Recently, Emily and Nathan Bernards came up with Poppa to spend the Saturday with Max and Eloise. Nathan was very interested in helping Poppa and I dig. So I got him a shovel and sent him under the house.
He got nice and dirty, like all little boys should.
I almost got a great picture of a beautiful sunset. Running downstairs to get the camera and back upstairs put me about 30 seconds after the actual sunset, but I’ll post the picture anyways.
And finally, Max has found a new way to style his hair. He likes it because it makes him look like a villan.
I’m not sure which is better, the villan hair-do or the faux-hawk it has replaced…
Well I pulled up to a seemingly crowded restaurant/park today (Padaro Grill for those who are in the know), I was amazed to find a parking space right in front. I parked and said out loud (not for the first time in these situations) “Thank you God!” Max exclamed, “Thank you Lord!” Lucy chimed in, “Thank you Jesus!” Then it took off from there: Max – “Jesus, you are so beautiful!” Lucy – “Jesus, you are stronger than a barrel of monkeys!”
In looking at our camera, I found some old videos that never got posted. The kids love watching themselves in these videos, but the videos are definitely ‘B’ grade, both for quality and content. Reality Church Christmas Program 2007. Family Card Games: After Max watched this video, he explained that I had laughed ‘too loud’ and that ‘was teasing’ and he didn’t like it. So, next time I use strategy against him while playing cards, I will laugh quieter.
Actually, it took 2 steps to get into the house, and we poured 2 porches that weekend, but the title ‘4 steps at a time’ doesn’t sound as good. The weekend of 15-16 Feb 2008 had a lot of concrete being poured. Kevin S. and Pop came to work on the Friday to build a hut around the water heater. They had the frame and roof up (just an hour or so of work), and were just about to start doing the siding when the Carp City Inspector came by. He said that some neighbors had called in complaints about the hut and the exterior water heater. Since neither showed on the plans (the water heater was drawn in the garage for some crazy reason), we couldn’t keep them there. Pop said that he seemed pretty embarrassed to have to tell us this, but someone (multiple someones?) had called and complained. God has perfect timing. The work that was done is easily undo-able. If the inspector had not come out when he did, the work would have been hard to undo. We can have a tankless water heater mounted where the tanked water heater is. So, Kevin and Pop began working on the forms for the concrete porch for the back door and the office door. The office door had only a milk crate with a board screwed across the top. If you didn’t step exactly center, it wobbled like crazy. In fact, that week, I had fallen off of it twice carrying loads of garbage out of the house. Below is an old picture of the door with the milk crate step.
Kevin and Pop worked like animals, to the point that they broke the cement mixer. When I got home, they were mixing the cement in the wheel-barrel by hand. It took a long time to cure, but the final product looks great. Saturday, we rented a cement mixer and went to work on the back door porch.
Check out the video below of Max helping out. Here is the final products. They look great and are much more stable than a milk crate and some scrap lumber.
The painter has finished*. He had forgotten our main front gable highlights, so below are some pictures that show the finished* paint work. * – Ok, not quite finished. Toby wants a red front door. But it is 99% finished.
