Dinner with my whole family

Today we went out with my entire family. My brother Tom and his kids, Charlie and Zoe, are here from Texas. My other brother Rob and his wife also joined us with our parents at Sorrentos Restaurant in Flushing, Michigan. After dinner Tom and I took the kids to the park.

Dog Pile on Charlie

and he is out.....

My bee balm is know in bloom

Moving things around

This week end we spent it clean out the boys room and moving Rodney to the other room. It was time for them to each have there own room. Mostly for all of our sanity. One thing I did to help them clean their room that seemed to work well was to sweep every thing on the floor in to the center of the room. I then told them that if they wanted any thing in the pile they had better putt it away or I was going to through it away. I really worked they picked up most of the toys and I got to get ride of some of the clutter in their rooms. We also took advantage of the mild weather to go to the park with the boys after we were done.

Also my dad and I are progressing on the bathroom. We have stared to add the wall boards. Go to my flickr account to see all of the images of the work we have done. You can see note on the Images by clicking on them.

Rodney new room

Davids New Room

Walls!!!!

My friend Amy

I have known a lot of Amys in my life. There is my wife, my sister in-law, and the countless friends. One of them moved out to Oregon 15 years ago and I had not seen her since. Until yesterday. A group of us got together to see her and her boyfriend Tim (I went to school with Tim) We had a good visit, and it was as if not time had passed with one exception, or conversations were more about adult life. (Kids, mortgages, home repair, insurance, 401ks, etc.) We did how ever revert to our youth and talk about various bands, and the old hang outs.

If you thought I was a Big Star Wars Geek...

this dad wins as the biggest Star Wars Geek. Note the tattoos and the mobile.

My continuing adventure in to bathroom Remodeling

Today we put in the backer board around the plumbing, it was very hard work. We had to Cut the Boards in half and shape out the holes. This took all morning for us to do.

In the after noon we had to add studs to the walls due to the fact that when our home was built poorly. The Backer board needs lot of support form the walls so we can add the tile.

If you go over to my Flickr account I have a photo set of the remodeling we are doing. Each of the photos has notes about what is going on, so click on each photo to see them.

Ware Have I Been?

Well I have not posted since Monday, June 11th (more then a week). I have been really busy and this is the first time I have had the energy to sit down and write a new blog. So I’ll be give my updates by event

Tuesday June 12th was Amy and mine 8th Wedding anniversary. All it was the last day both boys would be in school all day. Amy took the day off for a dental appointment, and time for us together. This was the one thing we really wanted was to spent time alone with out the kids. We had a god day together. After the boys got out of school we took them to their therapy appointments the to dinner. That night we had scouts. Some ware in there I had time to work on some design work for my biggest client.

The next day was David’s last day of kindergarten. He only had a half day and I went and sent some of the time with him at school. The kids were all very quite a reserved, even David my ADHD child. I think each of the kids were a little sadden by this being there last day. David even got a great big hug form his teacher that almost brought him to tears. By the time we got home I was ready to sit and do NOTHING.

Thursday was Rodney’s last day and I once again went up to see him for his last day. Rodney being different about handling his emotions from David. He was not really sad and just continued on like it was another day. He even didn’t really say goodbye to his teacher or any of his friends. We did however see a lot of behaviors here at home this week. He is one of those kids who do not handle change very well. His life has been full of change. After school I took both boys to Burger King.

Saturday we had my parents of for a cook out and some family time. I spent the whole day getting ready by cleaning and getting the food ready. It was a nice time.

Sunday was fathers day, I got to sleep in and had breakfast in bed. My day was spent puttering around the house. I can’t wait until the boys are old enough to do some of these things (like mow the lawn)


So now on to my big project of the past week. Friday my dad came down to help my look at the damage to my bathroom. We stared by removing the garden tub, then some of the walls then the sheet linoleum. Boy was there a lot of water damage. So we went to Home Dept to get a game plan and work out coast. We got a few supplies and took them back to my home. So Saturday and Sunday I worked on cleaning up and pulling nails from the walls and floor.

Both yesterday and today we worked on finishing the pull out of the bad wood and insulation. (The Garbage Men are really going to love me)I really got a chance to see how poorly modular homes are put together. Then we put in new plywood and isolation. Then we stared to add some water proofing to the room so I would never have to do this again. Today we added cement board to the floor. I'll be putting all of the photos Of the bathroom here

Also my Cone Flowers are staring to bloom.


And to top off our day to day we had a little visitor… and ugly visitor

My newest board game: Gloria Mundi

I resonantly bought a new board game, called Gloria Mundi. I had been saving change for a few months to by it. This is the best way for me to save money. I love play board games and love getting new ones. I think collecting board games is now my new hobby.

Gloria Mundi is a board game for 2-6 players set during the fall of Rome. You're a Roman statesman struggling to survive in this era of cultural decline and political chaos. While foreign invaders and domestic incompetents devour the last resources of the Empire, you'll try to build your career out of the rubble. You start in Rome, and the Visigoth starts on the outskirts of a spiral board. Each turn, you play and purchase cards that produce resources and give you special effects, as well as allowing you to move further out from the doomed Eternal City. Then the Visigoth moves toward Rome, destroying your cards... unless you spend your precious resources to bribe him. When the Visigoth reaches Rome, or a player reaches the outskirts of the empire, the game is over and the player who has fled the furthest from Rome wins.

I play board games with a group of guys every Monday night (we also have a beer or two). We played my new game tonight. We had to play the game a few times to get the mechanics. We had mixed revues of the game. Most of us really liked it and others didn’t. I have mix felling about the game. I would like to play it a few more times with the same number of people or less.

Slip slidding away

Some photos of Rodney and David on our new slip and slide

Kensington Metropark

Today After dinner we took the boys to Kensington Metropark, witch is only a few miles from our home. Kensington Metropark is a 4,481 acre first class recreational facility, surrounding Kent Lake. The park features an 18-hole regulation golf course, a disc golf course, a nature center, a farm learning center, picnic areas, beaches, boat rentals and a paved hike-bike trail and a soon to be open water play area with two water slides. We took the boys to the farm and a playground in hopes to ware them out. You can see more Photos from the day at my flickr web site

Does any one have $1000 we can borrow?

Well the boys’ school is about to come to an end for this year. And I have to tell you I am looking forward to them being done. I could really use the rest. Yes having them home may not be all that restful, but I will not have to run all over the place. Also I was volunteering at the school a lot this year. I need a brake from that.

So this summer I will have both boys home and will need to put them on a schedule. But not one like the school gives them. I think kids should enjoy their summers off. However my kids need to have some sort of structure or they will drive everyone insane. I plan to have work books for them, and take them swimming. Also we will go to the library and the comic book store once a week. However they will not just sit in front of the TV.

Also this week we found that we have lots of water damage in our bathroom. This is from a slow leek under the tub due to poor pluming. My dad came down to help me fix the pluming and work out what to do. It looks like I will have to replace 3 or 4 of the wall panels and most of the floor around the tub. It would seem that when this modular home was built they really went cheep on the material. The floor should have been water proof and the walls.

I call my home owner’s insurance about the damage. I need to call them any way because of the boys. We came to find out last week that they had scratched the neighbors new van with there bikes. This was on the same day that David got his new bike. We had told them both to stay out of other people’s drive ways and yards, and not to ride their bikes near cars. So one of them was riding next to the van and hit it with the handle bar of his bike. The other yelled at him not to do it. So the other one said he was going to do it again, and did. To make things worse then the other did it to. The coast of the repair will be over $800. We were just dumb founded over this. I at least have a $500 deductible. We also took away their bikes and the privilege to go out side with out an adult for a wile.

One would think that two six year olds could just play out side of the house. We do however realize that our kids are an exception. This could be contributed to their being adopted or just plan old being a kid. Being a parent is a lot of work. We also will have to stay close to home this summer. We need to pay for the repairs to our home and the neighbors van.

To blow some steam off I spent a lot of time this week in my garden. And I have some new blooms growing. Things will get better and next week I’ll take the boys on a bike ride.

Field Day

Today was field day at the boy’s school. Field Day is a day ware the kids spend out side doing non-competitive races. There were basketball races, jump rope, one legged races, tug-o-war, and many more. I got to help out with the tug-o-war station. For lunch we had a picnic out side on the lawn of hot dogs, chips and watermelon. I managed to get a little sun burn wile I was out side. The day was beautiful and we couldn’t have had a better day for it.

At our Community pool

We went to our community pool today. The boys were excited to be able to touch a little further out in the deep end of the pool this year. Both love to go swimming and are quite the fish.