The Blizzard of Feb 2008

Yesterday was a balmy 50 degrees. If you look close at the photo you'll see that the windows, the front porch and steps, the bushes, etc. are coated with snow and ice. The wind was about 30 MPH so the snow/sleet was horizontal. Driving home from work was terrible. We really appreciate all the snow in the mountains. We really need the water, but we are excited for spring and summer.

Fun in the Snow

This morning as I was out shoveling the latest few inches of snow that appeared during the night a little sun started to peak through, I thought it looked pretty cool. This is definitely the deepest the snow has been in our yard for several years. It has built up starting clear back in late November.





As I looked at the scene I thought there is something missing. I decided my idea of heaven would be to have all my sweet little grandchildren over (including the ones that live in different states) here to help me use all this snow to make a huge snowman or two. I would even take a couple days off work to play with them and have fun in the snow.

No place like St. George in January

Sunday, right after church, we headed south to St. George, about 320 miles. Unfortunately, it was not just to get away from the snow. We went down to do some more videos for Myrna. I was kind of excited to get down there and get busy on them. Myrna had told me that for these videos we were going to have a lot more video from above, shooting down on her quilting instead of a talking head. Last year when Dustin was here, and over the internet and email I had shown Dustin some plans for a device (jib) to mount a video camera which allows you to get to very different angles, including from straight above, below, etc. Dustin built me one of these for my birthday/Fathers' Day, and he did a wonderful job. in addition he worked on it quite a bit more and brought down some additional stuff for mounting it to the tripod when they came down for Christmas, and he even had to send me an additional part for attaching to a different tripod after he went back after Christmas. Again, I repeat, he put a LOT of time and effort into this device and he did an AWESOME job. Last Thursday, before going down to St. George, I had a day off from work and I spent the whole day making sure I had all the parts I needed and could get the jib together, and also testing lighting, wireless mikes etc. Oh, by the way. I had also gone and bought a portable DVD player and some connectors so I could view what the camera was getting while on the jib. So, like I said above, I was anxious to get to Myrna's and use the jib for a better angle. Monday morning we got to Myrna's new studio (We had not been in this one before) and started setting up. Well to make a longer story shorter, after about two hours of trying everything we could think of including some rearranging of her studio we figured out that there just wasn't enough room to use the jib. All that time and money and work wasted. Of course I still have the jib and there certainly may be some other way I can and will use it in the future. If Myrna's new studio was as large as her old one we could have done it. My heart was broken. Also, last week, knowing that we would be staying with Madeline in a little park model, similar the Marian and Dick's, that she had rented, we went and bought the most deluxe blow up mattress we could find and brought it home and tested it by blowing it up and leaving it over night with some weight on it. It had a leak so we took it back and got another one and test it also. It held up fine. Those aren't as inexpensive as I remember them and it is so bulky that even empty in it's bag it takes up about a fifth of the trunk of the car. We took it with us and never used it. Of course, like the jib, I'm sure it will come in handy in the future, maybe as some of you come and visit. It should be pretty comfortable.

I do think we got good video. As I type this the video is being transferred from the tape into my computer so I can begin putting the DVDs together. I'll try to put some photos on later. If you click on the word Myrna here it will take you to her site where you will see the DVDs I did for her before for sale.

Also, I want to pass a special thanks to Melissa and Jeff for taking care of Annabelle while we were gone, and to Wade for taking care of the house and removing the snow. THANKS A MILLION. It is soooooooo good to have such great children who help us so much. Jeanne has been a great example to them, speaking of which, Jeanne was a great help during the taping.

Incidentally, it snowed in St. George while we were there, it just didn't stay long.

More Fun with the Wii

The Wii is working. It is supposed to be a magnet for family and friends to come and visit us. We did get a visit from Makenna and from Makenzie. Makenna tried to teach Grandma how to bowl. I think she beat us both though. I guess I need to practice. Makenzie enjoyed some Dancing with Dance Dance Revolution, but I didn't get any photos of it.

DONE

Finished, The End, Fin, Finito, Completed, Accomplished, Settled, Through, Wrapped Up. Mark it on the calendar - January 16, 2008. The photos below show before and after.
Remember, if you want to see a photo in more detail just double click on it. Then when you are through click the "back" button on your browser.






















For those of you far away, here are some close ups of the backsplash tile.










Now what will I blog about? Well, we do have to paint the walls in the dining room.

Just a Couple Things

We were so excited to have Jeff and Melissa over last night. Jeff and I did 18 holes at East Lake golf club in Atlanta on the Wii. And, for probably the only time in my life I beat Jeff at golf. A red letter day in my life. Now if we could just get some of the rest of you to come and play. We also had a great game of Ticket to Ride, which Jeff did win. But I think he and Melissa need to join the ranks of professionals at that game.

And now for something comepletely different. As I was checking on some information about blogging for Tamra I discovered that you can set a blog for more than one person to author the posts. So I have done that for this blog. From now on the posts written by me will be under the Bull Rhino name and Jeanne will be under he own.

Since this is the first one I've done that way, I'll see how it looks for the first time myself as soon as I click "Publish Post"

This part was added after I looked at it. Like I expected it did say "added by Bull Rhino". However, I notice I still have to sign in under the other log in if I want to do any kind of site administration.

Wii Partiied Today

Colt was over for a while before school this morning and I showed him our new Wii. He and I bowled a game. He won fair and square. These dang games are made for kids;^( . Then, so we could work on the kitchen, we showed him the boxing. He loved it. I tried to get him to look at me for a picture, but he was too absorbed. Anyway, he did really well. In this one he won by a split decision. In several he won all three rounds and even had a couple knockouts in some others. We got a second controller today, which will make playing with others a lot more fun. Wii are looking forward to having you over to play.

Wii are ready to Partii

Who'd have believed it. Wii have a Wii. Right now we only have the 5 sports games that come in the box, but we are supposed to have another remote with 9 more games and also a dance/excersize game on the way. So, the Wii little feller (This works better if you do it with a Scottish accent) is ready to go to work.


Any Wii partiiers out there? Or wannabe Wii partiiers? Come on over Wii'd love to have you!!! Do you recognize anybody in the photo of the Wii players?






Yup, that's Mii and GrandMii. Hope to sii you soon!!!

The Never Ending Story of our Kitchen

We have some friends in the ward who are doing a similar project to ours - taking out the dropped ceiling, granite countertops, etc. We talked with them at church today and they were saying they are nearly done. We couldn't believe it, then we found out they were hiring most of it done. We really feel good about doing all of it ourselves (except the bull nosing of the tile).

A lot has happened since my last post on this, on Dec. 13 - of last year. That's less than a month ago. The last thing on that previous post was that the granite tiles were down and waiting for bull nosing and grouting. Well that's been done for about three weeks now and looks like this.

We learned a lesson in the process of getting the bull nosing done. The contractor told us he would create a lot of dust, and he meant a LOT of dust. So, we built a heavy plastic tent to keep as much as possible enclosed. We put fans in the windows and french door to get as much as possible out. It worked great. Very little dust went outside the plastic, but about two days later as Jeanne was looking at the room she said, "look at the ceiling, you can clearly see where the tent was." She was exactly right. As you looked at the ceiling you could see where the plastic was and even where the tape was. We tried to wash it off and that worked on the textured parts, but it made the difference between the textured and the flat ceiling even more obvious, so we ended up putting another coat of fresh paint. But it was worth it. Over and over Jeanne and I have discussed how much better it looks than if we had taken the tiles to him to bull nose and then tried to place it and finish the rest ourselves.

Once that was all done we got the lights in and then when Dustin got here he helped us put the cupboards back where they belonged. Part of this whole process was to have the cabinets staggered across the tops, and also bring the one over the stove out further and hang an over-the-range microwave under it.

I wonder if we snookered poor Jeff. We invited him over to watch an old movie that I had never seen in it's entirety, The 3 Amigos, on the Thursday after Christmas, since Melissa was in Kentucky. We had a nice supper and then watched the movie. Since we were done by about 8 p.m. I took advantage of his youth, strength, and apparantly, naivety and got him to help Dustin get the rest of the cabinets up on the wall. It was wonderful to have such good help as Dustin and Jeff when we needed them.

Jeanne and I have been pretty excited about seeing what the backsplash tile looked like up on the wall, so Friday evening (Jan 4) and Saturday we finally got the tile up. Jeanne put in the last tile behind the sink.











Jeanne's pretty pleased. Look close and you can see we have not grouted it yet, that will happen this week. To wrap this one up, here are a couple photos of the tile and how the kitchen looks as I write this post.



So, what do you think? The new lights are up, including the new hanging lights over the bar. We have the wood for the crown moulding, we just need to get it painted and up, and we still need to do some bead board on the cabinet above the microwave. Of course we've still got switches and plugs and plates. Stay on the look out for the next, which will probably be the last post on this subject.

We Had Christmas Anyway

It was a different Christmas for us this year. We were in the middle of the Kitchen Remodel and getting ready for Christmas was almost more than we could do. We got the gifts (Okay, "we" means Jeanne) But we (this time "we" is both of us) could not get up the strength to decorate for the Holidays. Our total Christmas decorations consisted of 1 12" high metal Christmas tree that holds Christmas cards. But that is okay, because we had a GREAT Christmas. As always we had the big Burton family party on Christmas eve.

Note about the photos - The rubber chickens are the ones in yellow






The best part of the evening was that Dustin and family came home with us AND, Melissa and Jeff came over to our house for the evening. It was really fun to have them. We were up too late that night but it was worth it.



It was wonderful to wake up in the morning and share Christmas morning with Sean and Anna. Anna was really excited to give her mom the gift she created for her. Later we got a chance to visit Eric and his family and Wade and his family.












Taydon and Sean had a great time playing and of course Anna just couldn't get enough of Presley. From the look on Presley's face I'm not sure she felt the same about Anna.

We sure missed Kathryn and her family.

We wish you all a WONDERFUL 2008. Watch for news on the kitchen soon!