Project #1: Carpet

After nine years and five kids in this house,

we finally re-carpeted some of the rooms.

We put the new carpet in the living room,

den, up two sets of stairs and

the hallway that connects them.

Heidi and I took out the old carpet and padding,

and took up all the staples to prepare the floors

for the installation of the new carpet.

The Good:

A picture of the stairs with the new carpet.

The Bad:

Here are the same stairs with all the carpet

and padding stripped off.

and

The Ugly:

The stairway with the ugly green carpet

that was installed when the house was new.

As you can see, the carpet is faded and well worn.

This is the living room.

The carpet is in the same condition in the den.

Heidi is taking up the pad in the living room.

The carpet was installed for only a dollar. But we

had to do all the preparation work of taking out

the old carpet and pad. We also had to take out

all the remaining staples.

After getting out all the leftover staples,

we had to make sure the floors were clean

and free of any debris.

Here is the upstairs hallway before we began any work.

The upstairs hallway after we got all

the carpet and padding up.

If you look at the window in this picture

you can see that it is now dark.

We started around dinner time

and finished about 10 p.m.

We had a few breaks also.

It actually was easier and quicker than I thought.

Although, the stairs were the toughest part.

Here is the upstairs hallway after the

installers laid down the padding.

The two installers cut out the new carpet

in the road in front of the house,

then they rolled it up and brought it in.

They cut it as one piece for the whole hallway.

Here in the hallway they unrolled the new carpet

and got it ready to install.

They took all the doors off their hinges

to make it easier to install the carpet.

And all finished.

There were two installers, one with 20 years

of experience, and the other with 30 years.

It took these guys only three hours to finish.

Here is a picture of the hallway and second set of stairs

with only the new padding installed. They used the

original tack strips and only put new ones in

where ever they were needed.

Here is a picture of the den with

the new carpet installed.

Here is a view of the den with everything

put back in place.

The finished living room with

all the furniture moved back in

and the pictures back on the walls.

Another angle of the living room.

We think the carpet goes real well

with the hardwood floor in the entry.

Look! I found a quarter!

I put the coin in the picture of

the carpet to show scale.

So, sometime in the future, we will repaint

& re-paper, and with any luck

replace the furniture.

Play Ball, High School Level

Katie plays softball now for the JV team

at her high school.

Posing at the backstop after

a recent game.

Katie at bat.

On base.

This year, the coach has her playing center field.

She would like to go back to playing

in the infield.

Yeah, a battle wound.

This one is from sliding.

Katie loves to steal bases,

and slide.

As Katie would say,

'Hurts so good.'

The End.

Three Days Older Than Dirt (again)

April 12 was my 53rd birthday, and Heidi, Katie and I

celebrated it quietly at home on the evening before.

Here are a few pictures of the event.

Yep, 53. No I can't believe it either.

Heidi made me a pineapple upside-down cake.

Yum! It was very good.

The obligatory goofy shot.

Yeah, right...

I don't even remember 35.

Blowing out the candles.

Good thing there were only these two,

I probably couldn't blow out 53 of 'em.

I got an iPod Nano from Heidi. That was

unexpected and really surprised me.

All the kids got together (including Brian, on his mission)

and gave me a blog book. It is a hard-copy book of our Menasco

blog from February 2008 through February 2010.

It also contains some of the kids blogs during the same time.

All the kids wrote letters to me and they all appear in

the beginning of the book.

(Yes, I did cry when I unwrapped it.)

Shelly took countless hours to put it all together,

even stealing all my back-up CD's of my picture library.

She had Katie help her steal some photos for her.

Katie doesn't lie too well, and when confronted by me about

what she was doing, she had to squirm her way out of the ordeal.

Thanks to all you guys for this gift, I will always treasure it.

And thanks especially to Shelly for all the work it took

to put this project together.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Birthday Party, Take II

I teach the younger kids at church again this year.

I am teaching seven-year-olds now and it is the same

class I taught when they were five.

Anyway, I have been teaching for around six years here in

Delaware, and I give my kids a birthday card and chocolate bar

for their birthday. Whenever they ask me how old I am I tell

them that I am 'three days older than dirt.'

So one of the girls named Briley, showed up with

her family and friends and gave me a 'dirt cake'

complete with gummy worms crawling out.

That was surprising and we all had a good time

eating 'dirt' and 'worms' and vanilla ice cream.

That's Briley and me posing for the picture.

Her older sister is behind us.