I’m still fighting a cold – so I’m taking it easy and going through pictures from the past few months (and playing more with Lightroom). Here are a few from the past few months.
Winter pictures.
Category: Family
February weekend
It has been a slow weekend. Both Ben and I have been fighting a cold since Friday. Neither of us is completely knocked out, but we are certainly not feeling up to a super busy weekend.
The boys and I are working on upgrading the game loft – in preparation for Will’s birthday party in two weeks. Over the past two weeks I built a counter using some oak flooring that I brought back from St. Louis years ago. The party will be a gaming party, so we needed the counter to set up the computers on. We also made a Craigslist gain of four bar stools that are a surprisingly good match.
I still have some work to do before the party. I have to add wiring for the computers and two more overhead lights. In the long run we need to finish insulating the space and finish the walls and floor. But who knows how long that will take to finish…
Reflections on 2016
This has been quite a busy year. I had been trying to write my year goals down in early January and then see how I do for the year. Looking back at January – I think I forgot to find time and focus and write my goals down. But I can still reflect back at the year and see how I did.
This year brought a big change to the family. Isabella joined us in late February. I think she was the highlight of the year for the whole family. Will and Ben have both made a strong connection with her, and they still fight about who gets to hold her when they come home from school.
Some other positive memories (in no particular order):
- Taking the boys to Europe for a family vacation. My dad and step mom, Barbara, met us in Copenhagen. After Copenhagen, the boys and I took a train to Sweden to meet up with Susanna and Isabella (and Susanna’s family).
- Days of fun with a grumpy cat balloon. We would move it around at night and scare each other (it always was a startle to walk into the bathroom at night and come face to face with a grumpy cat balloon).
- Hosting Thanksgiving at our house.
- Will volunteering as a preschool helper at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center. I’ve never seen him so tired as he was after a day of hard work hanging out with a bunch of little kids.
- Watching Ben make a special bond with Isabella. He was the first one to get her to laugh and continues to be the one that can get her to laugh the hardest.
- Travelling to Brazil, Australia and the Netherlands for work.
- Having lots of visitors with the new baby.
- Building a bed with Will.
- Watching Will present a report on a paper he wrote about blue crabs in Long Island Sound from research he did over three weeks at Project Oceanology.
- Working with Susanna on deconstructing a swimming pool and preparing a place for said swimming pool in our rocky/hilly almost impossible back yard.
- Taking a street photography course in Australia.
- Susanna cooking the microwave by running it empty for 5 minutes. Then taking the dead microwave apart with the boys to see how it is made.
- Lots of hiking with Ben to get him in shape for his trip to the White Mountains with my dad.
- Will complaining the entire second day of our trip to Europe.
- Leaving my bag on the train car when switching trains trying to get to Sweden. Luckily I was able to run back and grab it.
- Isabella falling asleep at her baptism in Sweden.
- Taking a long bike tour around Copenhagen on the rented electric-assist bicycles.
- Watching Ben do baseball for the first time. Watching Will run cross-country for the first time.
- Watching Isabella do everything for the first time (roll over, stand up, eat real food, say words, laugh).
- Jack up the front post of the garage with Susanna’s dad, Dan. The old posts on the garage are starting to rot and cause the garage to sag in sections.
Despite it being a busy year, there are some things I wished I did better:
- Posting in Isabella’s blog. I had been trying to post a picture a day for a year of Isabella. I lost momentum on that after my trip to Australia. I have lots of pictures, and maybe I’ll take time to go back and post some more, but I don’t think I’ll get one a day.
- Writing in my blog. Another thing that I lost momentum on after Australia.
- Woodworking. I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. I was probably more distracted in the shop than usual. But to be fair, we had a lot going on (guests/vacation/baby) and I did finish a few pieces of furniture (A bed with Will, cutting board with Will and Ben, shelves for Izzy’s room and a computer cabinet for the workshop).
- Exercise. I got tendinitis in my right shoulder and have been working to get my shoulder pain resolved for the past four months. I think I’m finally on my way to pain-free, but that has slowed me down a bit.
- Overall, I think I started too many things this year and had trouble finishing things.
Deconstructing a swimming pool
We had a busy weekend so far. We are catching up on chores – Susanna and Izzy were sick most of the week. And I’ve been falling behind on the small chores. In addition to small chores, we started helping my uncle take down his pool today – we will move the pool to our yard in the spring. We will have to get a new liner, but we should be able to salvage the rest of the equipment and enough decking to complete the project.
In addition to the swimming pool (which too most of today), I was able to replace the well pressure tank on Friday night. The old tank had a leak in the bladder and required constant refilling of the compressed air in the tank.
With a big yard, it is difficult to get WiFi around the whole property. And with a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old (and two adults that also spend way too much time on the Internet) it was time to update the access point. I ordered an access point that I could install on the exterior of the house and had enough signal strength to cover the entire inside of the house. Getting a good access point (EnGenius ENS1750) makes a huge difference in speed and range. I got the access point attached and the Ethernet cable run before dinner tonight. I do still need to clean up the wiring in the basement, but that will be for tomorrow.
Tomorrow will involve more yard chores and hopefully some workshop time.
Photo Challenge (Red)
This weekend’s focus for the boys and me is the color red. We decided to dress up Isabella in a red dress and see what we got. It will be interesting to see what the boys decide to use for their posts today. This is after a little playing around with Adobe Lightroom. I think I could have gotten the reds to look a little better, but time to do chores now.
Ben and Isabella
Playing with the new camera
I decided to upgrade from the iPhone and family point-and-shoot camera. I originally wanted an intro level SLR, but instead decided on a Sony Alpha A5000 mirrorless camera – more compact than a DSLR with nearly the same quality. Ben and I have been playing around a bit with the camera – he posted a picture on his blog earlier this weekend. Here are two pictures that I was playing around with today. As a side note – taking pictures in RAW format and editing them on Lightroom is a significant improvement from editing JPEGs on GIMP. The only downside is that Lightroom doesn’t natively run on Linux and we only have Linux machines running right now.
First Day of School (Pictures)
Pictures from Sweden (Part 2)
A quick upload while waiting in Kastrup for our flight to Oslo (and then home). Note to self: the WiFi at CPH is very good for a free connection.
Pictures from Sweden (Part 1)
On Friday, the boys and I took the train from Copenhagen to Alvesta, Sweden. We had to switch trains twice – our original train from Copenhagen was cancelled and we had to pass through an ID check at Kastrup Airport before crossing the border into Sweden. It was a little stressful to have to figure out where to go, but at least the people at the information desk spoke English.
In Copenhagen central station, we met a French family on their way to Stockholm that spoke little English and no Swedish. They stuck with us for the train swaps at Kastrup and again at Malmo. Their daughter sat next to Will on the train ride from Copenhagen to Kastrup, thinking he was older. She was shocked when he said he was 13. She was 18. Of course, it embarrasses Will when I tell the story. But his new haircut makes him look older.
On Saturday, we had Isabella’s christening – Susanna posted pictures on Isabella’s website.
Sunday was an easy day. We cleaned up from the celebration and the boys took it easy.
Monday we went to Kosta and got fish pedicures and ate lunch. After lunch we took a guided tour of the glass blowing factory. In the evening, Susanna’s sister, Rebecka, took the train back to her home, and we headed out to Susanna’s Dad, Dan’s, cabin which is near Sävsjöström, Sweden on Alstern Lake. The boys and I were going to camp out for the night, but after dinner Will felt sick, so Will and I came home while Ben camped out with Dan.
This morning, Will, Susanna and I went back to the cabin and joined Ben and Dan for breakfast. Breakfast was followed by checking out Dan’s harvester, and Ben rode along while Dan took down a few trees. We spent this afternoon taking it easy and playing kubb while the boys took turns trying to figure out the antique (1960s) moped.
Herråkra Church, Sweden
