The summer is flying by!

It is another Friday Fragment kind of day. This time with pictures!

As the family gets ready for vacation we have a BUNCH of things to get taken care of.
Jill harvested 1,500 onions from the garden so that they can start drying. I have been doing maintainence on the car. After all, if your battery explodes, it must be time to replace the plugs and belts, brakes and fluids, right?
And the house. My advice to you, wonderful readers, is this; NEVER buy a used log home. I have been caulking all of the logs and will be staining them. As I go around the house and look for weather checking I am finding evidence of years of neglect. Another thing about log homes most people (myself included) don’t realize is that every other to every four years you have to inspect and caulk the entire outside of the house, all the way to the roof.

The little guy had his 6mo check up this week. He is 18#1oz and is 29inches long. The doc says he is in the 95th% for height. Just like his sister. It seems Jill and I are raising tall children. I had the pleasure of getting the little guy to sleep on my chest last night. I cannot convey the feeling of having the boy drink his bottle, pass out in my arms, and snore at me. When we were at the DR office, I had a list of things we were concerned about… he doesn’t sit up yet, he doesn’t hold his bottle on his own, he doesn’t really want solids much, he spits up periodically – a lot! The doc listened to my litany of whining and then asked what we expected, he is only six months old. Apparently, he isn’t going to keep up with his sister as she does things – go figure!

We introduced Kat to watercolors a week ago. Crayola Crayons makes really neat watercolors balls that are just right for small hands. Kat’s canvas of choice is herself. As soon as we get the paints out, she paints her tummy blue and her arms read and her legs are either blue or yellow. Then, once she is painted, she wants to HUG everyone. Or sit on their lap.

BTW, the round things by Kat in her paint picture are zucchini! Jill found a round zuke in Johnny’s Seeds and thought she would try them out. They are really good and tasty. So far we have tried Zbread, grilled Z, Zbrownies, saute’d Z, eggs & Z. I cannot wait to see what me try to do with that stuff next!



I also wanted to share that I golfed again… First time since 2006. I didn’t count the strokes, but I did get around 9 holes in just 4 balls. For not having played for three years, I was terrible. I am happy to claim that I was able to drive the ball past the ladies tee on all of my tee shots. Not by much, mind you, but past is past. We had a lot of potential in our foursome. I don’t know for what, but the potential is there.

Friday Fragments

I have seen FF on another blog for ages and tonight it strikes me

Kat's supper. Usually Wife and I are pulling our hair out to get the girl to eat... I hope she eats a ton at daycare because at home she doesn't eat boo.
Tonight she ate; half a pack of raman noodles, one hot dog, 1 slice of watermelon (and it is 60* outside), pretzel sticks, chips and salsa, diced tomatos, and about half of my spicy taco. I don't expect her to eat for the rest of the weekend.



Maybe the reason she ate so much is that I didn't make her supper until we got home from running errands at 718. After work, I picked up the pair of them and went to buy a jogging stroller... I guess Kat wants to jog more. After that we went over to Blondie's house so she could see the kids. I have worked with Blondie for years... she is the hottest 42 YO mom I know... she makes parenting look simple and easy. She has two awesome kids that are very well behaved. Her husband is a great guy even though he is a fanatic Steelers fan. After Kat terrorized their cat for half and hour and Kyle spit up on Blondie, I headed for home. All the way home I fed Kat pretzel stick cuz she was STARVING.


Jill is out tonight having a much deserved evening to herself. She pushes herself at work something fierce and is determined to do everything she can in the garden and for the kids... I HOPE she is shopping for herself and relaxing and enjoying her evening.


OH! before I forget, We are taking a FAMILY VACATION!!! There is no doubt in my mind it will rival the Griswold vacations... We are driving with our two kids to Estes Park, CO in August. Wife and I need a vacation, but we couldn't pawn the kids on anyone so they get a vacation with us. The only consolation is that neither kid can say.............. "Are we there, YET?"

All for now, more to come over the weekend.

Sunday afternoon

Jill and I made plans for Sunday. We would wake up and take care of the kids while trying to maintain our household. You know, dishes and laundry and crap.
Then in the afternoon, Mom and MMH were going to come and play with the kids and Jill and I were going to go horseback riding, then paint some more fence boards then go for another ride and come home.
Everything went according to plan until we got into the car to go to the farm and torture, er, ride the horses.
We got into the car and when I went to turn the key in the ignition, something under the hood exploded.
Not fireball blow off the top of the car exploded but a really loud BOOM that got our attention RIGHT NOW.
I looked at Jill. “Did you hear that?” she asked me.
“Um… I have to change my shorts.” I replied.
So we got out and popped the hood on the car. As I was doing that I noticed a rapidly expanding puddle under the car. Jill noticed a strong smell of acid.
With the hood up I saw that VW puts an enclosure made of plastic all around the battery so that if the battery explodes it won’t spatter all over the engine compartment. That little plastic enclosure is now in 37 pieces in a variety of shapes and sizes… and the sides of my battery are burst open with acid leaking all over.
I summed up the situation with a slightly technical diagnosis.
“Holy SHIT! It blowed UP!”
So I called some people who know more about VW than I do and asked them what I should do? I was prepared for directions like, call the fire department, evacuate the house, freak out, vote straight party ticket, anything radical.
Instead I was told; hose it all down really good, (that is strong acid) pull out the battery, buy another one and put it in. Then get another battery enclosure from VW.
Well. It was as easy as he made it sound but it still took about four hours.
Most of that time was finding a replacement battery.
The first place I called had a battery so I sent Jill for it. Her trip sounds something like what happens when you send either a stoner or someone with ADD to run an errand.
She went to AutoStore, GardenCenter, IceCream Shop, Grocer (just for milk)(ended up w/7 bags of food), then home.
In the end, the battery got changed and no one got hurt. We didn’t go riding, though.

happy Sunday

Kyle just blew out a diaper on his bouncy seat.
joy.

Relaxing Saturday

I now have cable. Yes, I know, out here in the woods we barely have flush plumbing.
One of the side effects is that we have cable 'net. So I can post pics from home again. Yippee!

Kat turns TWO! (already?)

My Mom wrote this poem for her (favorite) granddaughter. I post it with permission.

Upon turning Two

She’s become more independent with the passing of each day.
She stops her foot and shakes her head, she wants it done her way.
Her stubborn ‘no’ may yet mean yes, she really isn’t sure,
But she says it often now because she hears it said to her.

She hears a noise, ‘what’s that?’ she says, she looks expectantly
She waits for me to tell her, be it plane or bus or bee.
She asks ’what’s that?’ for everything she sees that’s new to her,
She wants and explanation, plain and simple that’s for sure.

Standing upright on the stairway, she slowly makes her way
Downward one step, then the next, safe for another day
It gives me pause; my mind speeds up like wind set in a sail.
For the scene I see, as I look up, she’s in her wedding veil.

By Gma Pat