Whoa What a Weekend

This weekend was super productive! We were able knock several items of our Pre Baby To Do List, which is wonderful.

On Friday my dad had to be on campus to meet with some chemist/engineering guys he's working with. Once his meeting was done I walked over to get him since he doesn't know his way around campus. It was fun to have my dad on campus. That afternoon we headed over to Home Depot and bought a new hot water heater and all the fixings. Our old hot water heater was super old and should have been replaced right when we bought the house...we were really living on borrowed time because it could have died any day.

I really wanted it replaced before the baby comes because it would be just my luck that it would die the moment Dave returns to work up in Gualala and I'm stuck at home with a screaming infant.

Dave rigged up this clever cover so they wouldn't get soaked while they changed it.
The new heater is much more energy efficient and is also 25% larger in capacity. I'm honestly surprised that Dave and my dad were able to squeeze it in through the closet door--they literally had about 1/16th of an inch of extra room. I was up on a ladder on the other side of the house cleaning the leaves out of the gutters (again) and I heard them hooting and hollering with joy when they got it inside the closet. It was pretty funny.

Here they are saving some of the hot water from the old heater to wash our hands since we weren't 100% sure the installation would work out:
I couldn't believe it, but by 10:30am they were done with the water heater and it was working great. After a lunch of fish tacos they started on the gas line installation for my second oven. Neither my dad nor Dave had ever eaten fish tacos before. I eat fish tacos a lot and I was surprised that neither of them had enjoyed them before.

Traditionally fish tacos consist of corn tortillas with shredded cabbage (not lettuce), some sort of sauce--we had cocktail sauce, yogurt, and/or homemade salsa--and fried white fish. We made ours with catfish and simply breaded it like we do abalone but seasoned the flour with salt and chili powder.
A few months ago my friend Alex ordered a gas wall oven for me and got me his Lowe's employee price--a whole $300 off! It is a wall oven but we're installing it on the floor since we have no wall to put it onto. I'm sooooooooo excited to have two ovens since I do so much baking and cooking.

Once we got it installed and I tested it out we realized that the top aluminum vent thing gets REALLY hot (unlike a range where a lot of the heat is dissipated through the sides and out over the cook top). Now we're planning on making a baby gate/fence thing to surround it and attach it to the cabinetry on either side of the oven with hooks so little Eddie doesn't get hurt. Our other oven/range will have the stove knobs removed unless we're cooking and a lock installed on the oven door. Lucky for me the door doesn't get hot even at 450F so I won't need a gate around that one.

Here's the new oven in place. We still have to install the new base cabinets and get a proper counter installed by the Corian people. It looks pretty ratty so far but I know it'll be great when it is all done.
Wow--according to our baby ticker we have only 99 days until little Eddie comes. That's so soon!