all caught up

It's not very often that I comment on the blog itself, but I wanted to take a second and mention the little milestone I accomplished.  Due to the hustle and bustle of life, I usually don't take as much time as is needed to keep this thing up to date.  In fact, for the past 5-8 years I have been so far behind that i'm posting about stuff that happened as many as 12-13 months before I actually write about it...  Oops.  Well, with all this extra time we've got due to the quarantine, I am proud to say that I've actually gotten all caught up!  I've poured dozens of hours into this thing over the past few weeks and it is now current.  I haven't been able to say that in years- all it took was a worldwide pandemic!  Anyway, I will try to keep it caught up so it doesn't get backlogged again.  It's been fun writing about all this stuff for the past 15 years (yes, this blog is actually 15 years old- started back in 2005!) and I look forward to continuing.
I hope you enjoy!

destructors return!

The Destructors return!  Ledger has been asking, almost every day since we last went out, when we are going to do some more destructoring.  Well, the day finally came!  Ledger and I went out there to finish the job of getting rid of the chicken shed.  I had borrowed my dad's handsaw, so the first order of business was to clear out the scraps from our last adventure.  Ledge helped out with this for a little while but soon grew bored.  He wandered around outside for a while and then went inside.  Once I had the scraps all cleaned up and sorted, I went in to ask him if he wanted to push the framework down.  With big eyes he jumped out of his chair!  We gave it a few good heave ho's and it started to bend and collapse.  It took some work with the crowbar and hammer, but we eventually leveled the whole thing and now have an unobstructed view of the woods!  Goodbye rotted out chicken shed, good riddance!
(more pics)

zoom with family

Its been too long since we have gone to see Diana's family.  In order to fix this, Alanna suggested that we have a whole family zoom meeting.  We all made sure our different devices were all logged in and met up for an online get together!  We thought it would be fun to each log in separately from our house, Diana, Ledger, and I.  This worked really well except for the feedback we got when we first tried it while all sitting at the same table!  Once we realized that we needed to spread out, Ledger went to the living room and Diana went to our bedroom.  That worked considerably better!  We were joined by Barbara, Alanna and Tavish (sometimes on the same device, other times Tavish was in with his own), Mom, and David.  It was really neat to see everyone and talk a bit.  There are some limitations with the app, but it's certainly better than nothing!

the complete living room

We have been, little by little, making our home look exactly how we want it.  The last piece of the house that needed to be taken care of was the area under the tv.  When We had the old tv we had to have the tv stand there, but since we've gotten the new one we now have it mounted on the wall.  With no need for a tv stand, we improvised by putting an old end table there.  It was always meant to be just a space filler with the goal of getting a much better piece of furniture when we were able.  Well, I guess we are able now because we ordered a brand new console table to put there!  This is one of the first new pieces of furniture we've ever gotten for ourselves, so we were pretty proud of ourselves, feeling very adultish.  Now that we have a permanent solution, it was finally time to take care of the cords that were hanging down from the tv.  I hid them in the wall and now it looks perfect!  Diana has been wandering around the living room saying 'it just looks so nice in here!' all day...

destructors

The old chicken coop in our backyard is a bit of an eyesore.  Ever since we first moved in we have wanted to take it down.  I'm sure it was nice once upon a time, but at this point its so full of chicken poop and rotting wood that there's no way it could be used for anything good anymore.  Well, now that I've got almost all the leaves cleared, I needed a new project.  Whenever I'm outside working Ledger always seems to find his way outside as well to check on me and see if he's missing out on any fun.  This time he certainly was!  So, as expected, he came tromping out and wanting to see what I was up to.  Tearing down a shed, little guy!  Needless to say, He wanted to give it a try too.  I gave him the crowbar and sent him up the ladder.  He was pretty nervous being up there, but thrilled at the same time...  I had already tore down one side and part of the roof, so he got to help take off the rest of the roof and all the plywood.  He loved being up high and also getting to hit stuff with a hammer.  After we cleaned up and brought in all our tools he ran in to tell Mama that he got to be a destructor with Daddy!  Ever since then he has been asking when we get to go out again and do some more 'destructoring!'
(more pics: 1, 2)

surprise picnic

Our thoughtful little boy planned a little special adventure for us.  Diana and I were busy doing little things around the house he was plotting and planning, asking for random items for the adventure.  Finally he called us into the living room and told us to follow the arrow that was on the floor...  We weren't entirely sure what to make of it at first, but we did as he said and followed it to the next arrow, and then the next.  Where did it take us?  you will have to see the journey in pictures here!

candy cats!

Ledger has never been very interested in board games, so we were a bit surprised when he asked for a piece of cardboard.  'Why do you need cardboard, buddy?' we asked, 'I want to make my own board game!' he replied.  All right, we've got a bunch of boxes downstairs so we headed down to find a piece big enough.  We brought one up and he disappeared into his room.  About 10 minutes later he asked for another piece because he 'did it wrong'.  We got him another one and he went right back to work making the perfect board game.  Almost a half hour later he came out excited to show us his completed creation: the new game Candy Cats! (yes, the exclamation point is in the name).  He was so proud of it that he could hardly spit out the rules of the game.  We found some dice and he, Diana, and I all sat down to play the inaugural game of Candy Cats!  I've got to tell you, he was so pumped about his creation that it was literally impossible for him to sit down- he spend the whole game standing up, dancing, and laughing hysterically!  He was so delighted in what he had made that he was actually sweating while we played.
I'm sure we will have the good fortune to be able to play it a few more times in the coming days. We are so excited...

inspired by the wizard

We recently watched part of that old 80's movie 'The Wizard'.  If you are my age then you are probably very familiar with it, its the one that starred Fred Savage and was a glorified Nintendo commercial.  My wife somehow had never seen it before.  I was talking about the scene were they show off the Power Glove and how terrible it was.  I popped on that scene and we had a really good laugh at how the character was so '80s cool and then announced 'I love the Power Glove, it's so bad'.  Ledger was apparently inspired by this and wanted to create his own version with Rolly, and I've got to tell you, its hilarious!  (click on the photo to see it better)

busy during quarantine

All this extra time at home has really sparked Ledger's creativity!  Usually he complains about having to go to school because it cuts into his drawing time.  Now that he is unencumbered by such trivialities as school, he can just go nuts with his drawings!  As you can see from this photo of his desk, there has been a flurry off activity!  This kid never runs dry of new things to draw, it's kind of amazing really.  There have been so many new little critters he's drawn and comic books he's made.  I am making sure that I keep some of the highlights, but if we tried to keep everything he makes we would need to rent out a storage unit just to house it all!
(some examples of his work)

onward movie night

Before all of this quarantine thing happened, Ledger and I had planned to go see the movie 'Onward' in the theater.  Unfortunately we weren't able to make it to the theater before they all closed.  Now that it's already on Disney Plus, we decided to make it into a special event.  We got popcorn and drinks, I even picked up some theater candy when I was at the gas station last, turned out the lights, and fired it up!  It was a really special night- all three of us enjoyed the movie and Ledger was pleased that we made the whole thing into a special event for us!  He really loved the movie too, he spend the next couple days being inspired by it in his drawings.
It takes a little bit more effort, but having these sorts of special events during this quarantine are helping to make it more bearable.

bike rider

For some reason Ledger has always been averse to riding his bike.  He has gone out in the past when we lived at the apartment and rode around on it a little bit, but after about five minutes he's sick of it and lost interest.  The main reason, I think, is because he isn't confident on it.  But that's the rub, he won't be confident until he spends more time doing it!  Well, with the nice weather we've been having, we finally talked him in to giving it another try.  We all three went out there and helped him get the hang of it.  As he tried it he was getting to feel a bit better about it and after about 15 minutes he was really starting to like it!  'look at me!' he kept yelling as he went up and down our little cul-de-sac, pleased with himself that he wasn't falling over.
Now we just need to get him off those training wheels...

even more yard work

Yup, back outside for me!  Now that we've got most of the leaves cleaned up, I moved on to the wood pile behind our shed.  Most of the wood is pretty well rotten, so my plan was to just move the pile to our yard line and go through and pull out the pieces that we could still use in a campfire.  As I began to work I realized that the wood pile was covering up a big ten by ten slab of concrete!  Why is there a huge slab of concrete out there?  the shed is on dirt when five feet away there's a concrete slab?  None of this makes any sense... Either way, I cleared it off and now we have a huge slab in our back yard for some reason.  Maybe we'll get a new shed?
(more pics)

snuggins

We've got nothing else to do, we might as well snug!  One of our favorite things to do is snuggle with our little boy, and he loves it just about as much as Diana and I.  With no school and no work, we have been spending a lot of time lately snuggling up and just loving each other.  It's been hard at times to manage the chaos of the pandemic going on around us, but it's times like these that recharge our batteries and let us grow closer as a family.  We've even created different versions of snugging: there's the 'regular snug', which is just getting cozy together on the couch, the 'techno snug' where we lay in bed together and play on our phones and tablet, the 'reading snug' where we all grab a book and read together in bed, and then there's the 'classic snug' where we just lay in bed and chat.  My favorite? All of them!

more yard work

Well, I've clearly got nothing else to do, I might as well keep going on the yard work, right?  I headed back out there to continue the clean up effort in the back yard.  As I cleared the leaves it became apparent that there was a broken down fence going down the whole length of our property- who knew?  We couldn't see it before because it was all covered up from the years of leaves falling on it!  I uncovered it and tidied up the edge line of our yard and boy does it look nice.  It looks like a whole new yard!  I'm sure I'll have plenty more time in the coming weeks to see what other treasures I can uncover back there...

zoom zoom!

As the new reality of the quarantine sets in, we are finding new ways to stay connected.  One of the most popular ways to stay connected is an app called Zoom.  It's basically facetime for groups.  Ledger's 2nd grade teacher, Mr. Nash, was missing the kids and looking for an opportunity to keep the kids connected, so he planned a group zoom meeting that invited all the kids to log in and see him and each other.  This is exactly what Ledger needed- especially after having to cancel his birthday party!  We logged on as well as 6 or 7 of his classmates.  It was pretty funny to see the chaos that unfolded- each of them trying to talk over each other and everyone wanting to show off their house or pets.  There was certainly nothing productive about it, but that didn't matter, just the kids seeing their teacher and each other was enough of a moral boost that Ledger was amped up for the rest of the day!

ledger's birthday

We had big plans for his 8th birthday for Ledger, but with the quarantine, we had to improvise.  He was understandably heartbroken about the whole thing.  He was sure that the virus did this to him personally...  We did the best we could to make it a special day none the less.  Fortunately we had been planning ahead and had gifts for him already, but we didn't have any birthday wrapping paper- so we used the left over Christmas paper!  He has always been obsessed with snowmans, so he didn't really mind at all.
As a way to make it a little more special, I contacted a bunch of people and asked them to send a quick little video wishing him a happy birthday.  We ended up getting more than a dozen videos from his classmates, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and all his cousins!  We all gathered together in the living room and I was able to show them up on our big tv.  He was surprised and delighted by all the people who were thinking about him even though they couldn't be here with us.  It really helped make the day as special as could be for him.  He opened his gifts and was very excited about the different prizes.  his favorite part, of course, was the delicious cake we had for him!
Though it wasn't at all what we had all hoped, it ended up being a very special birthday after all!
(more pics: 1, 2)

yard work

I guess we've got to do something with all this extra time on our hands, right?  After binging on tv and movies for a few days, we made out way outside to work on the lawn.  More accurately, the weather finally broke so we were able to be outside working without coat and gloves!  We didn't exactly do a great job of cleaning up all the leaves this past fall, so now is our chance to fix that problem.  I went out there and did a bit of work, which always means that Ledger will soon be following to see what I'm up to- so I put him to work as well!  We cleared out the side yard of all the leaves and weeds.  If this keeps up, the lawn is going to be looking pretty great soon!
(more pics)

quarantine begins

So this is kind of strange.  The state of Michigan has cancelled Ledger's school for the next 4 weeks and closed up almost all businesses.  The covid-19 virus has been sweeping the world and our best way to deal with it is for the country to put 'stay at home' orders in place.  A lot of this is hard to process as we are going through it.  Almost everyone is of two minds: sad for those who have the virus or lost someone, but also kinda excited because this means I don't have to go to work!  Ledge is especially excited, he doesn't exactly understand the full scope of this thing, but he's glad that he gets an extra month off of school!
These next few months are going to get pretty weird...

our film critic

Movies have always been my interest, my hobby, and my obsession.  I have not been shy about trying to get my boy to share that passion with me, but it doesn't always work.  Sometimes he's interested in movies, but usually his time is spent thinking about and playing Minecraft and Roblox.  He does always like to go to the movie theater, and I take him to every single kid's movie that comes out.
Well, he recently brought something home from school that is a bit of a milestone for me as a proud father: his first movie review!  His subject? The Pixar animated film 'Wall-E'.  In case you can't read it in the picture, he wrote 'Ratings- I would give Wall-e five out of five starts.  It was a really good movie.  Repetition: Wall-E was simply great.  Comparison: If you like robots and spaceships, you will like Wall-e'.  Genius! Perhaps the new Ebert?

hallway decor

I'm finally getting around to putting the finishing touches on the place.  One of the last pieces was putting up our family pictures.  We had put them up before at our apartment, but I had gotten some really cheap looking frames, so I wanted to get something a little bit nicer before I put them up.  We made a trip to the craft store recently and I had planned ahead enough to get a bunch of frames.  After culling through a bunch of our photos, I found 10 good ones to display.
I pulled out the tape measure, hammer, and the level and got to work!  It turned out really nice, definitely a step up from the set-up we had at the old place.
(more pics)

goodbye, mikey

One of my buddies, and a guy I work with, made the big decision to move.  He is taking his family all the way to Tennessee.  We are certainly going to miss him, he's got a little boy only a couple years younger than Ledger, so the two of them have played together a few times.  One of the other guys at work offered to have everyone over so we could all hang out for the afternoon and say our goodbyes.  it's sad to see him go, but we all wish him luck down south.

birthday countdown

With our little boy's 8th birthday coming up at the end of the month, Diana and I decided to make it a special one.  Lately he's been really in to collecting the little mini figures from Minecraft.  I happened to find about 30 of them for really cheap, so the plan is to dole them out one by one so each one can be special.  Our thought was to give him one each day leading up to his birthday.  I made a cute little way to reveal them for him each morning when he wakes up.  The figure goes under the egg and the post-it gets updated each night. That first morning it came as quite a surprise to him and he was delighted!  For the rest of the month he would get up a little earlier so he could see what was under that egg, often followed by racing into our room, waking us up, to tell us what his newest figure was!

valentines concert

Our final destination for this romantical valentine's day was an intimate concert at the new music venue called the Listening Room.  It's a cool lounge bar type place that only seats about 100 or so.  I saw a couple months ago that one of our favorite musicians, Brian Vander Ark, would be playing a romantic valentine's day show, I knew we needed to go.  I got the tickets back in December but didn't tell Diana anything about it.  As we walked in Diana correctly guessed who we were there to see and got excited about the show.  The theme for the evening was 'love songs', so Brian had planned a full night of romance and fun for us.  The concert was fantastic, as he always is, and the chance to spend an hour or two listening to romantic music with the love of my life is always a special time.
At the end of the night Diana was quite pleased with all the romantic-ness of the night's events.  I don't know guys, I think she might be falling for me- fingers crossed!
(more pics)

valentines day dinner

We don't usually do anything special on valentine's day.  Well, this year I decided to change that...  I had been plotting and planning for a few weeks without Diana's knowledge, hoping the whole thing would be a surprise for her.  I got out a few hours early from work and headed home, which she was very pleased about.  When I got home I told her she should probably get dressed up.  She was a little confused.  'Why?' she asked. 'You'll see...' I mysteriously answered.  She got all dressed up and so did I.  I complimented her on how she looked, but said it needed something, so I handed her a little jewelry box.  She delightedly opened it up and saw the special necklace I had gotten for her.  It was a purple labradorite- her favorite!  Her excitement grew!  We went and picked up Ledger from school and headed to Grand Rapids.  She was still clueless.  We stopped at my parent's place and dropped of Ledge.  Mom and Papa were in on the plans and were delighted to take our little one for the evening.  We said goodbye and drove off.  Diana was still excitedly confused about what was going on, which was exactly as planned.  I took her downtown Grand Rapids and we found a parking spot.  It was pretty cold, so we quickly walked over to our destination, the tapas restaurant San Chez.  I had booked us a reservation, which are pretty hard to come by for valentines day.  Diana was quite delighted, we have been here a few times and really love it.  About five years ago we had a special anniversary dinner together there, which was magical.  We had a really wonderful time eating amazing food and getting a little time together just the two of us.  The food really was outstanding, and we even splurged on their tasty dessert.  The whole thing was really lovely and Diana was about as pleased as could be about the necklace and the special dinner.  As we finished eating she said that she was so thankful and impressed with how much I had planned for her.  That's when I let her know the night had only just begun...
(more pics)

oscars!

My favorite day of the year isn't a holiday, but it should be!  The Oscars is my favorite event all year.  My hobby through out the year is keeping up on all the Oscar gossip and making sure I do everything I can to see all the movies that might be nominated.  I get up early so I can watch the nominations announced on tv, and listen to hours and hours of podcasts about the Oscars leading up to the big day.  Ever since I was little I've watched the ceremony; it was always a big deal for me and my mom and dad humored me and it would be the one day of the year where I could stay up until it was done, which usually meant 11:30pm or later- which is a pretty big deal to an 11 year old!
Every year I tend to watch it alone, not because I'm anti-social, but because it's really hard to find anyone else who loves it as much as me.  Since getting married, I've roped Diana in to watching it with me, but we've never gotten a group bigger than that together... until this year!  On a whim, we invited Barbara and James- and they accepted!  Well, this calls for a party!  I spent the first part of the day putting together a packet of all the nominees of lesser known categories like 'best animated short' and the like.  I also printed off some extra ballots so everyone could make their guesses before the ceremony and follow along as we watch.  Since we so rarely get to host guests, we went all out and got a bunch of party snacks and hors d'oeurves.
The night went smashingly and we were treated to an amazing show with some great twists and turns at the end.  I was able to see eight of the nine nominees (sorry, JoJo Rabbit...) and even went to see all the short films, live action and animated, in the theater this year!  This was certainly one of the best Oscar days ever!
(more pics)

see the art in me

This past fall Diana and I had come across an art studio called Design Street in Otsego (about 20 minutes from home) that offers classes for kids.  We looked up their class schedule and saw that they had a new one starting in February.  We figured with our kid being so artistically minded, he would probably benefit from a little structured learning in that area.  The first day of class we walk in and his eyes were wide with excitement 'this place is so cool!' he said as he raced around checking everything out!  The instructor was so kind and sweet welcoming him to class.  Ledger, as always, was super talkative and wanted to tell her all about his artwork and the characters he created.  As class started, I left him to it and went to get groceries.  The class is once a week for an hour and a half.  When I picked him up he and the rest of the class had started their painting in the style of Claude Monet.  He was really excited about what they had made so far and the whole way home he raved about how fun it was.  I'm pretty sure we will be enrolling him for the rest of the spring!
(more pics)

cut it out

Our boy has been having hearing problems for a while now.  At first we thought it might just be 'selective hearing'- he never seems to hear us when we ask him to do anything, so we thought maybe it was on purpose because he didn't want to do what we were asking.  We took him to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist and she took one look at him and said 'wow!  He needs his adenoids removed!'  She told us that he had some of the biggest adenoids she had ever seen.  They were so big that they were causing the hardness of hearing, runny noses, bad breath, and even the reason that he would snore and not be able to sleep through the night.  yikes, who knew adenoids could affect so much!  He went in to get an x-ray, and the doctor was able to show us how his looked compared to normal adenoids.  yup, they were huge.  We set a date for him to have surgery.  That date was finally here.  We let school know ahead of time, apparently he would need to be out of school for two full weeks after the surgery.  That was the part that he was pretty excited about... That morning we got up and headed down to Kalamazoo.  He wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything, so fortunately we had an appointment at 8am.  The called us back and were told what to expect.  He was getting a bit nervous, but at least he got to wear his pajamas and bring his stuffed animal friend Leonard.  They hooked up the IV, which was the part that scared him the most, but once that was done he felt pretty good.  After he was out they rolled him away and Diana and I waited in the lobby.  About 45 minutes later the nurse came out and told us that everything went perfectly and we could go back to see him in about 30 minutes.  Finally we were reunited with him and he was doing great!  It was kind of funny because he was definitely a bit loopy from being put under.  He started shivering, but the doctor said that is normal as the body works out the drugs.  He got some juice and cookies as we talked with him about how it went.  At first he asked 'is it done already?'  Since he was unconscious, he hadn't realized that the whole thing had even happened!  After about 20-30 minutes he was feeling great and the doctor said we were free to take him home.  He got a little wheelchair ride out to the car and Diana sat in the back with him to hold him all the way home.  He did amazingly well- a very brave boy!
(more pics)