Tickle Wars: Mom vs Boys

The boys were supposed to be getting ready for bed when I hear this commotion and came to investigate.  I was slightly surprised at the scene which lay before me!  There were my boys attacking their poor defenseless mother.  Actually, I discovered that she's not defenseless and she launched a significant counter-offensive in this tickle war leaving the boys on the verge of  tears before going to bed.

If you watch the video you'll notice that Michael is absent.  He was not edited out.  He was simple a neutral bystander in this confrontation (he finally got his chance to play the Leapster and wasn't going to sacrifice his time for an opportunity to join a losing cause).

(video)

There is a strong possibility of an imminent attack and our sources tell us that we should be prepared!

Kangaroo Zoo is Family Fun

Michelle wanted to take our family to the Kangaroo Zoo.  It is one of those places with the super sized inflatable toys.  We've taken our boys to places where these big slides are part of the party but never to an entire arena full of inflatable fun.  Our boys went crazy, non-stop running.  Even for our boys that was pretty impressive. 

The boys were getting all the sliding their little hearts could handle but it was great to see when the older brothers would help the younger brothers to enjoy the larger slides.  David was especially good to watch out and help his younger brother Quinten to have fun on the various slides.

(video)

We had a lot of fun but were only able to capture a little bit of it on film.  But it is enough of a taste of the action to remember just how much fun we had.  We would love to go back and have another day of fun at the Kangaroo Zoo.

(Posted 1/23/12)

David Goes to General Conference

My boys have done a fantastic job of watching conference this weekend.  David and Donovan watched all 4 regular sessions of conference.  Michael and Aleky made it through 3 1/2 sessions, which isn't bad for that age group.  I was excited to take David to his first live session of conference now that he's 8 years old, the minimum age for attendance at this semi-annual event.

David has been complaining about "having to go" to conference.  But once we were on our way he was humming a different tune.  From the moment we hit Salt Lake City he was non-stop jabbering about everything he saw.  It was great to see his excitement finally bubbling forth. 

We had seats on the balcony but they were right in the middle of the conference center so it was a perfect position.  David was admiring everything from the TV cameras and monitors to the organ and the general authorities seated on the stand.  I finally had to remind him that conference was like church and we had to be reverent while the Apostles were talking. 

David took a page of notes in his journal from the things that the general authorities said.  He was very proud of having so much to record in his journal.  I'm very proud of him.  He asked me, as the closing song was being sung, "Daddy, thank you for bringing me to conference.  Can we come back for next conference?"  I'm pretty sure we can work something out for a kid who is this excited about attending conference.

(pictures from my camera phone)

Labor Day 2011

I have had a wonderful day today with my family.  We went camping this weekend and had a marvelous time with Grandma and Grandpa Petersen and Uncle Kyle up near Hourglass lake.  We decided to come home early and spend today unpacking and preparing for the coming week without making Michelle have to do all of the work.

This morning Donovan woke us up at 7:45 am! Holy Cow...I haven't been able to sleep in that late in a long time.  We got up and simply had some cold cereal so we could get going for the day.  We had our scripture reading after breakfast, a little break in tradition but not completely disruptive to the harmony of our home.  After breakfast we finished getting dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed, etc.

We had a brief family council and talked about helping to do chores because we had just had a fun vacation/camping trip to the mountains with lots of fun activities.  We all pitched in and started with putting camping gear away and sorting a huge pile of laundry.  Once the laundry was sorted and the first load in the washer we hit some of the other chores around the house.  David mowed the lawn, Donovan washed windows and a few other chores.  Michael, Aleky and Quinten were done helping with chores and were content to play.

I started loading pictures to this blog and deleting unneeded files to clear space for the camping trip photos and videos that we took this weekend.  While this activity is time consuming I don't have a lot to show for it yet, but it's coming.  (For those of you who follow this blog I would recommend an RSS feed or you'll miss most of the post that will be coming!)  Donovan played on the computer and David and Michael were exited to watch.

We took a break from the computer to have a family movie with carmel popcorn.  David read "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and we promised to watched the movie together.  Michelle and I made the popcorn and the arranged the living room into a theater.  We enjoyed the movie together.

Michelle surprised me with a cheese ball for my birthday which she must have made while I was down working on the computer.  She slipped out during the movie with Gidean and never returned!  Once again she surprised me with one of my favorite cakes!  She managed to get two great tasty morsels created without me knowing, until the very end.  What a wonderful sweetheart to do that for me.

Now the kids are in bed I thought I would get something posted to show for all the time spent on the computer today.  Again, make sure you have an RSS feed if you're interested in the various adventures of our family spanning much of this summer!

Reroofing Our House (Day 5)

Complete at last!!!  Today we finished up the last few minor details including the wishing well.  The dumpster was hauled off too.  We can finally sleep peacefully when it rains.  We still need to collect our rain collectors from the attic since they will no longer be needed! Hurray!

We want to than the Bonneville 5th Ward for all of your help this week to complete this badly needed and overdue home repair.  There is no way we could have done this without you.  THANK YOU!

(posted 10/31/11)

Reroofing Our House (Day 4)

We are finally nearing the end of the project!  Laying down the shingles is the quickest part of the process.  We start today with the front nearing completion and the back partially done.

These are the dedicated and stalwart neighbors who were there to the bitter end.  The little details sure take a lot of thought and effort to complete.  However, using the nail guns can be fun...and addicting.  We had fun rotating and shooting the nails as we got the shingles down.

(posted 10/31/11)

Reroofing Our House (Day 3)

We started off the day with the paper on the front of the house and all of the back to go.  At least the shingles were already here so we didn't have to wait to get started.  Since this was the third day of the project we did have a super start but there were a few faithful saints who gathered to keep things moving forward.

The relief society took care of water and refreshments.  They had some awesome sandwiches for lunch.  During the heat of the day we have everyone come off the roof.  It was just too hot to ask anyone to work up there.

While the rain kept threatening, the prayers of the faithful kept all but a few drops from landing on our house.  It was as if Heavenly Father was letting us know he would not destroy our house by rain.

(posted 10/31/11)

Reroofing Our House (Day 2)

Today started with another beautiful blue sky and a bare roof, at least in the front.  We have the front sheeted and the back has just a little bit of clean up and shingle removal left before we can get it sheeted.

We haven't had the number of workers today like we had yesterday.  Since we're not removing shingles it has worked out okay.  Our shingles and other roofing supplies showed up before we were expecting them.  (When we went to order the shingles we were told that they would not be delivered before Wednesday afternoon and they wouldn't be delivered until they were paid in full.)  To our surprise, the shingle delivery truck showed up at 11:00 am and started dropping shingles and supplies up on the partially sheeted roof!

Needless to say, I was a little disappointed that things hadn't worked out quite like I had anticipated.  In fact, I hadn't paid for them on purpose, so they wouldn't be delivered just yet.  Oh well, I guess we just do the best we can.

With the roof cleared in back we were able to start sheeting the back side of the roof.  We did run into some problems as we were trying to figure out how to work around the working swamp cooler.  Our idea was to remove the swamp cooler in the morning while it was cool, sheet around it and the replace it before it got too hot.  It sounds reasonable especially since we still haven't cleaned out the five layers of shingles it's attached too.  However, we haven't made it that far today so we'll figure it out tomorrow.

Reroofing Our House (Day 1)

We are lucky enough to have been chosen as our ward's service project for this year.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing but we certainly can use the help.  Our roof has been leaking ever since we bought our home.  This spring was exceptionally wet, setting and breaking records.  I think our hometeacher felt bad when he discovered that during these times of excessive rain our roof turned into an opened faucet inside our house.  In order to stem the waterfall we had large buckets strategically positioned to catch these flowing torrents of rain.

Upon discovering our plight, our hometeacher took the news to the Bishop and the wheels were set in motion.  Essentially, the ward agreed to provide the manpower, expertise and tools and we provide the materials.  With a little help from our experienced High Priests, we were able to find a pretty good deal on roofing supplies.  In fact, Brother Andersen helped us estimate the size of our roof and how much we needed in supplies so we could just go shopping for the needed items.

Here we are, Day 1!  We have the old white leaky roof and the first workers are already on the scene.  We have the dumpster positioned for shingle collection and we're ready to go.  Brother Andersen showed up at 8:00 am to supervise this first stage of the process, stripping the old shingles off the roof.

We started in the North East corner of the house, the gable over our bedroom.  We were not trying to save shingles but we started carefully in the corner to try and determine just how many layers of shingles were on the roof.  We had received roof bids earlier this summer and one contractor offered to to a "roof over" job.  But, as everyone knows, you can't have more than three layers of shingles on your roof and I was pretty sure we had at least three layers already.

As more workers showed up we tried to count the layers as we went.  At this point we're pretty confident that there were at least FIVE layers of shingles.  How could this be, you may ask...?  There were three layers of shingles.  But under those three layers we found two more layers.  It appears that after the first two layers of asphalt shingles had been laid, someone laid tar paper and a new drip edge and started the first of three layer additional layers.  So, to the casual observer, there were only three layers.  But in stripping the roof we clearly went through 5 layers of shingles.

Five layers poses a real problem to the work.  First, it was taking us longer than expected to get the shingles off.  Second, our dumpster was only supposed to fit up to two layers of shingles for a roof our size.  Third, not related to shingles, we were working in a record breaking heat wave!  Our ward must really love us to go through the efforts during a heat wave!

With everyone working so hard our kids were left to fend for themselves.  Fortunately school has started (half-days) so David and Donovan are distracted by their education.  But the younger children were supposed to stay in the backyard, or (even better) in the basement.  Obviously, Quinten decided to play a supervisory roll at one point this afternoon.

Although it has been nothing but clear blue skies, it was decided that we start getting the roof resheeted.  The roof was originally done with 1x6 slats, most likely for wood shake shingles.  However, the sheeting has never been upgraded, part of the contributing problem with the roof leaks.  Once the front of the house was cleared we immediately started the sheeting process.

A small crew worked in front and the rest worked in back clearing the rest of the shingles off the roof.  We had removed all of the rain gutters from the front of the house but the back rain gutter is a seamless gutter.  Because of its length it had not been removed and we noticed this little problem about the time the shingles were starting to pour off the roof.  We immediately went to work with four guys to support the rain gutter (three to hold, one to release/remove).  The rain gutter came down quickly and we were back in business removing five layers of old shingles.

This is the mess we were able to avoid by throwing the shingles directly into the dumpster in the front.  Carrying the shingles to the dumpster from the back wasn't a realistic option.

At the end of the day we nearly had the entire roof cleared!  That was a lot of hard, hot work but we made some amazing progress.

We just have the North West corner of the house, over the boys bedroom, left to clear.  We still have the sheeting to complete before we can start putting the new shingles on the roof.  Tomorrow we should be able to get the roof sheeted and papered in preparation to start shingles on Thursday.

Uncle Kyle Graduates

We're proud to say the Uncle Kyle has graduated from BYU.  We're especially excited for Uncle Kyle because he has been a frequent dinner guest in our home these past few years.  Our boys have looked forward to those dinners with Uncle Kyle.  He even has a place at the head of the table reserved just for him.  Now that he is graduated and has a real job we won't get to have him around for dinners anymore.

Congratulations Uncle Kyle!  We're proud of your accomplishment and wish you the best as you move forward with life.  And we'll miss having you around as our frequent dinner guest.