Our First Year in the Big City!

Technically, it's been over a year, and for me, it's hard to believe.  Time sure has flown!  We've had a memorable first year.  I'd say the biggest event had to be our daughter's wedding!  She and her husband Jim were married here on June 27th.  It was a beautiful and intimate ceremony with family and friends in attendance.

Ruby has enjoyed walking to Frick Park and the Hot Dog Dam!

We've met most of our neighbors and made many new friends.  I have to say this surprised us a lot.  We never expected people to be so nice and friendly in the "city."  We've spent the year learning more about Pittsburgh and the area and all the things it has to offer.  Some of the things we've seen and done:

We visited with Mister Rogers!

We've also enjoyed watching the Penguins and Pirates!

And speaking of sports, we have found an awesome Redskins bar in nearby Shadyside!  It was so cool walking in and seeing a sea of Redskins jerseys!

We've had a few overnight visitors, including some of the 4-legged variety.

The house was also featured in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for the inaugural Wilkinsburg Home Tour.

We (yes, Craig too) have enjoyed competing in the Great Race and our neighborhood race.

It's been fun trying out the new restaurants and meeting our new neighbors and making new friends.  We've both enjoyed lending a hand in our new community to make it a better place.  We're looking forward to year two!

Is It Cold Enough For You?

Happy New Year!

So how many times have you been asked if it's cold enough for you today?  If you live on the east coast I'm sure you have heard that line a few times today.  We got down to about -10 or so this morning.  When you throw in the howling wind that we had it was about minus a billion.  We are at least on this side of zero now.

When you live in an antique we have found that even though we have new pipes, the new pipes are inside 100+ year old walls.  So we had an inoperable master bath this morning.  The toilet line was frozen by 2 a.m.  Then when I got in the shower I had cold water but the hot water line was frozen.  We had left the sink trickling last night but only the cold.  The news shows said that you only need one trickling but apparently they were talking out of their ass because the hot water froze.  Then we found that the hot water line froze on the kitchen sink.  Craig went down in the basement and ran the shop vac and blew the warm air up the lines and the kitchen sink is now operable.  The problem with new plastic pipes is that they do not conduct heat and therefore stay frozen when you use heating tools on them.  So Josh the plumber came out today and installed a little contraption on the hot water heater that keeps the hot water circulating so that we can get hot water on demand.  His theory is that this will keep the pipes from freezing in the future.  Now if we could only get them thawed now...

All the Christmas decorations are down and tucked away.   I've taken lots of pictures so that I will remember next year exactly where everything goes.  So here are some pictures of what it looked like around here last month.

That's our friend David Newell aka Mr. McFeely in the middle of the group!  He was here for our Christmas party.
I am definitely looking forward to spring time!  The seed catalogs are starting to roll in and it can't come fast enough for me.  Here are a few pictures from the beautiful gardens at some homes in Shadyside from last spring.

Oh, the adventure of living in an antique!  Stay tuned and think spring!