the elephant in the room

Our other house.

How's it going? Spectacular, if this were June. Since it's November it's not so great because we thought we'd be living there by now. Here's some of what it looks like.
This is the kitchen/living room area.

And this section of the house has had some good progress, the pantry and half bathroom and family room are also on this side all have drywall and paint as well. The problem is the other half, where all the bedrooms and full bathrooms are. This is the downstairs, near the front door:

And this is upstairs and a look through a wall into the master bathroom.

From the backyard

This shows the Mason-Dixon Line, as John calls it, where the stucco work had to stop.

The only part of the job (that John didn't do) that has gone well, finished on time, and impressed us was the landscaping, which will be finished when the stucco work and exterior painting is finished. Notice the nice walkways and new lawn which has corresponding new sprinklers. They also removed the 10-12 foot tall bushes that blocked of the entire front of the house from the street, which the neighbors probably appreciated for many years, but now that the place is looking better, they had to go.

That isn't the final exterior color by the way. The shingles came in that grey color and once the exterior is done it will all be painted a deep brown.
Don't ask us when we'll get to actually live in the house because we don't know. John is busy there nearly every day but we've had some surprises along the way. More on those later. 

 

halloween 2011

As usual, Halloween didn't mean just one activity.A friend at school told us about a business window painting contest for the downtown businesses near our new house for kids in the 4th and 5th grade. I signed Erin up and her designated window was at an Italian Resturant. I already had the right type of paint and many colors of it, so Erin drew out a sketch and on the start date I brought her there to get to work. Parental help was forbidden, which was fine with me. She planned out and did everything.

It was clear that we were new to this contest. Other parents set up tarps to shade the painting area for the kids. I wondered why they were doing this since it was warm, but not hot outside. As Erin painted I began to see the reasoning. As the paint dried in the direct sun it kind of crackled, and when she went to paint a second color for details on top of the dry first one, paint would flake off, which Erin did her best to touch-up and repair, but that never looked very good.

As she painted I walked around to scope out the competition. Other kids uses a marker to carefully draw out their often VERY elaborate scenes, taking the whole first day just on this step in some cases. I had no idea that this project would be taken so seriously. Erin just free hand painted some really simple designs, referring to her original sketch rarely. We had 3 days to complete the painting and she was nearly finished after the first, then touched up some areas on the last day.The result wasn't really great, I have to say, but she had fun.

Later on the girls got to go to Grandma's house and decorate some Halloween cookes. Grandma had an impressive array of decorating options for them and the goal quickly became stacking as much sweets as possible on to each cookie, making them impossible to eat without first dissembling them.

At school the Friday before Halloween the kids dressed up for a parade. Their mascot tiger came out for a little rally along with the parents who organized the morning.

Some teachers dressed up as Angry Birds.

Kate wanted to be a Scottish Dancer for the parade. Since she recently got a new dance outfit, I let her wear her very old one, which I got very used and very cheap.

Allison with a boy in her class who I thought had the coolest costume. I thought it was a Swamp Thing, he corrected me to let me know he was a Navy Seal.

Finally Halloween and trick-or-treat came, and not wanting to leave any ground uncovered, the girls started out gathering candy with friends near school, and then came back home to work our neighborhood. -

allisonisms

All previously posted on Facebook:

Allison is singing this over and over. I asked where she heard this and she said she made up yhe second half....
Happy Birthday to you,
You're a hundred and two,
You still go to preschool and you want your mom,
But you're mom is at work,
She fired a jerk,
Then hired a monkey who ate your homework.

Allison had a substitute today...Ms. Vogel. She told me she corrected her pronunciation of her name (in German you pronounce it Fogel) and then kept calling her "Ms. Bird" and laughing all day, which is what Vogel translates to. Somehow I think I owe the poor lady a beer.

As Erin and I approached the twins they started shouting, "Code red! Code red!"
Erin: What? Code red is what the teachers are supposed to say if a bad guy gets into the school.
Allison: that's also what you say when mamma is coming and we don't want her to hear the bad words in the song we just made up.

Me: "Your blonde hair is really pretty."
Allison: "You have pretty blonde hair too, until it turns grey, which is going to happen really soon I think."

Allison: "When daddy dies I want his big car."
Kate: "I want his convertible."
Me: "Hey, that's really not a nice way to talk about daddy."
Allison: "Okay, I take it back. I'll be too busy with my [car that bakes pies while you drive] invention anyway."
Kate: "I still want the convertible."

Erin: "Allison, what are you going to be when you grow up?"
Allison: "i'm going to make that car that bakes pies while you drive, remember?"
Erin: "Oh yeah. Kate, what are you going to be?"
Kate: "I don't know."
Allison: "Well I know! I need an assistant with all of my pie-car work so you're going to help me."

While driving by the high school:
Allison: "Hey, it's after 5:00, what are those kids still outside for?"
Me: "Maybe they had sports practice after school, or band or newspaper or something."
Allison: "But there is no after-school care there."
Me: "Right. High school kids are big enough to go home alone and do their homework."
Allison: "And when they're done they can eat a snack and download inappropriate things on the computer."

pumpkin park

While mom and Peter visited us for the weekend, we thought we'd do something ver fall-like. Who needs giant trees with colorful leaves when we have bright, sunny fall days near 80 degrees and gigantic pumpkin parks to play in?

There were cow rides and pony rides.


All sorts of animal friends to visit with.


A corn maze to wander through.


Hayrides, a rock band that threw candy out to kids in the audience, hay bales stacked up to play on, and, oh yeah, and pumpkins to select and bring home.

end of the season

At the end of September Erin's last dance competition of the year took place. We didn't enter Kate to dance because, having turned 7, she'd need to dance in the Beginner class and she doesn't know enough of the dances to really compete there yet.

Erin competed against 7 other, sometimes much bigger Beginners.

I still think the judging at these things is strange. The one dance I noticed some obvious mistakes was the dance Erin ranked highest in. But all day she was confident and it turned out to be her best competition yet. She took her very first FIRST place, two second places, and two fourth places.

At this rate we're going to need a special dance award display case, just for her and Kate.

birthday bikes

The girls have been requesting new bikes for many months since the ones they have were outgrown a long while ago. Kate and Allison's bikes had 12-inch wheels and Erin's had 16-inch wheels, which were great sizes for them nearly four years ago. Part of our hesitation about getting new ones were that the twins were still using training wheels, but in the spring each of them left the trainers behind for good. By that time I thought we might as well wait until the fall. At first I thought we should pass Erin's bike down, but sometimes the twins rode it and even that one looked too small for them.
As their birthdays approached we surprised them one afternoon by taking them all bike shopping. We didn't have much luck at the first shop but at the second we hit the jackpot. The twins' new bikes have 20-inch wheels and Erin now has a 24, which should last them all several more years. By the time they outgrow these I have a feeling they'll start hinting to us about cars.

the big time

This was another dance competition weekend for us, which is always very exciting, but there was an especially large among of anticipation for this competition because of the location--at the Western Regional Championships in Pleasanton. This is the largest competition venue I can imagine the girls entering unless we want to do some major traveling someday.

Three years ago I decided to take the girls to these Highland Games for a day because I'd heard that they were the biggest in our region and one of the largest Highland Games festivals in North America. Many thousands of people attend over the two days and there are bands and dancers from all over.

During our second visit to these games the girls and I were watching some of the Highland dancing when Erin announced, "I want to do that." I didn't take her very seriously but over the next many months she kept telling me that she wanted to learn Scottish dancing. We came again last year and watched quite a bit of dancing, just a few weeks or so after the girls began dancing too. Now here she is again, finally able to compete on that big stage herself.

I registered Erin to compete here several weeks ago but I'd been telling Kate for some time that I thought she could begin competing next year, if she wanted to. A few weeks later however, Kate let me know that she really wanted to compete in Pleasanton too, so at nearly the last possible minute I signed her up.

Erin competes as a Beginner, which starts at age 7 and can go up to adults. This competition occurred a week before Kate's 7th birthday, so she got to compete as a Primary, for 4-6 year-olds.

All dressed and ready to start:

The Beginners always dance first. In Erin's past competitions there were eight Beginners. Here there were twice that many but luckily they divided them into ages 9 and under and ages 10 and older. Erin was really only being judged against 6 others.


Kate sat with her teacher for a while and watched very intently.



And then it was time for the Primary's first dance, The Fling, which was the longest and most complicated of their three dances.

Following the other Beginner's dances and those of the higher classes, the Primaries did their last two dances and then the awards ceremony began with the Primary class first, where there were seven dancers. Kate took 3rd place and 2nd place in the last two dances, but in the Fling she got FIRST place!

Kate's first place Fling (she hesitates a little near the end and makes a mistake, but still was far better than the others):


The Beginners today could do four dances, and in those Erin earned a 6th, 4th, 3rd, and a 2nd place. Her best dance today was the Seann Truibhas (you'll hear it pronounced at the beginning of the video, as the announcer calls up another class to get ready). This is a bad video. I put one camera on a tripod and get it going while I take still photos with another camera. I was having all kinds of problems with the still photos so I didn't notice when Erin danced off to the side and I didn't follow her with the video camera very well.


I was really, really happy with the way Erin placed. Among her competition was the super star from her school and in her age group, Elizabeth. Elizabeth (deservedly) took first place in all 4 beginner dances and she was so good that she was declared the overall beginner class winner, which included those dancers from the older beginner group. The fact that Erin was next best in one dance was great. Erin took overall 3rd place.

In a couple of dances Elizabeth was right next to Erin. Here they are doing the Fling, you can see the difference in technique. Erin took 4th on this one.


Here are the big winners. proudly holding their medals for the day:

And one last bit of good news: with this weekend's wins Elizabeth immediately moves up to the Novice class, which means Erin won't be competing against her again anytime soon ;)