Snowy Wonderland

Just a few more pictures of our snowy house.

Total was about 17-18 inches.

Blizzard '09???

This is the yard at about 8:30am Saturday morning (Dec 19th). When we woke up we already had 6-7 inches in the front yard.

This is later in the day; about 2:45pm. My poor car has not been uncovered yet, hopefully the hood doesn't cave in. Its already been dented by this fall's acorns!

Its kind of hard to tell... But the mound of snow on the right is almost taller than Stephen.

Stephen is now transitioning from his lawn mowing business to snow removal. He rents his services by the hour...I think he will have college paid for by the time he gets to the end of the driveway.

Granted this is a snow drift; but it is taller than the kids chair.

Now that's a lot of snow.

Hope everyone is staying warm and dry!

Merry Christmas!

Where is Christopher???

Can you see him?

Both Christopher and Stephen were a big help getting up all of the leaves that built up in our yard. We all worked hard and had both the back and front yards cleaned up in about 4 hours.

We also took some time to play...Christopher remembered what piles of leaves meant, and Stephen learned real quick. Even Daddy got in a few times!

All told we collected about 38 bags of leaves. Seems impressive, but that's only about a third of our normally yearly total...Just 24 hours after we were out the yard is starting to get covered again.

Halloween

We had a rainy dreary Halloween, but we did manage to have a big enough break in the rain to participate in the Community Halloween Parade and to Trick or Treat. Below are the kids dressed up in their Halloween Costumes.

Christopher wanted to be a firefighter, we got the jacket and backpack from a friend as a hand me down, and mommy purchased the helmet and nozzle. Daddy cut reflective strips for the helmet and mommy put reflective strips on his pants. Christopher wore his snow boots to complete the effect. I thought he looked pretty sharp and liked the way his helmet turned out.

Stephen had two choices for costumes this Halloween. First one was a Dinosaur and the Second was a Race Car Driver's Suit. Stephen of course decided to do his own thing. All he wanted to do for Halloween was go outside and push his lawnmower, so he ended up with a hammer and drill hanging off of his pants and pushing the lawnmower for the parade.

This year Christopher helped mommy and daddy design and carve the pumpkin he got from a school field trip. Both boys colored pumpkins this year for Halloween and we all went out at dusk to go Trick or Treating. The big thing for the night was every house we stopped at Stephen would try to take something from his goodie bag and give it to the person at the door.

Camping in PA

Yes, I said Camping in PA.

Michael convinced me to spend the night in a tent.

We went camping with our friends Jason & Stefanie and their daughter Maggie. I agreed to the adventure as long as we weren't roughing it too much. We had a very good 6-person tent, air mattresses, sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, and the restrooms were just on the other side of the hill. We didn't get to the camp site until after dark so Michael and Jason were setting up the tents with flashlights and lanterns.
I have to admit that waking up to a chilly morning wrapped up in a warm sleeping bag is rather enjoyable. And the view out of our tent was beautiful.

Every time we asked the boys if they were having fun and liked camping they said "YES!!" So we will see if we can try doing this again in the early spring, and this time we will go for a full weekend.

Hershey Park

On October 3rd the boys went to their first amusement park, Hershey Park in PA. For those of you with younger kids, this is a very family friendly place to go. We spent all day there (11 till 6) and the boys were riding rides non-stop. We went with our friends the Alts. Christopher, Maggie, and Stephen rode all kinds of rides. Even some that Mommy and Daddy got to ride too. Both boys were very adventurous. The only ride that Stephen asked to get off of was the Merry Go Round, maybe cause it was too tame?

After our long day at Hershey, we went and camped overnight at a nearby state park, complete with s'mores and a camp fire. Pictures for that other "1st" will be in our next posting.

Sleeping

Stephen shows us the proper way to sleep while on a road trip. We often look back to see him sleeping in one odd pose or another, this is just one of the many.

Completed Project

Finally...Pictures of the Completed Play Fort!

Project Complete!!

Sorry there aren't any pics for this post; but I just haven't gotten a chance. The project was completed yesterday morning with Pop-pop & Poppy putting on the two canvas roofs and the steering wheel on the lower deck. They also had time to put up the two new swings over on the old swing beam between the trees.

When I got home from work last night; both Christopher & Stephen were very excited about showing me how everything worked. Here is a blow by blow account of Stephen's demonstration:

• Climb up ladder (rather quickly I might add.)
• Quick stop at steering wheel to spin it as hard as I can
• Run over to slide, but stop 6" short and get down on my bottom and inch out to the top edge.
• Start down the slide; but employ my breaks (shoes) every 2 feet to prevent moving too fast.
• Reach bottom of slide stopping with breaks just short of the end and then inch out until I can reach the ground with my feet.
• Repeat (a lot)

A big hug and a kiss with many thanks to Grandma, Pop-pop, and Poppy for coming up this past weekend for this project. If Michael and I had to do it on our own; it wouldn't have gotten done.

The Big Construction Project - Day Two

Yes, I know. It looks like I am taking a break... But what I am actually doing is holding the boards in place while Poppy screws them down on the far side. This is very hard and technical work. Not everyone is as well prepared as I am to do this. Those boards weren't going anywhere.

NoNoMommy and Poppy worked pretty hard getting
the upper level decking down and the rails up.

This is the almost completed project. The only things

left to be completed is to install the roof and the accessories

on the upper deck. In the future we will also be filling in

beneath and around the base structure with pebbles.

Before getting the final building inspection approval,

we had to have our punch list walk through. Our

head engineer came out and tested all of the installed

pieces of apparatus.

And it appears that we got his seal of approval. Here the

Grade A Number 1 helper is showing his appreciation to

Pop-pop and Poppy for all their hard work.

Here is our site supervisor. Once the project was almost

to substantial completion, he was ready to come out and

test it. He approved of the ladder and the slide.

Here are the happy new owners

of the Frontier Play Fort.

And here is the very tired, but very satisfied work

crew. It was a long hot weekend; but it was worth it.

The Big Construction Project - Day One

Hi there; this is Stephen. I didn't do a whole lot of work on the big project... Which is only natural since I was the site supervisor! I watched them from the swing, from the sand box, from the window in the office. I even kept an eye on them while I was downstairs taking my nap.



Here are some highlights of the day:

Christopher was the big helper of the day again. He carried wood, brought the bolts and screws, and tried to use the tools.

We actually made really good progress in just one day. Daddy, Pop-pop, and Poppy really worked well together...

We got the whole structure up and even started work on the decking of the lower level.

Keep an eye out for the next post; the Big Project Day Two.