 In an attempt to be a little social this year, we went down to Oracle the weekend prior to Christmas for a get-together. It was rumored that Mylinda and Zeke would be there and it would be a grand time. Well as it turns out, the weather wasn't cooperative for Mylinda and Zeke and they didn't make it, but it ended up being a good time none the less. While we were there, AJ ended up calling from Washington so we were all able to say hi. Since Mylinda wasn't present, she didn't get to join in, but I think that she was the only one present last Christmas when AJ called and so it all evens out in the wash. He at least seemed to be doing well. |
 While we were there, Kyle learned a new trick. These last few weeks he has been trying to do things with his mouth or hands that would be considered by the majority of people as a little odd. He is mastering the making of faces and strange noises. If my memory serves me well (which it usually doesn't) I seem to remember trying to do these same types of things, but I thought that I practiced mainly in church rather than at the table. Some of the noises that he can produce stump both Terre and Ethen as they try to imitate them. So far, I have been able to duplicate all of this noises, but I don't know for how long that will last. He seems quite talented in that area. |
 Ethen and Kyle both seemed to enjoy the stay there. As it was Christmas we ended up with many factors of junk more than normal occupying the trunk of the car on the way home. I need to learn to fill up the car to its bursting point prior to making these trips such that there is no way possible for me to fit all of the extra stuff on the return trip. That might not help out the gas milage of the trip, but at least it will keep me from having to make room for a bunch of stuff that I never dreamed of owning. Also when I get the engine out of the shed (since I have sold it to a gentleman in this part of the state) I will need to talk Wyatt into putting it in the back of his truck rather than me taking the trailer down to retrieve it. You see the trailer will have to much free room on it and that is something that I have just made a goal to avoid doing. |
 Zeke and Mylinda ended up coming down to visit the next day and were able to spend Christmas at our house. They also brought a race track for the kids to play with. Kyle never quite got the hang of it, but Ethen had a blast. There is a trigger that you push to make the cars go, and Kyle couldn't figure out that you had to hold it down, so his car would go and stop, go and stop, go and stop, while Ethen would just continue to lap him. |
 After Christmas was over, we got out the old train that I have. After many different attempts to make it go, and once we resized the track to make it as small as we could (and after taking a dremel tool to all of the track as well as the locomotive to remove rust) we concluded that this engine has lost its go. It will still crawl around a small track with no load on it, but it makes odd noises and has a distinctive smell of electricity when it does. Maybe it is finally time to retire it and find another to pull the remainder of the cars. |
 Terre really wanted to put some shelves in Ethen's closet. She is thinking that extra space will be at a premium once we have another person to occupy the room. So after looking at local discount stores and deciding upon what she wanted, I talked her out of it and we built some. This way they would fit the geometry present in the closet, and would not be able to be removed by able bodied children. The best part about it is that they shelves cost us $14 and change. All of the wood was left over from |
 the building of the shelves in the pantry down stairs. All we had to purchase was some drywall anchors, some 1 X 2's, and a paint brush. The best part about that is that Terre now wants to do the same thing to the closet in Kyle's room, and we still have plenty of supplies to make it happen. Since the closet is brown, Terre tried many different iterations on what color to paint the shelves. One she painted brown, one white, and then ended up painting all of them the color of the down stairs. I think that the next set of shelves (in Kyle's room) will get stained. All of these finishing products are available in the garage, but what is painting if you can't change the color every time you try? Also Murphy's law says that not matter what you do you will be wrong on your first attempt, so the next set of shelves will be a different color than the first. Also, not shown in these pictures is the cloths rod and shelf above it. Terre has always had a hard time reaching it, so I also moved it down about 4.5 inches to make it easier to access the storage above it. Now you don't have to turn boxes sideways to make them fit in the space. I don't ask to many questions, I just postpone the project to see if it will go away on its own, if it doesn't (like these didn't) |
 then I just say yes dear, and do it. There are some of the ideas that I can head off at the pass, but others just wont go away. In fact once it is all said and done, some actually turn out pretty well in the end. The funny thing about this vacation was that at the start of it, I was planning on finishing up the tile and baseboard in the basement. Now that I am at the end of the my vacation, I have not even attempted to start on the tile, but have done a lot of items that I wasn't planning on doing. I guess that next time, I will have to talk Terre into doing tile work before I ever take my vacation, that way it might actually get done. The truth is, I don't really like to do the tile work, so I guess that I have postponed one of my projects for a little while longer. Now for the story of the week: On Saturday, Terre got the urge for Lasagna, so to the store she went to purchase the necessary ingredients like a loaf of french bread and some cottage cheese (you know, the things that you never have on hand) so that when we come home from church on Sunday we could enjoy it. Well we went to church and then came home and then Terre said that she didn't want Lasagna any more, but we needed to use the french bread or it would get to |
 hard to use. So we had brauts and garlic bread (she is pregnant so I don't question meal choices). As we were making the garlic bread (cutting it up and putting on the garlic) Ethen was helping and wanted to put a unique blend of spices on the bread prior to cooking it. We talked with him and would allow him to choose his piece of bread to experiment with. He insisted on the biggest piece contrary to our coaching, but we would allow him to have it as long as he would devour the entire piece. Well you can guess what happened. The bread was done and after the broiling process (since his was the biggest and tallest piece) his piece was the only piece that was a tad bit black. We scrapped off the black and let him go at it. He was at the table trying to eat it for about 1.5 hours, until the time that Terre and I started to make banana splits for dessert. You see, he couldn't have some until he had finished his bread. Well while we were busy with the ice cream, he had finished up eating and was ready for some dessert. We were glad that he had |
 finished eating the bread and were glad to let him have some. The next morning (this morning) when I was opening up the blinds in the front room, I found the last of his garlic bread. We had some words about what he had done, and he again had to eat the bread. After some discussion about the eating arrangements he decided that he would eat it, but he wanted it crushed up and put into his waffles because the bread was to hard to eat by its self. |
 We agreed. So as we enjoyed our nice fluffy waffles, he had a garlic flavored, bread enhanced pair of waffles. But, he finally ate the bread that he said he would. I also learned something from this event. While we were in Oracle, Dad asked me if we owned a mortar and pestle. I told him that I didn't. He told me that you can't cook unless you have a mortar and a pestle. I didn't believe him, but have found that he was correct. I had to use a small bowl and the back of a flat spoon to grind up the bread. Maybe for next Christmas I will get a mortar and pestle. |