Leaf Jumping

Posting a few pictures taken a couple of weekends ago. One of the forgot joys of our old house was the amount of leaves to rake each year. This pile is only one part of the front yard, 6 days after picking up all the leaves. At least the kids enjoy it!

Carving Pumpkins

Carving Pumpkins! - This year the kids all helped, especially with removing the yucking pumpkins guts. Ty picked his design out of a template book. It was a little tricking, but it is supposed to be a flaming skull. Ellie's and Drew's match their outfits - a butterfly and very hungry Caterpillar.

Update on renovation project

Sorry for the lag in providing update on the house renovations. Between getting ready for the move, the kids starting school again, and last minute details on the renovation, we have been a tad busy, but in a good way.

A lot has happened since last update. We finally got all the inspections complete (phew), allowing the drywall to go up and flooring to go in. As you can see from the first photo, we have new entryway, the garage is complete, and windows installed. We still need siding, but for now, the contractor is focusing on the inside to get it ready for the move the first week of October.

That brings us to the second photo, which is shot standing in the old kitchen, looking into the new kitchen. The perspective is similar to the first two photos from the July 5th blog update. The new kitchen will be in the area where you see the refrigerator now. There will be island in the middle, with new appliances, counters, custom cabinets, etc. We are really looking forward to the open floor plan.

In between packing, moving and keeping the rental we currently live in ready for showing to prospective tenants, I hope to find time to add a few photos of the second floor later this week.

Ty's 1st Race

Ty' has been asking to run a race with me for quite some time. I toyed with signing him up for mountain bike race, but we haven't had enough time to train for it this year.

Since we moved back to Virginia, he has started running with me on some shorter trail runs. I have to admit, he is in great shape - must be all that soccer he plays.

When I found out my work was sponsoring a 5 K, I signed Ty and I up for it. The Navy Federal 5K benefits the Committee for Helping Others and is run in Vienna, VA. I figured 5K was safe distance to start, and I knew the course fairly well.

On the day of the race, Ty was pretty excited. I talked to him about his expectations, and his goal was to finish in top 10 in his age group. Unfortunately, the youngest age group as 19 and under, so Ty knew he couldn't keep up with 18 and 19 year olds. He ran a great race, setting a comfortable pace, not chasing other kids that started too fast and picking them off later. After seeing the rest of the family new the finish line, Ty managed to finish strong, at just under 25 minutes. He finished 7th in his age group, and more importantly, 3rd fastest time for 10 and under. A great time, given it was his first race and I intentionally paced him a little slow. Needless to say, I was very proud Papa. He is already asking about his next race.

By the way, click on the Title above, or here to see race data captured by my garmin 305. For more information on my garmin, click here .

Steelers Training Camp

During the last week of August, I took a day to visit the Steelers training camp at St. Vincent College. The campus is located in scenic Latrobe PA, in the foothills of the Allegheny mountains. Both Tyler and Ellie came along and had lots of fun. We watched practice, took part in the NFL experience and even got some got some autographs. While we came close to getting fan favorite Polamalu - he one person down from Ellie, we did get lasts year's number 1 draft pick, Ziggy Hood.

Polamalu was impressive - last player off the practice field and last player signing autographs. And yes ladies, he does have better hair than you. The second photo is action shot of him making interception during practice.

There was plenty of stuff for kids to do - a whole NFL experience in which they could throw passes, kick a field go, go through obstacle course, and try one full pads. Take a look at the last photo - you can barely see Ellie's fingers sticking out of the shoulder pads

Guess Who Turned 3?

We had small celebration for Drew's 3rd birthday last Friday. A bigger party at the pool is planned in a couple of weeks. For now, he enjoyed cookies and ice cream. If anybody asks him how old he is, he holds up 3 fingers and says "Tee"

House Renovations - Exterior

Next in line of updates on the house renovations. I figured this time I would provide a view from the outside. The first picture was taken about 6 years ago. We actually used this to advertise the house as a rental when we were in K.C. You can see the single car garage on the right side.
The second picture of the outside is also taken from the front, but is from the opposite corner. You can still see the old garage that will become our new kitchen. Above the old garage, they have framed out the new Master Bedroom. The workers are putting on new roof and pouring cement for the foundation of the new garage, which you can see in the last photo.

The final shot is straight on. The new, 2 car garage is framed out, along with the new roof over the entrance and Master Bedroom. The 2x6 supporting the overhang on the garage will be replaced by columns with brick on the bottom. We will also have new columns to replace the existing ones around the entrance. The new garage does eat into the driveway a bit, but it will be nice to have space for both cars.

House renovations - 2nd Floor

Couple more pictures from the house renovation, this time on the second floor. These are before and after pictures from the second floor, which currently has master bedroom, (2) kids rooms, a study, and (2) baths. We decided to do was widen the hallway about 18", move the master bedroom out over the existing garage/new kitchen, then use the space that was the master bedroom to add new bathroom for the kids and new bedroom for Drew.

The first picture shows the old view from the master bedroom doorway, looking towards Ellie's room. You can just see the handrail for the stairs on the left. The second picture, is taken from within what will be the new master bedroom looking towards Ellie's room. You can see how much longer and wider the hallway is. The framing for the wall and door to the master bedroom is showing.

The 3rd pictures shows the old view from the opposite end of the hallway as the first - standing in Ellie's doorway and looking down the hallway towards master bedroom. Compare that to the 4th picture (ignore the mess). You can see again the wider hallway, and the framing for both Drew's room on the right and the new bathroom on the left.

Once again, I have included the architecture diagrams for the old and new 2nd floor layout. Next week, I hope to add some shots of the exterior. That should give an idea of how everything fits together.

Renovation - first floor

In case you didn't know, we are having major renovations done to our house before we move back in. When we moved back to Virginia last year, our tenants still had another year left on their lease. For the past year, we have been renting in the same neighborhood. We started the renovations about 3 weeks ago when our tenants moved out. Over the next few months, we thought it would be fun to post some pics of the work in progress.

This post focuses just on the kitchen area. We are having the wall between the garage and kitchen knocked out, and moving the new kitchen into what is the existing garage. The first picture shows the kitchen before work started. You can see the door from the "old" kitchen out to the garage on the right, and just a small bit of the door to the deck on the left. The second picture is the same view after the wall between the garage and kitchen has been remove. Pretty exciting!

The 3rd image is also a picture of the "old" kitchen, but taken from the opposite side as the first two. I was standing with my back to the garage facing the oven and sink. Do you like that faux brick backsplash? I know Melissa won't miss it. The last shot shows same view, minus the counters, cabinets, stove, etc. We are going for the minimalist look.

The last two images I have added are the blue prints of the before and after looks on the 1st floor. I apologize for the poor resolution, I had to convert them from pdfs to jpegs, so they might be a little hard to read. For the most part, we are leaving the living room & family room alone, and only making minor changes to the dinning room. The before or existing blueprint is on the left, with the new one on right.

Ellie Swim Team Trials

Ellie has joined the swim team at our neighborhood pool - The Wahoos. We are not wild about the team name (kidding), but the team is good and the atmosphere great. Of course, Ellie is only 6, so we don't want to get carried away. She has great stamina and swims pretty fast. She needs to spend a little more time in practice on starts and finishes, but she is doing great for her first time. The first photo is start of 25 meter butterfly for 8 and under. She is in the bottom lane, with the white swim cap.

She is competing in all 4 strokes:

• freestyle,
• back,
  
• breast, and
  
• butterfly

Most important, she has lots of fun with the other swimmers and coaches. Her first meet is Monday, June 28th. I hope to post update a couple of days after that.

Quick update on Ellie's first swim meet; she swam three strokes and achieved 3rd in Butterfly (out of 8 swimmers) 8 and under, 1st in Breast (out of 8 swimmers) 6 and under, and 4th in backstroke (out of 24) 6 and under.

Drew helps in Poppop's Garden

A couple of weekends back, Melissa took Drew down to Charlottesville to visit the grandparents and see a Sesame Street Live show. Drew had great fun watching Elmo, Cookie and the rest of Sesame Street. He also had a lot of fun helping Poppop plant his garden.

Ellie's new Bike

We final went and got Ellie a new bike, without training wheels. She took to it right away, zooming up and down our sidewalk. She still needs a little time to learn turns. The good news is, she has learned how to crash from one of the best, her old man.

Signings

Ty was lucky enough to get a couple of autographs recently. The first one was at a book signing for Rick Riordan. He has written the popular kids books called Percy Jackson Series, based on Greek and Roman mythodology set in present day. The first one was made into a so-so movie, called Lightening Thief. The author is touring to promote his a new series based on Egyption mythology, called the Kane Chronicles. Ty got an autographed copy of the new book.

The author signed books and answerred questions at Politics and Prose, a neat bookstore in NorthWest D.C. Ty was pretty excited, even if it did make for a long night.


The second signing was at a card trade show. Steeler running back Rashard Mendenhall . Ty was very excited to meet him and get his autograph.