With my father-in-law's help, we ran two different drains from the house in an attempt to move water away from the house.  One was an extension of the gutter and the other required digging a 35 foot trench and adding flex pipe.  Of course, we haven't had any significant rain since then so I won't know if it works yet or not ( Read more... )

Over the past year, several pets from both friends and family have passed away due to old age or other contributing health factors.  Of course, the loss of a pet is not uncommon but I was surprised to really reflect on it when I wrote it down:

Ron -- his cat, Andrew
Diane's parents -- their dog, Woodstock
Cathy and Steve (in-laws) -- lost both of ( Read more... )

There's nothing like the wonder that a child has running through the petting zoo for the first time and realizing, "OMG, I can PET them!!!"  That was worth the admission by itself.

another one begins.  Diane and I have been busy taking care of some personal issues and seem to be getting back to normal on that front.  Yet, both of us are getting ready to be busy with work.  Let the challenges begin!

I posted pictures on Facebook but if you haven't been added as a friend yet, let me know and I'll change that as soon as possible. 

Keep your fingers crossed.  I'll post pics later this week with more details to follow.

This week, one of my goals was to start painting miniatures again.  It's been awhile since I picked up a paint brush but once I began, it was pretty easy to get back into the groove.  The figure below is one of Rackham's Kelt Musicians.  This was before they switched a few years ago to painted plastic figures similar to what they did at WoTC.  The ( Read more... )

Toy Story 3 -- I was still impressed by the work of Pixar for coming up with yet another movie that I enjoy.  The story was entertaining, engaging and even solicited a few laughs and tear along the way.  However, out of the 3 movies, this one had the most adult themes and quite frankly, I think the PG rating was not appropriate.  Some of the scenes ( Read more... )

I just love both my wife and kids.  Just because... *big smiles*

I went ahead and posted a comment on Facebook but over the past couple of months,  I have been successful to keeping off the weight that I lost this year and even slowly lost a couple more pounds in the process.  I'm about 3 pounds under my goal from the beginning of the year.  It's a wonderful feeling but alas, it's not without its struggles ( Read more... )