Garden Room Project--The beginning.

Last year we began dreaming and thinking of adding a garden room onto the front of our house. We wanted or needed to do this for several reasons. One reason was due to some questionable building practices there was some water damage and dry rot. Another reason was that we needed a room that could be a secured area from a boy who has autism. Imagine not being able to leave a paper document, book or electronic device on a table for fear it might get ripped up, go sailing across the room, or worse yet...eaten! It is our hope that this room will help to provide a remedy to this problem.

As you probably guessed there is a lot of work involved in any building project and we have chosen to do the bulk of the work ourselves. We simply don't have the resources to hire it done and having to do so would have made it impossible. Fortunately we have some good friends and family who have pitched in to help! My friend Wally Hyde donated a week of his time to help me build the concrete forms and install the rebar grid. What a blessing that was! I should also mention that we enjoyed nearly a month of beautiful weather during the month of December which allowed us to progress as far as we have.





Uncle Marv graciously gave up a weekend to come down and be in charge of the concrete pour. He made it look pretty easy but believe me...I know better! Shoving cement around is hard work and making it look pretty is even harder. That being said Marv did a great job!


Next on the agenda was to remove our bay window which had lost it's seal and was all cloudy on the inside. It made me a little nervous to expose such a large opening in our house but we just run the pellet stove more these days and are heating the neighborhood as well!

Laurie and I removed the bay window ourselves and were hoping not to break it in the process in order to avoid a mess. As it turned out it was kind of like chopping down a big tree. When it started to go it was way too heavy for us so we had no choice but to quickly get out of the way! I nearly put her in the hospital running over her!

This shows the hole we created which I believe is about 7'x 8'ft. I know that there are many places is the country where doing this in the winter would not be advised but thanks a mild winter, some sheeting material and tar paper we are keeping the weather outside for now.

With most of the destruction done it's finally time to do some construction. Our plans called for a 20' 6x10 beam to be installed in our house where the new room will attach. This thing weighs several hundred pounds so we had a boom truck deliver it from the lumber yard. Again I had to rely on some good neighbors to help with getting it into our house and out of the rain.


We hired the man who drew up the plans for us to come over and I helped him place the beam into it's final resting place on the wall. Boy was I glad when that was done especially since the roof didn't fall in during the process! Hopefully we will have some framing pictures soon posted. I'm learning a lot and looking forward to this next phase. Stay tuned!

Christmas Videos

Just when you thought Christmas was over for another year I'm finally getting some pictures posted. Guess I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking here. I will mention that none of us had our makeup on for these shots as you can probably guessed.
Make sure to check out the 2 videos at the end as well.
**One more thing! There are 2 other blogs posted this month as well. You'll have to click on "blog archive" to view them. Thanks for looking.














Jason's rendition of "These are a Few of My Favorite Things"

Annalie talks about the "Littlest Pet Shop" airplane set that she has been wanting for many months

Here comes Santa Claus 2011

We saw Santa Claus a few times this year. Here are two places he visited:


Our local bookstore invited Santa one week. Santa actually had a bag of presents that he distributed. We asked to be able to be seen first as it is so hard for Jason to wait. Jason managed to pull some of his beard hairs out and ripped Santa's hat off. Luckily his hat was not attached to his "hair" on his head or that would have been an unpleasant surprise for the other children...



A week later we went to the Christmas Lights at the Wildlife Safari in Winston (just outside of Roseburg). When Jason started pullng beard hairs again, Santa told us here that he had worked with special needs children. It was a big relief to us to know that he understood and didn't mind his beard being a little less full after we left. We also were the first to see him there that night (and Mrs. Santa!) so there was no line to wait in. At the Wildlife Safari they provide materials for kids to make gingerbread houses. A camera man who was taking footage to promote the program next year actually filmed Annalie making her gingerbread house. Perhaps next year you may see her on television!

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season.

New Hobby.........Geocaching!

Happy New Year!

Prologue:

As Christmas was drawing near, I was trying to come up with a combined present for Dave and the kids. I had seen a family friendly GPS that is specific for geocaching (cache locations are programmed into the device). I had also seen a book at our local bookstore on the hobby. I thought it would be fun to make up a "package" of different items for geocaching. So I bought a leak-proof ammo box (as I knew Dave would want to make and hide his own cache with treasures). I loaded it with: the mentioned book, a log book journal to record all the caches we hope to find, the GPS device, an update kit (as new caches are always being created), some "cache buddies" to attach to items that travel the world (we can follow their progress on the computer) and a starter kit to help make our own cache. What fun it was finding the different items and putting it all in the ammo box for a gift! Dave loves to be outdoors, Jason loves to ride in the jeep, and Annalie is always talking of finding treasures. Geocaching seemed to be a good hobby of choice for our family!

As we are Disney fans, we had also bought a "Duffy" bear for Jason. The story of Duffy is that Minnie Mouse made him for Mickey. Mickey took him on his travels around the world and then Minnie made more Duffy bears for all of their friends. There is a saying "Where will you take your Duffy?" So I thought it would be fun if Duffy came with Jason on our geocaching adventures. You will see him in the pictures.

I'll let Dave finish the rest of this blog...


***4X4 Trailhead Cache***


***Easy to Miss Cache***


***Pyramid Rock Cache***


***Pyramid Mine Cache***


***Flycatcher Springs Cache***

I found a file picture of the little gadget that makes all this possible and I must say it has been fun. It's amazing to me how many of these caches are hidden within a 30 mile radius of our home. I doubt we will live long enough to locate them all but we're sure to have fun trying! I never really needed an excuse to take a drive or a stroll through the woods but now I definitely have one. Thankfully this is something that our whole family can enjoy. Who doesn't like a good treaure hunt!

Canoe Trip Part 2

Several years ago Mark and I talked about taking his canoe down the Rogue R. from Agness to Quosatana Campground. This 15 mile paddle was mostly in uncharted waters for us as far as canoeing goes. A couple of weeks ago we finally were able to make the trip happen. Although I felt a little guilty about it we opted not to take Jason and Annalie since we hadn't covered this stretch of water before. Although the morning was mostly cloudy it once again turned out to be a beautiful fall day. I must say that while jetboats are fun there's something really special about floating silently down the river.

This short video shows a what the beginning of trip was like. Very quiet except for some bird sounds.

This was the only rapid that we stopped to look at before we attempted it. Actually it was no problem at all!

This relic is the remains of a cement truck that got washed down the river from Agness during the flood of 1964. It was fun to to be able to take some time for a closer look.

Around lunch time we stopped at the site of the John Adams homestead at the base of a huge prairie named after him. Once again the day was almost completely free of wind which we were thankful for since there's quite a bit of quiet water in this section of the river.

What a neat place to have had a cabin!
Although we saw otter,ducks,herons,geese,and deer I couldn't seem to get a good picture of any of them on this day. We did come across these bear tracks though. I also managed to capture these geese on camera.
Earlier in the day I was telling Mark that it funny how long it took for us to get around to making this trip happen. We wanted to do it and we we're physically able plus we had the necessary equipment but it still several years. We musn't wait that long to do it again. Life is too short!

Canoe Trip Part 1

Several weeks ago Jason, Annalie, myself, and my friend Mark had an opportunity to once again paddle down a section of the Rogue River. After just beginning to drive up the river to our launch site we came across a herd of elk enjoying an afternoon on the river as well. Don't forget to double click on this picture if you want to take a closer look.


Jason got a little chilled I think not because it was cold but because he just loves to get wet! Fortunatley he warmed up towards the end of the trip because the air became absolutley calm and the water was like a sheet of glass.


We stopped at one of the plentiful gravel bars along our route and ate are lunch.


I think the look on Jason's face shows how we all felt about this trip. A beautiful day enjoying a beautiful place! Please stay tuned for part 2.

Safari Trek

Hi my name is Jason and recently I decided I wanted to take my family on a real life safari! Follow along with me and I'll show you some of the animals we came in contact with at the Wildlife Safari located in Winston OR.
We had barely gotten under way and this bird stopped to ask me if I had a license to drive this thing. I quickly told him that since we were on private property and the speed limit was 10mph it was probably OK. He still looked rather upset but seemed fine with my answer and let us move on.
This hippo had the right idea as it was quite warm the day we went even in the late afternoon.
Here you can see one of the many reasons why you don't get out of your car while driving thru the park. I'm sure this rhino could do some serious body work on someone or their vehicle if they weren't careful!
We stopped to say hello to this bruin. He told us it was so hot he could "bearly" stand it. I felt kind of sorry for him having to wear that heavy fur coat under the hot sun.
We also took a moment to take advantage of some "green" transportation while there. I think the tires were out of balance though because the ride was quite bumpy.
At the end of our tour I think we were all starting to feel like these critters and wanting a nap. Unfortunately we still had a 3 hour road trip home. By the way I let my dad drive once we got back on the highway! Hoped you enjoyed the trip!

Jason