Box Town

My kids are so high maintenance…

Throw a bunch of random empty boxes in the yard and they’ll have a blast.

For about 20 minutes, then I have to clean them all up.

– b

Daredevil

Like it’s any surprise.

Though it was cute watching her get all excited and run from the garage to show me her new trick.

– b

The Deck

A picture of the deck – with the stain – and the new sectional and cushions.

It’s nice.

The stain (a different stain) for the rails should be in soon.

We’re also working out the lighting and possible “heating” for the cooler evenings.

– b

New Gym

Left PRG and started going to another gym. Mostly because of cost, but also because the new gym lets us do this.

And this

Then on top of that, they built this.

Sure it’s just a tower from the front, but it’s close enough to the wall behind it to stem between them all the way up – on lead!

Good times ahead.

– b

Multi-Pitch

Went climbing with Craig last Friday at Birdsboro.

After a couple of warm ups we decided to do both pitches of Virgin Suicides. It’s a giant slab about 120′ tall. The first pitch is roughly 90′. The second pitch makes up the difference.

I was tired after a long week of work and it was harder than I had remembered, but I made it to the top of the first pitch without much incident.

Craig then followed. The route itself is a little out of his league, but he soldiered on even after pulling off a handful of rocks nearly 3/4 of the way up.

The second pitch was harder and I was more tired, but I too pushed myself to continue.

When it was Craig’s turn, he actually fell on his attempt. It was his first fall while following on a climb. It was the first time he had to rely entirely on an anchor, though honestly following and falling on a sport climb with bolted anchors isn’t much different than falling while on top rope on a sport climb. Either way he got back on track and continued without further incident, which is important when you’ve just recovered from a fall 100′ off the ground.

We rappelled down safely and called it a day.

– b

Work and Play

My parents came up this past weekend to help with some work and head to the Tap Room for crabs (another post) on Sunday.

The job this weekend was the pool shed. It was in desperate need of repair.

We decided to throw on some new T1-11 and trim it out.

While my mother and Jen trimmed some hedges and hung out with the girls

The inside was also a complete mess. Most everything had been overrun by mice. We’ll probably end up throwing out a lot of the old pool furniture we had stored in there.

We managed to get two sides (of the planned 3) and the door done by 10pm Sunday night.

I’ll have to finish the rest over Labor Day weekend.

Of course the next question is “when will you replace the roof?”

– b

First Day of School

Girls started school last week.

Abigail started kindergarten (5 (half) days a week) and Lauren is in pre-school (2 (half) days a week). Since it’s a Montessori school, they’re actually together most of the time or at least have the opportunity to choose to be or not.

So far so good.

Spanish starts 1 day a week for both of them next week. I’m sure things will get a little hairy then, but will settle out soon enough.

– b

Another Busy Weekend

Friday night Jen and I went out with some friends to the Birchrunville Cafe. That was nice. The girls spent the night with Grandma.

Saturday I worked all day while Jen and the girls spent the afternoon at the township community fair. They got to ride horses, jump in the bounce house, and other generally fun things.

Saturday night Jen and I went to Craig’s for a fish fry, while the girls spent the evening again with Grandma at a pig roast in her neighborhood.

Today was yard work day.

The pool float rope came in, so I tried to hook that up.

It doesn’t “hook up” at all like you think it would. I probably have the wrong hooks or something. What’s worse instead of giving the girls a boundary by which they could figure out where to stay put in the pool while I worked, they decided, regardless of what I said, it meant it was now safe for them to swim (i.e. drown themselves) without floats. I fixed that by making them get out, and not re-enter the pool until they had a noodle or kick board.

Everything’s a boundary to be pushed…

I did manage to finish the last of the “loose” trex.

It’s true. It doesn’t look like I got much more done than I had last week. I think there were only 6 boards left, but they’re done. We’re 7 boards short, so we’ll order them and finish it up.

Both girls start school this week. It’s very limited hours, but we will have to get things moving in the mornings.

oh boy.

– b

Pitiful Month

Last week of the month and only 8 posts for the entire month.

What can I say. The job is getting tougher.

When there’s enough work to spend Saturday doing it, you know there is little to no time anywhere else.

Can’t say it will get better, but I sure hope it does.

– b

OCD Love

– b