Kirsten turns 20?!

Well maybe not quite yet, but soon! We decided to celebrate Kirstens up and coming birthday just a few days early with Des & Justin coming up for dinner. Des volunteered to cook Kirstens requested meal of enchiladas and they were amazing! We celebrated early because this is the week Kirsten goes off to school and wont actually be home for her "real" day. We had a nice evening and gathered everyone around the birthday girl to sing happy birthday to her.She said she even liked the cake, and for anyone who knows Kirsten knows sweets are really not her thing. In fact one birthday she just wanted a "birthday ham" instead of any treats!
It was a nice evening and we wish Kirsten many many more to come!

Washington DC -- All month long!

So this month has been a Washington DC kind of month. Sometimes that just happens. So I decided to try and get to know the city a little bit better. And actually it was kind of nice?! I spent some time at the Smithsonian...........So much to see and so little time...............
From the "Spirit of St Louis", the Bell X1, and spaceship 1 to Lincolns Top Hat, and the original "star spangled banner" flag to ............Judy Garlands "Ruby Red Slippers" from the Wizard of OZ. The Smithsonian is truly a national treasure in and of itself. I also spent a little time over at the national art museum and saw some wonderful art.......
There will be extra credit given for anyone who can correctly identify the paintings!

And of course no visit to our Nations Capitol would be complete without a stop by the White House.

The Construction Project

So Drake has finally convinced his parents to finish the room over the "Barn". He has decided that it would be a great place to hangout and have practices with his band. The truth be told, a little distance from the ever increasing din of youthful musicians is not neccesarily a bad thing. So we thought that learning how to build is probably not a bad thing for him to learn.

So............ We started the planning stage and figured out what we wanted to do and went from there. Drake had a group of his buddies come over and completely clean out the upstairs so we could start fresh. He really got into it -- so much so that he wanted to just throw everything out into the trash. Then we started getting the bids for some of the work (just in case we decided not to do it all ourselves) and collect the materials. We got a nice BIG window (5' x 6'), and did have a friend come and cut a hole in our wall and frame in the window. Then Drake and I did the rest of the framing inside, wired all of the outlets and lights, loaded all of the 12' long sheets of sheetrock in to the upstairs through the new hole in the wall, and started insulating.
He has been working hard at it, but has decided insulating is not quite as much fun as he thought it might be!
We look forward to finishing the job, but most of all I think the process will be just as rewarding! I will try to keep an progress report going as to "our" progress.