Welcome, new Marshall!

His name is James.  All are doing well.  Congrats to Jennifer, Brendan, and Luke!

Born at 3:40 pm today.
9 pounds (NINE!)
21 inches.

And here he is, straight from Brendan's Facebook:

Woo hoo! Best wishes to you, James. 

Will your middle name be T. Kirk?

Waiting (is the hardest part)

I'm sitting here waiting for news of the imminent arrival of a new Marshall.  Hurry up and get born, kid!  We can't wait to meet you.  (To be clear, my brother and his wife are having a new baby! Hooray!) While we're waiting, here are some recent updates:

We've just wrapped up a fabulous weekend filled with local fun. We went to Founders Day at the Lowell National Historic Park, where Lucy did some crafts, we went for a trolley tour, and joined a sing-a-long with a ranger playing a ukelele.  Awesome!  Lucy loves "This Land is Your Land."

Then we had a fabulous luau in Somerville with Ian & Elizabeth. There were leis and little drink parasols.  Lovely!

Sunday we went to Franklin Park Zoo!  It was super terrific.  Lucy really liked the lemurs, who came right up to the glass to say hello.  She was also a big fan of tree-climing.

In other exotic animal news, someone found an actual alligator hanging out in a canal in Lowell.  No kidding. See this from the Lowell Sun:

LOWELL -- Police thought they were dealing with a prank call when someone reported seeing an alligator in the Merrimack Canal Saturday night.

It wasn't a prank.

Sgt. Jack Cullen arrived at Broadway and Dutton streets, near the Lowell National Historical Park parking lot, and found a roughly 2-foot alligator swimming in the canal just after 9 p.m.

And of course, the Lowell Sun went to the Lowell Spinners (mascot: Canaligator) for comment:

Jon Boswell, director of media relations for the Lowell Spinners, said the team's mascot, the Canaligator, was not immediately available for comment.

He said he suspects the alligator might be a relative.

Boswell said Canaligator married Allie-gator in 2005, and the happy couple gave birth to Millie-gator in 2006.

Awesome.  There are some great photos and some video at the local police log blog:

http://blogs.lowellsun.com/policeline/2012/08/25/canaligator-real/

So yeah, there really IS a lot to like about Lowell.

In other Lucy news, she has graduated to Purple Family.  Very exciting.  She came home with a cold after the first day in the new classroom.  New class, new microbes.  Nice.  But she seems to be getting better.

And here we are, still waiting.  Updates as soon as  have 'em.

We've just wrapped up a fabulous weekend filled with local fun. We went to Founders Day at the Lowell National Historic Park, where Lucy did some crafts, we went for a trolley tour, and joined a sing-a-long with a ranger playing a ukelele.  Awesome!  Lucy loves "This Land is Your Land."

Then we had a fabulous luau in Somerville with Ian & Elizabeth.

Sunday we went to Franklin Park Zoo!



In other news, someone found an actual alligator hanging out in a canal in Lowell.  No kidding.

From the Lowell Sun:

LOWELL -- Police thought they were dealing with a prank call when someone reported seeing an alligator in the Merrimack Canal Saturday night.
It wasn't a prank.
Sgt. Jack Cullen arrived at Broadway and Dutton streets, near the Lowell National Historical Park parking lot, and found a roughly 2-foot alligator swimming in the canal just after 9 p.m.
Calvin Thomas, of Lowell, said he was walking past the area with his kids when he looked into the canal.

Jon Boswell, director of media relations for the Lowell Spinners, said the team's mascot, the Canaligator, was not immediately available for comment.
He said he suspects the alligator might be a relative.
Boswell said Canaligator married Allie-gator in 2005, and the happy couple gave birth to Millie-gator in 2006.

Read more: http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_21402780/glancing-down-into-lowell-canal-he-saw-gator#ixzz24hqx7Hjr

Saturday Night

Jake is off doing the D2R2 -- the The Deerfield Dirt-Road Randonnée.

Project Underway! Basement Bathroom Actualization

So you may or may not know that there's a bathroom down in our basement.  It features in the background of several previous project posts, such as this one and this one.  It's a bit sketchy:

It has a toilet and a sink.  The toilet was leveled with a shim in form of a paint stirrer.  (Awesome!) Check it out:

It's an older style, with an enormous tank that was running a lot, so we actually turned off the water leads to it to conserve water.  This was usually fine, except on the rare occasion when an unknowing guest, or Lucy, used the toilet.  Ooops.

The sink leaks, and when I asked a plumber about it, he said it was not worth fixing the faucet; we should get a whole new sink set up.  Also, it was previously the drain for the washing machine (as detailed in the posts I linked above).  The faucet is set back very close to the basin, so it's actually not a great design for hand-washing. 

So this project has been on the back burner for a long time, since we do indeed have two other bathrooms.  But a few things have propelled this project forward: 1) we bought a third toilet back when we were replacing the other ones 2) our friends Matt & Mary gave us a new sink they had inherited [the tall white thing beside the sink in the photo above is actually the pedestal of the new sink] 3) we wanted to make more use of the backyard, and having a handy bathroom might make that even nicer.  Oh, and 4) our neighbor, Lisa, was available for some projects!

So the project is underway today.  She's taking out the old toilet, checking to make sure things are OK down there, then putting in a new one.  Then she'll take out the old and put in the new sink.  She's going to put down flooring plywood, and then go over it with some vinyl tiling I bought.

I am SO excited.

Updates as I have them.

Woo hoo!

Update: 3:40pm

Check it out:

Here's the latest status on the project:

--->Old toilet and sink are gone, gone gone.

--->Water intake valves (3 -- 2 for sink, 1 for toilet) replaced with shiny new, easy-to-use accessible ones.

--->Toilet drain confirmed secure (relief!  we weren't sure -- it's an OLD pipe, but a solid one)

--->Wood beneath and around toilet confirmed secure and not damaged by water or critters.

--->Evidence of critters, in the form of SQUIRRELS confirmed.  Not ideal, but not posing imminent harm to plumbing or the house.  Further investigation necessary.  Possible "re-location" plan may need to be developed.  We're not even sure if the critter is still in residence.

So hey, most of that is good news.  Liza is putting down new flooring plywood right now and then will paint it.  Tiling happens next.

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: 10pm: IT'S DONE!

We're just delighted.  Liza stayed until 10pm just because she wanted to get the job done.  Awesome.

I need to do a bit of clean up tomorrow, but hooray!

Of course, now the new floor and new fixtures make the rest of it all (the walls) look worse.....perhaps another upgrade will be in our future.

Cheers!