The new toy

So here it is...the new toy...which I will be calling "The Beast" It is pretty rough on the outside..the only part of the body that doesn't have a dent in it is the hood and isn't the paint job attractive? I guess it will make for easy repairs to the paint job...just grab some spray paint. One really cool thing about it is the top. The back part is a soft top and it comes off but it has a bikini top underneath so you get the effects of a covertible but can still be out of the sun. Fun!!! I am sure there are other really cools things about it but I don't have any idea about that stuff. Jack will have to do a follow up post to explain all of the in's and out's. But apparently it has tons of great 4-wheeling parts. The people we bought it from built it from a stock GMC Jimmy. They showed us pictures of its transition and told us lots of stories of the great times they had in it. I felt like we were taking a member of their family from them.



Jack is currently trying to plan a time with friends to go out & test it out on some serious off road trails. If it is passes (which am sure it will...you should have seen the pictures of some of the places this thing has been...amazing!!)and it continues to do well as a daily driver for Jack, we will be taking it to Moab for the "Blazer Bash"...that is Blazer as in the truck not the name. Can't wait to go. Jack's brother went last year and had a great time so we are looking forward to the trip.

An afternoon of fishing

We have tried to get out fishing some this summer...it is hard sometimes to get away w/ work schedules, weird weather, and projects around the house. A few weeks ago we took a drive up to Lake Harriet which is a small lake in the Mt Hood National forest.

We picked an excellent day to go. It was a hot & dry in the city and it was cool & quiet in the mountains. Since it was a weekday afternoon we had the run of the lake for quit a few hours.

Jack, being the master fisherman that he is caught TONS of fish. He even caught a couple using a spinner...the lake is stocked several times a year by the Oregon Dept of Wildlife w/ farm raised fish so they tend to be lazy and only like eggs. I, on the other hand, fed the fish a lot of eggs and ended up only catching one...but I swear it was the biggest of them all!!!

Really, the fish was "this" big!!

Dog play

So tonight when I went out to feed the dogs, Milo was all about playing fetch...which is very unlike him. Allie is usually the one that is right there at your feet w/ whatever toy, no matter the condition, she has found. I had left the slider open. Allie grabbed her chewed up frisbee & headed straight through the slider & up the stairs. And there she stayed while I threw the frisbee for Milo. It was the strangest thing. Milo was very funny about playing fetch. The sunporch has three sliders and all three were open...it has been really hot here...for better air circulation, so Milo would come running full speed through one slider w/ his frisbee, of course, run across the sun-porch, still at full speed w/ frisbee in his mouth and then out the other side. He would quickly turn the corner so he didn't bust through the fence into the neighbors yard then circle around the outside of the sun-porch and back in through the third door. Again all at full speed. It was a little nuts. He is nuts! Just the other night he came running in from his 2 a.m. potty break and ran right into the closed slider. I heard the crash clear on the other side of the house. I thought for sure that either Milo or the slider was broken but both were fine. Apparently, he thought Jack had left the slider open even though Jack never leaves it open. Crazy dog!!

And here he is all settled down chewing on his frisbee after his play session. Finally, all calmed down.

New Roof

So we recently had our roof redone. Exciting stuff!!! I had never seen it done so I was very fascinated by the "process". First they scraped off all of the old shingles into this big truck they brought. Lots of pounding & scraping noises came along w/ this. Some of the pounding even knocked loose one of my light covers...luckily it landed on carpet & not on the hard wood floors so it didn't break.

This is the truck when they first got started. I think it was pretty full by the end.

These are the singles! The picture below was the workers unloading the shingles from the truck onto the roof.

Once they got the old singles off they started putting on the new ones.

They worked long & hard the first day & got the main part of the roof completely done, including rebuilding the frame for the sky light that is in living room so that it won't leak this winter...that was one of the main reasons we had to have this done. They came back bright & early the next day & did the roof on the sunporch & a little section of the back garage. All done in 2 days! It was great. Thanks to our neighbor Steve for getting the job done for us!

The first entry

So we have finally done it...created a blog. I have been following my sisters & their friends blogs for a few weeks now. I have loved seeing all of the pictures & being able to keep up w/ what it going on with everyone. It is nice to see lots pictures of my neices & nephews since they don't live close. We have had lots going on here so I will have some stuff to post and hopefully will be diligent about keeping up w/ it. Wish me luck!