The Weatherman

Well, the weekend ended quieter for some…I went down with a stomach issue (not Mike) that put me out of commission Saturday evening.  We hung out at the house and all, except for me, enjoyed Mike’s top rated chicken burritos (I was bummed).  Mike also made peach cobbler - which I tried.  It was yummy.

Today we were all tired or hung over (Jan).  We spent the morning eating Mike’s southwestern egg, sausage, and tortilla bake.  It was awesome!  The drive home was uneventful…I fortunately did not have to make any bathroom stops and the boys allowed us to drive nonstop.  We would have made record time if it wasn’t for the horrible traffic from Olympia through Fort Lewis and again in Tacoma.  Now we are home for another week of kitchen upgrades.

Nate making some burritos.

This is the RC Jeep we picked up at ToysRUs

Nate hanging in the yard.

Zach getting airborn on the neighbors trampoline.

First - Mike and Jan now have a blog - Check it Out.   Warning:  May not be suitable for all viewers.

Well, since our kitchen is out of commission, we travelled down to Eugene for the weekend to hang with Auntie Jan and Uncle Mike (Jeep). We arrived just after 6pm last night and spent the evening drinking rum…at least Mike, Jan and I. Steph had vino. This morning, everyone except Nate, was up by 6:45am. Yes, even Jan was up!

Mike promptly removed the soft top from the Jeep so we could drive around and enjoy the sun. The trip was to the coffee shop and butcher. Zach loved being in the Jeep. Second trip was to ToysRUs for the following cool toys:

• A rocket…Yes, a real rocket with a large explosive in it. We have yet to fire it.
• A remote controlled jeep
• 3 styrofoam gliding planes
• An Elmo remote control
• A handprint keepsake (don’t ask)

We had lunch at Mcmennamins North Bank - lousy service and OK food but you get to sit along the river. After words we went to the park where Steph and Jan rode the teater totter, Zach ran around on the jungle gym, and Nate sat in the swing. Mike and I launched glider #1 - we are now expert pilots after flying the original glider in the 50mph winds of Lake Chelan. Back to the house and we played with the RC Jeep and then everyone had nappy time.

Zach playing with water at the park.

Nate starting to melt down in Jan’s lap.

Mike watching the glider return to him in a loop d loop.

Steph stepped off the teeter totter and let Jan crash to the ground.

A quick kitchen update…base cabinets are in, canned lights are wired, and all other wiring is run.

Upper cabinets and tools being stored in our dining room.

Base cabinets.

They are making good progress - even a little ahead of schedule…so they should definitely make the scheduled completion date of August 7th.

I met our project manager/contractor assigned to our project today.  He showed up at around 9:45am and we stepped through a bunch of checklists for the next 45 minutes.  Today he laid down a protective floor covering, he moved in his tools, and basically demo’d the whole kitchen.  All of the cabinets have been removed as has the dishwasher.  I have some picutres from before the demo (haven’t took pictures of the kitchen yet today).

Just to make today even more interesting, the boys’ daycare was closed so daddy was very excited to hang out with them all day.  Well, not really excited…more like scared.  Trust me when I say that work is much easier than watching a 1 year old and a 3 year old.  So to make the best of it we went to Endolyne Joes for lunch (best french fries in West Seattle if you didn’t know) and then I took them to the Zoo.  Now this was dangerous since we didn’t leave the house until almost 11am.

The zoo was great.  Zach ran around the whole time with Cars backpack on checking out all of the animals.  I think he liked the elephants the most - at least that was his favorite today.  As for the backpack, we picked it up on Sunday so Zach could carry around his own stuff.  He seems to like it a lot.

Pre demo picture.

Second view of kitchen pre-demo.

Zach at the zoo.

Zebras at the zoo.

Zach’s favorite alphabet.

Bee in the yard (for those who know me, my lens had a min focus distance of 1.5m)

Nater on the swing.

Next up for the kitchen - complete the demo tomorrow, new appliances arrive tomorrow (to be stored in the garage), and the electrician will be here on Wednesday and Thursday working on the canned lights, plugs, and switches.

Kitchen starts between 8am and 9:30am tomorrow morning. It is empty! We completed clearing it out today and finished picking up what we need to live without kitchen (paper plates, paper bowls, etc).

Also, I picked up Autopano Pro for building panorama images. FYI, panos don’t show well in the blog, so click through on the image to see a bigger version.

This is the view from our backyard during our vacation in Chelan.

You can see the lake in the center of the photo far below our house.  We were about 1500 feet higher than the lake.  For those familiar with Lake Chelan, the lower right portion of the lake is Waputo Point.

As for the pano software, I tried out about 5 different ones…I definitely wanted more auto software that did a good job with the blends.  Autopano Pro, although it costs money, seemed to be the best fit for me.  Overall, the easiest software to use (although the GUI has some oddities that took getting used to - maybe I should RTFM).

Our kitchen remodel starts Monday morning.  Today we emptied out our kitchen, donated our plates, bowls, and glasses to goodwill, and setup a make-shift kitchen (ie, microwave) downstairs.  We’ll need to work a little more tomorrow to clean out the final items in the kitchen and move stuff from our upstairs fridge to the garage fridge.

We are excited but not looking forward to not having a kitchen with our 2 little boys.  Interesting times ahead.  Nate and I went down to Bed Bath and Beyond to look at new plates/bowls/cups.  I’m excited to replace what we had with something more suited for our needs.

We had dinner tonight at a local Mexican restaurant then we went for a walk at Lincoln Park…here are some photos.

Nate was tired during the walk.

Looking toward Coleman Pool.

Large freighter heading north.

Looking north along the park (same spot I took the header image from a few years back).

Tall grass along the water.

Above all this we saw the local bald eagle in his nest.  Unfortunately I didn’t bring my new lens so I couldn’t get a closeup.  Maybe next time.

Yep, where is the poop?  Nate was asleep in his crib.  Zach was in our bed watching Little Einsteins.  Steph and I were downstairs watching a recorded showing of Hopkins.

While downstairs we heard Zach running around upstairs, but we were not too concerned since this happens every night.  On Hopkins, things got really sad (a 2 year old with a heart issues came into the hospital)…I was done and went upstairs to check on our boys.

This is when the fun began.

Zach was standing in living room with his diaper in one hand and his pants in the other.  He was naked with poop smeared down both of his legs.  Yikes!

I brought him into his bedroom and began to wipe him down.  Knowing I had him but no poop, I yelled into the baby monitor…”I need a little help here…Mom…We have a poop problem”.  I was so loud that our neighbors heard (I found out later).

I got Zach into the bath and noticed that he tried to use both his porta potty and the big, adult potty.  Both of which were covered in shit!  Steph began to clean those off and found shit on the living room floor and our couch.  So, of course, she cleaned those off.

Basically, Zach practiced his potty training all over without supervision…good job…but hopefully, next time, he can get some adult supervision.

Clearly I’m not the best photographer of people…since my photos are lacking candid shots of family and such…Here are a bunch of photos that Steph took…

I’m not dirty.

Elton John…eat your heart out!

Auntie Jan and Zach on the boat.

Napping Nate…Daddy passed out!

Here is the link to all photos…link.

Quick update on the weekend…We went to the West Seattle Summer Fest…Zach still through a fit at the bounce houses like last year, however, this year he actually got tired and walked around relatively calmly after playing for 15 or 20 minutes.

It was warm (mid 80s) this weekend so Zach and Dominic ran through our sprinklers on Saturday night, and then they (including Nate) played in Dom’s pool on Sunday night…so they kept cool this weekend.

Between arguments with Steph (yes, things are a little stressful after watching the kids for 2 weeks) I got tons of gardening done - lawn mowing, removed some plants, planted new plants, and laid out some new mulch.  We also packed up 14 bags of clothes and shoes for Goodwill and cleaned out/re-orged the garage.  So a lot of stuff got done.

I kicked Steph out of the house today - she needed some time away from the boys…I didn’t even hit her with the towel today like yesterday…small improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.

That was the theme coined by Zach during our vacation at Lake Chelan. Whenever we’d pull into our parking spot, Zach would yell out ‘We Made It!’. Also when we pulled our boat up to the dock, Zach again exclaimed ‘We Made It!’. I believe it had something to do with my driving/steering - maybe a little to wild for him.

Now, about our vacation. It was awesome! We had hot weather, lightning, windy weather, and just plain nice days. The house was huge and very kid friendly. The best part about the house was the wrap around deck, large grassy yard, and awesome pool. Plus we had plenty of land to run around and play catch with our giant styrofoam plane.

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon (2.July). We took a grocery shopping run to stock up on food supplies. Jan and Mike showed up at around 11pm. I had to go rescue them as they got lost trying to find the place. In all fairness, we were 6 miles up from the lake off on a dirt road plus the road names had changed recently so GPS systems were out of date.

On Thursday we started drinking by 10:30am (actually, this was the theme everyday) - we had lots of alcohol to finish since we had 3 bottles of Tequila, 3 bottles of Rum, a bottle of vodka, and a bottle of gin…that isn’t counting the wine and beer. We played whiffle ball that morning then Mike and I drove down to Wenatchee to pick up Lin who flew up from San Jose.

The pool was cool on the first day since the heat pump had shut off but the pool boy showed up and got things running normally (it was 84 degrees for the rest of the trip). That night we had a chicken dinner…well most of us had a chicken dinner. Mike went down with a stomach ailment for the evening so he didn’t eat much. During the night there were several lightning storms in the area - since we were up above the lake and had a tremendous view, we could lightning to the east, south, and west.

Friday was the 4th of July and of course, Nate’s one year birthday. We opened presents, baked and ate his birthday cake, played in the pool for hours, drank heavily, and went out to dinner. We went to the Hungry Belly which was basically your typical diner - nothing special but we didn’t know. We finished off the evening watching the fireworks over Manson Bay in Lake Chelan - we watched from the comfort of our deck.

Saturday and Sunday were lounge days around the pool. Plus we spent numerous hours playing with a giant styrofoam plane - throwing it around the yard - this was by far the big hit toy for Mike and I. Saturday night was crab and steak night - yummy - except Jan went down with a stomach ailment during the night but she jumped back quickly the next morning. Lin flew home on Sunday afternoon after spending 3 days playing with the boys.

The big highlight on Monday included a trip to Banjo Creek Farms where Zach and I went through the petting zoo feeding and petting goats, ducks, rabbits, horses, cows, chickens, and turkeys. Zach was a little freaked out but I thought it was cool. That afternoon, Mike took Zach and I on an offroading adventure. We took the jeep on a 27 mile trek on the forest service roads high above Lake Chelan - we had tremendous views all around and saw some amazing wildflowers.  Zach was a real trooper…a few times we thought he might be car sick since he kept making some weird noises.  But he held tough, at least until just after dinner where he vomitted over the kitchen table - poor little guy.  He bounced back quick.

On Tuesday, we rented a boat on Lake Chelan for 2 hours and cruised up the lake to catch views of the Cascades to the west.  Nate fell asleep within minutes of the boat leaving the dock - so he doesn’t like riding in a car but he seems to like boats.  Zach had a blast sitting in the bow letting the wind hit him in the face at 30 mph.  Dad didn’t even crash the boat.  There was a ton of debris in the lake (ie, logs and other wood debris) which kept you scanning the water - hitting one of those logs could create a slight problem.

The rest of our final day was spent relaxing in the pool…and drinking.  The drive home today was quick…Auntie Jan and Uncle Mike are staying here tonight in order to break up their drive back to Eugene.  And now for the photos.

Panoramic showing view from our yard.

My best lightning picture so far!

Our driveway.

Having fun on vacation.

Zach at the petting zoo.

One of many views from our 4×4 adventure.

View from backyard.

I’ve post my favorite pictures in my gallery - go here.