Good Morning Daughter

8:00 AM

Me yelling upstairs to Abby's room: "Abby, breakfast is ready. Please put your clothes on (from your pajamas) and come downstairs".

8:05 AM

Abby come down stairs in her pajamas and eats breakfast.

8:25 AM

Me after Abby's done with breakfast: "Abby, please go upstairs, to your room, and put on your clothes, Mommy has set them out for you".

8:30 AM

Me: "Abby, PLEASE go upstairs and change your clothes." Abby runs upstairs.

8:40 AM

Abby comes downstairs talking to a doll in her hands, still wearing her pajamas. Me: "Abby!, upstairs now!" Abby runs upstairs again.

8:45 AM

Abby walks into the living room still wearing her pajamas. She sees me and yells, "Stop looking at me!". She turns around and runs upstairs again.

8:46 AM

I yell upstairs, "Abby do not come down her until you've put your clothes on, do you understand?"

8:50 AM

I hear Abby on the stairs talking to herself in her typical cutesy voice. And then I realize who I'm dealing with: a girl who no longer is young enough to listen to her Dad. She's sitting on the stairs, (note she has not come down the stairs yet) reading a book IN HER PAJAMAS!!! (see actual photo)

8:52 AM

I go outside to work on the shop contemplating living with a teenage girl for the next 14 years.

Creation of a Shop: Week 4

Let there be height!!
With manly help of some good friends and family (the best home teachers and father-in-law in the world), we were able to set the gigantic posts. The posts were either 6"X6" or 6"X8" and 20 feet long, thus not easily moved. But with much effort and some rebar to set the braces in the rocky soil, we placed all 13 posts where they needed to be and made them sit straight.
To avoid having to fill the huge holes entirely with concrete, I created a few poor-man forms around the posts. They worked out great for when Mr. Concrete man brought his truck to fill up the holes. The crappy forms are all now covered with concrete so Mr. Inspector can't see the against-code forms.
With all the posts set in place, I was able to remove the braces and bring in some gravel around the site to flatten out the ground inside and around the shop.
It looks great! If I'm not mistaken, it even looks like a shop...kind of?

Election Day '08

Is it going to be a Maverick Nation or Obama Mania? One thing is for sure, we won't have to watch or listen to all the crappy political adds for a long time.
A few weeks ago Abby learned the Pledge of Allegiance and it melted my heart. A beautiful young American promising to unite our great nation under God's guidance. How different would this election be if that's what all the crooked and creepy politicians focused on?

Creation of a Shop : Week 3

This week I had to go back to making some bacon to build the shop. (No, the shop is not made out of bacon). Even on my few days off, I didn't get anything done on my massive project. I started to feel pretty down on myself wondering if I was getting into something over my head. I needed to find a power to pull from, to lift me and carry me through building the shop
Let me introduce you to the power of the 'stache...

It has rejuvenated me. I will get this thing done!......My mustache has given me an amazing shot in the arm. Never underestimate the power of the 'stache!! (And if you were wondering, I won't be able to sleep in my bed until I shave either).

For the Love of Sleep

I've worked the night shift for almost 8 years now. I understand the need for sleep, though I do think sleep is a little over-rated. I can function fine on less shut-eye than most, but I do need some.

This week has been a test of my theory that only a little sleep is needed. Caleb has been acting very weird at night, only sleeping 1-2 hours and then not being able to get back to sleep. It's been one of the hardest weeks of my adult life. Nothing seems to make sense. He broke his arm 2 weeks ago and had a couple hard nights, that made sense though. But now he's not having any pain, he can turn himself in bed fine, but the boy just won't sleep.

This is what she's suppose to look like

I've tried everything from threatening him, yelling at him, sleeping with him, and comforting him, but nothing can keep him asleep for more than 2 hours at a time. Of course all the commotion at night wakes up Abby too, which causes a surreal moment of the entire family wondering around the house at 2 AM. My last idea was to tell him that if he couldn't sleep, he could close his door and play quietly in his room. So at 3 AM, Caleb would wake up, turn on his light and starting playing with his Lego's. I even checked on him a couple times while he was playing and he just smiled and asked if I wanted to play with him. The kicker to all this is that he hasn't been tired during the day either. Monica and I have been walking around like zombies and Caleb hasn't even taken a nap to recoup from his sleepless night.

A moment of Peace as Caleb sleeps

I'm fairly sure this is a phase, I hope this is phase....please, for the love of all that is good on earth, let this be a phase...

Creation of a Shop: Week 2

With no more jobs to hire out, the rest is up to me and my trusty Kubota tractor to finish the pad for the shop. Code requires that each post hole (our shop has 12 of them) be 32 inches wide and 36 inches deep. For most people, these holes can be dug by simply renting an auger for a few hours, but not for those of us Bible believers who have built our houses on a rock...literally. I was able to use my little back-hoe to dig 10 of the the 12 holes. Unfortunately my ability to dig has a couple down sides. 1) I keep digging the holes too wide, which means I'll have to buy more concrete at $115 cubic yard to fill them. 2) Even my powerful mini-tractor can't dig through solid rock. 3) Someone put the phone line where I needed to dig....three times.

Yes, I listen to AM radio every day. Yes, every other commercial on AM radio says, "call before you dig!". Yes, I dug before I called. Yes, I dug up our phone line. Yes, three times.

The good news was that I received a lesson on phone lines from our good friend Tana. (Thanks Tana, you rock!") After Phone Line 101, I was able to splice the broken line to give us phone and Internet service until Quest came out and put in a new line. For wire, all I had was speaker wire, and it worked like a charm. One note for you future phone service workers out there, the phone wire has a metal sheath around it that is very, very sharp. I've got about a dozen cuts on my fingers to prove it. I dug a trench the entire length of the shop for the phone company to lay down a new line that wouldn't travel under the shop and they came out a few days later and repaired the wire correctly, though the Quest guy was impressed with my speaker-wire fix. Thank you very much.

For the two remaining two holes that were solid rock, I rented a jack-hammer to dig down through the rock. After two full days and a bottle of Ibuprofen, I had dug each hole about 30 inches down. I was six inches too shallow, but I was hitting rock that wouldn't break up, so I gave up.

The county inspector came out at the end of the week and spent a whole 3 minutes glancing at the holes (even the shallow ones) and signed me off to start building. All the lumbar was delivered soon after. Next week...setting the posts...stay tuned for more pics of a ruggedly handsome me.

Creation of a shop: Week 1

Every man needs a shop, right? After months of dreaming, I actually started moving ground to put in a big shop for our crap this week. It's been a process just to get to this point. First, I bought a ton of toys over the years, then I parked them all in the driveway and told Monica that I need somewhere to put all said toys. My plan worked perfectly.


I got a permit, researched some shops and went with the cheapest building I could build myself. It's called a pole barn. Basically it consists of huge poles with metal siding. Doesn't sound too hard, does it?
The week started by tearing down an existing car port and cutting down a few trees. I really enjoy tearing down stuff.

My life as a lumberjack got off to a bad start. It wasn't exactly as climantic as I had hoped. But we got it done.

Of course nothing is easy in my life and I was reminded of this little fact when I started digging out the side of the hill to create a level pad. You see, I live on a rock. That little biblical story about the man who built his house on a rock sounds good when it rains, but if the man wants to build a shop, he's screwed. They seem to have left that part out.






To tackle the rock-problem we hired a back-hoe guy to use a huge jack hammer and cut into the hill side. $1,000 later, we also needed to remove two 50 ft pine trees. Though, I had offers from friends to cut down the trees on our own, I just couldn't stomach the site of a tree falling on to my house. So we hired a professional. And it took all of about 20 minutes for the man of all men to climb, cut-down, and cut up two huge trees. I felt like a teenage girl watching this guy swing his chainsaw around like it was toy. Why didn't I become a lumberjack? Maybe it had something to do with my max chest press of 90 lbs. Anyway it was cool to watch.
I have been able to put my Kubota to the test though. She's working hard and holding her own. She may not be the biggest tractor, but she has tries hard and looks great in leather pants...sound familiar?

Down Goes Caleb!

Caleb's athletic career has hit a bump in the road, you could say. He fell on his elbow during his second soccer game and broke his arm. He got tripped from behind and fell directly on his left arm. His first words were, "I broke my arm, I broke my arm". And he was right. I immediately noted his arm was slightly deformed and knew we were heading to the ER. For the most part everything went as well as possible. I used my shirt to splint his arm, Monica went for the car and we headed to an Urgent Care just a couple miles away. Caleb was screaming and yelling some very serious thoughts; "I'm going to let my teammates down", "How can I fold my arms for prayers with a broken arm?", "Can I still play with my Lego's?", "Did Abby cry when she broke her arm?". It was a long couple miles.

Caleb was treated like royalty the first few days after the accident. Any food, any movie, no bed time, he had all he ever wanted. The only problem for our smart little boy? It didn't take him long to starting making some bold requests. Such a cutie though.

The first sign we noticed in the urgent care said, "The approximate current wait time is: 1.5 hrs"....Are you kidding me?...I won't go into a tangent about idiots going the ER/Urgent Care with stupid problems with and without insurance. Can you imagine if we had national health care? A guy ahead of my screaming son was there because a cat bit him...FIVE days earlier. Yeah, seriously. Enough of my tangent.

Caleb waiting for surgery in the Pediatric OR. They gave him a game-boy to ease the stress...plus some drugs.

Being the angry man I can be, we started to get moved up in line. X-rays proved correct Caleb's self diagnosis and a call was put out to the on-call Orthopedist. The orthopedic doctor punted Caleb's case to a pediatric ED on the other side of town (in the hospital where I work). We were about head to another 2-hour wait, when we decided to call the pediatric-ER and ask if we could skip the waiting part and be admitted. The pediatric surgeon was called and told us to go home and come to the pediatric operating room on Monday for surgery. Thus, the second waiting room was averted, thank goodness.


It was one of the toughest days of my life. Caleb has never been one to whine about pain, and he was as tough a kid as he could be. But he was in a lot of pain and there was nothing I could do. I felt as hopeless as I ever have, it was awful. I can recall my Dad crying twice in my life and I've cried twice in two weeks...I'm such a wuss!!

Caleb was crying on and off before surgery telling us how scared he was.The only problem was that every time he looked to his parents for strength, we were crying too.

The next few days, we've managed well as a family. Mon and I have provided to Caleb's every need. We loaded up on movies, made his favorite foods, and played with him as much as possible. Abby's been very supportive too.

The surgery went as well as possible. Another day of pain, but Caleb was tricked into taking more pain medicine. He's gotten better each day. He went back to school four days later and was very upset when we insisted on him not taking the bus.

Caleb woke up from surgery spouting out random thoughts, but the one that did make sense was that he wanted a Popsicle.

We have received lots of support from family and friends. Caleb's friends, soccer teammates and primary teacher have sent all cards and gifts. The Medford Gang has sent Caleb and Abby care packages, which were a huge hit. And we thank you for all the phone calls. We'll keep you posted on his condition. Don't give up on Caleb's athletic career (or at least him NOT going to jail).

Turkey Time

When we first moved to our current home, we would see this flock of turkeys once a month or so. But lately the turkeys are taking over our yard, deck and driveway. They were kind of cute at first, but along with the cute big birds has come the cute big turds. Our lawn looks like we have 15 dogs.
The biggest upside has got to be Abby's yelling at the wild birds when she's outside. She charges up to them and has they run away she yells with her meanest voice "Hey turkey's, get out of our yard!"

Another funny thing is when we're inside the house, we knock on the windows and the window tapping causes the turkeys to goggle in unison. It makes for great entertainment.

Caleb's 1st goal

Caleb's road to professional sports continued this weekend. He's playing on a under-7 soccer league this fall. They play 3 on 3 with no goalie. He's a real aggressive player, sometimes actually pushing over other players (and teammates). I'm torn between telling him to settle down or letting him stay aggressive. Most kids his age are pretty timid, so I like that he's at least going after the ball. I just feel bad for the other kids when they're lying on the ground crying after Caleb knocked them over.

Here's Caleb's first goal of his career. Unfortunately his team still lost 12-2, but that's not what's important......what's really important is that the pro scouts see that Caleb scored a goal.

My favorite part is after Caleb scored the goal, he turned to a kid on the other team and talked a little trash. That's my boy!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!