Happy Birthday, Matey!

We celebrated Evan's birthday one day early so our friends could be there. Casie made a pirate ship cake for Evan--complete with gun turret candles.






Our friends', Clay and Megan, brought their two children, Kayla and Hayden for the celebration. Graham and Cookie came up from Cortez, and our neighbors, Dave and Renee, joined us as well.





Hayden and Evan thought the new Batman toy was "sweet."








Evan chose Sushi for his 4th birthday dinner (as did Maya this year). Whatever happened to putting a pizza in the oven?

Dear Santa, (Maya)

I've been kind of naughty and I've been nice to my brother. And I won't bother my brother again when he says don't play with me or don't touch me and I'll do what he says! I want a shoe that matches a dress sweater. And I want a merman to go with a mermaid. And have a happy Christmas. And I want a unicorn for another present, and I want the movie Arctic Tale, and I want, um, the book about Africa creatures. And now, how do you do Santa? How is your mother? Is she okay? If she is not okay, please don't tell her Santa has to cancel Christmas. And now have a happy, happy Christmas and I hope you will have a wonderful day.
Love,
Maya
And I want a magazine about Orca, a National Geographic movie about Orcas. And now have a happy, happy, happy, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Love,
LOVE!
Maya

(click links below)

Warm Boots size 1








Hoodie Dress size 7








Sweater Dress size 7








Striped Sweater Dress size 7









Book











Book










Nat. Geog. Movie












Book











Star Wars Legos







Archery Set










Arctic Tale Movie





Chronicles of Narnia Unicorn

Dear Santa, (Evan)

I have been super good. I want a real timber frame toy and a roof for the timber frame toy. A bat cave. Batman. Robin. Some fire for my dragon. Camouflage jeans for me to hunt with. Good bye till Christmas.
Evan

(click on links below)

Camo pants











Batman fishing pole










Large magnetic chess set






The Batcycle and Hammer Truck (Legos of any kind - "real" ones not the ones for little kids - says Evan)





Archery Set














Bat cave

Congratulations Denny!

fire on the mountain

The forecast says winter weather is on the way so we spent some time splitting and stacking wood this afternoon. Evan wore his work clothes for the occasion.

Sled riding

Tristen Savannah Miranda and Abigail enjoying last weekend. Fa la la la la.

Tour of KC 2008

Me and Chung fighting it out to the finish line. Lets just say we were going for first.

Job Change (one year later)

My timing in my job change was great and I moved from timber wright using chisels for mortise and tenon work to timber wright using AutoCad to draw our frames. I spend a lot of time doing preliminary designs for potential clients, but occasionally I get to draw all the way to the finish...

This is the second frame that I drew. It has a valley system in the great room that sped up my balding - unfortunately, compound joinery was not covered in my English classes at KSU.






This was my first frame. A barn with straight-forward joinery. I wish I got to live in something as nice as these horses are getting.

Retirement Room

Despite record rains, we were able to get Denny's timber frame up at the lake.







In just three days in early September, we went from a perfect slab (thanks U. Rich) to a dried in room with windows installed. We are waiting for an update from the finish crew, but the potential for the room is tremendous.

Eric's Flyover

We had a visitor...








it kind of scared the neighbors...








Eric waved hello.

Halloween

We had a knight and his attack leopard for Halloween this year. It also marks my 17th anniversary for remission.

Inspiration

Doing some rock work yesterday with my friend, Clay, inspired me to want to spend some time at the computer. So here I go with trying to put some time into the blog. We have a digital camera now so I can try to give some updates on life in the Southwest.