Vacation Part 1

Our vacation didn't start out great because we missed our flight :(.  Luckily, we had Finding Nemo on my computer to keep the boys occupied as we waited patiently to see if we could get on the next stand-by flight.  We made stand-by just barely!  I'm so glad because the boys were very excited to be going to see Nana and Papa and if we didn't make this flight we would have had to wait for two days until the next available flight.  Plus, all of our luggage made our first flight.  The very nice flight attendant was able to move people around so that we all got to sit together.  The flight was a short and pretty uneventful flight!  Anderson even said that he was not scared (he recently flew with Christopher and wanted Christopher to put the plane down.  I think a small plane was a bit much for him!).

One of the first things on our agenda was to go fishing!  Nathan has been dying to go fishing.  Papa got all of the fishing gear and we headed out to the Millpond.  On the first try Nathan got a bite and as we were reeling in the fish it got away :(.  We kept on trying and did get one more bite, but the fish kept escaping.  Like Papa said, "the fish were teasing us."  Anderson also got to try his hand at fishing.  We plan on going back in the early morning or early evening when people are not on the Millpond and it will be easier to catch a fish!

We went swimming at the Millpond.  Nathan has been trying really hard to wink with one eye and this is him attempting to do so :).  The water was a bit chilly, but after you are in it for a little bit it doesn't feel bad.  The weather is supposed to be in the 90s, so I am sure that the water will feel great!

While we were at the Millpond a young boy caught the above fish with his hands and then let it go.  Then a dad saw this and he caught the fish and showed his kids.  While the guy was holding the fish Nathan said that he wanted to hold the fish.  The guy told him that if he caught the fish he could hold it.  He let the fish go right in front of Nathan and since the fish was a bit traumatized from all of the holding it was not hard to catch.  It was like Nathan found his best friend!  He didn't want to let the fish go and he kept bringing him above water, which I told him not to do.  There was no talking Nathan into letting the fish go.  I kept explaining that the fish needed to go back to his home and if we held him too long he would die.  I also said that I had no way of keeping the fish because we didn't bring a bucket.  I also told him that if we kept the fish it would die a slow death.  I imagine that when you are fishing there is a way to kill the fish right away so that they don't suffer a long horrible death?  Anyway, I finally got him to let the fish go and at first the fish was not swimming and kept floating on his back.  I thought for sure he was going to be a goner!  Then he started swimming.  Nathan followed him around and then the fish went into the deep end and that is when Nathan lost it.  He started crying and crying.  It was the worst thing that could have happened to him at that moment.  He continued to cry for about 45 minutes.  While he was crying it was time to leave and he wouldn't leave with me.  My dad had come to get us and Nathan was kicking and hitting when we tried to get him into the car.  I understand how heart broken he was, but since he was not being nice and listening he lost the privilege to go back to the Millpond later that day or the next to go fishing or swimming :(.

Yesterday we headed up to the Sand Pond with our friends Jessica and Jamison.  I was hoping that this pond would be fish free, but I wasn't so lucky.  We got there and the boys get in and there are little fish everywhere and tadpoles!  The tadpoles/frogs were very easy to catch and this is one that Nathan caught.  I think that he held this frog for almost the whole time we were there!  It is a little crazy because the frog part looks like it is a developed frog, but it still has a long tadpole tail.  I thought that this frog was also going to die at the hands of Nathan because he didn't seem to move when Nathan would put him down.  He eventually went on his way, so I think all is good.  There were some older boys there and they had nets that they would share with Nathan.  Nathan was having so much fun trying to catch fish and the tadpoles.  He wanted to keep these too, but again I said that I didn't have a way to keep them and they should stay in their home.  All of these trips makes me realize that I need to go buy the following:

-Nets (plural because Nathan doesn't like to share with Anderson and Anderson wants to participate)

-Bucket

-Goggles for Nathan

-Rafts.  While out I realized that it would be so nice to have a raft to float on

-Pool noodles (2)

-Maybe a life jacket for Anderson?  He doesn't know how to swim, so it might be nice to have him wear one if wanted to venture out further into the pond.

We are having a great time so far!  We went to the community dinner on Wednesday night, which was a lot of fun.  Nathan got to have his favorite dinner of pizza!  We got ice-cream last night and I think that I will probably gain a few pounds on this trip!  Nathan and I have gone bike riding.  There are some hawk like birds that have a nest in one of the trees above my parents house, so the ground has been littered with feathers that are very cool looking.  The boys go out every day and collect the feathers.  That is it for now.  We plan on doing lots more before we leave!

-Heather

Pirates!

The treehouse needed one last thing...

Treehouse

When I was little, we had a tree house we could play in.  It was a fantastic place to hang out for long stretches, and provided an excellent foundation for countless games of imagination.  I'm pretty sure it was mostly a space ship, but it was probably also a pirate ship, a submarine and who knows how many other things.

The yard where we live now doesn't have any decent sized trees.  None of them are big enough to climb, let alone support a tree house.  Since we're also raising two young boys (2.5yrs and 5yrs), something had to be done.  After thinking about it for a while, I decided to get some redwood and build an elevated platform NEXT to a tree (so technically it's not a treehouse but it's pretty close!)  If I kept it at or under 64 square feet, I wouldn't have to get a permit for it - but it HAD to be big enough for the boys and I to camp out occasionally, so I figured 8'x8' would do it.   I made a very rough sketch of the vague plan so I would minimize any mistakes (in years past I would tackle something like this without writing down a thing, and I ALWAYS ended up cutting a critical piece a few inches short!)

I started out by digging two post-holes a little less than eight feet apart, and about a foot from the back wall.  I dropped in the posts, rigged them plumb and poured in cement.  After they set, I took some measurements and started digging the next set of holes.  As luck would have it, I dug straight into a buried sprinkler pipe (and of course broke the pipe with the post-hole digger).  Then I got to spend some time digging out enough space around the pipe to repair it.

Because of the sprinkler pipe I had to move the second set of posts closer than planned to the first two - only four feet apart instead of the five I had planned.  It still seemed like it should be sufficiently sturdy, so I wasn't too worried.  I nudged the next two posts into position so they were more or less square, then cemented those in as well.

The next weekend I added two 2x6 beams on each post, and then 2x6's across the front and back, finishing the base of the platform.  Everything still measured square and was coming together nicely.  Joists were added, then corner braces.  After that, it was time to put the decking down.

Of course any decent treehouse needs a hatch for entry, so as I was putting down the 1x6 flooring, I cut four planks even with the joist.

After I had half the floor nailed down, and the rest of the planks up on the frame ready to be lined up and nailed, the work site was deemed "safe" for early trials.  The boys carefully joined me, and helped.  They both had a chance to shoot a few nails with the nail gun :)

I added the last posts and started the railings, then got to work on the hatch and finishing off the railings by adding 3/4" square uprights.

After the hatch, I built the stairs from two 12' 2x6's, and was done!  (For about a day...)

I thought it looked pretty good, but it didn't look like a house.  It also only had shade over half the platform, so on a hot summer day it was unlikely to see much use.  I also expected to spend a lot of time here on my work from home days, so it was going to need some shade.

The addition of about 40' of 1" PVC and a sail shade we had left over from a previous incarnation of our back yard solved the problem.  It's probably not sturdy enough to stand up to the santa anas we get, but luckily it can be easily removed in the event of heavy weather.

So far the boys have only sustained one injury.  Anderson was climbing up or down when I had the aluminum ladder there, and managed to get down to the ground without using his hands.  Or his feet.  Mostly he just used his head :(  But he was none the worse for wear the next day, and it hasn't deterred him at all - hopefully it's just made him a tiny bit more careful on the ladder!

It's already a popular choice for reading stories, and they're both pros at getting up and down and opening and closing the hatch.  We're looking forward to spending a lot of time up there in the years to come - I'm especially excited to see them having new adventures up there on their own just like I did when I was growing up!

(All the pictures are here)

Nathan's Five Year Stats

Nathan had his five year doctor appointment & I think this was one of the easier appointments with him!  He had a hearing test & passed with flying colors.  Then he had a vision test, which he didn't care for too much.  At one point he started making up shapes (he was looking at a shape chart).  His vision is 20/30, but it could be better since we don't know for sure if he could or could not see some shapes.  For the first time he got to wear a hospital gown for his appointment which he liked.  

Here are his stats:

Height: 42.5" - 37%

Weight: 44 lbs 8 oz - 72%

For his height he is normally in the 25% range, so it is nice to see this percentage go up.  Even though he is at 72% for weight he has leveled off and he wouldn't technically be called overweight; in years past his BMI would put him at being overweight even though he didn't look like it!

Holy Piñata!

Nathan's birthday is coming up and he wanted a piñata. Trying to find one that fits into the reptile theme is a little hard.  I had found a tutorial for a spider pinata from Oh Happy Day and was thinking about doing that, but it didn't quite fit my reptile theme for Nathan's birthday party.  I was then scrolling through the awesome pinatas featured on Oh Happy Day and came across this Alligator Pinata.  This was PERFECT!  I read the instructions and it didn't seem that hard to do.  It also helped that we just made a trip to Ikea and bought some shelves, so I had the perfect cardboard box to make the pinata.

Assembling the cardboard part was really easy and took no time at all.  The next part, the fringe, was where I experienced the challenge!  First, I didn't get the kind of crepe paper she recommends.  I just used green tissue paper that I found on sale.  It would have to work for me.  Cutting fringe takes A. LONG. TIME!  Luckily, I had my super birthday helper that wanted to cut the fringe.

This pinata took a lot longer to make than I thought it was going to take.  The fringe alone was a half day project.  And by half day I was really working on it the whole time with little breaks.  I think that it was all worth it because the finished product looked awesome!  

It looked even more awesome in person

Watch out for those teeth!

Since I've never made a pinata before I didn't know how this one would hold up.  I figured that it would do okay since it was cardboard, but I didn't know how the seams would hold up since I just used masking tape.  I thought about using duct tape, but then I thought that it might never break.  We loaded up the pinata with lots of toys.

Now came the time for it to be destroyed :(.  It was a little sad to know that kids would pound on this and break it after all of the hard work that Nathan and I put into it.  

Luckily, it made it through all the kids but one.  Where it ended up breaking was at the top and that was because I didn't think about a great rigging system for how to hang it, so the top wasn't the strongest.  Just a small chunk fell off.  The pinata hardly got any damage at all on the sides of it.  The cardboard did a great job.  Oh, and we also used this lightweight plastic bat.  One the kids wanted to keep the pinata and I was going to let him, but Christopher said that we should keep it and use it again.  Excellent idea!  

Mr. Alligator pinata will be making another appearance in a year or so at a future birthday party for Anderson.  Hopefully, he will still be holding up well.  I'm sure that I'll also reinforce some areas with duct tape :]!

More birthday pictures soon!

-Heather

Hootenanny

My dad is in town for Nathan's birthday and tonight we went to The local Waldorf school's "Farm to Table Hootenanny."  We got to eat yummy food and some of it was from the school's garden.  It was nice that it was in our neighborhood and that we got to support a local school that we really like!  My dad did comment on how many "hippies" there were at the event :}!  I think that Waldorf and Hippies are synonymous :].

Eating dinner and the boys were acting silly!

Sleep Styles

The boys are sleeping in my bed tonight & this is how I found them! Nathan has always been a great sleeper & will sleep vertically & hardly move. The same cannot be said with Anderson. That kid sleeps all over the place!