Time is flying

If you haven’t already heard, Erin and I are expecting our first baby in less than 90 days.  The time has been really flying by.  Erin has been amazing.  Her pregnancy is going really well.  Both her and the baby are healthy and doing great.  We had an ultrasound a while ago and we caught our first glimpse of our little one.

The baby has been kicking quite a bit.  It is fun to feel the movements and occasionally see the movement as a hand or a foot really makes an impression.  We have our crib set up and have been attending some evening classes held at the hospital we plan to deliver at.  They have covered everything from the third trimester on through the months that follow the birth.

We know this is going to be a game changer for us, and we are so very excited for this part of our lives to begin.  I love seeing how beautiful Erin is, and she amazes me at how she is able to bring this new bundle of joy into our lives with such grace.

Summer Half Way

If feels like I just finished work for the summer yesterday.  I don’t know where the summer has gone.  It has been a busy summer so far.  We built a new dock this one happens to float.  It turned out nicely.  Jesse worked up all the plans in Solid Works which is just amazing.  With those plans, we had exactly what we needed for not only lumber, but down to the very last screw.  How many of you can say that about your building projects.  Anyway we took a day to build the frames, and then I spend a couple days digging out the foundation for where it anchors into the shoreline.  Then a few 55 gallon blue plastic drums and some decking we had some floating docks.  We bought some galvanized pipes and with some help from Greg at work we were able to get some augers installed on the ends of them that just burrowed their way down into the lake bottom.  It was really amazing how well they screwed in.  With some mounting hardware they were attached to the dock and now we have a secure floating dock.  All thats left for that project is figuring out what to do when winter comes.  Do we pull it out, or let it deal with the harsh effects of thick lake ice?

The other big project of the spring was a new roof for our house.  We decided to put a metal roof on instead of shingles in hopes that the snow will shed during the winter which should prevent those pesky ice damns.  Also there is the hope that it will last longer than a shingled roof.  Either way with the help of Glenn, Jim, and Jesse we were able to remove all the old shingles, and tear off the flat portion of the roof.  After a lot of figuring, and plenty of lumber we were able to create a new sloped roof line over the gutted existing flat roof.  With all that taken care of and a fresh layer of ice guard, and tar paper laid down we began the process of putting on the new metal.  Our roof is so funky we ended up with nine different lengths of metal.  It was a bit of a process, but the roof is now covered and keeping the water out.  We still need to do some trim work to really finish things off, but we have been so busy, that hasn’t happened yet.

Besides all the changes around the house, Erin has been working on her Masters and doing an amazing job of juggling that along with everything else in her life.  I don’t know how she does it so gracefully.  We have been enjoying the summer and have been out on the motorcycle and the sail boat.  It sure is nice to get out in the fresh air.

I have also been working on getting my private pilots license.  It has been fun learning to fly with my dad who has license to be a certified flight instructor (CFI).  We have been using a friends airplane for the lessons and it really has been amazing.  It is fun to get up and see this land from the air.  Looking over lake vermilion and the surroundings I drive through on a daily basis is really cool.  If you’d like to keep up with my flight training you can follow that over on www.iflymn.com.

Erin and I are about to head down to the cities this weekend for a Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney concert at Target Field.  We are really looking forward to not only the concert, but also getting to spend some time together.  It seems like we have been going non stop for the last few weeks.  Crazy how summer can be like that.

I hope you all are having a nice summer.  If you have to work, I hope you get the opportunity to relax and enjoy the warm weather.  Take some time to relax with the ones you love and don’t let time fly by as it can so easily do.

Peppermint doesn’t mix with Sauna

Erin ordered some peppermint extract for use in foot baths.  We often put eucalyptus in the water we have on the sauna stove, and thought that we’d give the peppermint a try.  Its effervescent qualities are quite effective.  It really clears out your sinuses, but it does a number on your eyes.  Not painful, but not comfortable either.  We didn’t have to abandon the sauna, but I don’t think we’ll be adding this to our sauna routine anytime soon.  I think its back to the eucalyptus for now.

Spring Snowset

April 16 Snow Storm

Seems like we got more snow today than we did all winter. Nice to have a snow day, but it would have been nice to have power.

Ice sure is powerful

Spring is Springing

New Website

I’ve just started up a new website to document my time learning to fly.  For the next few months I will have limited to no flying content, but I’ll be documenting the learning that I’m doing. You can check it out at www.iflymn.com.

Winter is here

It seems that fall was taking its time with moderate temperatures and sunny skies.  It was a great time to be out in the woods.  I spent quite a bit of time working on clearing the ski trails of downed trees prior to the snow fall.  I would take off after work and clear trails for a couple hours each evening.  I think I cleared about 20 trees.  This appears to be a constant battle as Erin and I took a quick ride out to one of the trails we had completely cleared and in just a short distance came across two new downed trees crossing the trail.  🙁  Snow is on the ground now, so it won’t be long until its time to strap on the skis and head out on the trails.

After our quick ride we came back to the house and while Erin was working on school work I started hauling wood for the first time this fall.  I loaded up both the inside and outside wood boxes and got the stove filled up ready for a match.  Here is a bit of a photo progression of the work.

All this work because the outside world is beginning to look like this….

Sailset

Worked again today.  I’m planning on taking tomorrow off for the most part.  I will have to work from home some to get some data moved around in our student information system.  Nothing I really have to other than pull our data and push it to JMC and then when they are done working on it I’ll just need to put it back.

After work the Glass family and the Cheney family came out for dinner and root beer floats.  Its fun watching the kids run around excited about everything in their lives.  Its starting to seem like Luke is getting a little bigger, but he still is pretty tiny.

After the floats most of the crew took off and Jesse and I got out on the sail boat.  It was a little slow going at first, but once we got out in the main part of the lake there was a nice bit of wind blowing.  We sailed down towards Norwegian bay and then turned around and headed home.  We were able to sail all the way back into our little bay which doesn’t always happen.  It sure was a nice night to be out on the water.