We had our first party -- my mom's brother and wife were in from California, so we got all her sisters together as well as grandma. Look at the spread! Everyone thought the place was wonderful, airy, with a great feel and nice views. My mom has also come over a few times now and today, she's comin' by for a pajama party with Carlos!
We would have never thought that when we started this project that we would have a baby girl before it was done. that's because we weren't pregnant when we started! :) we are happy to announce that Cilia Margaret was born on monday, November 13th, 2006. She weighed in at 6lbs. official bantam weight for a baby. 19.5 inches or so. Cira, Carlos, and Dad are doing great.
As part of the initial investigation into building on the property, Zoka Zola, the architect who led the preliminary planning of the project, found that the site was inside a flood plain and we couldn't build anything outside the perimeter of the current home. That dashed some hopes. But then she realized the current FEMA map for our site was quite crude and inaccurate. It turns out we could have a full topological survey done and submit to have the flood plain map updated. This eliminated a good deal of our site from the flood plain! So that was the science part. In the summer of 2004, we got to see whether there was any real danger from flooding as the DesPlaines river rose to its highest level in decades. Our site was fine even as the surrounding area flooded. The photo below is from several weeks after the peak...
