Happy 80th Birthday Dad!

Sooooo my brother, Butch, and I went to Boston this weekend to meet up with Tommy and Carol to surprise my Dad for his birthday. Neither my Mom or my Dad had any idea we would be showing up. We walk into their house on Saturday morning and he almost didn’t make it to his 80th birthday (which was on Tuesday the 26th). I have never seen him make the face that he did when he saw me.

Then my brothers took him to play some pool and have some MAN time!

Later on Saturday, we had a surprise birthday party, which was a lot bigger surprise since he said he didn’t want one but what does he know, right?

Soooo,when he walked into my sister’s kitchen we all yelled SURPRISE but this time we captured his face digitally and with some ingenious cropping and luminosity curve manipulation …

… another interesting facial expression.

Happy Birthday Dad – we love you

We went to look at FOLIAGE because Butch’s wife, Cheryl, told him he had to come back with FOLIAGE PICTURES! Do you not have trees in Florida!!! We have fun looking at the fall colors in Concord and even visited Walden Pond but check out this old cemetery with slate headstones.

Joanie Finished the 3-Day Walk for the Cure

OMG, what can you say. I had sooo much fun cheering her and her team on this weekend but then I found out that I had a lot of fun cheering everyone on. Her team got late starts on Friday and Saturday so I ended up at the Cheering Stations for a while before they came through so I got to see a lot of people and I even knew a couple!

The ladies got to ride in a limo van on the way up …

Joanie will be sore tomorrow but not as sore as her team mates. They had good weather the first 2 days but Seattle wasn’t very nice to them. It rained/sprinkled some of the day and they had to conquer the infamous Seattle hills. Her and her friends were smiling all the way but every now and then they would reflect on the significance of the whole weekend and get teary eyed – Oh wait, that was me.

Closing ceremony was awesome and we got to see Joanie cross the finish line!

Swinging Bridge is now complete!

The Swinging Bridge is now complete and Joanie wanted me to pose on it. I have the west end of the yard to finish landscaping and the yard is done.

Backyard Progress update

OK, so I thought I would share my progress on the backyard even though I am not quite finished.

I have a little path to make at the  other end of the bridge and then add bark and plant to the rest. Some strategic placement of the lava rock, that has been sitting patiently for over a year, and I will be done. Then on to the Antenna, garage cleaning ....
So this is the Play toy that I made for the boys about 17 years ago.

Then Joanie had an idea ....
Let's tear the toy down and make a firepit!
She's so cute isn't she?

So I kept digging, and digging, through one 4th of July …

 

and here we are now just passing a second 4th and I am still not done but I am close enough to get excited about it. Swinging Bridge has been brutally tested and has passed with flying colors – 3/16” Stainless Steel cable with 1/4” turnbuckles at each corner and double redundancy on the cable clamps. Yes, I don’t expect this to go anywhere soon. 
B-} (evil engineer smile)

Firepit has become a wonderful gathering for friends and family and I am so glad Joanie got talked into using the 5/*- rock instead of pavers. Was not looking forward to that. She has added some great plants and the yard looks beautiful. Now, all I need to do is build those benches around the deck and she will be happy. Did I tell you how much I love my wife. :-p

Valleyfair, Minnesota

After the 4th, I went out to see Josh and Justin’s families and of course we went to Valleyfair!

The Wave is my favorite ride and the Steel Venom is one to stay away from for me since it goes backwards. It was in the high 80’s, maybe 90’s so the Wave is a must.

First you go on the ride and get crazy soaked and then you get off ASAP and run to the bridge before the next boat comes down. The wave will know you on your a—if you are not holding the bars up there.

They also had a new wooden roller coaster that is just sick, just wrong, just ….. the turns are radically banked so you can go really fast around them and then as soon as you pull out of it, you get thrown into the next one all the way until the ride ends.

I’m not even going to talk about Steel Venom but it was fun to watch the other people.  :-)

Josh and family took me to see ‘Potholes’ in Taylor Falls. I know really exciting huh? But they are holes in the glacier made from swirling water during formation. OK, maybe that didn’t sound anymore exciting but it was cool and it was a beautiful day. I was fortunate to get there right after the 100+ degree weather and have same or cooler weather than was in Seattle but it was during the heat in Seattle.

Swinging in the 4th of July!

Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July!
I finally structurally finish the swinging bridge and we got to use it yesterday. A few more details to finish out the 'Looks' and I'm done. Yippeeeeeee!
Had a slow night last night and was starting to worry about the fireworks show because Nick and his friends were the only ones in the field but then the people started coming in (with wheelbarrows!) and the show was incredible. Not real mishaps - a couple of aerials that didn't go aerial but it turn out we were out of the BLAST range.
I wasn't allowed to have any fireworks this year so there were no Oh Sh-ts.
Plenty of food and a great firepit. Lined the deck with torches again this year so it was a great entertainment center.

Bowling for Breast Cancer

OK, the bowling fundraiser is over and it was a huge success. Raffle baskets were beautiful even though I didn't win any ( they said I actually had to buy a ticket to win a basket! What's up with that?)
:-)
I had a blast bowling with my friends (co-workers). There were 18 lanes filled - that's 72 people that supported this cause!!!! Holy S--t!!!
Look at the picture on the left and tell me how you cannot support these guys!
Joanie still has a little way to go so if you want to help her and make a donation - go to http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/2010/SeattleEvent2010?px=4953005&pg=personal&fr_id=1471

Birthday celebration

Happy Birthday to me :-)
I celebrated my 56th birthday on Monday and as usual, Joanie again outdid herself - cooking up a wonderful brunch while I played the best game of golf ever with Danny, Brian and Kevin. I am so lucky to have her.
Then we went to see the Mariners game and they lost but it was still an exciting game. She had my name put on the reader board.
We went with Kevin and Brian family as well as Emily's Mom and Dad and Sister's family so it was quite a crew. $2 hot dog but I was OK once I bought my Tums the next morning.










Just wanted to share - I got a whole s--tload of Facebook Birthday wishes - thank you all. After 56 birthdays, you would think they would get boring. Naaaaaaa!

Joanie and I went to Newport this weekend and took our time getting down there. I got this awesome shot of Haystack Rock and little rocks.




I also got some cool critter shots.









Nice to just relax for a few days but I really need to find someone to drive us down. :-)

Sunset in Newport - I think GOD was visiting us that night.

Happy Anniversary

Joanie and I celebrated our 27th Anniversary last night at our favorite restaurant - Salty's at Alki. Had a great view of Seattle a wonderful meal.

She is truly a special person to have put up with me all these years :-)

Almost done with the kitchen but still no backsplash.

We took Danny and Nick to Vegas for Danny's 21st birthday. Gambled a little but not much - good thing

The boys seemed to enjoy Vegas as well as each other

OK, got the plumber out and he had to go about 25' into the pipe to unclog it so I am really glad I didn't decide to tackle this since my snake is about 10' long!!!
I reused the floor laminate since it was only a year or 2 old - went to Home Depot and bought the last 3 boxes when I ofund out that they just discontinued it, now I am scrambling trying to find the edge trim - I have 4 pieces but need 2 more. Darn it.

Also struggling with the back splash. Can't make up our minds - actually it's me - Joanie just wants it done. she is definitely not as fussy as I am. But if I am going to have to spend my time installing it, then darn-it I had better like it.

Check out Joanie at her new workstation - her cookbooks are in the bookshelf to her left - nice!!!!

OK, so here are the latest pictures in the kitchen remodel. Sink, faucet, hot water, dishwasher, disposer, etc went on-line on Friday and the cooktop went on-line today.
All is good - right. NOT!!!! The sink is plugged up now. I had to move the drain under the sink because SOMEONE didn't come back with the (No More than) 8" sink.They came back with a 9+" sink and I had to switch the drain pipe to the lower vent pipe. Geez, I hope it was actually a real drain otherwise there is a lot of ---- in that pipe. Joanie has been using the dishwasher, .... since Friday
Waaaaaaah!!

Kitchen Update

Well here is the latest picture - not a great one.

Counters are in and I finished the plumbing last night but I will probably go back in and replace the 1/8" line since I used old compression fittings and they want to weep. I had to really tighten them so I will replace with new which I should have done to begin with but spaced out.

New faucet and sink is awesome and I love the overall layout

Kitchen look bigger and the window looks huge

Almost done

OK, so here is a better picture (slightly) next to the old kitchen to show the most dramatic change to the kitchen. We removed the pantry on the left and moved the refrigerator into the middle of the kitchen wall. We get counters on March 3rd and should be operational by the end of the day on the 4th. Our total remodel time was slightly less than a month. We had some challenges (problems) but all-in-all a smooth remodel.

Sooooo dear Emily pointed out that I have not updated my blog since forever. After I found my site, figured out my username and guessed at my password - Wa-La! :-)

Current project is hitting some snags but is coming along.

Here is our new kitchen in the not quite finished stage

OK, I'm done

Stay tuned