Projects, projects

For some reason, I seem to have feast or famine on my household projects. Either I am not working on anything, or I have 4 projects going at the same time. This month is a feast. We have been working on installing crown moulding in our home. I was fortunate to find 500 feet of crown moulding for free. One of my neighbors was just giving it away. So we are looking forward to the finished product. We started in the bedrooms and are nearly done with them. Now that we have some experience, we will attack the living areas of the house.
Another project currently underway is the front yard, what is left of it. I have been working on making a little planter area to add some character. Yesterday, I put in the bricks. I had never done any brick work before, so there was definitely some learning. But I think that it turned out all right, and should do for a small planter in the front yard.

Snow is bright and white and makes black and blue

Living in So Cal has many benefits, but at times, the lack of snow can actually be a detriment. Trying to go on a snow campout is an extreme challenge for our scouts. Most of the time when they are able to put one together, there is a pitiful amount of slush on the rocky ground. This year, they were in luck. There was 2-3 feet of snow on the ground. It was like really snow camping! Still being Californians, we didn't have any sleds available to take advantage of this boon. But never fear, we are resourceful and they brought boogie boards to slide down the snow. It worked quite well......in fact, maybe a little too well. Jayd became bold in his sledding on the icy snow and eventually came face to face with physics and mother nature and met a tree head on. A little dazed and certainly black and blue, he was not to be stopped in his enjoyment and charged back up the hill. However, he does admit that after that run, he would try to slow down when approaching a tree!

The Music Man, or the Music Van?

This week I was in charge of the Music Van. I have done it for several years in a row and it never seems to get any easier. The Music Van is a program for the elementary school sponsored by the PTA. We rent a van that contains all sorts of musical instruments, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, flutes, violins, cellos, harps, drums, xylophones and other various instruments. Then we put 8-10 year old children in the room and tell them to try to make music. Most the time it winds up being more like noise than music. They love it. If you can tolerate the noise for four hours, then it can be a lot of fun. The hard part is finding other victims to assist me with the instruments. This year, there were only 5 of the required 8 volunteers, and one of them was Jeff, who needed to leave for work soon. It was a little stressful, but throughout the day a few more volunteers trickled in until we had plenty. New to this year, they had a tuba in the van. Allie and Gabe weren't able to participate at school, so we came home and had our own little musical session where they could try the tuba and the cello. It cracked me up to watch them try to play it, it was nearly as big as them!

Christmas-New Years, the Fun doesn't end

As soon as the Christmas weekend was over, we were invaded! Jeff's family came down from Utah, and his brother and family came up from Redondo Beach and the whole family was together (at times). We had a week packed with activities.
For Day 1, we went to Griffith Park. I was unable to go, I stayed home with kids that were under the weather. They went to the Train Park and climbed on the trains, then up the hill to the observatory. It was a clear night, but the place was packed so they were unable to glance through the telescope, but they had a lot of fun playing near the thermal camera.
Day 2 we had a Ping Pong Tournament in the garage. Everyone played and the tournament went well. Some games were blowouts and some were nail biters. The final game was between Jeff and his older brother. Age triumphed and Jeff lost. But we all enjoyed playing together.


On Thursday we went to Magic Mountain. Despite purchasing a season pass, this was Jeff's first and only trip to the park this year. Oh well. It was a terrible day to go, it was bitter cold. To add to the misery, it was fairly crowded and half of the rides were closed. Hence the remaining rides were swamped with long lines. We only went on two rides, then I challenged them to go on the water ride, the only ride with a short line. They did, and Jeff wound up much wetter than he anticipated. That ended our day, but we had a good time being together anyways.
Our last day with the Stouts coincided with the last day of the year. We welcomed in the New Year with a rousing night of feasting and games. Chips and salsa, Martinelli's and peanut butter cups were consumed freely as we played Apples to Apples then topped the night off with a rousing game of Ligretto. We even convinced Grandpa to join in the game, that was a big treat! We are glad they came and spent some time with us.