planning and preparation to upgrade the bathrooms and kitchen of our 119 year old home.  

I simply must interrupt here with very strong advice.  It's been said before but certainly bears repeating. Never- and I mean NEVER- say you absolutely won't do "you fill in the blank".  You'll do it.  I guarantee it- you'll do it.  I said that I would NEVER, NEVER, NEVER undertake a major remodeling of my kitchen. NEVER.  But not only did I giddily sign on to a MAJOR REMODEL of the kitchen, we added in three bathrooms to made sure we were really, really, really inconvenienced.  Let's just say the last  seven months was a bit like hunkering down in a storage warehouse with a continuous stream of construction workers with appropriate loud equipment interrupted daily by another trip to another restaurant where we for sure sat next to someone that was going to irritate Don while we ate food we'd rather not be eating at that moment.

As I was starting the 4^th paragraph describing the process (and I see with Max's added comments this is now the 5th paragraph), I was getting tired of going through the long drawn out experience and realized that anyone reading this would probably give up and just look at the pictures.  We had delays, set backs, and 7 months of parking in the street because my 3-car garage was turned into a carpenter shop.  So to summarize, in just about exactly 7 months our kitchen and 2.5 bathrooms were stripped to the frame work including all of the plumbing and electrical, and then completely rebuilt with new wiring, new plumbing, new floors, new walls, new ceilings and all new fixtures.  The biggest change was in our kitchen.  Below are a couple pictures of the kitchen taken before the process started. 

Northeast towards the back porch

Northwest with the refrigerator on he left and the sink below the window on the left.

Here is the kitchen after demolition was well underway.  Once again for perspective:

 Above, looking west toward the driveway at the window that was above the kitchen sink

 Looking Southwest where the stove and refrigerator were located.  In the lower center of that south wall was an old pantry that was set in below the back stairs.  We think that it was probably an outside cold storage space when the house was first built because our kitchen and bathrooms were added onto the house well after the initial construction.

Looking East towards the old bathroom and on the right outlined in blue, the doorway to our dining room.  The back door and the wall to the left were all removed to expand the kitchen/bathroom.

Not shown in the above pictures is that the back porch was disassembled and saved and the north wall of the house was removed and a new part of the kitchen was added.  

Here is our new kitchen.  It is almost twice the size of the old one and now has a walk in pantry and next to it is a new full bathroom.

Above,  looking South towards the front of the house with the 5 burner cook top in the center and the short hallway to the dining room on the left.

Looking northwest toward the garage.  The center island has a prep sink on the other side and the stools and sitting areas at the island were the idea of Max so she could have grandchildren help her in the kitchen.  The window on the left is original and still above the sink.

Looking east where the old half bath used to be.  Behind the door is a walk in pantry and behind the double oven/microwave/refrigerator is a new full bathroom.  Did you hear the part about the double oven.  Oh yes, DOUBLE OVEN! The new back door is to the left of the ovens.

Looking west from the new back doorway

Looking north from in front of the sink.  The two windows are new and the new back door is on the right. As I look at the pictures I realize that the pictures just don't do this new kitchen justice.  You just must come and see it for yourself.  It is absolutely stunning!  We worked with our architect, Rod Sidley and a team of expert carpenters who were amazing at embracing the history of our house- and building a kitchen rich with details that flows seamlessly from the part that is 119 years old. That said- just let me know when you'd like to come and visit- we have the room!

I didn't take pictures of all of the old bathrooms since they were really too small to get much in the picture.  Here is the one picture I took of our old guest bathroom on the second floor.  The picture is looking west toward the driveway. I have to admit I never, ever showered or bathed in this old bathroom.  The people I know and love (daughters and dear friends) do tell me it is one of the worst they've ever been forced to use.  I'm afraid no new curtains or new bathroom carpets could even dent the deterioration of the ages.

And here is that same room during demolition.  The other bathrooms were stripped down to the same level of demolition.

Below is the new guest bathroom.  This was Max's own creation and our only bath tub in the house.  Of course we had to have one bathroom so Max could give our young grandchildren baths. 

Don't you love it!  Can you believe the transformation!  And the claw foot tub is cast iron- so it holds the heat- perfect for a long hot soak- as well as a very long time to play with toys for the grandchildren!

Having windows in bathrooms in neighborhoods creates problems of privacy.  Max was determined not to cut out the light in the bathroom, but she also didn't want curtains.  The leaded glass was her solution.  All of the leaded glass (yes there are more) are installed in front of our high efficiency double pane windows.  The picture below shows the patterns the glass makes on the walls in the evening as the sun sets in the west.

Next is the first floor bathroom with its leaded glass window.  On the far right is a large shower with a glass partition and glass door.  This window provides diffused light as the morning sun shines in.

And finally, below are several pictures of the master bathroom.  The first with the shower in the background.  This shower is slightly larger than the downstairs shower, but the fixtures and tile are the same.

Below are views of the cabinets from opposite ends of the bathroom.  Not shown or evident is that the ceramic tile floor in the master bath is heated, so the floor is always warm in the winter. 

And finally there is the window in the master bath that is on the wall opposite the sink.

The only thing not included in the pictures is that my office was taken over by Max and I moved to the front of the house.  But my old office was significantly reduced in size in order to give Max a new big double closet for her off season clothes and a new space for a second floor washer and dryer.  Ahhhhh! The absolutely luxury of not hauling all of our laundry down to the basement from our second floor bedroom and then back up again!

We are keeping the basement washer/dryer for heavier loads of laundry. And when we were getting the house ready for our first out-of-town company I was actually using both the second floor and basement washers and dryers to quickly wash all the towels and sheets.

I'm not including any pictures from the outside, since it is still a bit of a mess from the winter storms.  We did expand our brick patio area and our back porch was rebuilt and looks just like our old "new porch" except this one came out a bit larger.

So the house is now available for visitors and Max and I are back in our new kitchen enjoying all of the space and new appliances and often trying to remember where we put something in our very spacious cabinetry. We actually have whole shelves that have nothing on them, drawers with nothing in them.  

But best of all this kitchen invites conversation.  We can all gather around and laugh and tell tales and Don and I can keep on cooking with nary a pause.  Come and see for yourself.  We'd love to have you!