Rock a Bye Baby

Sleep - only a few more months left in this hammock. She seems to be very comfortable and stretches regularly - resulting in a kick to my ribs. This is a 3D rendering at 28 weeks. I think I can see a few mom and dad traits in there - but whose cheeks are those?!

The Boys are Back in Town

Welcome home to the USS Lincoln and the 'Rock'.

Toxiplaskitass

Please don't waste any Google time trying to figure out what disease Jon has. He self-diagnosed....I didn't get the joke soon enough. Kit had nothing to do with his problem. After a movie-night on the couch and 2 IV drip treatments things seem to be improving. The short-story is he'll live long enough to get the dishwasher installed - which is how we got into this mess to begin with.

Fire Sale Prices!

Washington State is full of sales this month. First WaMu and now our house. The neighborhood garage sale turned out to be more profitable than Craigslist. We put a few things on the sidewalk with a sign stating the price and an hour or two later things were gone! Amazing - people paying to take stuff away we'd give for free! We're soft negotiators though....here we are providing free home delivery. What are we? Sears?

Uba-tuba

New counter tops. I like the home-improvement projects where the hardest part is giving your credit card number. Almost like a genie in the bottle - a few hours later and I have this! Just need to get the plumber (JR) to put the sink back-together. I'd be leaving out details if I said I didn't do this for as cheap as possible. Cheap as possible included performing our own demo and plumbing re-install. Demo required a hammer (the precision tool) to remove the faucet - the nut just wouldn't come out with a wrench...so we helped it. And laminate slices like a knife...at least no one hit their head on the floor this time at the sight of the blood. Stay tuned for the remaining appliances - the big question to micro-wave or not. Its a big decision.

Exile Island

Jon hasn't exactly been voted off the island...but lets just say his vote won't carry as much weight as before if our household votes along party lines....

Hopefully that is enough of a hint for what will be joining us in January. If not...well go to Amazon and buy us anything pink you can find - that should do it.

You cook?

Goodbye always dirty drip-pan electric stove...

Hello finger-prints!

We saved our penny's from the laundry machine repair and are upgrading the kitchen - slowly once piece at a time. I'm not sure if I can handle fingerprints - I mean stainless steel on everything. It sure looks nice - no idea how it cooks. I've been watching this for a year and the price finally dropped - maybe it was the price of oil? It was the lowest I'd ever seen. I compared to all the pro models and I think for my needs this is the best value. It has a competitively large oven, dual fuel, convection option, temp probe and includes accessories. I'm still trying to figure out who the manufacturer actually is. The analog temp gage is very similar to a Thermador or DCS - but I'm not sure.


Wolf and Viking were exciting but really expensive and both had a feature I couldn't get past. The top cooking surface has a gap between the side panel and the front panel. Seemed to be the perfect place for food and grim to settle. This one is a solid surround on the top - that was the kicker for me. I may never know what it is like to cook on a Viking or a Wolf...but I'll also never have to look at that crack full of spaghetti sauce. Seemed like a reasonable compromise considering the slop-dogs that live in my house.

New Bike -

and lock. As my sister reminded me - new bikes and I don't get along well. She pointed out if I needed a tire she could get me a good 'un-used' one. I ordered this in June as my Birthday present, and we just picked it up, it took forever. Someone must have ridden it here from Amsterdam!

The Electra Amsterdam - not sure what that hand gesture means - I think he's going for 'dork'. Who knows. The bike is super cool, with integrated gears, book rack, light, and room for a basket. Everyone at the bike shop couldn't stop staring at it. I think they couldn't make up their minds if it was stupid or retro cool. I think it is retro cool. I originally wanted a no gears bike - but wasn't allowed. This turned out to be good advice, I had enough trouble getting up the hill in 1st gear. And the sucky-est thing of all...our county has a bike helmet law. A LAW. All ages are required. I can't believe it. If my child refuses to wear a helmet as I did this weekend and says all the horrible things I did (minus any foot stomping)...I'm in trouble. I think I have a future of a kid leaving with helmet on - and once out of eyesight....helmet removed...uh-oh.


Nice Garage floor too!

Before and After

This is the Before shot, thankfully we don't have an After. We are on our way home from a long weekend in Napa, this is our gas stop in Medford, Oregon. The Million Air flight terminal where the courtesy car is a 535 BMW - quite the improvement from the Montana Buick. I just finished a sandwich and we're getting ready to get back in the air. The trip was fairly smooth from Davis to Medford - little did I know what I was in for...Jackie insisted on a sick sac which was purchased for $3 bucks. A little over 2.5 hours after this shot that sick sack had a very good ROI...as Jamie said - "prego puked!". I guess that is not so bad, first time of the whole experience so far. Hmmm - I wonder if that means we don't have a future pilot on board....JR will be so disappointed.

Napa

This is at the top of Sterling Vinyards from their terrace, very nice. For $20 bucks you get a tram ride to the top and 5 tastings.

The Source of All Power

I'm home improvement sick. A small idea exploded into a full-on remodel of the garage? Will the kid live in the garage? No but I'll tell you if JR doesn't get his power washer, circular saw, mitre saw, tool box, etc out of the living room he will be.

We started this mess with the idea of a shiny floor which then expanded to painting then texurizing the walls. Now here we are over a month after the start with the mess continuing. We as usual started before learning how (my preference) and had some delays in materials. We ordered an extra tough Urethane product from New Jersey that should give us the airplane hanger look we're targeting. The first layer of color comes off when you pull off tape, so here's hoping this was a good idea.

Our neighbors are wondering when the shelving and junk will be off our front porch.

Na na Na na...na na Na Na....Hey Hey Hey - Goodbye

The car....not the guy - but then again I'm looking for best offers...so I guess I'm open!

K.I.D.

First words out of JR..."we're going to have to sell the car". Well, I guess that proves males are visual, this fact seemed very clear to me 3 months ago.

June-uary

Once the skies cleared and the sun finally arrived in Seattle we had a few items on the to-do list to hit. The first was a new coat of paint on the house. Here we are hitting the peaks on the roof.

I knew those textbooks would come in handy eventually....

With the washer working it was time to move on. Faced with having to replace our carpet due to kit cat damage, we chose to get to the root cause. The kit cat. She's not changing her scratching behavior....so we must change ours. Instead of buying new carpet (she would destroy) we are installing wood on our stairs. I'm not yet sure this is a good idea. A few weeks ago I fell down the steps (slipped) as I was sliding and bouncing I was thinking how much harder wood would be than carpet! Stay tuned for the furniture choices as we replace the couch she has also destroyed. Remember that guy that made furniture from FedEx boxes? Contemporary.

Where did you learn to Solder?

To be fair, this is the second attempt - after the first where we saw sparks and melted some of the copper track in another area - afterwards the washer stopped working completely. We also blew the light-bulb connection to the 'on' light. The good news is we bought another board - the washer works again with a slightly dim 'on' light. It took a little more than $13, but still less than a new machine. Keep in mind a new washer would have required a new dryer. Can't have our appliances not matching now can we?

The rest of the story is that even after installing a new board the stupid machine still wouldn't work! So after pouting and sulking over the loss of two weeks, getting in trouble at the laundry mat for folding while my clothes were in the dryer...and the pain of buying a new washer instead of a new stove....I gave it one more try. This beast isn't going to beat me. I jammed a screwdriver in the door device so I could watch the door lock function work real time (I've always wanted my dryer to work like this so I figured I could trick the washer too). I did and at full 850 rpm spin I noticed the problem. WE had installed the wax motor incorrectly so it wasn't fully engaging the spin command. Seriously voila, now we can get the UPGRADED stove!

Chanel Part II

You rush in get a seat and ask the hunky guy for the earrings in the window. We learned, shopping at Chanel you have to know what you want. Things are not displayed - so you have to know the product line... We also observed proper Chanel shopping etiquette is to cover yourself head to toe in Chanel garb. This is apparently a requirement. We saw one individual who had this technique down - shoes, jean trench-coat, shirt, hat and bag. We're not certain what brand of underwear she had on...but statistically speaking it was probably Chanel. We are obviously still in training....

You know vacation was expensive when.....

You come home and are willing to fix the washing machine yourself. My Maytag won't spin and I can't stand to pay a repair-man. So just as I was filling out the online service request form with Sears (and grumbling about the $500 I would for sure be spending)...I decided some Internet research was in order. Voila! http://www.neptunewaxmotor.com/index.html Who would have guessed a blog exists for just my problem. So I ripped her open and performed the test. Just as the blog said, my R11 was burnt. I cut it out and tested operations...still have water flow - so the problem is with my wax motor release thing-a-ma-bob. $13.95 later on ebay (plus $8.95 expedite shipping - why not huh? I've already saved so much) and by Sat Jon will be doing laundry while I have a cocktail in the backyard once I get done putting this beast back together.

From Russia with Love

We left SDF at CDG and departed for St. Petersburg Russia.

French Airplane + Russian Pilot =

The Hermitage, Palkin, Salmon eggs, a dispute over a $25 or $50 cab for 6km, and Vodka...lots of Vodka. Then we were off to Moscow via overnight train (it was a killer... @ $500). Arrival at Leningradsky station at 8AM feeling less than rich with $'s in our wallet, we charged for the metro - along with Friday rush hour. WOW - a public transportation lovers heaven.


Success! Despite Frommer's lack of Cryllic/English in the Metro map. We were as usual "good TV" as we stepped out of the metro and asked ourselves "where are we?" We didn't know it, but we were steps away from Red Square. Tough to miss... Amazing race here we come!

Eating like Aristocrats

Thank you Mr. Forsyth

For not coming to the Astoria Hotel in St. Petersburg. We enjoyed the Champaign later this evening and had your fruit for breakfast. You've got to be creative (and lucky) once in a while when your currency is in the crapper.

The last Coke for $5

Chanel Part I

When you see diamonds in the window....what is a girl to do?!

Go to the Hospital

Ode to Calculas - we haven't forgotten everything yet (perhaps only how to use this theory but not the theory itself).

One More for the Terrace

In the Shadows (Les Ombres). No one was capable of performing Euro to Dollar conversions after this meal. Good thing.

Mikey Likes It

Finally Done with the Car!

Anything to attrack a Tourist $

We're going to Hell

For going into a church through the exit after it was closed.....

Avignon / Pont Du Guard