It's been an interesting couple of weeks with 2 emergency room visits with Wayne. The first due to the back injury pain and the second due to chest pain. Thankfully, the chest pain was not cardiac related. In the process of ruling out heart problems the doctors discovered that Wayne had pneumonia and pleurisy (probably due to a rip in the membrane around his lung). He had a few days of R&R along with doses of IV antibiotics and oxygen in a hospital room. He's still dealing with some chest discomfort so it's a good thing he already has a doctor appointment in the a.m.
I took Nathanial back to college today. He had partially moved into the dorm last week, but today we moved the rest of the first semester necessities. It's hard to believe that a year has passed since I dropped him off for his freshman year. Tonight several of his friends ran over to greet him. A couple of the guys helped him carry things up to his dorm room. It was much easier driving away this year than last!
Last night Jonathan seemed to sense that change was in the near future. He kept getting out of bed and going out into the hall to talk with Nathanial. At one point Wayne found Nathanial and Jonathan sitting together on the top step of the stairway having a heart to heart talk about Jonathan growing up someday to be big like Nathanial. What was especially neat was hearing them pray together.
We'll start our home school schedule next week. Somehow I need to finish all those 'summer projects to be done before school starts again' this week.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Day at the Fair
Several times throughout the past few months I've heard, "Mom, are we going to do anything fun this summer?" For some reason gardening, animal care, stripping out walls, moving rocks, etc. has not registered on the 'fun meter' for certain members of the family. Today we decided to do something 'fun'.
We went to the Otsego County fair (our county) a few years ago and were quite disappointed in the atmosphere. It was not a positive environment for the kids. We have heard that Delaware County fair is the best in the area, and after sharing our concerns with some experienced 'fair goers' were assured that Delaware County fair was definitely a great place to take the family. After today's experience, we wholeheartedly agree!
We started off checking out the animals. Rachael and Jonathan were trying to show you just how big this draft horse was, but since he had just received his breakfast he was not in the mood to pose.
I enjoy going through the exhibit halls and admiring the handwork entries. The quilts are beautiful and I like checking out the judges' comments. Maybe by reading the comments some day I'll have a quilt that's 'fair worthy'.
The kids got bored with the exhibits but were happy to find a slide/swing display right outside the main hall. When Wayne and I came back out they were taking advantage of the shaded seating.
Jonathan's day was made when he found the fire safety tent. They had lots of freebies and he was able to try on real fire boots. He was disappointed to discover that those weren't a freebie.
He answered all the questions correctly on the fire safety puzzle.
I think we finally did something to hit the 'fun meter'! I, Wayne here, am very thankful that I could get up and go to the fair with the family. The last few weeks have been very low, but today God blessed with the strength and energy to enjoy walking around the fair with my beautiful faithful loving (Proverbs 31) wife and our children. I love seeing life through their eyes and reinforcing how God shows his unending love for us through his own creativity and that of others. Thanks for the prayers for Linda and I, we pray God's best for you too!
We went to the Otsego County fair (our county) a few years ago and were quite disappointed in the atmosphere. It was not a positive environment for the kids. We have heard that Delaware County fair is the best in the area, and after sharing our concerns with some experienced 'fair goers' were assured that Delaware County fair was definitely a great place to take the family. After today's experience, we wholeheartedly agree!
We started off checking out the animals. Rachael and Jonathan were trying to show you just how big this draft horse was, but since he had just received his breakfast he was not in the mood to pose.
I enjoy going through the exhibit halls and admiring the handwork entries. The quilts are beautiful and I like checking out the judges' comments. Maybe by reading the comments some day I'll have a quilt that's 'fair worthy'.
The kids got bored with the exhibits but were happy to find a slide/swing display right outside the main hall. When Wayne and I came back out they were taking advantage of the shaded seating.
Jonathan's day was made when he found the fire safety tent. They had lots of freebies and he was able to try on real fire boots. He was disappointed to discover that those weren't a freebie.He answered all the questions correctly on the fire safety puzzle.
I think we finally did something to hit the 'fun meter'! I, Wayne here, am very thankful that I could get up and go to the fair with the family. The last few weeks have been very low, but today God blessed with the strength and energy to enjoy walking around the fair with my beautiful faithful loving (Proverbs 31) wife and our children. I love seeing life through their eyes and reinforcing how God shows his unending love for us through his own creativity and that of others. Thanks for the prayers for Linda and I, we pray God's best for you too!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Projects of the Summer
I know I've been ver-r-r-ry neglectful in my blogging, but it's not due to lack of blogging material.
Living in an old colonial house means that there's ALWAYS some project in the wings. In a previous blog I showed a pile of plaster that came from the stripping of the hallway walls. Here's the biggest wall of the project waiting for it's new sheet rock and bead board wainscot.
One of the neat parts of this project is that we discovered a landing at the top of the stairs which had been covered over when they brought the floor straight over to the steps. We've opened up the landing and are getting used to the new "step pattern" at the top of the stairs. We'd like to redo the stairs to be less steep, but that would be too big of a project for us to undertake right now...and we'd probably have to lose some space in the downstairs bathroom, which would require plumbing changes, and....(the project would snowball into an avalanche project so we'll stay happy with our current stairs!)
Another project that we've been thinking about doing for several years was jacking up the house and replacing the old wooden support beams that were showing their age (I guess I would, too, if I were 150 years old!) The goal was to lift the beams enough to put new posts in and be able to shut the doors to the rooms opening into the hallway (without them sticking). This has to be done very slowly for the house to ease back into the "new" original position so the beams don't crack. The doors are now much easier to open and close (though we do have to shave a few dozen layers of paint off the top of one door). When the boys pulled the posts out into daylight, we were VERY glad that this project was done this year and not put off any longer.
I also mentioned in a previous blog that a project we hoped to tackle this summer was the steps to our front door. The porch has been off a couple of years. Shortly after the porch came off Wayne spoke with a man that has done extensive rock work on his property to see if he'd be willing to build the steps for us. He agreed to tackle the job, and we told him we'd be in touch as soon as we had the stones and money to pay him. The tyranny of the urgent kept pushing the step project aside, but a few weeks ago Wayne went and spoke to the man again. He thought we had found someone else to do the job and was more than happy to follow through with the plan. Tuesday Sam arrived with his tools and the project was underway. Matthew, Nathanial and Marc helped the first day. On the second day a friend from church filled in Matthew's position since Matt had to work at his regular job. By the middle of the 2nd day we had our steps!
We have a load of topsoil being delivered soon and then we'll do the landscaping of the flower beds around the steps. Hm-m-m what's next on the 'to do' list?
Living in an old colonial house means that there's ALWAYS some project in the wings. In a previous blog I showed a pile of plaster that came from the stripping of the hallway walls. Here's the biggest wall of the project waiting for it's new sheet rock and bead board wainscot.
One of the neat parts of this project is that we discovered a landing at the top of the stairs which had been covered over when they brought the floor straight over to the steps. We've opened up the landing and are getting used to the new "step pattern" at the top of the stairs. We'd like to redo the stairs to be less steep, but that would be too big of a project for us to undertake right now...and we'd probably have to lose some space in the downstairs bathroom, which would require plumbing changes, and....(the project would snowball into an avalanche project so we'll stay happy with our current stairs!) Another project that we've been thinking about doing for several years was jacking up the house and replacing the old wooden support beams that were showing their age (I guess I would, too, if I were 150 years old!) The goal was to lift the beams enough to put new posts in and be able to shut the doors to the rooms opening into the hallway (without them sticking). This has to be done very slowly for the house to ease back into the "new" original position so the beams don't crack. The doors are now much easier to open and close (though we do have to shave a few dozen layers of paint off the top of one door). When the boys pulled the posts out into daylight, we were VERY glad that this project was done this year and not put off any longer.
I also mentioned in a previous blog that a project we hoped to tackle this summer was the steps to our front door. The porch has been off a couple of years. Shortly after the porch came off Wayne spoke with a man that has done extensive rock work on his property to see if he'd be willing to build the steps for us. He agreed to tackle the job, and we told him we'd be in touch as soon as we had the stones and money to pay him. The tyranny of the urgent kept pushing the step project aside, but a few weeks ago Wayne went and spoke to the man again. He thought we had found someone else to do the job and was more than happy to follow through with the plan. Tuesday Sam arrived with his tools and the project was underway. Matthew, Nathanial and Marc helped the first day. On the second day a friend from church filled in Matthew's position since Matt had to work at his regular job. By the middle of the 2nd day we had our steps!
We have a load of topsoil being delivered soon and then we'll do the landscaping of the flower beds around the steps. Hm-m-m what's next on the 'to do' list?
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