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Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Father's Day 2011
So was it Father's Day or was it Christmas Day? By the look of the cache I received for Father's day, you would have thought it was Christmas Day, my birthday and Father's Day all at the same time. Lisa just can't stop herself buying presents no matter if it is for the kids or me. But look at the giant pile of gifts!
We then headed over to a new burger bar/gastropub that recently opened only to find that it wasn't open for lunch on Sunday. I've been wanting to try Bar 145 for a few weeks now so I was a bit bummed they weren't open. We ended up eating at another burger bar that's been around for awhile and it part of a local chain; Nick and Jimmy's . The food is always solid and the beer was cold!
On the way home we picked up some grill food for dinner and then just chilled at home for the rest of the day. All in all a great relaxing day.
Don't forget to click on Katie's picture link on the right to see her latest couple of picture from this weekend as well as the new link with Shawn's lego creation pictures.
Only a few short days until vacation!
Some of the gifts were for me but there were a couple that were family gifts like the shinny new 4 slice toaster that Shawn has been asking to get forever and the basket of junk food that will be consumer mostly by Shawn. Other gifts were totally for me like a couple of shirts, pair of Nike flip flops and a propane fueled tiki torch. All in all, I was spoiled.
On Sunday, we opted to stay close to home and economical as far as our activities were concerned. Lisa, the Kids, Bev, Ted and I headed over to one of the local metro parks and took a little mile and half walk. On our adventure, we ran into a deer (almost literally). The deer was about 40 feet from us and stood there long enough for us to take several pictures. The kids were also treated to papa picking wild blackberries to snack on. One of the reasons we chose the particular park that we chose was because they have an area they've done a great job making attractive to birds. The bird watching area is set up so you can watch the activity from inside. I don't think I've ever seen so much wild animal activity in one area before. There were families of groundhogs, dozens of squirrels, colorful frogs and countless birds. There were woodpeckers (probably 6 different varieties), blue jays, cardinals, finches, hummingbirds, bluebirds, doves and several other types of birds that I couldn't identify. It was a pretty cool area; I could have sat and watched for hours.
We then headed over to a new burger bar/gastropub that recently opened only to find that it wasn't open for lunch on Sunday. I've been wanting to try Bar 145 for a few weeks now so I was a bit bummed they weren't open. We ended up eating at another burger bar that's been around for awhile and it part of a local chain; Nick and Jimmy's . The food is always solid and the beer was cold!
On the way home we picked up some grill food for dinner and then just chilled at home for the rest of the day. All in all a great relaxing day.
Don't forget to click on Katie's picture link on the right to see her latest couple of picture from this weekend as well as the new link with Shawn's lego creation pictures.
Only a few short days until vacation!
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| Check out the leg lamp candle |
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| Covered bridge on our hike |
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| Manor House in the park (once lived in by Frank Stranahan) |
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| Papa and the Kids picking blackberries |
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| Groundhog |
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| Our friendly deer |
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| Orange bird |
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| Goofy couple |
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| Kid's and Dad sharing a moment |
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| Ham! |
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| The whole family (thankfully they don't have my looks) |
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| This was totally staged...they do not get along this well! |
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| Cowboy Ribeye (not as good as it looks) |
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| Two beers and a hard cider in various stages |
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
A trip to the repair shop is in my future
It looks as though I will be unable to fix my little loyal but temperamental tractor Bolens. I can't keep the valves in proper adjustment...something must be seriously wrong. Not only valve issues but now the poor thing is puking oil through it's muffler and one of the bolt that holds the valve cover is stripped. Looks like I will have to send Bolen's to the repair shop to see what they say. I may be cutting with the push mower for awhile. Stay tuned..........
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Lisa's Birthday Weekend
Last weekend we celebrated Lisa's birthday....pretty much all weekend. On Friday, her actual birthday, stopped by the grocery and picked up some beef tenderloin filets, chicken breast filets to grill along with the shrimp we had defrosting. Bev and Ted came over for dinner and we opened gifts and had a concord grape birthday pie (made by Bev) for dessert. With our on going girth control efforts, we started buying smaller cuts of meat in hope of controlling our portion size a bit. We probably over indulged a bit on Friday as well as again on Sunday. I bought a laptop for Lisa this year ( I got a ridiculously great buy on it from Frys.com. The laptop isn't top of the line but it's more than capable of doing what Lisa wants to do with it; basically surf her craft blogs on the net.
Once dinner was done, I ended up in the basement assembling a shelving unit Lisa got from her mom and dad. We actually ended up purchasing another duplicate shelving unit on Saturday as well. Its amazing how much "stuff" we've accumulated over the years. Saturday was also a big beer brewing day. I brewed a red ale as well as a summertime wheat that has a bit of bitter orange peel, coriander and cumin seed. I also blew two of my 4 kegs over the weekend and I think the third is not far off so I needed to do some brewing quickly. I may end up brewing another batch of "Hell's Gate Porter" this weekend. Unfortunately, brewing two beers in one day is a big time eater so I didn't really get much else done other than assembling the second shelving unit.
Over the past week I also ended up installing light switches in the basement storage rooms. Up to this point I had left the old original pull cord lights in the non-living areas of the basement. Unfortunately, the storage areas aren't always organized well and you end up tripping over "stuff" as you searched for the pull cord for the light. Switched installed....problem solved!
Sunday, I woke up early to fire up the smoker again. This time the menu consisted of beef brisket, pork shoulder roast and chicken. The brisket turned out so much better this time than the first time I tried it. I guess the key is to cook it to a much higher temperature than the 165 degrees many suggest and to keep it moist. I got the temp up to about 180 before I pulled it off the heat and I think it would have been even better if I cooked it an hour or so longer. Even Lisa, who really likes the way the chicken turns out, liked the brisket the best of the three meats. I can't wait to smoke another brisket.
One real pain in the rear end has been my lawn tractor. I've have a problem starting the thing all season. I ended up doing some research online and thought I had the solution. It seem as though the valves on my mower engine come out of adjustment pretty easily. I ended up adjusting the valves and the engine started right up. After a couple of uses, I end up with the same issue. The last time I adjusted the valve, I think I mistakenly adjusted the exhaust valve to the gap the intake was supposed to be at and the intake to the exhaust gap. I also think I need to install a new seal on the valve cover because when I started the tractor on Sunday, the damn thing smoked like a locomotive and it wouldn't stop smoking. Not to mention the engine wanted to stall. Needless to say, it was a longer ordeal cutting the lawn with the walk behind on Sunday. Tonight, I'm going to take another stab at adjusting the valves and resealing the valve cover. I'm just too cheap to spend the $300-$400 to send the 6 year old tractor that I only spent $900 for in the first place to the repair shop.
Finally, I think I have mentioned that I have two of my very good friends that I've know forever (one I met in 7the grade and the other in high school) getting married this summer for the second time. The strange thing is that both are having larger weddings than I would think you would have the second time around. Jeff's wedding is in Columbus in August while John's is in Wisconsin in October. We received Jeff's invitation last week and in typical Jeff fashion it was in the form of a concert poster. I think Jeff and Paula just wanted to have a quick 10 minute ceremony and it's really just about throwing a party. John, on the other hand, is having his wedding at a resort in Wisconsin. Now the fact that his fiancee has never been married I can understand a bit more ceremonious affair. The biggest issue is that John has invited me, and he has only invited 4, to a "bachelor party" in Las Vegas. I'm looking for some gold bullion to fall from the sky, because the money tree in the back yard is dead and all the leaves are gone. I also found out that I have a work trip that I must make on the Saturday or Sunday of the weekend of said bachelor party. Of course, the business trip is the perfect excuse but nope. The reply I got was "can't you fly in on Thursday and fly to Orlando on Saturday or Sunday" and "maybe you can get work to pay for the Vegas to Orlando to Detroit leg of the trip" so you only have to foot the bill for the flight to Vegas. What the hell am I supposed to do........?
And a post would not be complete without a few parting pictures:
Once dinner was done, I ended up in the basement assembling a shelving unit Lisa got from her mom and dad. We actually ended up purchasing another duplicate shelving unit on Saturday as well. Its amazing how much "stuff" we've accumulated over the years. Saturday was also a big beer brewing day. I brewed a red ale as well as a summertime wheat that has a bit of bitter orange peel, coriander and cumin seed. I also blew two of my 4 kegs over the weekend and I think the third is not far off so I needed to do some brewing quickly. I may end up brewing another batch of "Hell's Gate Porter" this weekend. Unfortunately, brewing two beers in one day is a big time eater so I didn't really get much else done other than assembling the second shelving unit.
Over the past week I also ended up installing light switches in the basement storage rooms. Up to this point I had left the old original pull cord lights in the non-living areas of the basement. Unfortunately, the storage areas aren't always organized well and you end up tripping over "stuff" as you searched for the pull cord for the light. Switched installed....problem solved!
Sunday, I woke up early to fire up the smoker again. This time the menu consisted of beef brisket, pork shoulder roast and chicken. The brisket turned out so much better this time than the first time I tried it. I guess the key is to cook it to a much higher temperature than the 165 degrees many suggest and to keep it moist. I got the temp up to about 180 before I pulled it off the heat and I think it would have been even better if I cooked it an hour or so longer. Even Lisa, who really likes the way the chicken turns out, liked the brisket the best of the three meats. I can't wait to smoke another brisket.
One real pain in the rear end has been my lawn tractor. I've have a problem starting the thing all season. I ended up doing some research online and thought I had the solution. It seem as though the valves on my mower engine come out of adjustment pretty easily. I ended up adjusting the valves and the engine started right up. After a couple of uses, I end up with the same issue. The last time I adjusted the valve, I think I mistakenly adjusted the exhaust valve to the gap the intake was supposed to be at and the intake to the exhaust gap. I also think I need to install a new seal on the valve cover because when I started the tractor on Sunday, the damn thing smoked like a locomotive and it wouldn't stop smoking. Not to mention the engine wanted to stall. Needless to say, it was a longer ordeal cutting the lawn with the walk behind on Sunday. Tonight, I'm going to take another stab at adjusting the valves and resealing the valve cover. I'm just too cheap to spend the $300-$400 to send the 6 year old tractor that I only spent $900 for in the first place to the repair shop.
Finally, I think I have mentioned that I have two of my very good friends that I've know forever (one I met in 7the grade and the other in high school) getting married this summer for the second time. The strange thing is that both are having larger weddings than I would think you would have the second time around. Jeff's wedding is in Columbus in August while John's is in Wisconsin in October. We received Jeff's invitation last week and in typical Jeff fashion it was in the form of a concert poster. I think Jeff and Paula just wanted to have a quick 10 minute ceremony and it's really just about throwing a party. John, on the other hand, is having his wedding at a resort in Wisconsin. Now the fact that his fiancee has never been married I can understand a bit more ceremonious affair. The biggest issue is that John has invited me, and he has only invited 4, to a "bachelor party" in Las Vegas. I'm looking for some gold bullion to fall from the sky, because the money tree in the back yard is dead and all the leaves are gone. I also found out that I have a work trip that I must make on the Saturday or Sunday of the weekend of said bachelor party. Of course, the business trip is the perfect excuse but nope. The reply I got was "can't you fly in on Thursday and fly to Orlando on Saturday or Sunday" and "maybe you can get work to pay for the Vegas to Orlando to Detroit leg of the trip" so you only have to foot the bill for the flight to Vegas. What the hell am I supposed to do........?
And a post would not be complete without a few parting pictures:
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| Birthday Pie |
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| Birthday meat buffet |
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| Lisa's new storage racks |
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| More storage racks |
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| Pretty fruit pizza |
Monday, June 06, 2011
landscape pictures
Just a few pictures of the various plants I have growing around the house as well as the finished for now new flower bed I've been working on the side of the house. I think the new bed still needs a little more mulch as well as maybe a few low growing boarder plants.
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| New bed with walking stone for air conditioner and meter reading access |
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| I'm hoping the three grasses grow tall and hid the ugly corner of the house |
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| Opposite end of the new bed looking from the front of the house to the back |
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| One of the beds in the rear of the house |
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| hundreds of tiny red blooms on this bush (Red Weigela) |
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| close up of Red Weigela |
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| Blue indigo plant (overtakes the area but is really pretty in bloom) |
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| close up of blue indigo |
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| some other "weedy" blue perennial |
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