Pergola Raising - Part 1

Greetings All,

I have stolen my wife's keyboard to bring you this special announcement. "The Pergola Project Has Begun!" Well, it did. Many weeks ago. This is the first in a series of Blogs that will tell the story of the Daniels' Family Pergola.

We have been planning this project since the day we were first shown this house. On our first visit to this house, it had other people's furniture in it, and other people's name on the door. We loved the house, and it had all of the amenities in it that we could want. But when the Realtor took us out the sliding glass door on the back of the house and into the inferno, we found the first real problem with the house: The kitchen dining area was uninhabitable between noon and sunset, and the back patio was a concrete oven.

We bought the house anyway. We had talked about putting in some kind of shade, but never actually did anything. Since we moved in, the kitchen dining area has been taken over by things that love a hot sun - namely, my plant collection and a random collection of stuff.

Here we are, two years after moving in, and we finally started addressing one problem with the house. We saved up cash (lots of it - just in case) and did a lot of research. We found pictures of what other people thought pergolas should look like. We settled on a simpler design - one that we could build ourselves. I developed the design in Google Sketchup, and probably engineered it just a little too well. I envisioned that the thing is not going to come down anytime soon.

Now, it took me two months of thinking, reading, skull-sweat and fiddling with the design before I was happy with it. I got a lot of input from My Gary, My Wife, People at work, and anyone else whom would sit still long enough for me to instruct them on what a pergola actually was. I did get a lot of good input, and some of it has actually saved us a lot of time.

We thought we had everything we needed, so we called in the cavalry. My Gary offered to bring a truck full of tools, Dad offered to come, Glen offered his services, and Mike wanted to come.

"Come one, Come All! And bring your families! We're gonna have us a Mennonite Pergola Raisin'!"

We planned the Pergola Raising to happen over Memorial Day Weekend. Somewhat appropriate, since we moved into this house over Memorial Day Weekend two years ago. We had cash, we had food, we had a cooler full of Diet Cokes, we had people coming, and we had a really large pallet of wood in the front yard. We were ready. Or so we thought...

One question that kept coming up was "Have you gotten a permit?" No, we didn't get a permit. We didn't think it needed one - We were right, but more on that later. I looked on the Roanoke County Inspection board website, looking for any clue as to whether we actually needed a permit. There are many criteria that determine whether one is required or not:
- Any Electrical work? No.
- Any excavation? No.
- Will this have a roof? Not really.
- Will this be used for the production of alcohol? You are kidding, right?
- Is the total square footage over 140 square feet? Um, Yes?

Shucks..

So, Lana grabbed the checkbook, and headed over to the Roanoke Inspector's Office. Paid the $30 bucks, and got our paperwork. This was on a Tuesday. We were assured that the inspector would be able to stop by the next day to inspect everything. We were given explicit instructions: Don't start digging until the inspector sees it. Lana was ready for the guy on Wednesday, but he never came. When I got home from work, she was fuming because he didn't show up. We called the inspector, and after several voice mails, he called us. We found out that he had spent all day in our neck of the woods, but never had us on his list. Turns out the lady who signed us up didn't quite follow through correctly. He assured us that he would be over Thursday morning.

Now, by this point we were panicking. We had people coming over to help work on Friday, but we couldn't start work until the inspector was done. I kept talking with the inspector for about an hour that night. Trying to hammer out what he was to do, what was expected of us, and what we could do about it. As he talked, my hopes for finishing the pergola were evaporating quickly. He would have to come out to inspect the land, then come back to inspect the holes, then come back again to inspect the footers for the posts, then come back one more time to inspect the posts themselves - and one final time to inspect the final structure. None of which he could do before Memorial Day Weekend.

In my mind, I was figuring that we could have people use the wood and parts to build a nice set of shelving in the garage. Not quite what we were planning, but something useful anyway.

It took some talking, but after a long discussion, the inspector had a good idea of what it was we wanted to do - and he didn't think we needed a permit. But, we had paid our money, and started the process, so he was obliged to follow it through. It was then that the inspector gave us a huge present. "If you can have the holes dug by the time I get there in the morning, and I approve of them, I'll give you the permit to build your pergola." Music to our ears. We would be able to build it - but only if we could dig six holes to his specification before sunrise.

Two foot down, and eighteen inches across. That's a big hole. And we needed six of them.

It was six o'clock pm, we had a post-hole digger, a fresh batch of sweet tea, two shovels, it was getting dark - and we were wearing sunglasses. "Dig it!"

We grabbed our tools, and started digging. We had a rough idea of where the holes would go, but no way to know for sure if it the placement was perfect. (No, it wasn't) But we dug anyway. We had to have six perfectly dug holes ready for the inspector before I left for work the next morning.

Four of the holes went quickly. Two posed quite a problem. One of them turned out to be exactly centered on the Verizon cable that runs through our backyard. Nevermind that Miss Utility marked them a foot and a half over there. Ugh. We carefully dug next to it, and did a fine job not cutting it.

The other hole required that we break through five inches of concrete patio. Not an easy task with a four pound mini-sledge, and a rock chisel. I made lots of neat little dents on the surface, but I wasn't making enough progress to finish the hole before sunrise.

We needed help. It was getting a little too dark to dig safely, and Grace was getting cranky. Bedtime. That meant that I would be out there on my own digging. Now, I don't mind hard work, but it sure makes it easier to take when you have someone to share the misery. Doing it by myself just isn't a whole lot of fun.

So we called for help.

Lana, Grace and I walked over to Todd and Cameron's house. Now, we are on friendly terms, but I'm always leery about ringing people's doorbells, and disturbing them. Lana encouraged me: "We do have people coming, and we need help." So I pushed the button.

Ten minutes later, Todd was helping me figure out a way to handle the concrete. His wife and daughter were entertaining Grace, and Lana was finishing off the holes. Thank you guys! We owe you a dinner!

We finished those holes. Lana and I stayed up until midnight digging those holes. They didn't look like much, but the inspector was happy with them. He approved our permit. We had our completed paperwork, and we were good to go.

The show could go on. We were excited!

To be continued...

Pre-Camping Adventure

First a picture of GraceMatt and I had been planning a camping trip for quite a few months now. The first one as a family of three. We have a very nice tent for two, but we were wondering how it was going to work with a little one in the mix. I had no worries about it working...till I noticed that Grace did not stay where I put her in bed, she would move, scoot, and shove her way all around the crib. That means that she would probably move, scoot, and shove her way around the tent to places that we do not want her (next to the side of the tent, against our air mattress, etc) unless we keep her contained.

Plan A. So we thought, that is alright we can just take her playpen and all will be good. That was until we set up the tent and put her playpen inside of it and realized that we would have no place to sleep because the playpen took up almost all of the tent.

Plan B. We would put her in a clothes basket. Good idea, but she is too long for that.

Plan C. We would put her in a dresser drawer. Also good idea but we did not find a big enough one and the one that we found was the exact size of the playpen...see Plan A.

Plan D. We are out of plans....

Plan E. We finally decide to give up and go and buy a new tent. Or at least see what is out there. So as I put Grace to sleep Matt whips out his iPhone and begins to search for tents. He finds a beauty at the Gander Mt. store. It was bigger, and it had everything that we thought that we wanted in a tent. So I ask, when does the store close. Matt looks at the clock and replys "14 minutes ago).... :(

The next day, the day that we would go camping, the day that we needed the tent (that we did not have yet), we went shopping. We got to the store about 10 minutes after it opened. We made a bee-line for the tents and did not see what we had found on the website, but we found two close contenders. Close but not close enough since we were standing there debating the pros and cons of each and still not liking enough to really make a decision. Finally the salesman became free and we decided to ask him about the tent we saw on the website. He stated that if we did not see it on the floor that they did not have it. Then, he paused, and said...hold on....

He walked out of the tent area only to return about two minutes later. He asked Matt to come with him (we all followed). There were four of the tents that we wanted, packed, in the corner of the store, really a place that no one would have really looked. We did not see what the tent looked like inside, we did not get to try it out, but we got it...and we are not quite sure why, but we also got it for a very large discount.

So we now have a tent that fits us all (and more if needed). We get to the campsite and begin to set it up. Pull out the instructions, the first line says...

"Make sure to set up this tent before you go camping." OOPS!

Sleep and Doctor

First, here is my styling starlet while on our father's day adventure (more on that later)
Everything in this picture just works for a up and coming star...the sun glasses, the over the shoulder look...I have a feeling that she is going to be a handful when she grows into these looks.

Ok, first sleep. Grace until about three days ago had loved to use the triangle bumpers in her crib. They cradle her against her tummy and back and keep her on her side. Well now that she has become a rolling machine (which happened about over night, no seriously it did! One day Matt and I were trying to get her to roll from back to tummy and she could not quite do it, two days later she was rolling over tummy to back, back to tummy, and over and over to get to a toy) she rolls over the triangles. So that is the end of them.
I went to check on Grace during her nap and this is what I found. She had rolled out of her triangles, onto her tummy (she is officially a tummy sleeper), and she had a leg through her crib rails. I went up about fifteen minutes later and found the other leg also through one of the crib rails! How uncomfortable, but I guess she can do what she wants as long as she is getting sleep.

Today was her six month doctor's well baby visit. She is 15 pounds (but she feels a lot heavier) which puts her in the 30th percentile of her age. She is 26 inches long which puts her in the 60th percentile of her age. And she is fine and happy in every other way too. I just have to look at the 30th and the 60th percentile and remember that it was not too long ago that she was barely in the 10th percentile of either. My girl is growing!

She had a good report at the doctor's office, we go back in three months for another well baby. And (though we have been doing this for the past few weeks) we got the go-ahead to start feeding her table food (ground up of course)! So at this moment, all is well. She is sleeping now, I wonder how the day will go when the shots kick in....

Funny Girl

At 4:00 am (yes, that is AM that I wrote) I was awoken by a noise. It was not a scary noise, or a sad noise...no, it was a very happy noise.

Grace (who should have been asleep) was squealing with delight and babbling to herself. I lay in bed listening to her for about 15 minutes. I figured if she was happy I could stay where I was for a bit longer.

Then came the other noise that made me get up to get her.

She would be happily babbling then a horrible, metal on metal SQUEAK would interrupt. Silence, babble, SQUEAK, babble, SQUEAK, babble, silence...you get the idea.

Grace had scooted herself to the edge of the crib, taken hold of the bars, and were turning them. When I went to get her, I saw that she had her eyes fixed on an object in the middle of the room...her pacifier. It was almost as if she was saying "come back, I miss you. If only I could get rid of these bars. I want you back...."

She went back to sleep (with my help). However, two hours later I awake to hear over the monitor....

BABBLE, BABBLE, SQUEAK, BABBLE, BABBLE....
At least she wakes up happy!

New Stuff In The Past Two Weeks

First, here is a picture of Grace today...So much has been happening in the past two weeks. I might not remember it all, but here is what is going on in the Daniels' household...

1. Grace got two teeth! Two weeks ago on Thursday she got one tooth, and the next day the got the other. So now she has two very tiny, very sharp bottom teeth. Bottom middle.

2. Grace is starting to learn how to crawl. She moves, but she does not crawl. She knows that it involves her legs, her arms, and lifting her belly but she has not figured out she has to do all three at once. So she moves her legs, lifts her belly, lunges forward and then scoots her arms...repeat till she gets close to the toys that are her target.

3. Matt and I for the first time went out and bought baby wipes yesterday. Grace is a few days shy of 6 months old and we have not yet had to buy baby wipes...well that was till yesterday. I feel so blessed to have so many of our friends provide for us as they have for Grace!

4. Grace is now partaking of table food. I usually choose one meal to veer away from her baby food. But for that one meal I look at what was prepared for Matt and I, then I pull out the baby food grinder and load it up with what we are eating, grind it to a consistency for Grace, then she has her meal with us. So far she has had pancakes, noodles in a beef sauce (no meat) and "tuna" noodle casserole...I put tuna in quotation marks because I served her meal up before we put the tuna in.

5. We are almost done with the building project. The pergola has been in the works for many weeks, and now it is to a point where Matt can do it all by himself. But that is new and big in this house. I hope Matt will write a blog on that soon.

That is all I can think of at this moment, I am sure that there is so much more. But those will be left for yet another post.

Grace loves....

Carrots, and sweet potatoes, and ....well, anything orange. Well, she also really likes bananas, strawberries, and pumpkin!
She also loves....
Books!
Well, who can blame her? She has a librarian as a mother, so she is surrounded by them!

I used to be different...

but now I have the same haircut as Matt and Grace!

The Hike

First, here are a few pictures of Grace's first real experience with grass...

Seems like she likes it well enough :)

A week ago Saturday Matt and I decided to have an adventure. One that we hoped would be a first of many. We wanted to go hiking. We love to hike, but we have not done it with a little one yet. So we packed up a bag (with a lot more items than we used to need) and got the backpack carrier for Grace, and headed out.
We decided to hike Buzzard Rock. It is a hike about 2-3 miles from our house and it is a 1.9 mile hike up. It is a moderate hike, nothing too crazy. But it is still beautiful and also a bit of a challenge.
This is how I saw Grace most of the trip. Made me wonder what she thought of me, the carrier, the hike, Matt's sweaty neck....we will never know. However, she must have been pretty ok with it since she did not cry or fuss.
This leisurely posed picture was taken on the way up to the top. I know this because at the top...it started to rain. And it rained, and rained, and rained. So we all donned raincoats and got to the bottom of the mountain as fast as we could.
Also on the way up we saw this 4 foot long black snake. He just looked at us then turned around and went up the mountain away from us. It was really neat to watch him.

Once the hike was over, and I must say a success even with the rain, we decided to head to Applebee's for lunch. It was a great Saturday out.

I think that we will do more hikes in the future. Especially since we have this nice carrier!