Visitors! Yay!

Kara and my Mom were here last weekend.  We stopped at the Children's Museum in Seattle after I picked them up from the airport.

Good 'peek a boo' log

Ryker loved this sweet ride

Ryker had fun at this place.  Everything was nice and soft.

He was good about sitting down on the slide the first few times.  Then a couple big kids showed him how to run down it.  He made it to the bottom, but a little boy was sitting at the bottom of the slide and Ryker fell over him.  We moved on to the next area after that.

Picasso-ing it up.

Kara with the 30 pounder she caught.

All three smiling!

We went to the Edison school playground and it was a soggy mess so the next day we were smart and went to the mall.  We got there early, but it filled up fast.

Kara must have this one memorized.  She's not even looking at the words.

Loves Go Dog Go, but he calls it Go Go.

Slumber party in the tent

We covered the door with a blanket, but Grandma found a side door and outsmarted us.

Ryker just barreled out the front.

Kara hanging with the boys.

Ryker insisted that Kara talk into the watering can while reading him a book.

When she would take it out, he would shove it back in.  Aahh, good times.

I like to move it, move it

Ryker decided the couch needed to be taken apart.  He tried to coax me into helping him by lifting up the cushions, pointing at them, then pointing at the ground.  When I didn't help him, he took matters into his own hands.  It is really funny to watch him move heavy things.

He struggled with this one for a while.

Ahh, sweet victory!

"See Mom, you should have helped.  I did it anyway."

He got two new trucks for Christmas.  He likes to put one in the other and push them around.

I guess these two cars were making it a little heavy.  He ditched them in the kitchen.

Back outside to mess with Dad's stuff!

"Hey, you dogs want any of this line I found?"

House Update: Slow and Steady

We had a huge rain that reaked havoc on our hard.  The trenches for our geothermal coils settled and this forklift settled in with them.  Needless to say, we have some ruts now.

Seth doing some sanding on the exterior beams.  This picture was taken in early November.  He had all the outdoor beams sanded and put 3 coats of finish on them before we went to MT for Thanksgiving.

This is all the excess material we had from building.  We just started the fire.  It's pretty incredible how this thing went together with so little waste.

Our long awaited roof.  Finally!  We were relieved that it was all finished when we returned after Thanksgiving.  Most people are shocked that we chose red because the roof of our shop is green.  That was my fault because I didn't think that part through to the end.  I may have made the same choice though, I'm not sure.  I don't think I would have wanted green window and who wants white when you could choose a color?  I chose cinnamon toast windows, then when it came time to discuss the roof we thought it was more important to match the house to itself than to match the roof to our shop roof.  It is a bit brighter of a red than we expected.  The sample was darker and matched our window color better.  Either way, I love it and once we get our board and batton cedar siding up, it is going to be fabuous!

Our back door is finally in too.  It arrived with a jamb issue, so we had to wait for another.

Seth sanding our railing to go in tomorrow.  Notice all the dots on the picture, that was as clear as I could get it, with all the junk floating in the air.  The flash was lighting up all the particles floating by.  Seth has Ryker all week while I'm at work, then he works his butt off every weekend.  He has been working on his net, the boat, or our house (mostly our house) every second of his spare time.  It is so bad that right now he's missing the AFC championship.  Missing football?  That's unheard of!  We'll see if he quits early for the NFC. 

New trench for our electical.  I'm sure that was a fun day for him.  He likes to use the backhoe.  Ryker loves to ride along. 

Ryker insisted on helping me crush the peanuts for our peanut crusted halibut.

It kept him busy for quite a while while I got the rest of our dinner ready.

Squish it anyway you can.

Whoopie! He loves this thing, but I sure wish he could blow it up himself.  He brings it to me every 30 seconds to blow up.  I found it hidden on top of the closet one day so apparently Seth is sick of blowing it up too!

Time for his second haircut. Right before Christmas, his hair was long again.  I think we're going to be on a monthly haircutting schedule now, unless we want him to have a fro.

We tried to use Seth's beard trimmer.  It didn't work that well so we have real clippers now.

I learned that Seth does not own a comb.  In the 11 years I've known him, I've never seen him use a comb, but I guess I just thought somewhere in the depths of some old shaving bag, he at least had one.....nope.  Using my big toothed comb didn't work all that well.

A little rough, but "good enough for a town this size." ~rjz
 

Ryker and Asa at Christmas.

Opening his sweet truck from Tara and Daniel.