Thankful for Old Friends

For Black Friday, we journeyed to Woodstock to see our old friends in Woodstock. We went to the Deer Park mall to hit Restoration Hardware, but found that it's gone. Only online sales for them from now on. It was JP's favorite store there.

The kids have known each other since birth. Won't be long and they'll all be gone away to school.

The Nebraska - Iowa game is always the day after Thanksgiving. This year I got to catch three minutes of it at the bar in the restaurant where we ate. Maybe some year we'll be able to see it in its entirety.

Thanksgiving 2016

We made the trek across the exciting plains from Nebraska to Illinois for Thanksgiving. Truly riveting scenery along the way, to be sure!

W the Cat is as fluffy as ever. 

Another awesome dinner with S & BD and family. What a fun bunch to hang out with.

Nana and her tall boys.

If the Box Fits I Sits

The fastest way to find a cat is to throw an empty box on the floor. Within seconds it will be occupied.

Don't Blame Us

CP was fired up to vote this year. Both boys were very engaged in the whole election process and its associated carnival. We were all devastated with the outcome. At least Nebraska was able to split its electoral votes, so CP's vote was not wasted. Out of Nebraska's 93 counties, all but two were red. Lancaster County was solid blue, thanks in part to our new voter.

Little Pecker

We had a new customer at the birdfeeder - some sort of tiny woodpecker. The birdfeeder has been the best $20 we've spent in a long time.

Cubs Win!

New Roof

Our 12 year old hail damaged roof is gone and replaced with a nice new one that hopefully does not leak. We were worried about the color of the shingles - how can you tell what an entire roof will look like from just a 4" x 4" sample?

Lap Dog

We babysat our friends' dog. Despite missing his family, he doesn't mind being part of ours. He has to be touching someone at all times.

CO2

We received a package that had some dry ice in it. GP played with it all afternoon. Now we know what to get him for Christmas.

GIE 2016

The GIE/Expo show is an annual gathering of landscape equipment in Louisville, Kentucky. All forty commercial lawn mower manufacturers were there, as well as a few hundred other companies that make other sorts of equipment. We had booths both inside and out with a ton of equipment.

I was amazed at how many teenage contractors are out there. These are fourteen year old kids that have been cutting lawns and are moving up into our mowers. They can't drive and have no credit, but are able to pay cash for a $10,000 mower. 

The show is open to the public for only two days. It rained all day on the first day and turned the outdoor exhibit into a mud bog. 50°, no sun, and a stiff breeze on the second day. Brrrr.

Fall Colors

This fall is more colorful than years past. Our maples are brighter than ever. 

The burning bush is on fire.

Crapper Bolts

The toilet in the basement started getting wobbly. We went to tighten up its mounting bolts and found that one of them was broken. So much for plastic bolts. Once we got the bowl up, we saw that not only was one of the bolts broken, but also the PVC flange was cracked. Fortunately, we were able to find a fix-it kit at the Home Depot that was specifically designed to fix our exact problem.

We also fixed the drywall around the water pipe, which has been bugging me since day one, and JP is trying out new colors on the walls.

More Volume

A couple months ago, I traded in my old pedal board for a new (to me) used one specifically designed for the bass. It's awesome! It has a zillion knobs and buttons and the manual is like a book. In order to set up the effects, you have to sit down on the floor and grind thru all the settings, one knob at a time. 

I had a free chunk of time one night to play around with it, so I dragged up everything (pedalboard, power supply, bass, cables, and headphones) from the basement and took up residence on the living room floor. I got everything plugged in and then noticed that the volume knob for the headphones wasn't working. Arrgh.

I scrounged around and found an old potentiometer from another project and three hours later was back in business just in time for bed.

18

For CP's 18th birthday, we hit downtown for his favorite place: Blue Sushi. 18!!! Still can't believe it.

CP loves sushi of all kinds. His favorite is eel. We're keeping our eyes open for cheap tickets to Japan for a post-graduation trip next summer. Both boys applied for their passports this week.

Rot

Fall is our home touch-up time. Not too hot. Dry. Sunny. Perfect.

My objective was to paint the trim around the front and back doors. At the back door, there was a little bit of paint missing, so I started with the scraper there. The scraper sunk into what looked like normal wood. Arrrrg! It turned into a weekend-long adventure of dismantling the door frame and cleaning out rotted wood. V shot out every chance she could. L was content laying in the sun and watching me work.

The wood says "TREATED", yet it was as rotten as the normal wood.

Hot Toddy

Last week I caught the bug that's been going around since school started. I ended up staying home for a day, which happens less frequently than blue moons. GP came home from school later that day with the same thing. JP cooked up a big cauldron of her chicken soup and then she made me a real hot toddy: Half a cup hot water, 1 tablespoon honey, some lemon juice, and 1 shot of whiskey. Mmmm.

Honor Roll

CP landed himself on the honor roll again. It's nice that he's a senior; don't have to wait to go thru the other grades. 

Homecoming 2016

Despite not having dates, the boys went to Homecoming and had fun. CP danced all night with his friends. Said he they got in trouble for dancing on the tables. GP hasn't yet discovered that he likes dancing.

It was so cool to watch the boys drive off together by themselves. While we watched the Huskers beat Northwestern, we kept waiting for them to come home early. Then we watched the late games and kept waiting... Then we got tired and wanted to go to bed, but the boys still weren't home. They ended up staying for the entire dance and didn't come home til 11:00.

Accepted!

CP has been officially accepted into the UNL Engineering College! He still needs to apply to a couple more schools.

Birthday Boy

JP got GP a pinata for his birthday this year. He had fun trying to smash it with the undersized stick he was given. He ended up beating it to a pulp with a broomstick.

GP isn't big on fancy restaurants like his brother, so we had his birthday meal at his favorite place: Cracker Barrel. We all ate too much.

JP vs. Summer

Our A/C died before summer ended. We have a quote to get a new one, but we're hesitant to shell out that sort of an investment and then only use it for a week. For the last two weeks, it's been in the 90s with hair curling humidity and no wind. The overnight lows have been in the mid 70s. I spend all day every day in the A/C at work; JP spends her days at home. We thought we could make it without cool air, but in the contest of Summer vs. JP, Summer won and JP conceded and bought a window unit. 

Tailgating in Style

Last weekend we were invited to our attorney's office downtown for a tailgate. That's completely true, but not clear. CG uses the same attorney - he's the one that actually got invited, and he invited us as his guests. I guess just getting your will done doesn't qualify you to be on the tailgate party list.

It was a perfect day. The party was on the 4th floor (roof level) of the building, so we had a nice view of the entire downtown area. It was too nice of a day to go to the game (and we didn't have tickets), so we spent the afternoon at the G's pool listening to the game on the radio.

East Coast Mowers

I spent last week in Massachusetts at a dealer training event. Left Monday AM at 3:30 to get to Omaha and got back Friday PM at 7:00. Gotta mow.

The event was held at The Warren Center, a private estate that caters to all sorts of functions: weddings, retreats, general parties with 1,000 guests, and lawnmower demos. The property is adjacent to a beautiful reservoir with crystal clear (and warm) water. None of us could believe how clear the water was; we're all used to Nebraska chocolate milk water.

I took advantage of being near the ocean and had seafood for lunch and dinner every day. I put on a few pounds, but it was worth it. I won't be able to go back to Progresso clam chowder now.

College Bound

CP has been receiving a mountain of mail from universities. Now he's getting engineering-specific letters from UNL. This one came with a calculator.

The letter on the left is to GP - he is super excited that college is on his horizon.

Household Pets

As soon as a suitcase comes out, there's a cat to sit on or in it. 

We were watching a scary movie and JP screamed and jumped. Poor M is 95% deaf and incapable of hearing anything other than the loudest shrieks. This time, it was loud enough to wake her. She didn't know what was happening - she stood and stared at us with disbelief for a few minutes. 

L likes the suitcase, too.

New Future Tax Payer

Our friends had a huge party to celebrate their adoption of a boy from Uganda. It's now official that he is their son and a US citizen.

Bats!

After the Gardens, we went downtown to the Old Market district for lunch. We've been in Nebraska 11 years and had never been there. We wandered around for a while and ended up at Upstream Brewing Company and had an awesome lunch. There were no take out boxes when we were done.

We finally made it to the zoo at 3:00. The crowds were starting to thin (but it was still Very crowded). It's been years since we were last here - the whole African safari part is all new. JP was excited to see the new elephant exhibit. GP wanted to see the desert dome, CP was psyched for the aquarium, and I only wanted to take a family picture in front of the giant kapok tree to send to my Amazon guide back in Ecuador.

In the jungle building, at some point some fruit bats escaped from their pen and started a free-flying community. Now there are hundreds of pigeon-sized bats all flying around freely. GP does NOT like bats. He was getting creeped out in the cave part of the desert dome where the bats are behind glass. He really started freaking out in the jungle with all the bats flying around. All the little tunnels and cave parts of the jungle are much more exciting with real bats! 

What started out as a very crappy day with the roofers next door waking up JP and invoking the wrath of her red hair ended up on a high note. We spent the entire day together as a family, we walked a fair number of miles, and the boys slept all the way back to Lincoln. It rained at 5:00, which would have ruined our game day party plans anyway. And the Huskers beat Fresno State in the season opener!

Stop to Smell the Roses

After checking out the Locomotives, we wandered thru Lauritzen Gardens for two hours. It was a perfect day: 70-something with a little breeze and no humidity.

One of the exhibits is a model train world. There are 20 large-scale trains all running at different levels thru tunnels, across bridges, and past miniature cities. Everything (except the trains) is made out of wood - all the bridges, all the buildings, everything. It was fascinating to watch.

One of the boys' favorites was the Japanese garden. Despite a lot of walking, the boys both enjoyed their visit.