Monday, May 21, 2007
Newborn Essentials
Eric and I took our second baby preparedness class, "Newborn Essentials". Quite frankly, there was nothing better to do over this wet and cold weekend than to learn and reinforce our soon-to-be-tried parenting skills. Not only did we learn to sooth and swaddle, we also got a glimpse of what labor and delivery will bring. So, to all you moms out there - THANK YOU! I'm hoping the video opted to use extremely large children as part of a dramatization for the child birth. Those babies looked ginormous! And, to all you doctors out there - THANK YOU for inventing the epidural. I fully plan to support your medical advancement.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Dr. Jin
Eric and I met our baby's pediatrician, Dr. Jin (no - she's not a booze hound), at Milton Pediatrics. I definitely recommend the "meet and greet" to all those expecting parents - it gave us the perfect opportunity to ask all those questions about how we can best prepare for the baby's arrival and what to expect when the baby arrives! Dr. Jin has awesome bedside manners and we loved her energy. So, I feel reassured that we've covered all our bases to prepare for the baby. All we'll do now is wait for the next 9 weeks to fly by.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Mother's Day
Spring has sprung on the Cape. Pretty soon my parents house will be hidden by those trees. We went down to my parent's house on the Cape this weekend to celebrate Mother's Day. Even though Marin isn't officially a "mother" yet...we treated her as if she was. It turned out to be a gorgeous day after some overnight showers. We took Deacon for a walk around the "Bay Lane Loop" when we woke up on Sunday and then got ready for a Mother's Day Brunch at the the Hyannisport Golf Club. My dad was up at the crack of dawn to go play in his usual Sunday morning scramble tournament. Apparently they played really well, but I never did hear how they ended up overall.
Love the view at Hyannisport
We met my father over at the club at noon and enjoyed an incredible buffett for Brunch. The mothers, mothers to be (and Nanny's to be!) enjoyed their cards and their gifts and had a great Mother's Day
Mom and the Mom-to-be on Mother's Day!
Deacon at the Beach
Well, we went down to the Cape this weekend. We've been enjoying what seems to be the nicest spring weather-wise that I can remember. My parent's already have the cover off the pool but it has yet to be serviced (and it's really not THAT warm yet). Deacon spent a lot of his time gazing through the gate at the water just dreaming about how nice it would be to go for a swim.
We decided to take him down to the beach. Dogs aren't allowed on the Cape Code Public beaches after May 15, so this was really his last hoorah of the season. So, we went down the street to Long Beach and let Deacon go nuts. Needless to say he had a blast. The water actually wasn't all that bad in the sound. Once your legs got numb, it really was pretty bearable!
Thursday, May 10, 2007
5 Prescott Renovations
When Marin and I bought our current home at 5 Prescott Street....we must have looked at it 20 times before finally making our first offer. We knew that it had(and has) enormous potential, we just weren't sure that we had the energy. Our last place was a 700sqft 1BR 1BA that we completely renovated...and that was a pretty big challenge. We didn't know if we could handle 2400sqft, 5BR, 2BA all by ourselves. Nevertheless, we made the plunge and we could not be happier. The home was built in 1870 and is in a very historcal area of Charlestown at the base of Bunker Hill and a few houses away from the "Oldest Tavern (bar)" in the United States, "The Warren Tavern". George Washington stayed there on his visits to Boston and it was a favorite hang out for the well-known patriot, Paul Revere.
We closed on the house in the beginning of June '06 We started off by removing all of the wood panelling (yep...it was everywhere - I'll post the before and afters when I have a chance to take pictures of the "afters") before we moved in. BTW, Marin is the best. She and my parent's moved us in (with the help of some movers) while I was off racing for Block Island Race Week. What a gal!! Once we were moved in, we had all of the rooms on the first 2 floors overlayed with 3/8" thick blueboard. We hired someone to do this ...it had to be done quickly as we were living in on the third floor and although we have Central AC...it wasn't working properly and it was HOT!! The contractors and plasterers were in and out in 2 days and left us 4 beautiful rooms full of brand new walls and ceilings to paint. We spent a good 2-3 weeks painting after we moved in. I then put the paint away and thanked God that we didn't need the third floor to be done and that I wouldn't have to paint another thing for at least a year....that was July '06.
Well, October of '06 rolled around and....surprise! We're having a baby! Very exciting news, but this also means that we've got to get at least one room on the third floor completed so that we have a finished guest room. Our current guest room on the second floor would become the nursery. Out come the paint, brushes and rollers. We decided to redo what we called the "bastard furniture room". It was a guest room on the third floor full of furniture that we liked, but had no idea what to do with. It was probably the ugliest room in the house aside from the second floor bathroom - which we won't discuss. The other two rooms on the third floor weren't all that bad, so we figured we'd get the worst over with.
Thankfully my mother and my Aunt Debbie came up from the Cape one morning with their scrapers and their wallpaper remover and went to work. They had both layers of wallpaper removed in one day revealing some walls that didn't look too good from far, but were actually in pretty good shape.
I did all the patching and sanding of the walls then began painting the ceiling. All of a sudden I hit a big roadblock. The paint would not stick and the old ceiling was just falling off onto the ground. Come to find out, the ceiling is coated with a paint/whitewash they used - I guess before paint? - called Calcimine. Bottom line, it all had to be removed and scraped off. That took about a week of standing on top of a ladder scraping away. The room ended up being a pretty big can of worms, but after a solid 2-3 weeks of putting a couple hours in here and there...it was finished.
(Third Floor Guest Room Before and After)
The next thing Marin and I wanted to get done were the stairs. The stairs had this runner that was pretty old, ratty and dangerous as it moved around a lot when walking on it. The walls from the first floor foyer all the way up through the second floor hallway, the second set of stairs and the third floor hallway were covered with a real dingy old wallpaper. So we removed the runner on both sets of stairs and all of the wallpaper. It took some innovation in crafting tools that could scrape wallpaper off the walls 20' up and out of reach...but we eventually got it all off. There was A LOT of wallpaper!
We closed on the house in the beginning of June '06 We started off by removing all of the wood panelling (yep...it was everywhere - I'll post the before and afters when I have a chance to take pictures of the "afters") before we moved in. BTW, Marin is the best. She and my parent's moved us in (with the help of some movers) while I was off racing for Block Island Race Week. What a gal!! Once we were moved in, we had all of the rooms on the first 2 floors overlayed with 3/8" thick blueboard. We hired someone to do this ...it had to be done quickly as we were living in on the third floor and although we have Central AC...it wasn't working properly and it was HOT!! The contractors and plasterers were in and out in 2 days and left us 4 beautiful rooms full of brand new walls and ceilings to paint. We spent a good 2-3 weeks painting after we moved in. I then put the paint away and thanked God that we didn't need the third floor to be done and that I wouldn't have to paint another thing for at least a year....that was July '06.
Well, October of '06 rolled around and....surprise! We're having a baby! Very exciting news, but this also means that we've got to get at least one room on the third floor completed so that we have a finished guest room. Our current guest room on the second floor would become the nursery. Out come the paint, brushes and rollers. We decided to redo what we called the "bastard furniture room". It was a guest room on the third floor full of furniture that we liked, but had no idea what to do with. It was probably the ugliest room in the house aside from the second floor bathroom - which we won't discuss. The other two rooms on the third floor weren't all that bad, so we figured we'd get the worst over with.
Thankfully my mother and my Aunt Debbie came up from the Cape one morning with their scrapers and their wallpaper remover and went to work. They had both layers of wallpaper removed in one day revealing some walls that didn't look too good from far, but were actually in pretty good shape.
I did all the patching and sanding of the walls then began painting the ceiling. All of a sudden I hit a big roadblock. The paint would not stick and the old ceiling was just falling off onto the ground. Come to find out, the ceiling is coated with a paint/whitewash they used - I guess before paint? - called Calcimine. Bottom line, it all had to be removed and scraped off. That took about a week of standing on top of a ladder scraping away. The room ended up being a pretty big can of worms, but after a solid 2-3 weeks of putting a couple hours in here and there...it was finished.
(Third Floor Guest Room Before and After)
The next thing Marin and I wanted to get done were the stairs. The stairs had this runner that was pretty old, ratty and dangerous as it moved around a lot when walking on it. The walls from the first floor foyer all the way up through the second floor hallway, the second set of stairs and the third floor hallway were covered with a real dingy old wallpaper. So we removed the runner on both sets of stairs and all of the wallpaper. It took some innovation in crafting tools that could scrape wallpaper off the walls 20' up and out of reach...but we eventually got it all off. There was A LOT of wallpaper!
(Third Floor Hallway - during)
After about 2 months of a couple of hours a day after work each day....the stairs are finally completed. Doesn't look like much...but it sure took a long time!
(first set of stairs before and after)
So, I have put the paint brushes away for a while. We figure we'll leave the other two bedrooms on the third floor alone either until our baby (boy or girl?) moves out of the nursery to make room for #2. At that time, we'll let him/her help us pick the color of his/her new bedroom.
We have many renovations planned for the house, but most of the stuff that is left is going to require an architect and some professionals. On the third floor, there is currently a deck (through the door 2 pictures above) where we plan to build out and add a new bathroom for the kid(s). We'll also add an internal staircase that will head up to a roofdeck that we plan to add eventually. On the second floor we plan to move the master bedroom into the nursery and block the hallway access to the bathroom and add a door from the (now nursery) into the large second floor bathroom to create a master bedroom suite...oh, we will also have to gut that bathroom. For our last project we plan to knock all of the walls down on the first floor to make it one large open space that has with columns to support the house instead of walls. It will reallyopen the house up and make it less choppy. At that time we plan to also completely gut the kitchen. We'll go from the top down (for plumbing reasons) and hope to have all of these projects completed in 5 - 7 years.
Next up, repainting and replacing the windows on the front of the house. That's the nice part of having a row house...only one of the sides of the house is visible to the public! It seems that when we bought the house that fresh coat of paint it had did not have any primer underneath! We've got lot's of peeling going on.
So....lot's more to come!
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Charleston Race Week
We'd be remiss if we didn't add at least something in our blog about sailing. Eric recently travelled to the city of his alma mater Charleston, SC for "Charleston Race Week". Race week in Charleston is an annual event that usually takes place towards the middle - end of April....a great time to to visit one of the most beautiful cities on the East Coast.
Eric has sailed on a J105 (sloop rigged 33.5' boat) named "Savasana" on a regular basis for the past four years. He put his name on an "available crew" list for Key West Race Week back in Jan. '03, met the owner Brian Keane and has been sailing every event with Brian and the team since.
The racing in Charleston was sure to be very competitive. There was a total of 14 boats in the fleet, including the top four boats from Key West Race Week '07 as well as a new boat on the scene with a group of excellent sailors that Eric went to school with at Charleston. The Savasana crew consisted of the owner and driver, Brain Keane; regular team member and tactician for the event, Harcourt Schutz; Harcourt's long time friend and sailing buddy, Peter Ginz; and two recent alums of the College of Charleston's National Championship winning Woman's Sailing Team, Susan Lintern and Kelley Bowers.
The racing over the first day (Friday) was very tight and Savasana came in tied for 3rd overall. Not bad for going from 1st to 7th on the last leg of the first race! Thankfully, this regatta allowed for a "drop race" (drop your worst score) after six races. The team was hoping to get rid of that 7th by the end of the regatta. The race committee got everyone into shore very late on Friday after 3 races...which was a telltale sign that they were listening to the nasty forecasts for Sunday and quite possibly trying to get as much racing in as they could on Friday and Saturday.
Saturday was a great day...the team finished with a 1, 4, 3, which means the race committee got six races in! So, the team dropped the 7th and Savasana sat in first place by 1 point with (7), 5, 1, 1, 4, 3 as their scores.
Sunday...the team woke up and celebrated their victory as racing was cancelled for the day. The Sunday storm they spoke of came in and it brought some serious breeze. While Eric and the team love to go sailing...going out in a sustained 40.7kts (about 46mph) of breeze just isn't that much fun.
Eric had to miss the awards ceremony in order to try to catch any flight home that he could. However, Brian was there and was happy to receive not only the first place trophy for their fleet, but the team also received the a perpetual trophy called the "Charleston Race Week Cup" for the best overall One Design performance.
Eric is taking a little hiatus from sailing on the Savasana team this summer to spend time with Marin and the baby...he doesn't want to be anywhere too far away when baby Knight decides to arrive! However, he will still be very much involved with coordinating the team and helping Brian out when he can. He is every excited to go out on a good note with a win at Charleston Race Week (2 years in a row!).
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Deacon!
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This is "Deacon" as a puppy.
His full name is "Demon Deacon Knight" after Marin's alma mater, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
Deacon is now 17mos old and 95+lbs. We like to consider him our "first child".
Marin and Eric
So, I thought it would be fun to share with everyone how Marin and I met and became engaged/married. Most already know the story by now, but I'll tell it for those who don't.
We met through our friend Kate (at the time O'Hearn) O'Connell. Marin worked with Kate at PwC and I knew Kate and her now husband, Ian, from growing up on the Cape. Kate set us up on a blind date...apparently she sent an email to Marin with all sort of lies about what great person I was in order to convince her to at leat give me a shot. Anyway, we had our first date at the end of March of '02 and really started dating (finally) at the end of June of '02. We were both busy people...our date nights were usually Mondays because we both had other things going on every other night of the week.
Needless to say as time went on, I realized that Marin was the person I wanted to spend my life with. It was time to pop the big question. I can honestly say that I knew this about Marin only 7 months into our relationship. So I started saving and got the ring. The only problem was that I had no idea how I would ask her. It seemed that every week there was some new "romantic" story about how one of her friends was proposed to....there was no way I would be outdone.
I came up with the idea of asking her on my boat (a J22 - 22' Sloop rigged keelboat) and plastering the "big question" on the sail. So, one week, Marin was travelling for work (again) and I took off for the Cape after work to make this sail. It took a lot of duct tape and th
e agony of having to listen to my sister try to play her guitar (and sing) after 2 bottles of wine in my parents living room to make the sail, but the final product looked pretty good.
The day finally came. August 31, 2003. Marin was so excited to go for our "sailing picnic" that she was up at the crack of dawn wearing what looked like a snow suit (it's not always warm on the cape at the end of August). I had the ring in my pocket and my mother and father were already staked-out (in hiding) at the Yacht club with cameras. I had my father go down to the boat earlier that morning with a cooler containing a bottle of champagne on ice and two silver goblets with our names and the date engraved on them.
When we got to the boat and it was time to raise the mainsail and "do the deed" I made sure that Marin had her head down and was fully concentrated on feeding th
e luff of the mainsail into the track on the mast - to assure the sail goes up smoothly. When the sail was up, I pointed to it and said "Look!". She looked up and turned around to me on one knee and I asked her to marry me. She said"Yes".....well actually....she didn't say anything for about (what seemed) 5 minutes because she was crying and jumping up and down...but eventually she did say the word "yes".
We then sailed around Hyannis and Hyannisport sipping champagne and enjoying what ended up being a beautiful day to go sailing....
We met through our friend Kate (at the time O'Hearn) O'Connell. Marin worked with Kate at PwC and I knew Kate and her now husband, Ian, from growing up on the Cape. Kate set us up on a blind date...apparently she sent an email to Marin with all sort of lies about what great person I was in order to convince her to at leat give me a shot. Anyway, we had our first date at the end of March of '02 and really started dating (finally) at the end of June of '02. We were both busy people...our date nights were usually Mondays because we both had other things going on every other night of the week.
Needless to say as time went on, I realized that Marin was the person I wanted to spend my life with. It was time to pop the big question. I can honestly say that I knew this about Marin only 7 months into our relationship. So I started saving and got the ring. The only problem was that I had no idea how I would ask her. It seemed that every week there was some new "romantic" story about how one of her friends was proposed to....there was no way I would be outdone.
I came up with the idea of asking her on my boat (a J22 - 22' Sloop rigged keelboat) and plastering the "big question" on the sail. So, one week, Marin was travelling for work (again) and I took off for the Cape after work to make this sail. It took a lot of duct tape and th
e agony of having to listen to my sister try to play her guitar (and sing) after 2 bottles of wine in my parents living room to make the sail, but the final product looked pretty good.The day finally came. August 31, 2003. Marin was so excited to go for our "sailing picnic" that she was up at the crack of dawn wearing what looked like a snow suit (it's not always warm on the cape at the end of August). I had the ring in my pocket and my mother and father were already staked-out (in hiding) at the Yacht club with cameras. I had my father go down to the boat earlier that morning with a cooler containing a bottle of champagne on ice and two silver goblets with our names and the date engraved on them.
When we got to the boat and it was time to raise the mainsail and "do the deed" I made sure that Marin had her head down and was fully concentrated on feeding th
e luff of the mainsail into the track on the mast - to assure the sail goes up smoothly. When the sail was up, I pointed to it and said "Look!". She looked up and turned around to me on one knee and I asked her to marry me. She said"Yes".....well actually....she didn't say anything for about (what seemed) 5 minutes because she was crying and jumping up and down...but eventually she did say the word "yes".We then sailed around Hyannis and Hyannisport sipping champagne and enjoying what ended up being a beautiful day to go sailing....
Monday, May 7, 2007
Our First Blog!
Welcome to the Knight family blog (the Boston Chapter)!
This is our very first post on our Blog. We could not think of a better way to share our adventures with our dear friends and family.
July 18th is said to be the due date of our first child and we are very excited about our new arrival! We will keep you updated on the little Knight, who will be the first of a new generation on Eric's side of the family and a close second (Greg/Collin/Abby got us by about 8 months!) on Marin's side.
(Our Niece Abby!)
More updates to come soon!
GO SOX!
Eric and Marin
This is our very first post on our Blog. We could not think of a better way to share our adventures with our dear friends and family.
July 18th is said to be the due date of our first child and we are very excited about our new arrival! We will keep you updated on the little Knight, who will be the first of a new generation on Eric's side of the family and a close second (Greg/Collin/Abby got us by about 8 months!) on Marin's side.
(Our Niece Abby!)
More updates to come soon!
GO SOX!
Eric and Marin
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