Preschool

Adam is attending the BYU Preschool this year.  Hopefully he spends the year warming up to people so he's ready to roll for kindergarten next year.  From what we can tell, he spends a lot of time playing with the trains and the blocks, not that there is anything wrong with that. Here is proof, which one of the student teachers emailed to us the other day:  (We need to teach the student teacher how to wait for someone to face the camera before snapping a picture, it seems...)

I asked him if he ever plays on the computers, he said "they don't have computers at preschool, Dad!"  I asked him if he plays dress up, he said "No, I don't play dress up!"  

As long as he's enjoying it, he can play with the trains all year...

A life changing purchase

Two weeks ago, we got a new washer and dryer.  We bought a high capacity, high efficiency Maytag Bravos XL model.  Before this purchase, we spent years of our lives being perpetually backed up in our laundry efforts.  Since the purchase, we have been always caught up on laundry.  It's amazing!

Part of the draw of the thing is that the dryer works so well.  For most loads, the dryer is done within a few minutes of the next load of laundry, if not before the washer finishes.  If you get distracted after moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer, and start the next load a bit later, the dryer is always done first. A load of a dozen towels only takes about 90 minutes to dry.  It's amazing the volume of laundry you can rip through when you aren't waiting on the dryer.

We will see if we end up with any energy savings.  I am sure we will save some cost in electric.  I'm not as convinced with water.  The washer uses less water, but even though we live in a desert, we oddly don't pay all that much for water here.  So far, things have dropped off, compared to last year, but it's not a full month's usage in this billing cycle:

...time passes

Sorry about the brief pause.  Been a bit busy for the past couple of days.  

Since the beginning of the Summer, my hand has been hurt off and on.  It seems to have gotten worse over time, not better, no matter how much I wear my wrist brace.  In August, I was doing some interviews for a position we had open at work, and was not wearing the brace, because I didn't want to waste any interview time talking about me.  One of the interviewees shook my hand on the way out, and had an 'iron fist of death' grip.  He just crushed my hand.  (We didn't hire him, but it wasn't the handshake that did him in.)

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I finally decided to get an appointment to see someone about it.  I had the appointment on Tuesday, the guy I went to sent me to the hospital and back for x-rays.  Him playing with the wrist had it very agitated.  After he looked at the xrays, his opinion was that 'there was something definitely wrong' with the wrist.  He thinks maybe the fusion has a screw that might have worked loose.  I had gone to him instead of the guy that did my two wrist surgeries just to get a second set of eyes on the problem.  Turns out he wants me to go back to my regular guy to compare the xrays to the ones that we did 18 months ago.  My regular guy is out of the country, I see him in 2 weeks, we will see what happens.  

Last Friday, I used a chainsaw as a cutting/ripping/planing tool.  My hand was generally useless for the bulk of two days, and is almost back to the way it was before all the cutting, but not quite, seven days later.  I guess we will see what happens.

Yesterday we took the kids to Chili's for dinner again.  I'm thinking I am tired of that place.  I really like the chips and salsa there, but I can't seem to find an entree I like.  I tried chicken fajitas last night, but the chicken was dry, and the tortillas were stale or something.  It was just kind of hard to eat, seemed like something was missing.  I thought it was beans and rice, but it turned out that beans and rice doesn't come with the fajitas plate at Chili's.  Some day soon I will do a post about a few of the places around town we have been and liked, and a few places around town we have been, and can just as soon not go back.

It's almost time to start thinking about Christmas presents.  Not sure what I am going to do this year.  I am making a custom order scarf that I need to send away soon, and Emma wants me to make her a dalek costume for Halloween.  Tara is spending early November in Oklahoma, I might take a trip out to New York City before Thanksgiving.  

There is always something going on...

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Taking a day off.  In the meantime, enjoy the following, but not all at the same time, otherwise it will melt your brain...

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Pear Pie

Tom gave us lots of pears.  Who wants a slice of pear pie?  Emma's been dying to have "leftover pie" in her lunch for school.  Looks like all her dreams are about to come true...

Before the secret ingredient was added...

Piping hot out of the oven...

Working in the shed

The stuff I have out in the shed has needed some attention for a long time. This summer, I started cleaning it out. It just meant that the stove, dishwasher, and old broken bunkbed I had been using as storage and workspace are all now gone. All the junk is still in there:

On Friday, I played hooky from work to start working on the shed.  I have some very large logs I got from Drew a couple of years ago, I cut a portion of one of them into 2"x15" planks, with a chainsaw.  (Who needs a planer when they've got a chainsaw?)  This took a while to cut though all that wood (over 5 feet tall), and my wrist was largely shot by the end of the day. 

I also started building a frame for the workspace.  The shelving I am ripping from the log will sit on the frame. 

Next up:  sanding down the planks, installing the shelves, and adding insulation to the shed.  After that, I build a shelving unit for all my tools.  Stay tuned...

Fall must be here

Fall - when the schools do fundraisers, hype them up to the kids, and try to do their best to get you labeled a bad parent for not supporting them.  Last night was the annual Fall Festival at the elementary school, every once in a while, we try to talk the kids into doing something else, but it must have been hyped at the school, because they were all raring to go. 

The nice thing about it this year was that the little candy & prizes table allowed them to just send the tickets we bought them directly, rather that making the kids play games, then get other tickets, and redeem those tickets for candy or a prize.  This year, we got to cut out the middle man.  We took the kids a couple of times over there, so they could use up their allotment.

It's not that the Fall Festival is a bad thing, it's just that it's crowded, usually hot, and when not hot, cold and rainy, and in the end, we always end up with crying kids.  Just wears them out.

Kate is in a new school this year, the fundraiser she brought home today was a magazine drive.  I've got enough magazines, I don't need any more.  The hyped it up with the kids today by telling them that they would get a celebrity rubber duck keychain for each magazine subscription  they sold.  I told Kate to find some similar duck keychains on Amazon, I would buy them for her, and a few extras to give to her friends.  Somehow the magazine drive has brought out my rebellious nature.  So, if you want to buy a magazine from Kate, feel free, but if you want to buy her a rubber ducky keychain, even better...

The Proof

Need proof that I am at least marginally involved in what goes on at the house?  Today before I got home, the kids made pop bottle creations for tomorrows Fall Festival, which I will do my best to try to get them to skip.  The results?  An owl, a dalek, the tardis, and a three headed monster.  One of these things is not like the others...

Proof?  You be the judge.

5 down, 2 to go

Lily started Kindergarten this year.  She's pretty stoked about it.  Tara got a few 'first day of school' pictures in:

(Kate must have already headed out that day.  She leaves at the awful hour of 7:15AM.  It's kind of exhausting, really...)

Faux Jerusalem

The church has been filming New Testament videos about 40 miles South West of us.  One of our neighbors, Lindy, is a makeup artist, she's worked on lots of different movies, and worked on this project.  She invited us down for a  tour of their set about a week and a half ago.  It was pretty interesting, and it's amazing what they can build from fake building materials...  I'm not sure the little kids knew what we were doing down walking around there, but it will be interesting to see the videos as they release them.

Lots of pictures in this one. It's likely as close as I will ever get to the Middle East, I don't see any visits to Israel any time soon.  Do you want to tour the place?  I think they shut the place down for the year.  Head South to Santiquin, turn right, drive for a while, then it's two lefts, several miles down a dirt/stone road, past a bunch of cows.  If you get that far, look for the guard shack for the property.  It's in the middle of no where.

Niagara!

Every visit to Buffalo includes a mandatory visit to Niagara Falls.  The day we went was very hot.  It was a Saturday, and there were plenty of people all over the place.  We ended up getting passes for the trolley, which we had never done before.  It was nice because the kids didn't have to walk nearly as far, and lasted much longer than they would have if they had to walk everywhere in that heat.

It's been a long time since I was on the Canadian side of the Falls, but I like the American side.  You get right in there, you can walk right up to where the water is going over. 

"It says right here in this pamphlet that there are some lookout spots where we can see the Falls up close.  I wonder where they are..."

We haven't yet taken the kids down the rabbit hole to the Cave of the Winds, maybe next time we visit, we will take them all down there.  The base of the Falls has a lot of power to it as you stand there getting blasted in the face by the water.

It's hard to really see the depth and breadth of the water flowing over from a still picture. 

I expect this rock will be gone next time I visit.