First Hike 2010 - Ends with Broken Glass

So we had a GREAT hike this afternoon.  Hiked one of our most favorite trails at Rainbow campground.  It was alot of fun seeing the forest, streams and rivers in the winter with the water running fast.  Even saw a couple of small patches of snow...just enough to make one or two snowballs (no more).  So we can say we had a snowball fight on our hike ;-)

Check out the pics on Flickr!

So what's with the "broken glass" part?!  Well, upon returning to our car at around 5pm, Carol noticed a bunch of papers on the front seat, thought that was strange and at the same time Morgan walked around by the passenger side door.  They both looked up at the passenger window at the same...Morgan screamed and jumped back as we all discovered someone had broken into our car while we were gone!

The thieves got away with Rachels little pink CD player and Morgan's iPod Shuffle so that wasn't so bad...replaceable, but the hardest part was seeing my girls terrified.  Lot's of tears, lot's of anger...if you ever had something stolen you know the feeling...like someone's violated your space.  So Carol and I calmed the girls down.  We said a little prayer and checked out what was taken.

Then we had to figure out how to get home...the front passenger seat was full of glass, obviously the window was broken out, and I didn't want alot of glass flying around on the way home.  So here's the amazing parts of the story....

First, as we were leaving I did three things which I NEVER do. In fact, after we were geared up and ready to go I WENT BACK and did these things.  I decided to stick my iPhone in one of my boots in the trunk, which I decided not to wear.  I went back up front and grabbed the extra car keys and my wallet from the center console. I stuck the keys under the floor mat and stuck my wallet under Rachel's car seat.  Not sure why I did that, but they cleaned out the center console and they completely missed all three of those things.  We could've easily come back to no car.

Second, amazing thing...the week prior we had taught Sabbath school and I had left this giant piece of cardboard from our Sabbath school lesson in the trunk.  All week I kept meaning to take it out of the trunk and Carol almost took it out a few times, but didn't.  It just so happened that giant piece of cardboard made the perfect patch for the broken window allowing us a nice warm drive home. Oh and Carol decided at the last moment not to bring her purse.  Oh and no rain, not a drop!

All in all a very good day and we'll chalk this up to a $120 (deductible) learning experience about "mean people", as Rachel cried out as Carol and I comforted two frightened little girls!  Most importantly this was a great lesson in how God takes care of us when bad things happen to good people.

What's a dad to do...with a mouse!

I think I am now deaf...this evening I brought in two large bags of stuffed animals from the garage for my daughters to play with. As I'm opening the bags a mouse leaped from the bag. As I scrambled to catch the little rascal, I had one girl screaming "Don't hurt it, daddy!", one girl screaming "Don't let it get on me, daddy!" and one girl (the loudest) screaming "Kill it, kill it!!"

What is a dad to do....

So, of course, I caught it to be held for further sentencing tomorrow!

By the way, the cat was no help at all.

Bossonality...

We were all just kickin' back this afternoon and Rachel was just a little upset at her big sister for bossing her around so much while they were playing. Well, mom and dad sort of diffused the situation and conversation about personalities ensued. We talked about how Rachel has a personality where she likes to befriend everyone and make everybody happy. And we pointed out that Morgan really liked organization and was a good leader, although she can get a bit bossy....to which Rachel replied in her little perky voice..."Yeah, she has bossonality!"

Roofing Project 2008

So with alot of help from friends and family and alot of money and alot of time we finally have new roof on our house and garage!!! I took the week off and started the tear off on Sunday with help from my brother-in-law (thanks David!!) and friends Cris and Steve (thanks guys!!)

Tuesday rolled around and the shingles were delivered to the roof tops....right on schedule. My dad arrived and we began replacing most of the sheathing. We spent all day Tuesday bending nails and throwing our hammers (oh, and we managed to reinforce the overhang on the rakes. Wednesday morning was more of the same. Finally, I had to run Rachel up to school for her first day of kindergarden and told my dad I was coming home with new framing nail gun....the only bummer thing about that decision was I made it a day too late. Man, I love nail guns!!

Finally, we got the paneling replaced and it was time for him and Gayle to leave for home. So Thursday I built new eaves on the back of the garage. The roof line used to meet the top of the wall which resulted in the back wall of the garage being rather weathered. So adding eaves should help...plus it just look better. I spent the rest of Friday installing the remaining sheathing on the garage over the new eaves.

Alas...Friday, I began shingling the garage. It took me two days to shingle the garage which left me Sunday to shingle the house. Well, I knew that wasn't going to happen in a day so I asked for another two days off. By Sunday night I had part of the backside of the house shingled so I finally called in the calvary....C&S Roofing.

The roofing guy came out, critiqued my work....actually said I didn't do too bad for an amateur. He gave me a reasonable estimate to finish the work and make a few minor fixes (like replacing the cheap plastic vents with metal ones). By Wednesday morning my roof was all done!! Yea!

Gutter guy should install gutters later this week!

Electric Kitty

So the other morning...waaaaaayy early in the morning....like 4am early...Morgan came bursting into our room. Wide eyed, she told Carol, "Mom, I think Indy's on FIRE!" Carol sat up in bed with a start, after all our cats don't usually burst into flames. "Whaaatt?!"

"I just pushed Indy off my bed and SPARKS flew EVERYWHERE!"

Thus, Morgan received an early morning lesson in static electricity :-)

Oh yeah, I have a blog...

Oh my...haven't posted squat since August. Well, here let me fix that...

Well, probably the biggest change since August is...well, me. Back in October I was diagnosed with diabetes, type 2. How did I find out...just your basic, run of the mill physical. Fortunately, I didn't put it off, but just got it done and as a result...fortunately, we caught this very early.

So from the day I found out I completely changed what I ate, how much I ate, ramped up my exercise from...well, nothing to 2 miles walk/run 3 days/1 day off. As a result I've dropped about 52 lbs!!

I've cut my portion sizes literally in half, but surprisingly I don't feel hungry all the time because I've replaced alot of those boxed, processed foods with healthier, well balanced whole foods. That and I've had to lower my carbohydrates ALOT to keep my blood sugar under control. The good news is my blood chemistry now shows no sign of diabetes (even though I'm still diabetic). I occasionally get reminded I'm still diabetic when someone slips me regular Pepsi at a restaurant. That spikes my blood sugar pretty good.

So for some time now I've wanted a new PocketPC or iPhone. I'm just a very gadgetty guy. I never guessed my new favorite gadget would be a blood glucose meter (okay, I'll take what I can get!) Anyhow, this meter takes only 5 seconds to test and takes very little blood. And NO...it doesn't hurt.

It's sad it took this to kick me into gear, but as I read somewhere, "the best way to live a long, healthy life is to get a chronic disease". I simply have no choice now, which strangely enough makes all these changes seem rather easy...most of the time. I find keeping my eyesight rather...uh...motivating :)

Everyone else is doing well. Morgan is just totally jazzed with her gymnastics class. She just bounces around while she's waiting her turn on whatever apperatus they're doing next. Her strange and energy really shine in gymnastics. Her little stomach is just rock-hard. Rachel is taking a ballet class once a week. Every now and then she just strikes a pose in ballet that makes you go, "wow, what a graceful creature she is". I think we picked two activities that match the girls very well in their own special ways. Thanks everyone who pitched for these classes on Christmas!! You can catch some short video of 'em on our Google Picasa site.

That's it for now....

Cows for sale

So we just got back from dad and Gayle's cabin. This was probably one of our busier trips down to their cabin and we had 6 days of fun. We hiked and swam up around Lake of the Woods, did the water slides at Emigrant Lake with my nephew Devon, visited Lithia Park in Ashland, canoed in Klamath Lake and did some hiking up around Crater Lake.

As many times as I've been to Crater Lake I had never driven around the Rim. It's usually been closed when I've been up there in the past. However, it was a bright sunny day, only 65 degrees and the rim was open so we drove about halfway around the rim. The village near the lodge is nice, but some of the best viewing is along that Rim drive.

On the way down from Crater Lake we found a little picnic area next to a stream. We had the picnic area to ourselves and Morgan and Rachel played for hours in maybe a 20 foot stretch of stream building damns, mud pies, etc. Carol and I just hung out feeding the chipmunks and birds along the stream bank. I think Morgan and Rachel will likely remember that stream more than anything!!

Okay, so one funny story....while driving up to Crater Lake we drove through some cattle country on the north end of Klamath Lake. While driving along Rachel, who loves cows, practically came out of her seat with excitement, exclaiming "Dad! Those COWS are for SALE!!" I asked her what made her think that to which she replied "...look they have tags in the ears". Yes, all the cows had bright yellow ID tags hangin' from their ears. ID tags...price tags....what's the difference!!!