Extreme Makeover 2020

Chris took off the last two weeks of the year and we did our best to make the time productive or at least busy.  There was very little time for relaxing (oops), I think he had maybe two days to sit around relax and read a book, but a least he had those, right?  

Lance and his friend Mac worked on getting the Rock-Wool Insulation up in the attic and by the end of break they got most of it up.  What a difference that has made in keeping the second floor temperature much more constant.

Chris had a long list of things that needed fixing:  Door handles, toilets, faucets, etc.  So thankful to have a handy husband.

Now transformational work.  Unfortunately, I forgot (as usual to take before pictures, so I had to go back to pics taken after we moved in; for good or bad very little has changed in the last seven years.

We warmed up on the kids bathroom.  This room has been out of commission for about two years.  We had a mold problem, we dealt with that immediate problem and painted the walls with the recommended Lye based primer so that no mold could ever regrow and then it sat waiting for the pretty top coat.  Chris doesn't paint, he says painting is a "hostile environment".  I like painting but by myself and the offers of help made the idea of starting a little intimidating.  Then for the last year I couldn't even attempt to paint because of my back.   In the end, Lance and Titus helped me put on the top coat and I cleaned up the mess (my reach is still limited).  It worked out really well, the color was perfect and the heavy nap rollers created a wonderful stucco like texture to hide all the poor patch jobs.  Then Titus installed the new light switches and outlets (with a little help from dad but mostly by himself).  Chris also figured out the mystery of the leaky toilet (needed a longer intake line).  We still need to put the crown molding back up and paint the cabinets but its a huge improvement.  More importantly the kids can use their bathroom again instead of six people using one bathroom with only one tiny mirror.

This is the staged photo from the previous owner of the kids bath, staged looks so much nicer than in person: 

Here's where we are in our remodel:

Speaking of the master bath; here is the staged picture from the previous owner:

Remember I mentioned it only had one mirror?  The mirror on the left fell down suddenly one day about a year after we moved in and that spot has stayed vacant ever since.  The tub in this bath is really only good for soaking clothes, so we use it more as a laundry tub, hanging clothes to dry above.  I was always envious though of the shower curtain in the photo above from the previous owners and you'll notice in my re-do photo I finally found one just like it which beautifully hides the utilitarian nature of the tub.  Shortly after we moved here I had dreams of a full-bath re-do and we picked up some cool faucets on clearance.  Seven years later Chris and Titus finally installed them, without doing the major re-do and there was the bonus of cleaning out the trap.  The walls in the bath were full of poor patch jobs just like the previous bath but we tackled this room after the kids bath and the kitchen re-do, when we were tired from painting.  I remembered we had the box of Ansel Adams photos still in the closet since we moved in and instead of painting and texturing the walls (were okay with the color) we just covered everything up.  I got two big mirrors for cheap on Amazon and we turned the light upside down to make them fit. Titus installed new light switches and outlet covers and Ta-dah!

Here's the final product which I just love, only thing left to do is someday paint the cabinets white:

I'm very upset with myself that we didn't take before photos of the kitchen.  The photos below is from after we moved in.  In the last seven years those counters got very crowed with food stores, kitchen appliances, radios, drying racks, etc.  A big part of our re-do was rearranging the cabinets to put what was on the counter up but still accessible. We added a knife rack to the inside of cabinet door and a towel rack to the inside of another so that we could get rid of the drying rack (ugly, old and starting to smell). Now we just dry everything right away and put it away, which keeps the counters so beautifully uncluttered and forces me to wash towels more which is healthier.  However, what made this a make-over is the wall colors.  We talked about color since before we moved into this house, how the kitchen needed help.  We spend most of our day here and I really wanted it to be a happy place but I just couldn't figure out how to do that on our budget.  Enter "Yukon Gold" and "Mecca Gold" and the topper a cute little wood piece that says "JOY" I painted black to personalize the space.  Now instead of dreary, this is the room that brings the sunshine into the cold rain-forest called North Carolina.

Here are the pictures from after we moved in:

Here are the awesome final pictures:

As if that wasn't enough for a two week period we had one more major project.  Converting the TV Room into Lance's new Train Room.  Lance had been working with his siblings for past couple weeks building the tables. We had to rearrange the school room and the Piano room to take the furniture and pictures from the old TV Room and we had to find cheap carpet tiles to put the train tables on to help keep them level.  We started the rearranging a few weeks ago but still had lots to do.  Chris moved a ton of pictures but we made it all fix.  Now the new thorn in my side is the nasty mint green color of the Noise Room (as the Piano room has been renamed) but that will have to wait a bit till we recover from this re-do.

Before pictures after we moved of TV Room:

After picture of the new Train Room (It's a work in progress ;-):

Before picture after we moved in of the Piano Room; this room was always under utilized accept when we needed the space for parties:

After picture of the Noise Room (very cozy):

Now we all need another two weeks to recover :-)

Christmas Light Adventure

It's tradition that a few days before Christmas we drive around looking at all the Christmas lights.  Normally I plan out a very detailed map with a loop of light locations gathered from different websites.  This year we went a bit more seat-of-the-pants.  We decided to go to see the big display (35 minutes from the house) and depending on how that went try to hit some displays on the way home.

We packed into the car with our "Reindeer Chow", drinks, neighbor/daughter and headed out. 

The first stop was awesome with a 30 minute show of lights choreographed to music.  We then walked around the quaint downtown (in a different year I'm sure we would have enjoyed some of the shops but we just needed to find a place we could use the bathroom without being masked up) and then took a cute photos at the gazebo.

Then the adventure began. We managed to make it home about four hours after we left.  This  was a new Otto record of Christmas light searching but we had so much fun singing along to our favorite Christmas songs we hardly noticed the time.

The best though were our lights put up by the kids (notice Chris and I have nothing to do with them and that's his favorite part).

Went to Pick Up Our Car....

Chris had fun posting these photos on Facebook today. All he added to the photos was the comment "Went to pick-up my car today....."

It was quite entertaining how many people thought it was our car (they don't know us very well).  Only one person thought something was wrong.  She said "Something doesn't add up here....", to which I responded "Isn't she a beauty of American Engineering?! After our mechanic/friend let Chris check out his new C8, Chris tried to swap theVette keys for the Odyssey keys, but Tim was too quick for that LOL"  You'd think a brand new Vette clearly in a mechanics shop would be a clue, even if you didn't realize we were are no where near rich enough to buy one, nor would we spend our money that way.

This all sort-of ties in with this quote Chris found in the Boyd book this week, and explains how our country got to where it is in the past year.  People really need to think and question things a bit more....

The Premier

 

Today, as a birthday gift to Will (wink, wink), Jared premiered his latest Brickfilm to an audience including the majority of the voice contributors. 

Not only is officially "Premiering" his Brickfilms on YouTube an all new thing, so were many of the tools he used in this stop motion.  The result was by far his best stop motion yet!

JARED: This was the first film I truly harnessed the "ease in-ease out" principle. Simply put, more frames when something is speeding up or slowing down, whether it be a car, walking, or even a head turning, it has improved my quality animated at 15fps (frames per second) immensely. Additionally, audio recordings were made before I started animating, allowing the minifigure's gestures to match the mood of the line perfectly and getting rid of ugly pauses when a character is speaking. It was also the first time using two new software packages, Dragonframe (used for animation) and Vegas Pro 17 (used for post-production, adding some piazzazz to the film😎). 

The entire process was fun. In fact, the most fun I've had doing a stop-motion in almost a year! It was very encouraging to have so many people helping with the audio, editing, and script writing. Enjoy, my finest Brickfilm yet!

LEGO S.W.A.T - Hostage Crisis

He has also started a blog of his own called "The Blah, Blah, Blog" where he talks about what is coming next on his YouTube channel and gives some behind the scenes looks at his production process.

Check it out when you get a chance and follow/subscribe:  https://jrodstudiosblog.blogspot.com/

Right on Target

This weekend was the NFAA Indoor National Championships 2020.  Normally, this tournament is in March and normally its in Cincinatti, OH (which is why he hasn't gone in the past) but this year it was done virtually and he was able to shoot at his team's home range, First Flight Archery.  Sometimes things not being normal can be good.

Jared scored a new personal best of 288 yesterday and a sold 280 today (Max score is 300 each day; if you were wondering).  We are so proud of how he keeps improving at each tournament and happy to see him having so much fun to boot!

Happy Birthday to the Ones I Love!

Chris managed to miss getting any pictures taken on his birthday but we didn't miss celebrating.  We made him lasagna and for the first time in a long time Spice Cake!  I finally found a recipe for a gluten-free dairy-free Spice Cake that actually tasted like the real thing!  We had also been piling up gifts over the last couple months of things he'd like but didn't need.  He was surprised and pleased.

For Amber we went a bit more traditional.

Big birthday confetti flood*  and special birthday breakfast.  Pancakes, with a fruit smiley face and special fruit drink.  We normally go to a special restaurant on birthday mornings but its now closed, so we did our best to recreate the experience at home.  Amber likes tradition so it was important to do our best with this.

*This year we used some of the ball pit balls we had bought her for her birthday (by request).

In the evening we celebrated some more with Chocolate Cake!  Additionally, we had a pizza party a few days later with all her Drama club friends.

It's so hard to believe she's now nine, the years go my so fast.  She gets more beautiful with each passing day inside and out.

Man Over Board!

We started Rabbit Day out right this month.  We went (amazingly for the first time) to Lake Jordon to celebrate my friend Jen's birthday.  She had gotten a campsite (since you can't launch boats without one right now) to launch her kayaks from and hang out during the day.  I'm still too much of a T-Rex to go out on the boats but I had a wonderful time chatting with my friend while our kids (and her dog) played around in the water.

They chose to go on quite an adventure, to the beach on the other side of the peninsula.  It started out innocent with Jen, Amber and Lilli taking the three kayaks.  Then the boys decided they could swim over to the beach and join them.  The swim was a bit longer than anticipated and since its around a peninsula it was hard to see.  Next thing I know Jen is walking back into camp.  I asked her why and she said the kids were all bringing the kayaks back.....three kayaks and five kids.....you do the math.  What it equaled was a really funny site.  Since I was laughing too hard when they first came in, they did this recreation....here's the video link.

Can't wait to go back out there soon.  We really need to get some kayaks of our own, just don't know where we'd put them or how'd we'd transport them.

September Happenings

After vacation we started our new "Drama Club", which consists of my family, the N Family and the M Family (totalling15 kids between the three families).  Our project for the fall is "Mid-Summer Night Dream", I wanted to give everyone some exposure to Shakespeare.  Since all my children have time on their hands this fall, all my children will be participating.  Surprisingly, they are all doing well and having fun.

This month we also started attending "Homeschool Chapel", this month.  Families get together on Friday for a small liturgical service (singing, reading of the word and Heidelberg Catechism) and the Pastor teaches for about an hour.  This years topic is "Church History", this is a topic I am not well versed on.  The kids and I are thoroughly enjoying the interactive learning.  They also enjoy the time afterward playing and getting to know people, as do I.

On September 13th, we re-homed a bunch of our older chickens to make room in the main coop for the new chicks.  We could have tried to sell them but putting out an ad in the homeschool community and giving them away was much quicker.  They went to four different homes but they were all gone in one day, before Chris and Lance even got back from Virginia.  I think from now on I'll re-home the chickens as soon as their production slows down (about two years), if we alternate breeds it will be easy to know which ones to get rid of which years.

On September 24th, we finished our 14 week Chemistry Intensive with the S Family.  Two of their children needed a high school chemistry credit and since Jared did too, I agreed to teach the class over the summer.  It is so nice to enter the fall semester knowing that Lance and Jared are done with Science for the year.  I used to knock out a subject over the summer each year in Florida.  I hadn't done it in years but I will definitely start again.  It just makes the school days so much smoother with one less subject, plus doing an intensive over the summer gives a break from the other subjects too, which is nice.

On September 27th, from Chris.....Jared read “Pets to the rescue brave Norman” to Amber before bed tonight. After finishing the book he declared out load “Where are all the pronouns in this book”??? Lol. That’s my homeschooled boy!!! 

I’ve seen the cats sleep in some strange places and what appears to be uncomfortable spots but this is the new number one.

 

Hilton Head in a Different Season

No matter what time of year it is, Hilton Head is beautiful.  That said, we were a little worried this season might have some hang-ups.  Thankfully, for the most part there were none.  We were still able to eat at our favorite Greek restaurant (we just had to eat outside, which was fine).  Our friend Beth was on board with our thinking, so our trips to her store to buy fishing supplies and visit Maverick, were great as well.  

Only thing that was unpleasant, was that it was Stinging-Nettle-Jelly-Fish Season.  We normally come in May, which is non-stinging-Cannonball-Jellyfish-Season.  All the kids got stung at least twice but it didn't keep them out of the water for long.  Thankfully, having spent a lot of my time as a kid on the beach, I knew some tricks to minimize the stings.

They enjoyed their normal routine of boogey boarding and sand castle building depending on the tide.

Lance still fished....in the ocean that is.  Apparently, since our last trip an alligator moved into the fresh water area near our residence, no more fishing there.  It was really cool though when he showed up right outside our door, where we could see him from the window.   While night fishing one night, he caught another baby Atlantic Sharp nose shark.  

Titus did some net fishing and caught a blue crab and some small silver fish.

For something new to do this trip, we went for an inland hike at Sea Pines Forest Preserve.  Here we spotted a snake and checked out the old Indian Oyster mounds.  Amber liked seeing the horses on the trail ride best.  

We also had our first beach thunder storm, what a awesome light show!

One other thing we did different this trip was to bring our Apple TV, so that we could watch the primier of "Esther" on Sight and Sound TV.  What an incredible performance!

Back home, Mac celebrated his 18th birthday house sitting for us.  We had a cake delivered from Whole Foods, along with his favorite foods.  He and Ollie got rather comfortable sleeping together on the couch.  

She Floats Like a Butterfly

Today was Amber's first day of dance class for the new school year.  Amber has always had the natural grace of a ballerina.  She did ballet for a couple years in the past and then for a variety of reasons we took a two year break.  She did Irish Dance one year and then American Heritage Girls(AHG) last year.  When we found out AHG would most likely not happen this fall, we decided to let her tryout for ballet again.  I didn't want her in the class with the younger kids because I wanted her to be challenged physically and not distracted by immature behavior.  So again we threw out a Gideon Fleece and decided if she made the Ballet III class we would go forward with lessons.  The try-out was two weeks ago and they told us at the end they recommended her for Ballet III.  I didn't fully realize how much she wanted to do dance till that moment, she was so excited she was almost shy.  We went back to the car for a moment, then I told her we would go ahead and buy all her supplies for class at the "Dance Boutique".  She was so happy she started jumping around.  We got her the royal blue leotard, with the pull back tights (such a nice advance in ballet wear so you don't have to ruin the tights wearing them in your shoes) and really neat new type of ballet shoes that are much more slipper like but have criss-cross elastic straps to better keep them on.  

Needless to say we didn't have any trouble with her getting through her school work today, knowing it had to be done to attend class (if makes me wonder if she should take lessons more days each week LOL).  They take ballet much more seriously at this level.  After her class today she was beaming and told us she needs to bring a notebook to write-down the series she is suppose to be practicing at home, I like that.  Looking forward to a year of fun and growth.

Break Between Seasons

When we took the leap of faith and decided to let Lance play for the National travel ball team "The Canes" this summer we hoped it would further his skills and get him the recognition he needs to further his career as a baseball player.  We had no idea how the world would change and how critical this choice would later prove to be.

Like his "Undefeated" Spring Highschool season.  Summer didn't go quite as planned but it did go well.  Though we dreaded all the travel with Lance being placed on the Capital 2022 team (based out of DC area) when we first heard about his Cane's placement, that too was a blessing as it was much easier to play baseball in Virginia this summer than in North Carolina (go figure).  The team he landed on was full of great kids that latched onto Lance right away and coaches of strong moral character.  Lance was quickly recognized as a player of notice and put in the 4 spot, his coach also quickly realized his skill was in catching not pitching (clerical error on his info sheet).  

Each tournament Lance's skills improved and by the fourth tournament at Liberty University he was on fire and his team and dad were not the only ones to notice.  As Chris was telling me about an incredible double Lance had just hit he quickly changed modes to tell me it had be recorded and tweeted by someone in Canes watching the game.  That tweet can be seen on his account @LanceTheTurtle and four more doubles that weekend.  He also threw a guy out so accurately at second that even the umpire yelled "and he threw that FROM HIS KNEES"!  It was huge step forward toward achieving his dream of becoming a Major League Baseball player.  As a bonus the team placed second in the tournament.

With the world so uncertain still, Spring baseball in question if it will even happen, we decided to have Lance play Fall baseball with the Canes as well.  We did not make this decision lightly as we were all looking forward to a break but we do feel it is wise especially if he ends up not having a a high school season again this year.

This Tuesday was the five hour tryout for the fall teams. Thankfully, they hosted them at a semi-professional stadium only 8 minutes from the house.  Chris and I snuck in to see the end of the tryouts and what warmed my mother's heart was to see how well he was respected and accepted by the other players and not just the ones from his team.  He had pitchers from teams he played against admit to walking him after seeing him hit, and others chose to catch with him during the tryout rather than players on their own teams. He told us afterward that having the Canes jersey on seem to make him part of a fraternity where you are instantly considered "okay" to talk to (the tryout was open to anyone wanting to play for Canes).

Gentle Nudge

 

Most of the students and teachers in Jared's new theater group attend the same church.  I became interested when I found out they hadn't stopped meeting when their regular location was no longer available because of COVID, they didn't roll over and play dead, they started meeting in and outside of the barn on the property they hope to someday build their church.  During Jared's two weeks of theater we hosted at our house a family from the church that lived over an hour away.  All our children get along marvelously and in my discussion with the mom I quizzed her about her unique church that was willing to take a stand.  Lance heard so much about the family he joked jealously calling them "the invisible friends"; as he and Chris had been away at baseball in Virginia the past three weeks.  This weekend they were in West Virginia the worst drive yet.  While they were up there Chris and I listened so some of the sermons online, which piqued my interest more.  They were not suppose to come back from WV till Sunday afternoon, then everything started to change.  

We pack all the food for Lance and Chris to eat on these trips for both health and financial reasons.  Somehow this trip (maybe there wasn't enough ice for a trip of twice the length) one of the meals went bad and Lance got food poisoning.  Big "Ugh" failure feeling for mom.  He played Thursday* but got sick toward the end of his game Friday.  As a result, they started to head home Saturday after trying to watch Titus' Tip Test** on Zoom and that failing too.  Though Lance was feeling well enough to drive home he wasn't feeling well enough to catch in the incredible heat.  The trip went fine till they hit the first toll booth in the mountains when the Beast just suddenly went dead.  The Beast went dead five more times on the 7 hour nerve wrecking journey home.  I had prayer warriors at work as I kept waiting for them to be within towing and recovery distance.  With great praise and thanks we welcomed them home.  Chris declared no one is to drive the Beast anymore (It's currently at our mechanic who will determine if it can be fixed or needed to be traded in, more UGH).

The kids and I wanted to go to the church on Sunday but figured after an arrival like that people would sleep through the services.  In fact, before bed we all agreed to throw a Gideon Fleece out that if we were all up we'd go but otherwise people needed to sleep and we'd try another day.  

At 8:07am Sunday morning, North Carolina recorded its second most powerful earthquake on record, needless to say the house was awake.  Poor Lance thought he was having a vertigo attack and was thrilled to find out it was just an earthquake. We acknowledged the nudge and agreed that God waking us in such a dramatic manner meant we better get dressed and head to church.  

The people and the sermon did not disappoint.   We had our "invisible friends" over after church for Chris, Lance and Holly to get to know them as well.  It was a wonderful time had by all, one we pray to repeat many times in the time to come.

*Back home, I walked into the school room to find Lance's 10 gallon tank leaking water like a waterfall from the corner.  We gave Lance a call what to do with the fish and Titus took charge siphoning the remaining water out the window, as Amber toweled up the floor and Jared and I transferred the plants.  It was a team effort but just more chaos for the weekend.

**Titus continues to excel at TaeKwonDo.  He is currently a Bodan Belt and has to obtain four "tips" to be allowed to test for his Black Belt.  Each tip involves proving mastery of previous skills, written tests and other requirements.  Parents could not watch inside (thanks COVID) so I sat in the car with a friend and tried to watch the live Zoom feed on my phone in the incredibly hot car.  We thought it would only be 20-30 min like other belt tests, we were wrong, the test lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes!  He looked so professional breaking a stack of boards with his fist at a kneel.  At the end of the day he passed and was awarded "Best Sparring", his Master is really excited about him joining the Sparing Team when it starts again.