Home Addition Update

January 31st. Well the home renovation project is quickly winding down. The painters have been busy the past three work days. We're keeping the same painting scheme used throughout much of the house....Benjamin Moore paint; ceiling white for the ceiling, dove white (eggshell finish) on the walls and beige (966) for the trim. It is a nice look. We're switching the door color to Mahogony (SW2838), and the doors look spectacular with this color (see picture at right). Wow, I was really happy with the color change on the doors and I will definitely be re-painting our other existing doors once BONI leaves.

Here are updated photos of the outside:
From the same angle as usual.

From the street, also looking at the bedroom addition.

February 6th. Today the electrician came and will be installing the lights and ceiling fans we chose earlier. Even though heavy thunderstorms are predicted for later this afternoon, these should be installed when I get home tonight and it will be nice to have extra illumination as I inspect Jason's work every night. Jason was busy yesterday installing steps up to the porch and he may finish that today. I think by next week BONI will be gone and Jane and I can work on her closet, intall window treatments and wait for the carpet to be installed and then move in to our new bedroom. The carpet is from the Liz Claiborne collection, I think the style is called cirque and the color is stone.

February 7th. The shades for the bedroom windows came yesterday and maybe we'll be able to get them hung in the windows this weekend. Jane likes the natural woven shades from Smith & Noble rather than blinds or curtains. In fact, we haven't had much success in the past using curtains. There's a funny story about Jane's attempt to make curtains once when we lived in Connecticut, but I'lll save the story for another time. Jason delayed pouring the concrete footers for the steps off the porch, think it was going to rain.....it didn't rain. So I suppose he'll finish that task today as well as build the railings. The electrician is mostly done installing the light fixtures and fans. He'll be back on Friday and should finish then. There was one slight problem yesterday.....when I renovated the basement last year I patially enclosed the electrical panel such that the electrician couldn't get into the panel to install new circuit breakers. Doh! Jason will have to undue some of my handywork so that when the electrician returns Friday he'll be able to access the electrical panel. I had to sheepisly hang my head when Jason told me this news last night. I never said I was good at remodeling......or even that I know what I'm doing most of the time....only that I work cheap. If you remember this sequence from the movie Mr. Mom.....you have a good idea of my handyman skills.

Ron Richardson: Yeah? Are you gonna make it all 220?

Jack Butler: Yeah. 220... 221, whatever it takes.

"Earlham Can Use a Guy Like Elroy"

This is has to be one of my favorite opening moments from a movie.....Of course, the movie was Risky Business starring Tom Cruise.

The dream is always the same.

Instead of going home,I go to the neighbors'.

I ring, but nobody answers.

The door is open, so I go inside.

I look around, but no one seems to be there.

Then I hear the shower running.

So, I go upstairs to see what's what.

Then I see her.

This... girl!

This incredible girl!

I don't know why she's there because she doesn't live there...

...but it's a dream, so I go with it.

"Who's there?" she says.

"Joel," I say.

"What are you doing here?"

"I don't know. "

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm taking a shower," she says.

Then I give her...

..."Do you want me to go?"

"No," she says.

"I want you to wash my back."

I'm getting enthusiastic about this dream.

So, I go to her, but she's hard to find through all the steam.

I keep losing her.

Finally, I get to the door...

...and I find myself in a room full of kids taking their College Boards.

I'm over three hours late!

I've got two minutes to take the whole test.

I've just made a terrible mistake.

I'll never get to college.

My life is ruined.



Now, I have a similar dream only my dream is about my kids not getting into college or not being able to afford going to the colleges they've been accepted to. Why am I worrying about this now? Even though we've spent so much effort the past year thinking about where Elroy and Judy would be going to college I thought I still had a few months to chill before having to deal with college acceptance (or rejection) letters. Anyway, we got our first acceptance letter yesterday. Elroy was accepted to Earlham College. This happened only a couple weeks after he sent in his application, what's up with that? Shouldn't the admissions office at least offer the pretense of being selective. This is not to suggest that Elroy doesn't have a pretty good academic record and will likely be accepted by all his choices but still, if the college is going to ask us to pony up 30+ thousand dollars a year to attend I want to feel that there was a rigorous selection process going on. Maybe Elroy mentioned that his uncle went to Earlham and that sealed the deal......anyway, Earlham probably could use a guy like Elroy.

Gulp.....

The last couple of weeks have been very busy, Elroy and Judy completing their final college applications (see what colleges Elroy and Judy have applied to here) and Jane and I applying for financial aid. The principle financial aid document is the FREE Application For Student Aid (FAFSA). Normally, I like anything that is free. I think every family with kids entering college, save for the independently wealthy, submit a FAFSA application in which you detail all the financial aspects of your life from yearly salary and assests down to how much change is currently in your pockets and underneath the sofa seat cushions. We finally completed the FAFSA after days and days of figuring out how much $$$ is coming-in and how much $$$ is going-out and, I note with emphasis, providing any "special circumstances" the good folks at FAFSA should consider before providing us an estimate of what our family is expected to come up with for Elroy's and Judy's college fund. Well, the Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) I received was generated immediately upon submitting the electronic FAFSA application. So obviously this is a computer-generated cold calculation that has no intention of feeling my pain over our special circumstances (like having twins entering college!!). Anyway, this is the message I received nanoseconds after hitting the FAFSA submit button. The comments in bold parentheses are mine.

Based on the information we have on record for you, your EFC is 49235 (That's $49,235.00 dollars....Gulp! For some reason FAFSA doesn't like to use financial punctuation like the dollar sign, comma, or period. I wonder if that is supposed to make the EFC more palatable?). You are not eligible for a Federal Pell Grant (Doh!) but you may be eligible for other aid (yeah, like first aid to keep me alive for the next four years). Your school will use your EFC to determine your financial aid eligibility for other federal grants, loans, and work study, and possible funding from your state and school. (Somehow....I don't feel overly optimistic).

Home Addition Update

January 28th. The bedroom is nearing completion. Jason and the construction foreman from our previous renovation project, John, have been busy installing the casing trim on the windows and doors. Here are recent photos of the bedroom looking toward the backyard through the bay window. The ceiling wasn't quited as high as we would have liked but it had to be about 6 inches lower to accomodate the air conditioning ducts in the ceilling.

At right, imagine I'm standing near the bay window looking forward to the left-front of the house with a view inside Jane's closet. It turns out that the BONI was only planning a simple shelf and ROD for the closet and Jane will certainly need a lot more than one rod. So I have a new DIY project once BONI is done. Jason and I talked about installing a closet maid system in the closet. I used closet maid in the basement closets I installed last year and it's pretty easy, so this shouldn't be a problem and Jane and I can custom fit the closet with a lot of shelving, storage bins, and rods.

The last view below is a view to the right-front and the door leading from the bedroom to the back porch.

Cat Napping

Here's a picture of Max lounging on the family room sofa. Everything he does is kinda cute.

Home Addition Update

January 24th. Lots of progress to report. The new tile for the bathroom was delivered; I'll talk more about this below. Inside the radiators were installed in the bedroom and the drywall is up, sanded smooth, and the rooms ready for the trim-work and painting. Jason hung the new doors to Jane's closet, so soon we'll have to find out how the inside of the closet will be arranged with hangars and shelving. It will be a fair-sized, walk-in closet......although I'm not sure it will be ample enough for all of Jane's clothes and accesories! Anyway, after that the switches and outlets will be hooked-up. Outside the roof has been installed and the siding is mostly finished. The siding crew started last Saturday and I expect will be finished early next week. We have a lot of custom trim-work that has to be wrapped in painted aluminum. This "metalwork", as it is called, takes some time to finish...but will last a long time with minimal upkeep and has great curb appeal. Here is the latest view from the backyard looking toward the porch (picutre taken January 27th); notice the trim along the bottom and top segments of the porch framing. The siders were at work over the weekend installing the ceiling. The ceiling is white vinyl that mimics 2 inch beadboard. The crew worked all day and the ceiling looks great. See a picture of the ceiling below. This view is from the bedroom door.

The Bathroom. I had originally demolished the bathroom approximately 7-8 years ago after the wall tiles had fallen off, the result of water getting behind the walls. The long wall of the tub surround had a window with painted wood trim. This isn't a good design feature to have in a tub surround where we mostly take showers because the wood was continually getting wet and eventually leaked water behind the wall resulting in a lot of rot and eventually the wall failed when the tile fell off. When I took out the the old bathtub the wall sheathing and studs were competely rotted and I had to replace them. I re-drywalled the entire bathroom and installed new bathroom sink, toilet, and bathtub. I never did finish the tile. The reasons why are many and long-winded and I'm not sure I believe any of them myself anymore. Suffice it to say, it will be nice to have the shower back.

Janauary 28th. The tile was installed last week but has not yet been grouted. Remember as you look at the photos below, that I demolished the old bathroom and installed the tub, all new plumbing, and the backerboard for the tile.....if the window had not been an issue, I think I could have put up the tile as well (or at least I would like to think so).

The picture at left is a picture toward the front of the tub surround. We opted for the larger, hipper tiles. I think they must be 5x7 or something. Evidently, no one uses the old 4x4 tiles anymore and I must admit that now that the tiles are up they do look nice. As an accent, we used a border of small glass and stone tiles. See the close-up of the accent border below.

We have enough of the accent tiles left over that I'll be able to use them to make a backsplash for the bathroom sink. Then, I'll have a DIY project to report on.

Home Addition Update

January 7, 2008. The insulators are supposed to make an appearance this week. We had our walk-through last Thursday with Jason, George and Chip and made all our last minute decisions on placements of receptacles; if the close-up inspection went okay then the insulators will start filling-in walls, floor and ceiling. This is standard home-remodeling practice, before the walls get closed-in all the wiring gets inspected by the county and by the homeowners...Jane and I. For us it's a question of where do we want the light switches, how many outlets and where, and do we want two-way or three-way....light switches of course, not Skyline Chili.
Just as this is about to happen the temperatures have started going back up again...go figure. I'll tell you, it's been chilly in the house the past two weeks with only a thin sheet of plastic between us and the uninsulated, unheated bedroom addition. There has been a veritable tsunami of frigid air flowing into our living spaces and now that the cold temperatures have at least temprarily abated......the insulators are scheduled to come. I'm not complaining, just marking the irony of the situation. Besides it will get colder again and we'll be one step closer to getting the project done. Here's are recent pictures of the outside.

January 8th. When I got home last night the porch decking was about half completed. In order to make the porch as mosquito-free as possible the framing crew first laid down a fiberglass screening material over the floor joists before installing the decking. The porch decking has a nice detail I haven't seen used before, a trim around the perimeter of the deck so that you don't see any exposed ends. Click on the picture to see an expanded view to see the decking detail.

January 9th. Today the porch decking is complete and looks real nice. Here are some pictures from different perspectives. I just figured out this morning that the insulators won't arrive until air-conditioning ducts are navigated to the new bedroom and the copper pipes for the radiators plumbed. The ducts were going in this morning as I was leaving for work. I'm not sure about the radiators. The picture above at left is looking from the bedroom door out to the screened porch. The picture below is from the porch looking toward the bedroom addition. No insulators yet.

January 11th. The framing crew and/or Jason have done a lot of work outside getting ready for the vinyl siding to go on. Our siding has a lot of detail features, a watermark band around the bottom and similar band around the top of the walls that we've received a lot of complements from neighbors about. I don't even want to think about how much we pay for this feature; they require a lot of plywood underlayment to build-up the watermark before the siders come. It's looking good and it'll be worth it when it's completed. No insulators today either.

January 15th. The insulators came and went yesterday! The bedroom is now wrapped (with Tyvek), insulated, caulked, and ready for the next act. That would be the drywall installation. When I talked to Jason this morning he thought that all the sheetrock panels would be in place today (after all we're not getting that much more interior room). I suspect that it will take another couple of days for a couple coats of dry wall compound and a first coat of paint (which shows the drywall defects) and the then the finishing drywall touches. This means the bedroom should be ready for the electrical installations and finishing woodwork by next week. Jane and I really have to move to get the carpet selected for the bedroom so we can arrange for it to be installed without a big time lag after the painters are finished. Below are before and after photos in the bedroom looking toward the back of the house and the baywindow.

Waste Not......

....or is it waste naught...whatever. In the basement, the new waste ejector has been installed. Our home was built in 1933 and originally had a septic tank system. At some later time when the rest of the area was built up and public sewars were put it, our house must have been hooked up to the public main and the septic system abandoned. However, the main waste pipe rather than exiting through the basement floor exits about two or three feet above the floor. Hence, when we do laundry in the basement we need to pump the waste water up to exit in the main sewar pipe. In the past we always just let the waste water from the laundry go into our basement sump pump (that also collects ground water) and then pumped out in the city sewars.....which is illegal. So we fixed it and now have a ground water sump pump and a separate sewage ejector. Supposedly, if we ever want to install a toilet or shower in the basement we can tap into the right end of the pipe that is partially buried in this picture. Okay enough about sewage.

A Puzzling Development

On Christmas day we spent the day at Jane's sister in Cincinnati. While there, Judy and I started helping out on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle and having made little progress in the hour spent trying to fit pieces together decided to get a puzzle of our own when we got home. I suppose gluttons for punishment is the correct description for us. There are no puzzle-only stores in our area that I have found so far; toy/hobby shops or the local Target are our only options at the present. Assembling puzzles can be a little......bedeviling. I'm sure that if the CIA knew how frustrating puzzles can be they'd be giving puzzles to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay....puzzle-boarding! Anyway, we did purchase a puzzle from Target and have been working on it intermittingly for the last week or so. It's now finished and with great pride I present a picture of our completed one million piece (say like Dr. Evil), actually only 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

Lighting and Fan Selections for the Porch

Our new screened porch, we're hoping, becomes a focal point of life during most of the year. We wanted to have a nice big ceiling fan to generate cooling breezes in the summer heat and chose this nice 52 inch ceiling fan with an oiled bronze finish. The ceiling with be some shade of off-white and this fan will look nice against that backdrop. We also needed a stoop light for the entrance to the porch and a flushmount light fixture for the breezeway. We found this matching set shown below that has a pleasing cottage-like styling. I think they'll look great when installed.

Breezeway Light (at left).

Stoop Light (at right).

Are We Home Yet.....

Whenever I look in the rearview mirror on trips back and forth to Cincinnati, I see Astro resting his head between the two rearseat headrests just staring forward as if he is saying...."are we home yet."

Hail to the Redskins

After nearly 4 years of bumbling and stumbling; bad game-time decisions (the most infamous being the two consecutive timeouts Gibbs called to "ice" the opposing teams place-kicker) and mis-management of personnel (i.e. how was Todd Collins ever behind Mark Brunell?) the Redskins find themselves in the playoffs. The weird thing is that right now they really look pretty good. However, I think that the other NFL teams are, at some point, going to catch-up with Todd Collins and the "new Redskins". Evidently he's running more plays out of Al Saunders playbook than Jason Campbell was and defenses will eventually adapt and then we'll see---but at least for now they seem to have the other team's defenses off-balance. Anyway, this Saturday I do plan to watch the game and root for the Redskins.

January 7th. Well, the Redskins did indeed lose. They look completely inenpt the first half with three or four dropped passes on perfectly thrown balls by Todd Collins. But in the second half the Redskins scored on a couple of nice touchdowns drives with crisp passing patterns completed by (who else Redskins MVP), Todd Collins. But it didn't last long. The Redskins botched a field goal attempt after recovering a kickoff, the Seahawks scored on the next possesion to take the lead and then intercepted the only bad pass Todd Collins has thrown in 5 games and ran it back for a touchdown. Oh Well, I read this morning that coach Joe wants to come back next year.....and maybe longer.

January 8th. Gibbs made it official, he's severed all ties with the Redskins organization, as coach, as president of football operations, and probably also as an interested former head coach. I'm happy he's going......I really feel he was just out of touch with the personnel and the league, but his abrupt and complete departure was a little weird.

Top Ten Photos of the Year

Here are my top ten favorite photos of the year 2007.

















1. Distance and Scale
View of Red Rocks State Park, Las Vegas NV.

2. Hard to Measure
View of Grand Canyon National Park from the North Rim.








3. Killed by Indians
Grafton Cemetary, Grafton Utah.

4. Family Hike
Over Thanksgiving Holiday
Olney, Maryland.















5. Panic Attack
View of the last trail segment to reach Angel's Landing, Zion National Park, Utah.














6. Last Look Back
Traveling on a dirt road from Grafton, UT to Pipe Spring Monument.


7. Old Geyser
Kodachrome State Park, Escalante, UT.














8. Pretty in Pink
Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Utah

9. Thistle
Winton Woods, Cincinnati, Ohio.




















10. Snow Squall
Hike in Olney, Maryland.

Home Addition Update

December 18th. Last Friday the framing crew had the roof rafters in place and the roof partially enclosed over the new bedroom addition. The picture at right was taken December 17th in the afternoon showing the roofline of the new bedroom addition and the bay window looking out into the backyard, or at least what is left of the backyard. Over the weekend Jane and I were able to walk around inside and get a sense of space and plan where the bedroom furniture will go. This morning I noticed another large pallette containing the pressure-treated wood that will be used in constructing the screened-in porch, so that may be going up soon. These guys are working really fast and now that the weather looks clear for the next week, there should be a lot of changes before we leave for home on Saturday. When we get back after the holidays we have a few light fixtures, a couple of ceiling fans (one in the bedroom and one on the porch), paint colors, carpet for the bedroom and tile for the bathroom that we need to pick-out. This is the worst part for us, or at least for me, and I wish the Design/Build team would just choose something neutral and install it, paint it, whatever. In addition, since Jane and I thought we could save money by staining/sealing the porch ourselves (probably a bad idea) we also have that chore to plan ahead for.

January 2nd. The project is moving pretty rapidly even though it's getting pretty cold to work outside. The porch and porch roof were completed while we were in Cincinnati over Christmas holiday. You can see the 6x6 posts holding up the roof....I'm anxious to see how this will look when completed. It certainly wasn't the design we had planned initially, but it will be nice. We have the walk-through with the contractor for final approval of the electrical outlets and switches and other details that we need to decide on now before they start insulating the walls and drywalling. One pain was that the water supply to the washer was disconnected last week and we've had to take our laundry to the laundromat to get washed. That didn't make George happy and I spoke with the foreman this moring that it would be nice to get the water and sewage connections in place so that we'll be able to use the washing maching by this weekend. I'm sure that will really help......yes, that was sarcasm.

Holiday Cookies

Tonight we packaged this year's edition of Holiday cookies to give out to the neighbors. Judy and I had been busy the past few weeks baking and decorating and when Jane brought a plate into work was surprized (or scared) how fast they were consumed--a good sign for Judy and I!! We made sugar cookie cutouts, chocolate chip, coconut macaroons with chocolate drizzle, chocolate crisps, chocolate-covered peanut butter balls, cranberry and pistachio biscotti dipped in white chocolate, and Lizzie's.

Elroy the Wrestler

Here are a few pictures of Elroy from a recent wrestling meet. In this series Elroy is seen as one of the team captains greeting the captains of an opposing team. Elroy won by default against that team. There are two other photos of Elroy squaring off against another opponent who he pinned in the first period.

True History of the Kelly Gang

True History of the Kelly Gang is Peter Carey's 2001 Booker Prize winning novel that recontructs the life and times of Ned Kelly, an uneducated Irish immigrant who becomes a infamous bushranger and revolutionary figure in Austrailia. Although this book is fictional the characters in the novel actually existed and many of the events are based on historical fact. Although his legacy is still somewhat controversial, Ned Kelly is revered by many as a national icon and the forerunner of Australian nationalism. Based partly on historical documents and the famous Jerilderie letter written by Kelly, Carey's novel closely follows the known facts of Kelly's opposition of England's unjust colonial rule.

In writing this book, Carey introduces the story from Ned Kelly's point of view. The letter, written in his last days sets about to write his life history so that his infant daughter will know the truth about him. What follows is a glimpse of life during a period of British colonial rule (apporximatley 1840-1880) in Austrailia as the Kelly family struggles to survive in Australia's unyielding bush country. As dirt-poor Irish immigrants they are looked upon by the English settlers (called squatters) as "a notch beneath the cattle" and face continual harassment from the traps (police) and the threat of eviction from their land.

Ned's father dies while Ned is quite young and Ned initially sets about to farm the land and protect his mother and siblings. Kelly's mother is not neccessarily a sympathetic figure in this novel although is much beloved by Ned. At one point, Ned's mother tricks Ned into becoming an apprentice to the famous bushranger Harry Power (in order to bring in money), thus drawing Ned increasingly into a life of crime. When Ned accidently shoots the treacherous Constable Fitzgerald, Ned is forced to flee into the wild back country. In the bush, Ned uses the lessons he learned from Harry Power to avoid capture and survive in the wild. He is joined by his younger brother Dan and two loyal friends; together they comprise the Kelly gang. During this time Ned also falls in love with marries his donah, Mary Hearn, the mother of his daughter. While on the lam, the Kelly gang outsmart the police, elude massive manhunts, and commit daring robberies all the while gaining widespread support from poor oppressed farmers whom they help out by paying off their debts or helping them work the land.

After his capture in 1880, Ned Kelly said, "If my lips teach the public that men are made mad by bad treatment, and if the police are taught that they may exasperate to madness men they persecute and ill treat, my life will not be entirely thrown away." True History of the Kelly Gang is preceded by an epigraph from William Faulkner: "The past is not dead. It is not even past." These quotes illumine Carey's intent to both relate a good story of a revolutionary figure and more importantly convey a warning about the consequences of injustice and perscution that occur in contemporary conflicts today.

Work on the House Progresses

December 10th, 2007. Monday morning and work on the house is moving apace--there was a huge pallette of lumber delivered to the house before 7 am this morning. The block and brick foundation for the new bedroom, the new steps to the basement, and piers for the porch were all completed last week. Since it snowed last Wednesday/Thursday, and has continued to be overcast and wet the past few days, the backyard is now one big quagmire from the workmen tromping round. If the mud only stayed in the backyard I guess that would be okay, but it's gradually moving to the frontyard, being carried on the bottoms of shoes to the driveway and front walk (and a little inside the house) . The side yard near the street is clogged with piles of demolition debris and the varied flotsam of the construction trade. Pictures of the yard do not reveal the extent of the chaos. It's like the folks in New Orleans were saying after Hurricane Katrina...you have to personally witness the devastation to understand it. Well, our backyard isn't that bad, but you get the idea. The firm that we contracted to do the addition/renovation was the same that did our family room/kitchen/exterior about four years ago. The company is called Buildings Old and New, Inc. or simply BONI---which sounds amusing but they are really good and we were glad to be able to use them again. The remodeling industry in the greater Washington DC area is still red-hot, even though the housing market has slowed somewhat. Just getting a design/build firm to talk to is difficult and we were very happy with BONI on our last remodel. The owner and "chief" design/architect has a real flair for design and is frugal both in salvaging materials we can reuse and maintaining costs. And they work fast, something we'll appreciate even more once they've finshed and we've cleaned-up the yard.

Thursday 14, 2007. Hurricane BONI is still blowing. If only the weather had been like it was the past 10 months....dry.....instead of wet. But construction continues unabated and so does the mess. On a brighter note the framing has started. The floor and sides of the bedroom were in place last night when I took this picture from the backyard. The view from the street (the opposite side) will look like that shown in the scale drawing (see below).......eventually. According to our construction foreman, Jason, the framing for the bedroom and porch will be done by next week. There's a big winter storm predicted for tomorrow and I wish the roof were on when I get home tonight.....but it probably won't be in place yet. Work on the inside has also started, remodeling the old small downstairs bedroom into a walk-in closet and creating a new access for the existing bathroom. Removing the old lathe and plaster walls in these rooms has created another problem---dust. No matter the presence of dust containment, some dust still escapes to settle around the house and we spend a little time dusting and vacuuming every night, doing more house-cleaning in the past week than we normally do in a month. I'm not really complaining....we should house clean more regularly anyway.

First Meet of the Wrestling Season

Jane and I attended Elroy's first wrestling meet of the season. It was a tri-meet, so each team wrestled two other teams. Elroy's team matched off against Einstein and Blake. They won against Einstein 60;16, but lost to Blake 17;54. Elroy's team only won three matches against Blake (one was by forfeit). Elroy pinned both of his opponents, one of only three wrestlers to win both matches. Elroy was tired and a little beat-up, but won the day. Kudos to Elroy for a job well-done!

Advance Copy Christmas Letter, 2007

We hope everyone has had a good year and this Christmas greeting finds you in good health and spirits.

The highlight of our past year was our summer vacation to the National Parks of the Desert Southwest. We flew into Las Vegas and toured Zion and Bryce Canyon NPs in UT and the north rim of Grand Canyon in AZ. We had many memorable hikes; one through the Virgin River slot canyon in Zion NP and another to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes in UT. We also enjoyed visiting the ghost town of Grafton in Utah, where the famous "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head" scene from "Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid" was filmed.

Jane and George are still working for the XXX and YYY, respectively. Jane recently traded her lab job for a supervisory regulatory position. Elroy and Judy are seniors in high school this year and working hard at classes. Both are keeping their grades up and staying on honor roll. Judy ran varsity cross-country this fall and Elroy has just started wrestling. He hurt his knee the first week of practice but is okay now. As in summer's past both mowed lawns over the summer to make spending money and this summer also studied for the SAT which they took in the fall. Besides classes, they've spent countless hours filling out forms and writing essays for the college application process. Next year Elroy and Judy will have their own stories to tell about their college experiences.

Last March, Jane and George ran the Greenway Trail Ultramarathon that one of our friends organizes. Extremely icy and muddy conditions conspired to make this the toughest physical challenge we've ever endured. George also ran the Marine Corps Marathon in October, finishing in 4:27, about 5 minutes faster than he ran the MCM in 2001. However, what we've enjoyed most this year is having Elroy and Judy join us on trail runs and we've even begun running races together. Our first "family outing" was an 8K race called the “Run Through the Grapevine” in which the race course wound through a local vineyard. Afterward, Judy thought the hilly course was brutal, Elroy was too tired to speak, but Jane was blissfully happy having won a bottle of wine.

We have a wonderful new cat named Maximus. We came upon him one evening while out walking, lost and obviously distressed (the cat not us), and he followed us home. So I guess he picked us out. After failing to find his original home we decided we could not give him up. He’s got a wonderful personality and is very tolerant of our older pets that are unsure what to think about this energetic new object of their owner’s affections.

The other news is that we’ve just started to add a little more space to our little home. The groundbreaking was just after the Thanksgiving holiday to add a first floor bedroom addition and screened porch on the back of the house. As always, additional details for these stories and more can be found at http://experiencetk.blogspot.com/. Happy Holidays to everyone.

Is there no end to this conspiracy of irrational prejudice against Red Ryder and his Peacemaker..............HO! HO! HO!