An Elizabethan collar?

We are all about the fashion here, so when Isaac donned the dog collar, I knew we had an opportunity to change the fashion world forever.  Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce to you the newest in preteen fashion – the Elizabethan collar!  Believe it or not, this collar has been missing in our house somehow.  Of course, we are also missing Isaac’s cell phone and socks…many many socks.  Anyhow, Isaac found the dog collar so there is yet hope for his phone.

How, you might ask, are the pre-teens wearing these new fangled things?  Behold:

The boy wearing an Elizabethan collar

The boy wearing an Elizabethan collar

The boy wearing an Elizabethan collar

The boy wearing an Elizabethan collar

This boy is so cool!  He didn’t mind showing off and had a lot of fun doing it.  Isaac means laughter according to the books that make up meanings for names.  He really lives that part too.  He’s a great kid and so clever and fun!  Sometimes I wonder if he will get into the teenage angst junk and stop having fun with the family.  I hope not.  I know there is a certain amount of that coming but hopefully we will all get through it just fine.  And heck, if he gets too big for his britches, I can always break out these pics and remind him of when he was just a pup!  How much are those invisible dog fences again?

7 Comments

warren, January 18th 2012 | Tags: ,
Posted in Family, Fun

Has it been over a week?

I have been absent from here for a few days and I can’t believe it is already 2012!  So, a lot has happened since I last wrote.  It turns out that Santa still comes to our house.  As long as everyone still sees sugarplums dancing in their heads, Santa keeps coming to our house.  So, Santa brought the kids a trip starting the day after Christmas.  I’ll tell you more about that later but it was a big hit.  Aside from that, we had a pretty low-keyed Christmas which was absolutely perfect.

Socks for Christmas A simple Christmas

We had family over for a late-ish lunch and did a little napping and otherwise goofed off.  We had to pack of course.  Santa made reservations for the day after Christmas so there was little time to waste.  Ok, so you want to know where we went?  We went to the Great Wolf Lodge near Cincinatta (That’s how we say Cincinnati here in WV).  It’s a huge indoor water park.  At first, I figured it was going to have a few lawn sprinklers and a diaper-seasoned kiddie pool.  I was soooo wrong!  The park had a wave pool and a lazy river and a half-dozen really awesome water slides!  Water slides used to mean you skidded down on your butt and had to wiggle your way down the bottom half…oh no, not at Great Wolf Lodge.  The rides are awesome and you haul butt around the curves and down the tubes.

Great Wolf Lodge Great Wolf Lodge

Abigail was pretty concerned at first but I assured her that we wouldn’t die.  She agreed to go on a ride with me after that (she actually bought the part about not dying.)  I told her they had not lost anyone in a few weeks.  Once she got a few rides under her belt, we could barely keep up with her running to get back in line again.

Great Wolf Lodge Great Wolf Lodge

Isaac was more diverse in his use of the park.  He spent a lot of time dumping buckets of water on unsuspecting people below.  He really made use of the entire place pretty well too.  For some reason, Isaac and Abigail never got cold.  They kept the air temperature at 84 degrees but I swear the water was 60.  Anyhow, they never got cold but my lips turned blue and my nose hairs froze and broke off.

Great Wolf Lodge - Lazy River

Great Wolf Lodge - Lazy River

Great Wolf Lodge - Water Slide

Great Wolf Lodge - Water Slide

The other cool part of the surprise is that Santa gave my brother and sister-in-law the same gift!  The kids had no idea they were coming so it was a great surprise.  All-in-all, it was a great trip.  We only stayed 2 nights and that was just about right.  Great Wolf is mighty proud of their place so my wallet is glad Santa only sent us for a short time.  We were physically exhausted after two nights anyhow.  I bet we burned a Christmas ham’s worth of calories in three days!

Cart Riding at Great Wolf Lodge

Getting ready to ride!

Cart Riding at Great Wolf Lodge

Just before the near-crash!

When we checked out, my brother and I were sent out into the cold to load all of our loot into our cars for the trip home.  Living up to our 13-year old mindsets (though possibly not my 40 year old body), we returned the luggage carts in typical pubescent-boy fashion!  I have to give props to my brother for using his ultra-manly muscles to prevent me from turning over.  We were absolutely hauling butt across the parking lot hoping to provide an example to my kids and all of the other kids that got the chance to see how grown-ups are supposed to act!

7 Comments

warren, January 4th 2012 | Tags: ,
Posted in Adventure, Family

The 24th

Here it is, the day before Christmas! We trimmed our tree about a week or so ago. We have been listening to Christmas music since Thanksgiving and all of our presents were purchased online and delivered a week or more ago. So, what does that leave us to do on Christmas Eve? Clean of course! Santa won’t come to a messy house! Let’s see, we also had a big fight and we baked Noah’s Ark Christmas cookies. It’s pretty typical Christmas Eve fare for us.

The 2011 Christmas tree

The 2011 Christmas tree!

Naptime with the cat!

Naptime with the cat!

Wait, what? It all sounds familiar except the Noah’s Ark cookies. Doesn’t everyone do Noah’s Ark at Christmas? Ever since we lost all of our typical Christmas cookie cutters, we have gone with Noah’s Ark. Santa really loves sugar cookies and especially if they are covered in super thick, rich sugary icing (yeah, he told me exactly how he likes them so I can relay that to Abigail, our decorator). Emily and Abigail mixed up the dough this morning while I went on an egg nog run. Emily, Abigail and I cut out and baked the cookies and Abigail has decorated them. She is such a trooper. Isaac is more of a bum but I am sure that he supported us in spirit anyhow. It’s hard to say as he is up in his bedroom trying to escape our over-the-top rendition of White Christmas.

Cookie decorating Cookie decorating

A pig and an elephant cookie

A pig and an elephant cookie

That's how she decorates cookies!

Icing - extra thick! For Santa of course

Icing - extra thick! For Santa of course

Anyhow, it’s such a pleasant and sunny day that it is hard to get into a proper Christmas spirit in the usual way. Instead, we are doing our best to get all of our family traditions in a row so the kids will have proper discussion for their therapy sessions when they are adults. They might as well get their money’s worth, right? Merry Christmas and happy Noah’s Ark day!

7 Comments

warren, December 24th 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in Family

Wrapping it up

It’s been hectic.  I mean it is always hectic at Christmas time but it seems like my work and the kids’ activities are much more wild than normal.  We have been fortunate with our weather though and that means we have been working on the cabin the last two weekends.  So, in the last episode, we left our heroes working on the cabin, hoping to get the gable ends framed in and covered with sheathing.

Window view from our small cabin in WV

The window view...not framed in yet

The open gable in our small cabin in WV

Progress

Our cabin is pretty high in the air

That's a long ways down!

The dastardly weatherman called for snow and rain to thwart the attempts of our heroes to get the place weathered in before the snow  ruined all of the hard work and industrial glue used to hold together the over-priced plywood and OSB used throughout.  Ok, I can’t stand the wait…no cliff-hanger here.  We got the sheathing up and put  house wrap up on about half of the place the last two weekends!

One gable end framed in on our small cabin in WV

One gable end framed in!

Sheathing on our small cabin in WV

The high parts are done!

Red Riding Hood

Red Riding Hood

House wrap, it turns out, is some weird stuff.  It blocks water from the outside.  Water vapor can freely escape the other direction though so moisture from inside the house can get out.  The problem is that if larger water particles get behind the wrap, they are held in place…only water vapor can escape.  Sometimes that makes things rot as water usually does.  I read a bunch of stuff on the internets about whether house wrap was a good idea or whether old fashioned tar paper was better.  It seemed like I found a pretty mixed story about it.  Most people said tar paper was really good and that it lasted forever and has been used successfully for a long time.  House wrap is only popular because it goes up fast which is important to home builder.   That fact is also popular with my wife so we (she) finally decided to use house wrap.

House wrap going up on our small cabin in WV

The first of the house wrap

About half of the house wrap up on our small cabin in WV

About half of the house wrap is up!

We have about 4 months to get the house wrap covered with siding before UV rays from the sun start to ruin it.  If anyone remembers my other remodeling experiences, you will recall that a 4 month deadline is pretty tight for me!  The kids have really enjoyed hanging out with their great-grandparents as we do this final push to get things done though.  Another few months would suit them just fine I think.  Great-grandparents, it turns out, really like to spoil great-grandkids.  Apparently it is in the Constitution or something.  Anyhow, as this year (and probably the nice weather) wraps up, I really owe a lot to all of the family and friends who have helped in various ways to get this place under cover!  I am so tired of wrapping so your Christmas presents are in the mail!

 

See all of the progress on the cabin



3 Comments

warren, December 19th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Cabin, Family, Land, Technology, WV

Only one reason to get dressed up

I am very fortunate to have the type of job I have. For the most part, I can wear whatever I want to work. I usually go with some sort of business-casual costume but I could almost as easily wear a clown suit. I only own khaki-brown pants and brown shoes so it is pretty easy for me to get it all together in the morning and I sort of like the simplicity of my wardrobe.

Both of us...at the same time...6 years ago, the last time we got dressed up I think!

Sometimes, I suppose different dress is required. I always said there is only one reason to get dressed up – to honor the end of a life…like at weddings and funerals. For those occasions, I have exactly one suit.

I think he actually liked the tux...or is that a scream of pain?

Isaac has a band concert tonight and he had to wear something a little more special than the usually middle-school-wear of jeans and a hoodie. He had to wear a collared shirt…gasp! Of course, he forbade Emily to buy him anything with a collar in August when we bought school clothes so they had a shopping trip yesterday to prepare for the band concert.

His usual outfit...

For me, clothes are a nuisance. I am not ready for the nudist camps but I just don’t care about wearing the best designer clothes or anything but my one pair of brown shoes. Isaac is much like me though he had definite opinions on what new clothes he needed. He was so proud and excited to wear something different I think.

He is such a great kid, though it is nearly impossible to get a serious shot of him

You might think we are cheap-skates by how he justified his new clothes, “I can wear them at Easter too Dad!” I know better though…he is growing far too fast for those clothes to fit at Easter. Still, I appreciate his thrifty suggestion.

So, the boy turns 12 on Friday. It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been 12 years since his beginning.  He is about the same height as Emily and wears bigger shoes than I wear (my brown shoes are safe!)  I think the only other occasion, besides the band concert, for which Isaac can wear his new fancy clothes is his birthday party.  He is a fantastic kid and I am so proud to be his Dad and to watch every minute of his journey to adulthood.  I think I have the perfect birthday gift for his 13th birthday.  My suit will probably fit him just fine by next year…

3 Comments

warren, December 15th 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in Family, Thoughts

I already know all of those words Dad

We don’t watch a lot of television and I am often reminded of exactly why.  The other day, we were sitting down to watch some tv show during prime-time.  Things started out pretty much as most tv shows start…you know, with cussing.  I cringed a little inside because as much as I enjoy a good cuss now and then, it is an odd situation when you’re sitting with your 8 year old and some stranger on tv demonstrates the range of their vocabulary.  I am pretty realistic and a bit sexist I guess but I figure Isaac already knows most of the standard compliment of cuss words.  In fact, he has used a great number of colorful words on me.  Anyhow, there is just something not right about hearing cussing around your little daughter.

I looked over at Emily and then at Abigail and I guess she picked up on my discomfort.  ”Did you hear all of those cuss words, Dad?”  ”Yes Abigail, I heard them.”  ”Don’t worry Dad, I already knew them.  Isaac taught me most of them.”  That’s a relief…I guess.  My gaze turned to Isaac and he had the sudden need to go study…something.

So, we still have tv and the kids still get to watch it.  They can watch any channel they like so long as it is the Weather Channel.  The kids still yell at each other, but I don’t mind.  ”Hey Cumulonimbus face, your occluded front is running down your chin like the Noreaster tears across New England.”  ”Oh yeah, well  the barometric pressure is making the dew build up on your weathervane of a nose!”

5 Comments

warren, December 6th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Family, Thoughts

Country Neighbors

I grew up in the country and it was just a natural thing then I guess.  People always waved to each other and talked as you passed and left extra zucchini on your porch and helped out when you needed it.  It’s been 20+ years since I lived in the country though and my city life has sort of become ingrained.  We moved to Nashville and it was a huge culture shock to me…from a town of 600 or so people to a town of a million and a half.  I remember as we drove in to Nashville on one of our first visits, there was a guy in a car ramming another guy in a car going full speed down the interstate among how-ever-many lanes of traffic there were then.  It wasn’t a wreck…yet.  They were road-raging and ramming each other.  I knew this wasn’t quite like where I grew up.

Ridge board to support rafters Ridge board to support rafters

The ridge board that supports the rafters at the top end

So, I became a city boy and all that friendly stuff had to be put on the back burner.  It’s not that people in a city aren’t friendly once you get to know them… it’s just that you have to find a way to get to know them first and sometimes even neighbors aren’t interested in getting to know one another.

Getting ready to raise rafters on our small cabin

So, fast forward a bit.  The folks from whom we bought the property still live on the land they retained the next hillside over.  Larry, Granny Sue’s husband, delivered some scaffolding he had over at his place a few weeks back.  He showed us how to set it up and use it and has let us keep it up there as long as we need it.  And then last weekend as we were working on setting up our rafters.  One of the boys (they are grown men but we call the brothers that live near us, “the boys” and I think they would be ok with that) came by on his 4-wheeler to ask if he could hunt on our property.  I told him that any of the boys and their family could hunt but I didn’t want anyone else who didn’t live up there hunting.  I would have never known whether they hunted or not during the week but I am really glad he asked.

A bunch of rafters in place on our small cabin Securing the rafters in place for our small cabin

Anyhow, we agreed that he could hunt so I figured he would go on to do other things with his day.  Instead, to our surprise, he asked if we needed help.  I was thrilled because Emily and I were trying to maneuver 16 foot long 2×8 boards around by ourselves on the second story of the deluxe shed.  It was going to end up with a bout of intense negotiation.  So, our friend climbed up and we started to work.  We worked an hour or so before we had to head home.

Half of the rafters done in our small cabin

That’s about half of the rafters done!

Now that’s one thing, helping a guy for an hour, but the next day we got up there and my friend came over and brought his brother with him!  We worked together all day long and got half of the faters in place and secured!  They were a huge help and I was delighted to get to know them a little better.  We had met on other occasions, but we hadn’t really talked or goofed around before.  Aside from their tremendous help, I absolutely loved the sense of community and belonging that we have felt up on the ridge.   The neighbors across the way (she’s a sister to the brothers) came to visit the first day we showed up.  Our kids have played with their kids every time we are up there.  They invited us to a potluck dinner one night where we talked about all sorts of things and may have solved the world’s problems.  The brothers who helped with the rafters along with Larry and Granny Sue have been so kind and helpful as we work on the new place.  With the utmost respect I say that I am so glad to have country neighbors!

 

See all of the progress on the cabin

 

3 Comments

warren, November 23rd 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Awesome, Cabin, Family, Land, Thoughts, WV

Upstairs

Well, we can’t really go up stairs at the cabin yet, but this weekend we finished the flooring in the upstairs!  We finished all of the first floor interior walls which allowed us to then install the floor-of-the-sleeping-loft/ceiling-of-the-first-floor.  I had really hoped to start hanging rafters but we had 20 mile/hour winds both Saturday and Sunday.  Besides that, we had to fix a problem with the second story floor.

Interior wall framing for the small cabin Isaac using the pasolode propane framing nailer

Early on when we we installing the beams, we discovered that the wood we were using was not all cut the same length.  Ten foot boards are supposed to be 10 feet long, end of story.  We got burned on one of the beams, the hard way.  I hate the thought of having to measure every board I use but it almost seems necessary after we discovered another board-length issue this weekend.  These “shortages” are not obvious until something farther down the line just doesn’t work out.

Interior walls and sleeping loft framed in our small cabin

This is the floor of the sleeping loft

So, we had to rip up some stuff and make it right which slowed our roofing progress.  Our goal this year is to get the roof up to keep the snow out so any screw-ups this late in the year hurt.  Still, we should be ok if we can get clear weekends.

Sleeping loft floor in our small cabin

The subfloor laid in the sleeping loft. The extra height of the exterior walls gives us a knee wall for added headroom

So, it’s hard to see the rooms but we have a living room, kitchen and bathroom on the first floor.  The second floor is a sleeping area.  With the floor in place, I think it is a bit more obvious why we made the outer walls 10 feet tall.  The extra 2 feet of height before the roof cuts in should give us a little more room in the sleeping area.

Another view from the sleeping loft of our small cabin

Another view of the subfloor...the view is going to be so cool!

The stairwell to the sleeping loft in our small cabin

The stairwell into the sleeping loft

Abigail stayed with her great-grandparents this weekend while Isaac, Emily and I worked.  We taught Isaac how to measure precisely and he even ran the chop saw quite a bit.  He understands sixteenths better than a lot of adults I have seen so he did a really great job cutting boards for me at the exact length I needed.  He knows about “leaving the line” and “cutting the line”.  He knows when I say, “cut a board a skinny 77 inches” means I need a sixteenth short of 77 inches.  It surely saved my knees a lot of up and down the ladder.

Learning to measure a board

Learning to measure a board

Measuring a board by himself

Measuring solo!

Using the chop saw

Isaac using the chop saw solo

We probably won’t get much done beyond weathering in the place, but I do plan to close in the area under the building.  I am considering doing a cord-wood wall structure around the base but I am not yet sure.  Anyone have any opinions?   Luckily, I think it won’t hurt if we don’t get to it until Spring.  In the meantime, I will probably work on getting stairs in place so I can actually go up stairs to get to the upstairs part of our deluxe shed!

See all of the progress on the cabin

11 Comments

warren, November 17th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Cabin, Family, Land

Creampuffs

It’s been a long two weeks around our place.  Abigail and Isaac both had a fever starting 2 weeks ago.  We took both kids to the doctor and they both tested positive for strep throat.  They got their typical doses of antibiotics and headed home.  Two days later, Isaac was fine but Abigail was pretty much the same.  She still had a high fever and felt pretty terrible.  We went back to the doctor a few more times which was extremely frustrating.  We knew Abigail wasn’t right but we got this line of crap, “just wait, the meds sometimes take longer to work on some kids.”  Yeah, but I know when sometime else is wrong.  So, we wait another day and go back again and see a doctor who has some bedside manner (unlike the schmoo we saw in the prior visit).  She poked around some more and discovered that Abigail also had pneumonia.  We tried some new antibiotics but that didn’t work so she was admitted to the hospital this Monday.  I stayed the first night with her and Emily stayed the second.

Reading as usual...

Ok, so I usually have only good things to say about Charleston.  WV is awesome and I never enjoy saying anything bad but the hospital we were in had no private rooms unless you were dangerous.  Apparently, if you are a kid, there is no place in Charleston that has private rooms.  That sucks!  So, Abigail was miserable and the 4 year old they admitted right after us was also.  Two sick adults may be able to share a room because they typically don’t cry and scream and pee the bed.  Kids, on the other hand, are not known for their restraint when feeling terrible.  So, between the roar of the interstate that passes nearby and the whining roomie-kid (poor thing…her mom was nice.  It was just a bad situation ) and the double-the-usual-number-of-nurse-checks-because-there-are-two-kids-instead-of-one interruptions, no one slept the first night.  Healing usually works well under those conditions, right?

I agree...

Ok, enough whining…after 4 different antibiotics, Abigail’s fever finally came down although she gained a lovely full-body rash.  She came home after lunch on Wednesday.  Honestly, she was not whiny or nasty through any of this, thank goodness.

 

Usually the pudding goes inside the puff, but as the chef, I took liberty and covered my first one all over in pudding!

So, creampuffs…why that title?  During the pre-pneumonia-diagnosis time, one day while I stayed home with her, I got a wild hair.  My Mom used to make creampuffs every now and then and I absolutely love them.  I had a hankering for creampuffs so while Abigail was sleeping, I started cooking!  It’s pretty rare really.   Anyhow, Abigail was an absolute trooper through all of this, so she proved that she was no creampuff.  However, I was needed a creampuff, to stay healthy of course…for science!

8 Comments

warren, November 11th 2011 | Tags:
Posted in Family

8 feet is too much

We worked on the place again and made good progress.  The floor needed another layer of OSB to really suit my tastes so we got that installed and screwed down first thing.  Oh wait, the first thing we did was finish getting the second sheet of OSB hung around the outside walls.  Then we did the floor.  We laid down the last piece of flooring and check out how well it fit!  I am so thankful that everything is square:

We also persuaded Isaac to involve himself with the building of this place.  He did a great job screwing down 2 sheets of flooring.  My brother bought me a new Makita impact driver which is AWESOME!  It is so fast and light.

Anyhow, Isaac was running that and got a bit of the Dirty Harry feel going for him.  I guess he was feeling like he needed to pick on Abigail some though as he split after sheet #2 was installed.  Still, it was a great thing seeing the boy work!

 

The inspector checking on things…

So, after we got the outer walls done and the flooring down, we started on the inner walls.  On Sunday, we were able to get the interior walls for the bathroom and kitchen built.  We also hung about 1/3 of the sleeping loft’s floor joists.  We should be able to finish that pretty quickly which will make all of the high-up work like the last of the outer walls’ OSB and the roof rafters go up pretty easily.  The only thing that I though I was going to like but don’t is the 8 foot ceilings in the bathroom and kitchen (and eventually, everywhere else).

We installed 8 foot boards beside the 10 foot wall studs to support the sleeping loft floor. That leaves us with just under 2 extra feet for a knee wall in the sleeping area

Working on the sleeping loft

Shazaam! The bathroom and closet!

It’s too high and we lose some of the advantage of the added height of the exterior walls.  I am not redoing it now though so we are going to have really nice high rooms in our deluxe shed, or, as I have been calling it, the city-slickers’ deer stand!

See all of the progress on the cabin

6 Comments

warren, November 7th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Cabin, Family, Land, Tinkering
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