Watch out, it's a long one!

So, Bill and I returned from our travels, and the two of us should be here together in Unalakleet for a while now. That’ll be something new!

We’re already busy on a project that will entertain us through the winter. Many of you probably read Bill’s post about building a home climbing/bouldering wall last year. Well, it’s finally becoming a reality. We decided to go ahead and ship the materials up last Spring – knowing full well that this will not be something we can take with us when we move. Time has been moving quickly, and we’ve both been busy, so the actual construction of the wall has been on hold… until yesterday!

The wall is going to be a 3 sided “cube”. The sides and back will all be eight feet wide and approximately 7 feet tall. The back wall is going to slant out, a bit, to create more of a challenge. It will connect to the roof which will also have holds. I don’t plan to ever make it to the roof, as then I would be parallel to the floor, 7 feet up. We’ll see.

So, I’ll try to keep some pictures up of the processess. We could probably finish the darn thing today, but we’re waiting on another order of T-nuts. (We just had no idea how much of everything you need for something like this.)

First we had to create a “table” to put the boards on, as we don’t really have the right stuff for building up here… so we improvise.

The next step was to drill about 50 holes in each of 8 pieces of ply wood.

Bill’s kind of a natural at this stuff. me -not so much!

Anyway, the room we’re building in is our arctic entry… a very common room in houses up North. It’s not heated, but if we keep the second door (that opens to the rest of our house) open, it stays pretty toasty in there.

In other news… Bill’s updated his blog with pictures from his trip to Diomede. (It’s the village that’s right by Russia.) He got stranded out there for a couple of extra days but definitely enjoyed his adventure. Go check it out. 🙂

As I probably mentioned, I finished up my work travel for the fall this week. That means my life will start to take on some sense of routine (I hope!). To begin, I will be subbing for my friend Carrie’s math classes this Monday – Wednesday. I’m looking forward to spending some time at the school here this year.

Stacie and I have kept busy with the card making and lots of craft planning. We’ve managed to get a couple of good walks in, a visit to a health fair, and plenty of coffee. Since she’s working on her master’s, she sometimes has to go and observe a classroom here at the Unalakleet school. On those days, I get to watch their little boy, James, for a half-hour or so. What fun!

Speaking of little ones, I can finally post a couple of pictures of the beautiful baby Jack Stepec!

April and Trish got to go down to Iowa last week to meet Jack and visit with his mom and dad. I’m always envious of those times… especially when they call me to get directions for a lunch outing at Panera. Hmmph! I honestly am glad, however, that they all got to get together. Sounds like a great time.

The update from back home sounds good. We had snow on Friday… it was 75 outside in Cook on Saturday. Someone might as well get some weather to enjoy!

Well, that’s enough for now, I imagine. If you made it this far… thanks!