Quite a bit of progress in the past, oh, month or so

Okay, so I realize that my last post about the house was one month ago, to the day, but I think I have some fairly good excuses.  Once the Richtfest was finished, we had two weeks to prepare the apartment for our visit:  my cousin, Elizabeth, and her friend, Carla, came to us at the last stop of their whirlwind European tour.  Also, the last 2 weeks of work were really crazy, and invovled a couple of late-nighters for me.  Then, Carla and Elizabeth arrived.  We've been having lots of fun, and have done quite a bit of exploring in Germany.  Of course, I should not forget the most important reason though:

Yup, this is ours!  Joern and I are having a baby, who we have named, "Erbse" (German for pea.) A baby who I happen to think is the absolute most adorable baby in the world! 

Despite all the goings-on in our lives, we have finally seen progress with the house!  The plaster guys finally started on June 4, a Saturday.   They were able to complete plastering the walls on the top two floors, but not the staircase.  After the Richtfest, the guys came in and fninshed by the end of the following week.  So officially, the plaster guys finished on the 18th.  Of course, they are not completely finished, but they are finished with the first layer of plaster, which is quite thick.  They will be back after the Estrich (the cement-like material poured over the insulation, pipes, and radiant heating,) so probably in late August/ September.  The walls look incredible, and I really need to take pictures of how lovely our very finished-looking walls are!

Last week, the electricians were at the house again.  All of our alarm contact wires are installed, and they now installed all of the outlets, without their covers, of course. 
Here are a few pictures:

                                                      Three plug outlets in the kitchen.

Not sure what the four holes with wires are for, but the squares with arrows

are for our exterior metal blinds.  It feels like "command central."

And last week, someone from Mr. Builder came in to pour the foundation for the air heat pump.  The plumbers came and put up the air filtration machine, and worked some more on the pipes in the mechaical room.

Yesterday, the plumbers came, and put up the air-heat pump.  They connected the air intake and outake portion, but of course, there is no plumbing completed yet.  It looks amazing so far though!

Today, the plumbers installed the gas pipe for our stove.  You can also see how nice the plastered over walls look in this picture:

The blue along the wall is the protection between the walls and the poured concreteish floor covering. 

We were also surprised to discover that the plumbers started to lay the insulation that goes beneath the radiant heating.  They started in the Erbse's room:



So there you have it, a very brief update!  Hopefully, now that life is a little calmer, I will be able to update with much more frequency! 
Ciao!