I miss my truck...

First goal

Marlee scored her first goal today as a left midfielder. But she spent
much of the day shutting the other team down as a defender. She can't
wait to tell Nate.

Emma's Dinner

Emma caught this little guy at the neighbor's house an hour ago. But
it was hooked in the gut so we couldn't release it. I have my doubts
as to how it will taste.

Cailin's new look

Kid's cell phone?

For some strange reason, my oldest daughter thinks she needs a cell
phone. Marlee is explaining the difference between needs and wants.

I'm a bit upset with Cailin's friends' parents, who seem to have made
her the only girl in fourth grade without one.

This is her best puppy dog face. A bit pathetic, don't you think? I'm
thinking something along the lines of, "Over my dead body!" I guess
that I've built up an immunity.

Family Time

Yesterday was Easter, and the bunny brought Marlee a kid's climbing harness. It was a nice sunny day, and so we tried it out on an oak tree next to the barn. The tree ended up getting a lot of love by the end of the day, and Marlee and I had to share our harnesses. And after 4 trips up and down I was ready for Easter dinner.

Marlee showing off the sit/stand technique for advancing up the rope.

Marlee hanging halfway.

This is the triple crown foot loop that I had the girls using. The prusik knot is where it attaches to the orange climbing line. They can stand in the loops and advance their main friction hitch up the line. Then sit in the saddle supported by the main knot and lift their feet into a sitting position and slide the foot loop prusik up the line. Repeat often.

Marlee rings the bell. Well, not really, there is no actual bell so touching the rings at the top (behind my green climbing line) has to do. I was told by Marlee, Cailin, and Erin yesterday that I need to put a real bell up there for them to ring when they get to the top.

Next it was Cailin's turn. The first thing she tried was hanging upside down.

Mom came out and took a picture of us. You can see the barn roof behind us, and the "bell" at the very top of the picture.

Cailin found a branch to chill on for a little while.

And then she made it to the top. I don't know why she's flashing the peace sign, I guess she's practicing for a future as an anti-war activist? Or is that something uncool kids just do?

At one point I found a great branch to lay out on and rest while waiting for the kids.

Erin goes up the tree too. Marlee is on the right, making sure Mom is doing everything safely. The kid is already a climbing know-it-all.

Everyone had fun, and the kids are upset they didn't get to do it more and that I won't let them do it by themselves. Ahh, to be a kid with no fear.

After a long day

Tax season is almost over and daddy couldn't be happier.

Tree Climbing Daddy Style

We'll start at the end of the day for perspective, and then rewind:

Marlee was bragging to Cailin at the dinner table that she got to go tree climbing. Cailin's response was, "So, I climbed a tree today too." And then came the "No, I got to climb a tree daddy style!" Unfortunately, I never got a picture of Marlee doing this, but she got a couple pictures of me earlier in the day.

I hear the Easter Bunny might be bringing her a real kid's saddle so she can climb without going numb in the lower extremities from the ad hoc rope saddle daddy made. Then I may have time to get the camera. Turns out recreational tree climbing is a growing sport, and a great family activity. In fact there is even a great company that is right down Riverbanks Road from where Erin used to live: www.newtribe.com. Check 'em out if you have a few minutes. I've got lots of other sites if anyone is interested.


Here I'm maybe 50 ft up rigging the bull ropes to lower a branch that hangs over the house. The offending branch is the large one below me coming across the right side of the picture.


Here you get a little perspective, although the ground still isn't in the shot. You can make out the spot where the troublesome branch was removed.


This is my climbing buddy, Jason. Also known as Sawyer J. This is up a neighboring tree where we were pruning a lot of the nasty lower branches purely for aesthetics.


After doing some delicate tree work at my house on rope, we went up to my neighbor's house to have a little fun just plain dropping some of his dead trees. I was feeling pretty cocky after dropping three dead pines exactly where I wanted. Jason really likes my big MS460 Magnum, I think it fits his personality.




Finally, we have a little video of Sawyer J dropping this dead oak tree at the neighbor's house. If you would like to comment on his OSHA-approved technique, I'm sure he'd be glad to hear it, just send him an e-mail.

Mashed potatoes

Meet my new favorite way to make mashed potatoes. Always been a hand masher, but my shoulder is bothering me so I tried something new. Ten seconds later I had the fluffiest potatoes ever. Never going back now.

Late Night Breadathon

Guess I'm not a clean cook...

Running

Today March went out like a lamb. (The lion was a snow storm on the
first.) The way work ended up, I had a little bit of time. So off I
went around Burke Lake. Only ran about half of the 5 miles, had to
walk the other half. Guess it's going to take more than once every
month and a half to get back in shape.

Talon

Testing...

Ok, I did it, managed to post from my new phone. Here's Marlee all ready for the new soccer season and posing with Talon, the DC United mascot on Saturday.

iPhone

I did it, I broke down and got the iPhone.

And it was everything I thought it would be.

And then my sister tried to send me picture messages and I realized that currently the phone doesn't support MMS. Instead I got an e-mail from ATT telling me to log in to some site to view the picture using a random username and password.

And then I realized that there doesn't seem to be a way to copy and paste these wacky usernames and passwords from my text message to the browser fields.

Hmmmm.....

It's still awesome. Besides, I guess they plan to fix these things on the next major software upgrade this summer? Maybe I should start paying attention to this kind of stuff.

In other news, I realize it's been over a month since I've posted. Wow, what a slacker. I have tons of pictures and stuff to put up. We'll see if I get to it or if I should just reset to t=0. I wonder how I post directly from my new phone???? Let's give it a shot.

Yes Honey, That Is A Firetruck In Our Driveway!!!

This might take some explaining. My friend bought a firetruck at a public auction. No, this isn't his first, but the previous ones are sold and gone. No, he's not a collector, just impulsive. Yes, I drove it home for him and it's going to be stored here for awhile. The other details just take up space.

But it makes a great playset for the kids....
I need to fill it up with water and start spraying. That's a lot of horsepower going into that pump, it should be used.

The Girls

Here are Emma and Marlee. I found them up in this tree. Poor tree.
And here are Emma and Cailin teaming up make the elliptical go faster. Yes, the TV helps motivate. I'm thinking of powering the tv off of it so you can't watch it unless you're burning the calories.

Catching Up

It's been awhile since I've found time to post. But I have been a bit busy. Let me catch up now...

First, last Sunday my buddy (as in dive buddy, climbing buddy, keep me alive buddy) Jason and I climbed and brought four trees down in pieces at his bro-in-law's house. I need to get goggles like he has. Here he is ready to start the day:

We've also bought a new LCD television for the sunroom. Mainly so we don't get bored on the elliptical. However, Erin has this thing about wires running down the wall, so I needed to run some sort of conduit through the wall. Of course, things got ugly as it used to be an exterior wall and out came the sawzall. Who's afraid now???

We considered getting cable after all these years, but when the little rabbit ears picked up decent digital channels, we decided to go all out and install a real antenna. Now we're picking up loads of channels, including all the major networks in HD.

While I was up on the roof, it was time to reshingle a couple spots where plumbing vents used to come through but had been temporarily sealed with ziploc bags and electrical tape (5 years ago). It was way overdue as when I touch them they disintegrated into dust. Ah, nothing like roofing at sunset -- when it's 30 degrees out.Look who came home during my mess....

Today I finished the roofing and among other things washed Erin's car and the van. The truck and yellow car were last week, so all are relatively clean. Most haven't seent a hose for about 6 months or so. But the temperature kept dropping, and you can see what happens when the car you are washing starts to freeze:
Now we whip out some pizza's for dinner, drink a couple bottles of vino and watch LOTR. Talk about your perfect weekend.

I Love February

It was 70 degrees and sunny here today. The last vestiges of ice are still hanging on in the corners of the ponds and lakes, but the thaw is in full swing. I'm sure we are going to pay for it in a couple of weeks with a blizzard dumping a couple feet of snow. Wow, I can only hope. The best of both worlds! Anyhow....I took advantage of the weather to fit in 30 min of running:


Yes, I did take a picture of my running shoes upside down. And no, I didn't feel like rotating the picture before uploading. I drove the route when I was done to see how far I had gone, turns out it was a bit shy of 3 miles, but it did have hills. I've got a long ways to go to get back to high school cross country shape.

Harry Potter 7

Little Miss Emma pulled this polaroid photo out the other day. I had forgotten about it, but you can see that they're a bit smaller back then. We went to the book store for the release party on the night of July 20, 2007 to wait. If memory holds, Emma went home with mom before midnight but Cailin and Marlee stuck it out with me until the end. Marlee even ended up with her picture on the front of the local community newspaper.

Quotes of the Day

I was reading an article on how the Auto Industry is losing its clout. Some of the quotes have been sticking with me through the morning, so I feel the need to share them...

"Usually they would send in their engineers to the [California] Air Resources Board. There they'd work it out nerd to nerd."

"I think your position is yesterday forever."

Website Is Updated!

www.daverin.net is finally updated! Check it out. Even Emma and Marlee got into the spirit and designed their pages. Hopefully as they get older they can add a little style to my minimalist web design style.