Author Archives: joel

Carter’s Story to Grammy

Posted on May 20, 2012 by joel
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Sean’s Artwork

Posted on May 17, 2012 by joel

I really like this painting Sean created in art class at school. All of the kids painted something, and then the school sent home an order form where you could order various things that had your child's painting on them - framed copies, stickers, tote bags, and the like. We ordered this frames time with his painting on it. It's like he painted it to match our living room on purpose - the colors he chose go perfectly with the color scheme we've got going on in there.

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Bike Trail – Bridge

Posted on May 17, 2012 by joel

I've been working on cutting a bike / walking trail through our back woods, and have started to build a little bridge across a swampy spot near the cabin. It's not finished yet, but I wanted to share a picture of the progress. So far, building the bridge has been easy - but finding, lugging, and arranging the stones that I've used as footings was the killer. I wanted them to be big enough to not shift once I'd put them in place, which meant that they were at the absolute upper limit of what I can carry alone. Whew!

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Odiorne Point

Posted on May 17, 2012 by joel
With the kids riding their bikes so well, last weekend we decided to take a drive out to Odiorne Point State Park, and ride the paved bike trail along the shore. The kids did really good - they finally got a chance to ride some distance, without having to turn around constantly like they do in the driveway. We also did a little exploring on foot - we headed out across the salt marsh and found a nice tiny section of sandy beach.

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Two-Wheelers!

Posted on May 8, 2012 by joel
Yesterday Sean finally graduated to a two-wheeler! He went from not being able to do it, to riding with no training wheels on driveway, dirt, gravel - you name it! Carter was so jealous, that she asked me to take her training wheels off as well. I tried to convince her that she wasn't ready yet, and she would just get discouraged, etc., etc. But she talked me into taking them off anyway, and lo-and-behold! She was cruising right along, no problem! Lori took a little video of them riding around - click below to watch it.

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Boston Aquarium

Posted on May 8, 2012 by joel
A couple of weekends ago, we took the kids to the Boston Aquarium on a whim. Unfortunately, none of the picture from inside the aquarium came out at all, but we did get this one from out in front of the aquarium. The kids really enjoyed seeing all the animals. They had a cool touch tank where the kids got to pet the rays. Sean really loved the jellyfish exhibit, too. It was crowded as all get-out, but we all really enjoyed it.

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Couple of Squirrels

Posted on May 7, 2012 by joel
The kids found a pair of trees in Grandma King's yard that were close enough to climb. At one point, Sean was at least seven feet off the ground!

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Cabin: Door and Soffits

Posted on April 25, 2012 by joel

I've finished installing the door and boxing in the soffits. On top of that, I've also finished staining the main part of the exterior walls - just have the trim to do now. But first I've got to caulk the heck out of everything - there are lots of little gaps around, due to all the little mistakes I made during building. But that was the one of the main points of building this cabin - to learn, so that next time, when we buy a piece of land somewhere and build ourselves a little getaway, I can do a much better job.

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Starting Early

Posted on April 11, 2012 by joel
For the past six months or so, Sean has been taking showers rather than baths. But the other night, he was feeling nostalgic and decided he wanted a bath instead so that he could relax and play with some toys. So I just left him alone to play, and went and hung out with Lori and Carter. At some point, I went back to check on him. He was playing with a bunch of toys - a plastic dog, a little fish, a Barbie - stuff like that. I didn't think he had even noticed me coming back into the bathroom, because he didn't look up or talk to me, or anything. After a minute or so, he looks at me slyly out of the corner of his eye with a Barbie in his hands and softly says, "hey Dad, wanna see her boobs?"

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Cabin: Stain and Steps

Posted on April 2, 2012 by joel
With the weather starting to warm up a bit, I've been able to get back to working on the cabin here and there. A few weeks ago when we had that near-summer weekend, I was able to get half of the cabin exterior stained. Unfortunately, since then it hasn't been warm enough for me to stain the other two sides. I still need to install soffits and a door to get it all sealed up before I can start the interior. But in the meantime, with the weather too cold for stain, I've started putting in some rock steps leading up to the cabin. What do you think?

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