Grace vs Broom

Funny things happen while I am away (in this case, taking a shower).
I am glad that Matt documents some of these occurrences on video.

Harvest

First....


Matt and I had big plans for our garden this year. But the cute little girl above has made some of those lofty goals a bit hard to obtain.

Last year I worked in the garden almost daily. I am lucky now to get out there once a week! Our garden is over grown with weeds, and it is not tended to, and to top it all off I believe that it has become the official breeding ground for Squash bugs/Stink bugs (last year I would check all of the leaves once a week and kill all of the known bugs and squash their eggs...this year they hatched :(So needless to say anything we get out of the garden this year is a blessing. Such as all of the tomatoes above, the 30 some onions, the wonderful lettuce, the many green beans, and the cucumbers that are about to be picked.

I am glad that these plants have decided to thrive on neglect.

Second Anniversary

Here is a picture of Grace...

In our house birthdays turn into birthweeks, and anniversary day turns into anniversary month. So this is only the first half of the celebration, we have more in the plans...but here it is so far.

On July 4th we made our fancy meal that we usually do for special occasions. This time we made Coq au Vin, mushroom barley risotto, and Matt's famous chocolate cake. The food was great but preparing the meal together was the most fun. Grace is wanting to become more and more "helpful" in the kitchen (and I know that it is only going to be more so as the years go by).
After dinner we went over to our neighbor's house to see fireworks from their back yard. Eating our chocolate cake while watching fireworks, while knowing that we would not have to fight traffic at all...was wonderful!

On July 10th we hired a babysitter. The first babysitter that Grace has had that was not a family member.

They both seemed to have a good time. While Gwen was watching Grace (sleep most of the time) Matt and I went out on the town. First we went to a restaurant called Metro and had a wonderful lunch.
Then we went to the downtown farmer's market just to look around. Finally we went to the Taubman Museum of Art in downtown Roanoke. It did not have as many pieces of art as we had expected in it, but there were a few pieces that just took our breath away. Like this one:
These are spools of thread that are hanging on wires...does not look like much
Until you look through a glass globe that is positioned in front of the work. Look in the globe, what do you see? A Soup Can! Who would have thought that spools of thread could be turned into this?

A trip across the walkway that goes from downtown to the Hotel Roanoke. Then a stop at Sonic for something cold and wet. We made our way back home to find a smiling and squealing Grace playing with Gwen.

Good anniversary adventures, I am looking forward to the next one...

Camping Part 2

As always...First here is a picture of Grace.


We were at my Mom and Dad's house recently, all of the boy cousins were in the wading pool or the slip and slide. Grace could not be left out, so we filled up Mom's bowl that she makes bread in with water and it quickly turned into Grace's own hot tub!

If you read my blog, you might have read the one titled Pre-camping Adventure where I talk about buying a tent. Well, here it is...and it is wonderful! We were so happy with it, which is amazing since we were unable to see the inside or the layout of it before we bought it.

We arrived to go camping on Friday at around 4:00 pm. We set up with no rush or trouble at all. We stayed until Sunday at about 1:00. It was a great weekend. We camped in a field with three other families.
We had most of the comforts of home with us...shade, clothes line, and yes even the walker!
It was a very relaxing and good weekend. However, at times it did get quite messy (especially at meal times). Somehow we always found a body of water to go swimming in or wading in right after a meal. Great way to wash off! Grace was amazed with the running water rushing by her as she sat in the creek.
Good first experience camping. Looking forward to many, many more.

The Math of Love

8 Months (how long Matt and I dated)
+
730 Days (how long Matt and I have been married)
+
30 Minutes (about how long the marriage ceremony took)

= 1 Eternity (how long we will be together)

Happy 2nd anniversary

New Friend and New Trick

Grace has a new friend. Can you tell which is which? They both have very blond hair, big blue eyes, cute button nose, two bottom teeth. I think that the dimple is the only thing that separates them, Grace does not have a dimple. I think that it is nice that Grace has a "mini-me"

And if the video is working, you can see the new trick that Grace does. It is cute and funny, till we try to feed her and she decides it is time to practice her new trick. Raspberries!

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...