Car Wash

The kids washed my car last week and did a pretty good job. Here's John making sure the last of the road salt is washed off from under the car while Sarah cleans the tires. Up in the far left you can see Janine rinsing the front of the car.

This was entirely their idea. It was a nice sunny day as you can see. They were inspired, got out the bucket, sponges, car wash soap and went to town.

It was sunny for the next few days, quite a change from the cold and cloudy weather we have today.

Next time, we introduce the concept of wax!

Long Shadows

John took this picture just a hour or so ago. It's that time of year when the shadows are long late in the day. We haven't been able to see any shadows this past few weeks with cold and cloudy weather. But that all changed in the past two days.

Tonight, all five of us took a walk together. It was great to get out in the fresh air with the sun shining.

John said that he had wanted to take a picture of his shadow for a while and tonight he got his chance.

Sports Works

Now it's motion photos from last Friday's trip to the Sports section of the Science museum. Mommy was completing our taxes so I took the kids out for the afternoon. The weather had been terrible for over a week so we all needed to work off some energy. For all of these reasons, the Sports Works was a much better choice than the science museum. It was almost empty to boot.

Here's Janine in the top photo on the trampoline trapeze. All three of them got on it at one time or another. It's quite a contraption, a large trampoline with a harness structure on each side. This structure holds the bungee cords that the attendants choose carefully to match the child's weight, or at least they want the watching parents to think so. As you can see that harness means business.

In the second photo Sarah and Janine are running a race against a video of Jackie Joyner- Kersee. Gosh, Jackie seems to win every time! Actually she give a lesson on how to get out of the starting blocks properly and which leg to use to push off to get a fast start. The girls ran this one about twice and got tired of it. John watched Jackie a couple of times then ran several times throughout the afternoon.

It was great to work off the extra energy and thankfully Mommy was done with taxes when we got home.

It's All About the Food

While we were eating today a baseball game took place in front of us.

Yesterday a friend gave me four tickets to today's afternoon game. So, we went to the ball game, while Mommy stayed at home to do taxes. But as every parent knows, it's not about baseball, it's all about food. From the hot dogs we had for lunch when we arrived to the cotton candy, nachos, peanuts, and ice cream there wasn't much that Sarah, John and Janine missed.

I made the mistake of buying an Italian sausage for myself. The portions were so large that the kids didn't finish their hot dogs, nachos, etc. so Dad got to eat the rest. Yummy.

Here's Janine and the mascot. She got a hug from him after he danced on the roof of the dugout. Our seats were incredible. We sat straight up from third base 15 rows off the field. We also got the see a triple and two double plays, both of which I had to explain to the kids. I saved the five bucks for a scorecard because I knew that it would be hard to concentrate on the game. Next time I might try however.

Finally, there was the weather. It was overcast and 45 at game time. Everyone was working to stay warm, including the security people. We left when it started to rain in the top of the eighth. We listened to the rest of the game on the radio in the car. The Pirates lost in the top of the ninth, but the other 9900 souls who braved the weather had fun, especially the four of us.

Vintage Audio

Here's a photo of my latest project, shelves for my office stereo system. I used the leftovers from our old massive IKEA home entertainment center. I "downsized" it with a circular saw last year eliminating the stereo shelves. (Now we use it just for the TV and DVD player.) The left upright is a new piece of laminated pine from Lowe's that I finished to resemble the other shelves.

Yes that is a turntable on top. The newest piece in this stack is the black CD player which we bought in 1992. The oldest is the turntable which dates from 1978. It has been in storage for almost 18 years! Unfortuneately the damping mechanism on the tone arm is stuck so it needs to go into the shop. Naturally it was the item I was most looking forward to using.

The CD player and tape deck still work, but both have suffered from kids' use. But they are made to be used and appreciated, not encased and forgotten.

Right now I am listening to the local classical music station. Reception has been spotty, but better once I adjusted the powered antenna you see to the left of the turntable.

Overall it's great to be able to listen to music in my office and have these items working again.

Spring is Here

Spring is here and Janine got on her bike this past week. As you can see she's about to outgrow it. I think it's time to get working on learning to ride without the training wheels. The nice thing is that Sarah's old bike is a Trek, so it's well built and in great shape.

Now if we can get the rain to stop for an hour or so...