Temp Power Pole

Demo has been delayed while the temporary power pole gets installed and inspected. This has taken a lot longer than anticipated. Here's a shot of the house with the pole in and "ready". Demo will likely happen later next week.

The temp power pole. This thing has been inspected, adjusted and "fixed" about 7 times already.

Here's the house with the pole installed. Poor house. Poor neighbors!

Prepping for Demo 2

After getting moved out, we had a lot of work to do to prep for the demo. First, the rock wall in the front had to be removed. Next, the asbestos siding had to come off, and last, we needed to strip parts of the interior we wanted to save.

A huge *thank you* to the Bernstein, Kneier, Bassage-Glock, Larpenteur and Stamschror families, as well as my parents, for making this phase a reality.

Here's the house before all the serious prep started.

First the rock wall had to come down. Mr. Tim brought his huge impact tool to help, and the boys loved it.

All the stone removed from the wall was carried by hand to the back yard. We hope to use it in the new wall.

I love how photos make a big job seem instantly done. In reality, taking out the stone wall was brutal and took a few days.

Next, materials from the interior were salvaged. Here, Mr. Michael "supervises" Mr. Tim taking out Uncle Dennis' beautiful wood panels. Safety fourth!

We had really hoped to save these original painted tiles over the fireplace to use in the new house. But they were set deep into the mantel. So, Mr. Tim once again brought over an impact tool and made short work of it. Michele was very pleased!

 

This shot is of Mr. Casey taking a load of rocks to the back yard, but gives you a good view of the house with and without the asbestos siding.

Prep done! Here's the house with the siding stripped, the rock wall removed, and the interior ready for demo. Thank you to everyone who helped!

And just for comparison again, here's what the house looked like when we started.

Prepping for Demo

To get ready for the demo,we started the long process of packing up 12 years worth of stuff. Once out, we had to prep the house for Demo Day. That meant removing asbestos, testing for rats and digging infiltration test holes, to name a few things.

To send the house off in style, we had a fantastic family party to commemorate all the wonderful memories. The highlight was definitely Grandma taking the first ceremonial "demo swing" to kick things off.

Packing got a little...chaotic. We realized we had been putting it off far too long and things turned into a mad scramble in May and June.

Not wanting to waste a dime, we packed our PODs pretty tight.

We got pretty good at packing. We made the whole house fit in essentially 4 PODs.

Many evenings Michele and I put the kids to bed and kept packing late into the night. Here's a shot of us on pure adrenaline at 2am.

The kids would wake up in the morning, and like magic, the PODs were packed!

 

With all our stuff out, suddenly, the house had plenty of space - especially for indoor soccer!

Once we were done packing we had the Hanzeli family party. It was fantastic to be together and relive some hilarious stories from over the years at Sunnyside. We all enjoyed taking a wack at the walls to help start the demo.

Grandma was reserved the honor of taking the first ceremonial demo swing. She nailed it.

After Grandma, we took our turn at the wall. Ya. It was pretty fun!

Even little Peter helped out with demo prep.

Why not put all the kids on the mantel for a photo?

Wonderful home. Wonderful memories. Wonderful family.

Sunnyside v2.0

After many decades of housing friends and family, the next edition of the Sunnyside House is about to be built. We feel very honored to carry on the family tradition of being stewards of this house, and are excited to share the next chapter of it's adventure with everyone.

It's also a wonderful time to remember all the great memories of the current (old) Sunnyside House and celebrate the building of the new Sunnyside House - Sunnyside v2.0!

After a long absence, we'll be using our blog to post pictures of the construction over the next 9-10 months, as well as some fun trips down memory lane. Enjoy!

The day Grandma Eva sold us her Sunnyside House (December 2014). Can you see Baby Peter? Thank you Grandma!

 

Grandpa Victor and Grandma Eva bought the Sunnyside house in ~1957 shortly after moving to Seattle. It's been a beloved home to many family members ever since. Note: this photo is likely from the 1970s or 80s. There's a photo out there of what it looked liked originally in the 1950s, and we're trying to track it down. But this is pretty close.

UPDATE! Found some old photos of the house. There's an even older one I'm still looking for.

Here you can see the stone wall clearly and the covered porch that existed before the remodel in the 1980s.

I just love the old cars in the shot. And you can see the original style of the garage doors on the house.

Who doesn't like a white Christmas?

Matthew turns 5!

Our sweet Matthew turned five on May 29th! Time flies so fast, we can't believe Matthew's been part of our life for five whole years. :)  This kid is super sweet--he has such a kind heart and is always so loving toward his brothers. He's sensitive, but has a pretty goofy sense of humor. Matthew really looks up to Daniel, and can't wait to start playing soccer on his own team in the fall, just like his big brother. He loves riding on his glider bike, playing football, and wrestling with his brothers. He has some great friends in his preschool class this year, which really made all the difference for him at school. Matthew is such a blessing in our family. We love him to pieces!

Chris was going to be out of town the weekend of Matthew's actual birthday, so we had a little party for him the week before. You can never have too much celebrating, right?

 Matthew received lots of generous gifts from his friends and family.

 A real treat for breakfast on his big day...froot loops!

 We usually open gifts during dinnertime on birthdays, but with Daddy leaving town, we made an exception and Matthew was super excited to get to open this big package!

 It is always so much fun to watch Matthew open gifts. Hooray for his very own Seahawks helmet and jersey set!

 I think he was happy.

The afternoon was spent throwing rocks in the water at Golden Gardens with Auntie Laura. What fun!

 Great-Aunt Bea dropped off a cupcake cake for the birthday boy!

 Yum!

 A new husky shirt! 

(Love the blue frosting lips...)

 "My very own shinguards?!"

 "Thank you, Daniel!"

 Flight suit sent all the way from Auntie Karen, Uncle Jesse and the Maryland cousins.

He couldn't wait to try it out. :)

One last celebration for our favorite second son--a little park playdate with his classmates! 

 

What a great time, for such a great kid. Happy Birthday, Matthew!

Hello, Baby!

This baby held on till the very end...baby Peter David Istvan was born at 42 weeks, on April 25. It was a rough couple weeks leading up to his birthday, with every day feeling like "this could be the day!" and turning into "oh...we're still here with no baby." By about halfway through that last week, we finally just resigned ourselves to the fact that the baby wouldn't come till after Friday when induction was scheduled to start. Our attitudes (well, mine at least) really improved after that and it actually worked out for the best to have things start on Friday night. There were no frantic phone calls trying to find somebody to come watch the big brothers, no worries about coordinating school drop-offs and pick-ups, and the boys were able to watch us go instead of being surprised by a different adult showing up instead of us. (And, with the baby being born on the weekend...no parking fees in the hospital lot!)

 Everyone likes feeling Mommy's tummy...especially since baby Peter was super active in utero.

 We arrived at the hospital on Friday evening. When the nurses discovered that this was our fourth baby, they decided we should get the big room. Apparently, somebody pretty high up at Northwest Hospital had this room made specifically for her birth. It was the most luxurious birthing suite we've had yet. :)

I'd been 4cm dilated for the last week or so, and the induction process started at 8:45 Friday evening with a dose of medicine meant to soften my cervix over the next 12 hours. This medicine technically could've started labor, but in my case, nothing happened. We tried to get a good night's sleep before starting the next step (pitocin) in the morning. The pitocin IV was started at 10:30 or so, and contractions started soon after. But even after eight progressively higher doses of pitocin we still weren't in active labor, so at 2:30 the midwife broke my water and from that point everything shifted into high gear.

Just over two and a half hours later, we welcomed this little guy into the world. Hello, Peter!

Peter measured 20 inches long and weighed in at 8 lb 0.4 oz, our largest baby yet. (Probably because he stayed in for so long and Mommy was eating a lot of ice cream toward the end).

The big brothers came later that evening to meet little Peter. For a few weeks previously, there was a lot of discussion about who would get to hold the new baby first. Daniel claimed that he should get to because he always gets to hold the new baby first. Aaron claimed that he should because he's "the littlest." Matthew had no interest in holding the new baby because Daniel had convinced him that the baby would spit up on him. In the end, Aaron won out and got to be the first to hold Peter.

 Daniel's first words when he walked in were "I really wish he'd been a girl," but by the end of their visit he leaned over to Chris and said "I really like him, Dad."

 Three proud big brothers. (And, Aaron was very fancy, wanting to make a good first impression on his new little brother.)

 Grandma, meeting her eighth grandson.

 And Auntie Laura, getting some snuggles in with her eighth nephew.

 Peter had a great first night in the world, snuggling in with Mommy and sleeping for most of the night. He needed lots of rest because the next day he had lots of great visitors.

 It just so happened that his godparents were in town from Zillah, so he got to meet Brynn, his godmother...

 and his godfather, Casey!

 It was a very special day, since we had yet to meet Gemma, our newest little goddaughter.

It was a long day for Peter, he got pretty tuckered out with all the visiting.

 We had a little quiet time before getting ready to head home.

 One last snuggle with Mommy before getting in the car seat.

 All buckled up and ready to take his first car ride.

 We made one quick stop on the way home to meet great-grandma Eva.

 With a little help from Grandma and Auntie Laura, the boys had made Peter a birthday cake.

 I think it's safe to say the big brothers are smitten.