Lara is finally here!

Who would think that everything will go so fast. On Friday I was still at work trying to organize things before I leave for my 8 weeks maternity leave. We picked my mom from the airport on Thursday, Tania arrived from Chicago on Saturday. I felt like an usual woman in a 3rd trimester - big and ready for any time delivery.
The worse of it all was that on Thursday I got a cold and started to cough and have a running nose. Sunday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. To take advantage of the weather we decided to go for a nice walk along the river. It was well worth it. Pittsburgh looks so much better on a nice sunny day. Encouraged by a nice sun we spontaneously decided to go to see the Bodies Exhibit in the Carnegie Science Museum.
For dinner we decided to to the local version of Brazilian Buffet - Green Forest Cafe. I don;t know which of the Sunday events triggered the labor but at 10pm my contractions were 5 minutes apart. At 5.35 am on Monday, March 3rd our little Lara was already born. While I was pushing - I was thanking God for letting me to fulfill my plan - to deliver the baby on Erik's Birthday. Now She is with us - healthy and beautiful. This is a real miracle of life. I can not believe that I was shy away from doing it for such a long time.

Zywiolak - Robert's group first videoclip.

I am so proud of my brother - a selftaught musician, artist and a crazy Trol. Couple years ago he gave up a life path of becoming an Engineer and got himself into musical career. All his efforts got awarded. Since 2005 he became a leader of Zywiolak - a biometal, heavy folk group - one of the kind on the Polish market.
Just wanted to share with you their first videoclip that was recently recorded. Enjoy.
http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=yiwi0pIsN3Q
Some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/ogon.dev/YwioAkNagrywaTeledyskMarysia
http://picasaweb.google.com/ogon.dev/YwioAkNagrywaTeledyskAnalogowe
http://picasaweb.google.com/ogon.dev/YwioAkNagrywaTeledyskMoje
Don;t forget to check out their website www.zywiolak.pl or http://www.myspace.com/zywiolak
Their first CD is available at www.folk.pl

Before and After Pictures of our Pittsburgh House.

Here are the recent pictures of our crazy house.
I will keep adding them as I make more. AT least now you can see how our kitchen and the dininig room look like.

January update

Shame on me to neglected my blogspot. I wish I could write more often and upload more pictures. Is it me or it is just the crazy life style that people have been having recenlty. Anyhow it is January and I owe you some updates on our life.

Where to start ? - I guess let's start from the end. In a month we will become parents. I still can not get used to that thought, and I am getting more and more anxious about the fact that it is already February. Probably there are not parents on this world that would be ready for that big change. However I start to panic when I see baby's room which has only painted walls and is full of things to assembly and get ready. Since yesterday we have a chaning table (thank you Craigslist) so now I can buy baby;s clothes. I am still not getting crazy when seeing baby clothes but my hormones will take care of that soon I assume.
The upcoming weekend is all about to finish the installation of the cork floor in the hall and finally start to organize stuff for the AD (arrival date). We still have 4 weeks from my due date so still have 4 weekends to do errands. I hope "it" (the baby) will not rush to face the real world.
We are getting a suprize - a boy or a girl. The baby room is orange to fit both options. Ha ha ha !
As far as our life go - we are getting stressed of the above. We are happy and exited but also a bit anxious. We try to stay sane in this insane moments.
We also try to relax as much as we can and do things that soon will require involvement of a baby sitter. This Sunday we went to see the Lion King with Tania (who was visitng us). What a play - Broadway show in full extent! Beautiful costumes, amazing scenogrphy and the music that everyone knows, especially one kid who thourgh out the entire show was siniging in my ear. Akuma ma ta ta - what a magical phrase!

New Years at Niagara Falls

Where a young couple (soon to be parents) living in a new place, with all friends being gone from the City go for the New Year?
Definitely to a place where they have not been yet; to get away, relax and take advantage of free time and no responsibilities.

Here we were – 2 days before New Years, surfing on-line , looking for a place to stay in Niagara Fall to spend New Years Eve there. It turned up to be a nice trip, despite driving in a snow blizzard on a way home.

Why going to Niagara in winter? Well I always wanted to see it in snow. I have seen some pictures of it before, since then I had this urge to go there in winter.
Even though there was not enough snow or ice to create magical icicles, the place was kind of magical with the crazy Christmas lights and New Years celebration.

We drove straight to Canada - destination Toronto. What a wonderful City. It seems like Canada is such a different country then the US, however I can not judge it after seeing just one city. Toronto stroked me as a very European like city, with a beautiful skylight dominated by the famous Sky Dome, lots of modern high scrapers and lot of cranes – it reminded me Berlin in the 90’s. Queen Street – in the young artsy neighborhood reminded me of one of many streets in Europe. The scale and atmosphere of the streets with the characteristic Street Car (or Tram) resembled typical European urban street. I also really liked the City Hall and the ice skating ring near by it.
We will definitely come back there to explore and find out whether Canada has more places like Toronto to offer.

As for Niagara Falls themselves – I think that in order to evaluate that famous spot you have to see both sides. Too be honest I more liked the American Side, after spending two days on Canadian Side. The commercial setting of it with restaurant, casinos and crowded sidewalks and street made me a bit anxious. ( I hate crowds) It was fun but I when we ended up on the American side – I felt kind of relief ed. The quite setting of the park on the American side appealed to me much more.
We will definitely come there again – this time in summer or fall so we can get on the water in the famous Midst of the Fall and experience the falls from the water surface.

New Years at Niagara Falls - USA and Canada

Bonfire

To take advantage of beautiful fall weather Monika and Rajiv organized a bonfire again. I hope it was not the last one this year. It was so nice to sit around the fire pit and consume delicious, Polish sausage (from Chicago) on the stick. Too bad that none of us plays guitar. It was fun!

Reneissance Fair

For the last couple weeks our life has been spinning around the house. All the free moments and money have been invested in our fixer upper. At the beginning I was really exited doing different project every weekend. However suddenly I got tired of all the mess and dust in the air. It would be nice to live somewhere clean while the work is being done. Any how since we can not have all the good things at the same time, we decide to get away from the mess .... just for a day.
We decided to take Tania and John (who came to visit us from Chicago) for the Pittsburgh Renaissance Fair. Even though that it was much smaller then the one we visited so far (in Illinois and Virginia) it was still worth it to drive 45 minutes. The weather was great, the food yummy - we had a lot of fun spending almost entire day among elf's, witches, pirates and bagpipers in a beautiful Pennsylvania woods.