Turkey Renovations

We hope you had a great Thanksgiving last week. We had a blessed weekend with all the activities going on in the Zapchenk household. As Newlyweds there is a lot to be done besides gaze into each others eyes lovingly...we have a house to run and most importantly decorate. My parents (minus my brother due to his new job answering customer service calls for Kodak) made their way into Chicago Wednesday night and we were up late baking Chocolate Cupcakes and an apple pie. I came to find out that my mom and I have completely opposite baking styles. She's all over the place and I'm not. Luckily she cleaned every inch of our house this weekend and made up for it. My apple pie turned out great, granted I did make a special practice pie for the staff at work.

Thanksgiving day we made our way to Eric's parents home in Crete. Nothing like all the married children and their parents for the holidays. But, it was so much fun and we ate great food and had time to talk smart and be with everyone. We even got to go downtown to see Domenic and Michele's new condo. My dad and Michele went into decorator mode and started envisioning colors while Eric, my mom and I tried to tap dance on the floor.

The next day the alarm struck early as we got up for Turkey Renovation. You wouldn't think that we would call in the parents just for Thanksgiving would you? No, we had an agenda of completing the upstairs bath and completely redoing the downstairs bath. Plus, a couple other projects on the way. Home Depot did become our home away from home as we selected our colors, tools, new vinyl peel and stick and other random items.

My mom went into cleaning mode and made a complete makeover in our dining room by just getting the boxes off the ground and put in their places from the wedding. My dad took the upstairs painting, while Eric and I worked on the downstairs and replaced the peel and stick. For those who haven't seen the ghastly blue color in the upstairs bath, you have been saved. We painted a nice neutral color to go with the bath items Ryan and Katie bought Eric two Christmas' ago.

The downstairs got new tile and we painted the room Regatta Blue and a deep brown with white trim. We have a couple items to put in. But, we both love them. And if you didn't think that was enough my dad decided to master his acrobatics on an extension ladder in our foyer. We put up the awesome clock we got from Millaine and Matt and Rhonda and Mike (Thanks guys!) and then decided to get a new light fixtures. For those that are in the market, check out Menards they had the most variety and the best pricing compared to other stores.

As my dad was hanging off the ladder over the second story, Eric said, "Your Dad is crazy, and there is no stopping him." Yes, Eric there is no stopping for decorating in the Derks family. An hour or so later we had a new fixture in the hallway upstairs and in the foyer and there were no broken bones. Plus, Eric's parents drove up to witness the action and they were nice enough to help out and cook us a steak dinner. And where did we get to eat it, in our clean dining room - kudos mom!

But, of course the most important factor was what Bud thought. He liked it and showed his approval Sunday morning with some regurgitated cat food on the dining room floor. Thanks Bud. For all the hard work we put my parents through we took them out to dinner at a place that is becoming my favorite special night restaurant, ZED 451. It is like a Brazilian type restaurant, but has a lot of fresh fruits, veggies, cheeses and breads on their Harvest table. However, it is a prix fixe meal and isn't the every night dinner.

Well, that's all we did this weekend. Hope you had fun and didn't get stuffed on Turkey (no pun intended). We made it through our first major holiday as a married couple and our looking forward to Christmas in Wisconsin!

Blessings, Danielle and Eric