I am whole again...

I am whole again. Okay, maybe not whole. But close. Basketball has begun again. That part of me that goes into hibernation for a few months a year was allowed to awaken yesterday. For those who do not know this part of me, I am wired to a basketball. I think my Mom hoped this weirdness would go away when I grew up and got married. She even pointed that out when I got a basketball permanently drawn on my ankle. But alas, it has not. I live to watch the game. I can't explain it. I feel whole when I am able to sit and watch five players cut, screen, pass, slip, rebound, jump, shoot, high-five, and yell. When the other five players try to figure out how to stop it. I get into my hunched-over position, one I've been told can identify me in a crowd of hundreds, to watch the game. Study the game. I coach from my seat. I talk to the players as if they're mine. It allows me to live and use my mind in a way no other thing or activity can. Every game, every movement, is a puzzle for me to solve. And I love it when I can see it happening in my mind just before it unfolds on the court.

Yesterday, Karl and I went to Seattle to see the home opener for the Storm. We decided not to do season tickets this year, the cost was a bit high, and getting to and from games during the middle of the week wore on us the last few years. So we will catch what games we can this year. Yesterday, we splurged on tickets, and ended up with seats right behind the Storm bench. It was awesome. There are a handful of times I have missed coaching. This was one of them. It's a whole other experience sitting at floor level, seeing how fast and physical the game is. I listened to all the coaching talks at time-outs, and coach's comments during the game. The best one being on the first play of the game. It was a poorly executed post-up, and the coach turns and says: "What was that crap!" I miss those days.

Anyway, here's some shots of the game. This is the team before heading out to play:

My favorite player, LJ:

Karl's favorite players, Sue (#10):

And Ashley:

This one's for KB. Recognize #14?
It was a great experience sitting that close. My one gripe was the coach kept standing right where our line of site was for a large portion of the floor. So we missed a lot. But oh well, the price we pay for sitting there.

The other part of our weekend consisted of Karl continuing to work on the garage. He and some buddies worked most of Saturday to get the roof trusses set, and the roof sheathing on. Here's a couple pictures:

I worked in the yard most of the day, mowing and weed whacking. I would never have guessed that was such tiring work, but I was feeling it Sunday. I think I still might not be 100% recovered from my surgery, too. So I spent Sunday feeling like I was going to be talking to the porcelain throne. Not fun. I'm still not feeling that great, so I played hooky from work today. Karl was feeling the wrath of his day as well, he was pretty dead Sunday.

All in all, a crazy busy weekend. But we accomplished a lot. What more can you ask for?

Been a while...

So, I was informed this weekend by my Mother that I have been slacking on my blogging. I've been a little busy. So here's what's been going on. About 4 weeks ago, I had surgery. I took the week off work, and Mom flew up to visit. Karl had to cut his trip to Maine a day short and fly home. It was an impromtu surgery, though not unexpected. I'm all better, though the recovery was a bit more than I expected. Wearing jeans, which is my work attire, after having surgery on your abdomen is not my idea of fun. We didn't get to play a whole lot when Mom was here, but we did fit in a few activities. It was good to have her though. Some things you just need your Mom there for, a husband doesn't quite understand.

Next up was a week of work, then Karl's brother Jon and his wife Allyson flew in on Friday night to catch a cruise to Alaska on Sunday morning. They had never been out this way, so we did the tourist thing Saturday and took the ferry to Seattle. We hit the Space Needle, Pike's Place, and the aquarium. Believe it or not, in the 3-1/2 years we have lived here, we had never been up the Needle. We go to Seattle Center all the time, we just never bothered to do that. It was pretty neat, now we can say we've been there. Fortunately, the weather cooperated and was gorgeous.

We hit up the aquarium next. It's right on the water, and it's pretty nice. Definitely not Monterey Bay, but it'll do. It had some nice fish, plenty of salmon displays (the fish of choice out here), and even ponds you can touch the fish. This visit included Karl standing next to the ginormous fish tank and saying in a gruff voice: "I'd love to reach in there, grab a fish, and bite it's head off."

Then looking down to see a horrified little girl standing next to him and a not so happy father next to her.

We laughed.

Here's me elbow deep in the ice cold water touching some weird fish:

Say hi to Nemo and Dori:
Next we headed to Pike's Place. It was pretty crazy there, being it was a Saturday and they were having a wine and cheese festival. We made our way through the crowd up one street and back down the other. By this point, we were all pretty tired and ready to head home. So we caught the ferry and went home. Once home, Karl thought it was nice enough out that they should take a ride on the motorcycles. So they took off for an hour and a half while I stayed home and cooked up dinner. All in all it was a fun weekend.

The next weekend, which was Memorial weekend, Karl had the lumber for our garage delivered. So he spent Saturday getting things lined up and ready for Monday. He picked up Jon and Allyson Sunday morning from their cruise, and we spent the day with them. Karl and Jon decided to go out and figure out the details for Monday morning and getting the walls built and up.

Before we knew it, they were moving the 2x4's and laying them out on the ground. "We need to make sure it's going to fit."

Then a few minutes later, they get the nail gun out. "We're just going to make sure the tools work. We don't want any surprises in the morning."

Then they're nailing studs to the top and bottom track. "Well, we can't tell if the tools work if we don't try them out."

Before we know it, the wall is built and ready to go up. But, it's going to be hard to lift that wall on to a 2 foot tall wall. "So we need to build some platforms to set them on to make it easier to lift the walls."

However you justify it boys.

Anyway, here's proof we work our guests. Visit at your own risk.

Monday morning I took Jon and Allyson to the airport while Karl stayed back and built the other two walls he needed help lifting. At 9:00, three of his friends came over and helped lift them into place. By 10:00, we had three walls up.
That's been our last three weeks. Friday Karl and our neighbor Keith started putting up the outside wall veneer. Aside from once missing the stud and nearly putting a nail from the nail gun into Keith's head, it went pretty well. The rock for inside the garage was delivered Friday, so now we can pour the slab. Karl got all but the front veneer up, so now we need the roof. It's coming next weekend.

In between all this, I had an intern at work. She was a high school student whose school does a program where the last two weeks of school they go to a professional business and work. I thought it sounded good, I did something similar in high school. What I wasn't told was the girl I got had no clue about construction, and was pretty much only there because she had to be. Fun times! So I basically babysat an uninspired 18 year old for two weeks. It actually opened my eyes a bit to how a lot of kids these days are so clueless to the real world, and the fact that life isn't 6 hours of school, text messaging, then going home and playing. I suppose life has to hit them at some point in time. Anyway, good luck to her.

Well, that's my story and why I haven't been on here in a while. I'll try to be a little more up to speed on my blogging, if for nothing else than to keep Mom up to date. Now, I'm going to go watch some softball.

Cinderelli, Cinderelli

As you may know, I am store bought. At least that's what my parents have told me, and my siblings, our entire lives. Jeff and Becca are too. For those not familiar with my family's sense of humor on the topic, that means we are adopted. I have always joked with my parents that they are lying, because I have a lot of the same traits as they do. I have also suffered a lot of the physical issues / problems they have. Look at a family picture, and I'm not the first one people pick out as being adopted.

That being said, my latest round of physical ailment has me really believing my parents are lying. Perhaps they are hiding the fact they were pregnant. Maybe they needed to justify their spending habits, and said they bought me. It's more expensive that an actual birth. No one was there to verify this. Maybe my Mom was a little delusional at the time, that salt air will get to you. She's always been a little weird, she does have an odd fondness for the Weather Channel. I think she was the alien in her family, not Marla. It was back when Dad was in the Army. They stay busy, he just didn't notice.

Who knows. What I do know is I am now going through the same thing Mom did back in the day, and I have to wonder how that can be coincidental. So, I beg of you Mom and Dad, please come clean. It's okay. It's been a lot of years (we won't say how many). The first step to any program is to admit your issue. We'll still accept you as our loving, yet sometimes a little weird, parents.

Garage update

So I started this blog months ago to follow the progress of our garage. It's been a slow process. Mostly because both of us work full time, and Karl's job has kept him especially busy the last few months. Also because we are saving money so we can pay cash for it. We're trying not to add to our debt for this thing, which means it is getting done in pieces. Not a big deal, it will be done this summer. Just in time for the next rainy season.

This effort has definitely been a learning experience. Since I work in construction, and Karl is an engineer, it makes for some lively conversations on how things should be done. So we came up with a plan. He's the superintendent, I'm the project manager. He takes care of the building part, I take care of the design and permits. So far, it has worked pretty well.

Here's the thing that's killing us. We've been here in Washington for 3-1/2 years. We've gotten recommendations to use people for various services, all high recommendations. All have left us extremely disappointed, and wondering why people in Washington have such low expectations of good service and performance? After laughing at the 3 different prices we got to build the garage, we decided to just dig in and do it ourselves. We got a recommendation for a concrete guy to do the foundation and slab. We'll do the rest. As I indicated above, this has turned into a mess.

The guy came in and put up the forms and got everything ready for the inspection. The county inspector came by and signed off on everything. I looked over everything that night when I got home from work. The next day they poured the concrete. That afternoon when I got home from work, I checked it out. Something looked odd though. The hold down straps that are required for earthquakes and wind were different. After much convincing to Karl, and a little internet search, we discovered the straps required by code were laying on the ground, and the ones in the concrete were half the strength that was needed. They had switched the straps between the inspection and the pour.

So Karl called the guy to ask him about it, and the guy straight up told Karl he switched the straps. No reason. That it wasn't a big deal. What!!! Needless to say, we are not happy campers. It's not like you can pull the straps out and put new ones in. They're in concrete. The guy says he'll fix it, but I'm curious to see how he plans on doing it. I know how to fix it, and on a huge commercial building concrete pour, it is an easy fix. On a small 6" wide wall, not so much. The really stupid thing is, the straps don't even cost anything. I could see if they cost a few hundred bucks and the guy was trying to save money. But the correct strap cost $13.00. The incorrect strap cost $6. The fix for this is going to cost several hundred dollars. Not exactly the way you want to start a project. At least we know that any future mistakes will be our own fault.

Regardless, here's some pictures of our foundation.

Weird happenings

You know when you feel like the world is hitting you upside the head all at once? It is always interesting to be sitting in sacrament meeting, open your scriptures to read the lessen you're supposed to teach in less than an hour, and have the first page you look at contain a scripture that says everything will be okay. Weird how that happens.

The trip...

So, last weekend I made my way to Utah for Cy's wedding. I also got to say hi to the fam. It was quite the eventful trip, including some trickery on some very slow and unsuspecting parents. As Beth and Jessie have already posted some of their photos, I will share a few myself. I do have to say, though, that the pic Beth has on her site of me, Jessie, and Ada makes us look like the insane clown possie. Here's some evidence of the exictement we endured:

I don't have any words for this one.

Jessie cheesin' for the camera.

Kara and Jason, looking cute as usual.

Then Kara shared her true side.

Jefferson playing with Nana, and lovin' it.

YOU WILL EAT THIS!

The handsome groom with his cousin Jessie, racking up the dough.

The wedding cake. A little odd, but very well done.

The groom's cake. Same as wedding cake, odd but very well done.

The centerpiece. Very cool. A rose in a vase full of water. With skulls at the bottom. Oh, and my Dad deep in thought.

Last, but certainly not least, the mariachi band.

All in all a good trip. When I can figure out how to get a video from my phone to my computer, I'll post a video of Ada singing in Target, for all across the store to hear. It was quite the show.

This week, in the span of two days, I have been notified of two places that are in no way good for the human body, and are here within a stone's throw of my place of employ. These would be a Long John Silver's and the Lakewood House of Donuts.

Let me start with the LJS. As many know, this place employed my Dad for a few years. I think we all like it more for the nostalgia than anything else, but the food is really good. And while I realize it's a fish place, I most like their chicken. During a conversation with my friend Christine, she noted she thought she had seen one in Olympia. I immediately looked this up on the internet, and low and behold, there it was. It just opened this week. So guess where Karl and I went to dinner Wednesday night!? It took the sting out of the fact that a piece of the rear suspension of my car literally broke in half that day. Fun times! No worries, I made it safely to a Midas, where it currently sits until it gets fixed. Anyway, back on topic, I will surely visit LJS on occassion.

In the movie Simon Birch, Simon is playing look-out while Joe is sneaking around his school looking for something. At one point, Simon is hiding behind a locker, peers around the corner and finds himself nose to nose with a dog, turns around and says, "It's a horse!" Joe then looks to verify, and finds a ginormous dog. I use this story to define the donuts I found today. I was told this week that this donut shop in Lakewood has the best donuts. I happen to drive past this donut shop on the way to my chiropractor. I've resisted the urge up till I heard it was the best. So today, I decided to stop. Words can't describe these donuts. They were huge. I'm guessing about 9" diameter and 1-1/2" to 2" tall. Huge! I bought a few to take home, but ate one in the car. I have never had a better donut. It's a good thing this place is nowhere near our house.

Now that I've sufficiently supplied my sugar stores, I will go take a nap. You know that episode of Sienfeld when George builds a bed under his desk? Doesn't that sound like a great idea? I wish I had the nerve to try such a thing. But alas, I don't. I'll suffer a couple more hours, then head home.