Weekend trip to Philadelphia

For president's day, we took a full family trip to Philadelphia. We had an intense 3 days: (1) Franklin Institute (and Planetarium) and Barnes Foundation, (2) Philly Museum of Art and Independence Hall and Liberty Bell, and (3) Lunch at the 4 seasons on top of the Comcast Building and Immersive Van Gogh exhibit. Chase had a great time with all the science and art, especially everything Van Gogh (he’s still obsessed -- as mentioned a few months ago) and all the armory at the Museum of Art (oh and the flags on the street leading up the Museum of Art since he’s super into flags these days). We also walked a lot, had some nice coffees, and ate quite a bit! A fun and full weekend for all.

Reupholstering the dining room chairs

Due to the supply chain issues, I wasn't sure when an ordered dining table would be delivered. Therefore, I looked on Facebook marketplace for a wood table (to match the wood beam/frame in our dining/living room) that had 2 leaves. There was one not too far away. I thought it might fit in our CRV but after trying, it was obvious that it wouldn't fit. I rented a van from Home Depot and drove it home (it was quite intense)! The couple selling the table said that they would throw in the chairs because they were planning to take them to the dump anyway. Since I had a huge van, I figured I'd just take them and figure out what to do with them later. When I got home, I looked up the table and chairs and saw that they were mid-century vintage (John Stuart, Inc. NY/Grand Rapids). The chairs actually seemed quite comfortable but looked like they had not been reupholstered recently (maybe never, actually). 

I knew reupholstering these myself was doable thanks to a tutorial from YoungHouseLove. I thus set to the task of reupholstering the chairs. I bought some fabric that matched the living room carpet/couch that I thought would look good. I also bought 6 square sections of 1 inch foam -- all off Amazon (can't remember how much it all cost but probably about $20-30). I went to Home Depot and bought a cheap $15 staple gun. With that in hand, I started by removing the cushion part of the chair just by using a screwdriver. Thankfully, these chairs only have one cushion so that was relatively easy to do.

Afterwards, I traced the old cushions on foam and cut that out using normal scissors. There were two types of shapes: the four normal chairs and the two that had arms as well. I made sure to trace each one individually to make it as customized as possible. 

Next, I arranged the foam on top and used the staple gun to attach the fabric tightly. I made sure that the corners were nice and crisp and that I was pulling it tight at all times. Finally, I screwed the cushions back on to each chair. I took me about 30-45 minutes per chair. 

Some of the corners and the finished product in the middle. 

A comparison of the new and old chairs. You can see that the new ones are a bit more plush and comfortable:

The finished products in both rooms. The table usually has only four chairs and no leaves as we only have 3 people. Even when my parents visit, we just pull up one chair. The two chairs with arms are on either side of the living room. Oddly, the beam/frame that matches the table isn't pictured in either of these pictures! In this entry at Christmas time, you can see the right side of the beam/frame behind Nate's arm on the lower right hand picture. You can also see the table with one leaf and the old chairs. The reupholstered chairs are much more comfortable and look much nicer in the space!

Update: After almost a year, the chairs are holding up great and have gotten tons of use both by us and guests throughout the year. 

January in CT

We welcomed 2022 with the Minevs and my parents and brother. The weather was warm and we were able to shoot off model rockets that my brother and Chase made together. For New Year’s eve, I made tons of Olivier salad and Christine made Banitsa, thereby honoring our respective Eastern European traditions. It was so nice to be together and to have Chase and Theo catch up. They played legos together and we all went to the aquarium together on New Year's day. 

Just a few weeks later, we had tons and tons of snow, which we can now check by looking at our backyard. We went to Wavenly Park to do some sledding. Coincidentally, this is also where we did our family pictures last fall. The hills were perfect for Chase and he used the sled my parents brought from San Diego in their move. Snow fun for all!

2021 in Review

[Previous years in review: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013]

Like last year, this year was also quite intense!

We actually moved twice. The first time, we drove half-way across the country and settled into an apartment. Then, at the end of the year, we moved into our first house. Between there, we did many activities in the greater Connecticut area in the winter/spring, summer, and fall. We also visited Nate's family in Nebraska during the summer. Finally, I visited San Diego on my own in December. 

For once in a long time, we didn't leave the country where we resided the whole year! I guess that's the difference between living in the US and living in Europe. Chase slightly added to his state count with Pennsylvania, bringing it to 10 (MA, CT, RI, NY, NE, CA, NV, IA, IL, and PA). I guess we also drove through Indiana, Ohio, and New Jersey but I am not going to count those, yet. His continent (3: North America, Europe, and Africa) and country (13: USA, Switzerland, France, Spain, Morocco, Ukraine, Great Britain, Mexico, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Austria, and Denmark) counts stayed the same. 

In terms of crafts, I made a few earrings. Now that we're in this house, we can get back to some home improvements, so I will be sure to post about those next year. I am also still spending quite a bit of time finding birth parents for adoptees using DNA, probably helping about 10-12 people this last year. Other things I wrote about this year include: growing plants indoors (next year, we have a huge backyard to grow so much more!), new family photos, and Chase turning 7. 

As always, here is an Instagram collage of pictures from the last year. I don't use Twitter anymore, but I do still post on Instagram every now and again, which you can follow here. 

Happy 2022!

Christmas in our first house

At the very end of November, we bought a house here in Fairfield. We spent a few months this summer looking at houses (in this crazy market), but were lucky enough to find the one we wanted in the right neighbourhood and price in the beginning of September. This triggered the second move in two years at Christmas time. At the same time, as mentioned in the last post, my parents were also moving and actually moving into the apartment we were leaving! So, we had a stressful time logistically managing getting all of our stuff out while getting their stuff in (before they arrived since they were driving cross country again). Somehow, between working full time, we managed to get everything done and settled enough to host Christmas at our new house. We even had Katya come visit for a few days before Christmas! With my parents nearby, my brother visited for the holiday period, staying with us. This is the first time we've all been together for this time of year since maybe 2016? 

We are really enjoying this new house (even with the broken dishwasher and the fix-ups we've had to do -- more on that later) and after 8 years, we can finally get back to the original title of this blog. :)

Saying goodbye to San Diego (for now)

Right after our offer on the house we bought was accepted (see next post!), my parents decided that they wanted to move to CT to be nearer to us for a while. Therefore, at the beginning of December, I flew to San Diego to help them clean out their house of our stuff that we've kept there for the last 15 years. I recycled almost all of my school work and most of my brother's. I donated lots and lots of things while packing boxes for the few things I wanted to keep (crafts, mostly). It was incredibly tiring and long, but my parents spent way longer dealing with all their stuff. 

What was fun is that Olga was planning to be in town right around the same time and Sakina flew down to join us. For a fun day, we got some lunch at the revamped Del Mar Highlands, got some ice cream at the new One Paseo, and got some coffee at the new UTC. It was great to be all together again (something we haven't done since Sakina's baby shower in 2017). [I also made them take some stuff to Goodwill, the library, and the recycling :) Moving is a stressful process!]

One of the pictures we took had us in exactly same order as we were in the picture we took in Japan in 2015. I added our latest picture to the one before. I think we haven't changed! 

Exploring Fall in CT/NY

[Previous local activities: summer in CT/NY/RI, winter/spring in CT]

Autumn/fall in New England is the best! It is one of the things I missed about the east coast while living in Switzerland. 

1. Corn mazes. I am pretty sure I spent the last many years psyching Chase up for New England corn mazes. What's even cooler is that both Olga and Boris & Laura live within driving distance of us, and decided to come for two separate weekends in October to relive our glorious corn maze years. It is only fitting that the last time I wrote about a corn maze (before Chase), we had done one with all three of them. 

The first weekend, Olga joined us for a really tough corn maze at Treat Farm in Orange, CT. We spent 2 hours walking it and still didn't finish it (only finding 4 of the 6 places that we needed to solve the puzzle). Afterwards, we drove over to Beardsley's Cider Mill in Shelton, CT to get cider donuts. It was great!

A few weekends later, Boris and Laura joined us for a corn maze at Plasko's Farm in Trumbull, CT. This maze was much more our speed and we easily finished it and found the answer to the riddle. We also grabbed some ice cream and cider donuts right there at the farm. It was fun catching up with Boris and Laura, who we hadn't seen since Denmark. 

2. McKinley Elementary Fair. Chase's elementary school has a yearly fundraising event where they have a full fair at the beach for the community. After the corn maze with Laura and Boris, we headed over there and enjoyed the rides. Chase found a few friends from school and they ran around going on rides on their own. It was fun to see him so happy with his friends. 

3. Halloween. Chase experienced his first American Halloween this year. He wasn't a fan on dressing up until maybe last year, but was the perfect age to enjoy the festivities this year. He decided to dress up like a witch (after we watched Hocus Pocus with Olga at the beginning of October). He went trick-or-treating with two friends in our building in the neighborhood around his elementary school. He got a huge haul of candy, most of which he didn't eat and is still sitting in our candy bowl. 

4. Escape Rooms. This is something that is not limited to the fall, but is something we did quite a bit once it got colder. We have now done three at Escapology (two of them with my parents) and one (just Nate and I) at Escape Rooms CT. It's not cheap, but a challenge we enjoy and with so many possibilities around us, there are still so many left to play!

5. NYC. It has somehow not been written in this blog, but Nate and I had a tradition during our years in Cambridge to go to NYC the weekend after Thanksgiving. We were able to reinstate that tradition this year, just taking the train into NYC and staying for a few nights. We went to Aladdin on Broadway, checked out Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Hudson Yard. We spent many hours at the Museum of Natural History, and Chase was incredibly impressed to see Starry Night in person at the MoMA. Overall, a fun time in NYC which was possible because 5-12 year olds can now be vaccinated so Chase had one shot and two weeks (now he's fully vaccinated and we're both boosted). It was our first time in NYC all together since Chase was there when he was 3 months old (and got his first two teeth!). 

6. Another fun Christmas/December activity is seeing the Nutcracker. The CT Dance School was holding performances at Fairfield University -- very near us -- so we went. While Nate wasn't a big fan, I thought it was fun to expose Chase to this Christmas tradition.