Page CXVI, Be Thou My Vision

Page CXVI
Be Thou My Vision


Monday, July 28, 2008

Ultrasound Photos

Ultrasound Photos

I am finally getting these ultrasound photos up here from our visit three weeks ago. This would have been the time to find out what the gender was of our baby, but we didn't! We want to be surprised about this one. I would have liked being surprised about the others, but Amy agreed this time because we have clothes and such for both a boy and a girl. So she feels aptly prepared. I also managed to sneak in our little video camera and took some bootleg shots of the ultrasound in progress. I'll upload those soon so you can see our little person squiggling around in Amy. :)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Wood Projects

I have recently done a few wood projects at home, which I am pretty proud of. Granted I'm not carpenter, I can accomplish a few things when it comes to wood.

My first project was to create some shelves for our DVD and VHS collection (Yes, we still own and frequently use our VHS player.) The purpose was to keep them organized, and to keep them out of reach of the kids. My idea was to create a hanging shelf that would anchor into a stud in the wall close to the ceiling. I made these shelves out of a 6'x3' piece of wood which I drilled holes in the sides for the wire to feed through. You can pretty much look at the pictures to see how they turned out, and how I did it. The pictures say more than I could in describing them anyway. I made two sets of these (only one is pictured) and the second set of shelves definitely came out better than the first.

I also made some shelves for our laundry room, and for the room we call the arm pit. The armpit is where the furnace and water heater is, and where most of our junk goes. The stuff we don't want the kids getting into: Bug spray, tools, cleaning chemicals etc. I didn't really make these shelves to be pretty, but it's not like they are ugly. My main goal was to make shelves, and to make them cheap. You might not be able to tell from the pictures, but this really made these two rooms amazing. It pulled all the stuff we had on the floor onto the shelves.

Videos!

I went through some of the videos that I have here, and uploaded a bunch of them. Be sure to check them out! View one below, see the rest on the videos page.

Monday, July 14, 2008

The vehicle situation

So we've had quite the experience with cars lately. For those that don't know, we have owned one car for (soon to be) six years. It has run like clockwork the entire time, and has been well worth our money. With the past few weeks we had something interesting happen: We were stopping by Wal*mart to make a return, and the car stalled in the parking lot. It wouldn't start, and we didn't have much idea why. In retrospect we consider it a blessing that we had this little adventure at Wal*mart, and not a day or two earlier when I was riding home at night amidst corn fields with no cell phone. Noah and Frencesca got to stay up well past their bedtime, and here is what Noah had to say:

Come to find out the distributor died. After we had the distributor replaced, the mechanic informed us that the clutch was close behind it. He told us:

If you baby it and try not to let it slip, it will last longer. Essentially it is going to get worse and worse, until it just won't start.
So great. More problems. But that's not the half. It also has an oil leak. And we found out yesterday that it has a gas leak. At this point we would be putting more than the car is worth into repairs. Not to mention that we don't have the money to do so.

Enter the 1991 Toyota Previa that we purchased on Independence day weekend. We really wanted a Toyota, considering they run forever. And we found a place, and a price that was within budget. We drove it home knowing that it needed a windshield and a some exhaust work. We soon found out that it needs rear brakes, exhaust, new tires, various flushes and such. This added up quick, but in the end still ended up being worth the price we paid for it.

Currently, we are making a few within budget repairs on the Previa, and considering scrapping the Corolla for parts (hopefully $500 or so?) The mechanic said you could put an ad in the paper calling it a, "Mechanic's special. Haha.

Through it all, God is good.

The long hair days

For those who haven't seen me with long hair, a friend and neighbor of ours took a photo of us at his going away party less than a month ago. I believe this was just about as long as it got before ONU told me it was too long. It was sad to see it go, and I think I would have enjoyed growing it out even longer. One of the things about having long hair that I won't miss is paying to have it cut/dyed. It gets to a certain length where I can't just put the clippers to it, and it costs a ton to get it taken care of by someone who knows what they are doing. I am spoiled with short hair and never paying for a haircut.


Here's a before and after comparison. Just for fun

Friday, July 11, 2008

Time for an update

So I thought it time for an update. No. I thought it past time for an update, and thought I'd better get on the ball again. So to make up for lost time, I have videos and pictures to make up for it. But don't think I'll be gone for months again though. I'll be back with updates more often now.

Here's a video glimpse into our family night at the Sox game, followed by some additional information and photos.

From July 4th 2008
The forth was great, we spent it with my mother and sister at a friends house from my mother's church. The kids loved swimming and running all over. We even had smores before we left. Our plan was to get going in time to see the fireworks in town. We got there (early for once) and saw the amazing show.

From IT Sox Game
Every year we are offered tickets to see the White Sox from work, and every year we usually make it a point of going. This year was just as fun as all the rest. I had a good time explaining to Noah what was going on, and I really do think he was understanding. As each guy got up to bat I would ask him, "I wonder what that guy looks like." And after a while he would know to look up on the jumbo screen where they display the players photo. Frencesca had a good time as well, and she fell asleep before the game was over.

From Day at nana's
We drove down to Downers Grove for a day trip to see my mother and sister on father's day, and enjoyed the nice weather outside. We swam in the pool across the street, and went to the park for some grilling. To Noah's luck there was a really cool playground at the park we cooked out at, and spent lots of time exploring it. Frencesca took a nap on our blanket nearly the entire time! She was a tired little girl. We ended off the day with a stop at Dairy Queen. I had fun framing this photo of Amy, and Holy Cow! Look at that hot mama!

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