In an effort to not get too behind ...

It's (again) been a while, so I'll try to get caught up a bit. I'll just throw some bullet points out there ... probably in random order:

• Work on the tree house progresses. Between my dad and I, we have the tree house 95% roofed (need to finish off the peak). After that it will just be little things like plugging some holes in the (used) siding.
• Last night I had some guys over to play Halo on the big screen. Since I'd never played before, I sucked! It was fun though. We were kind of doing a last hurrah for a friend who is moving to the UP in a few weeks.
• Cyndie has been working very hard to get ready for a "vendor fair" for the MOPS (mothers of pre-schoolers) group in the community. She's hoping to make some contacts/get some work for her photography business*.
• We went down to my sisters for some cousin time (Laura and Gow and the girls went too) on Friday/Saturday. Fun times. We watched Killers after the kids went to bed**.
• We're trying to get back in the swing of things with the kids doing their chores and getting their allowance. I'm not sure how we got so out of the practice of that! Having that responsibility is good for them, and they enjoy it I think.
• The kids have been playing outside with one of the neighbor kids quite a bit. It's nice that it's still decent enough weather to do that without having to totally gear up for the cold.
• Big news (I almost forgot), we sold the Suburban. We got a price we were pretty happy with. Emma was sad watching the folks drive away, but she cracked us up with her comment, "Hey, they have a big dent on their door" (alluding to the rather big dent that happened when Suburban met tree a year or so ago). So now we have only two cars in the driveway ... Suburban and boat appropriately disposed of for now (the boat is being stored in a friend's barn). We may even get to no cars in the driveway if we put the Subaru in the garage and the Excursion is parked off the drive.
  

*Did I ever mention that on here? She's doing a great job laying the ground work for her business. Now we'll see where it goes! Check out her web site: Cyndie Lee Photography. ** We'll see if I end up with time to write a review on this Romantic Comedy. I'm sure Fred will be waiting on the edge of his seat for that!

Thanks to all who prayed for Cyndie's Grandma Weaver. She's improving, but is certainly not out of the woods yet (Cathy thinks that something may not have gone completely right with the surgery grandma had).

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Until next time, I'll leave you with a few pix ...

Here's the inside of the tree house ... Grandpa and Grandma D brought over some goodies for a "it's nearly done, let's have a tree house warming" party.

Grandpa D with Emma and cousin Sally on the hay ride at Covenant Harbor's fall party for their staff.

Me and Tim on the hay ride.

Carving pumpkins. We did so late (after Halloween), but the kids still enjoyed it!

Routine is here

It looks like today will be a pretty routine day. The weather is nice, the kids are at school, Cyndie's helping a friend with some painting, I'm working. Normal all the way around. Today after school, Emma has Brownies. Cyndie has arranged some carpooling with other parents from Woods whose girls are participating, so that will lighten her driving load. After that we'll have date night! We're trying to save some extra money after the earlier than expected purchase of the new vehicle, so we'll probably eat some where cheaper and then maybe take a walk by the lake.

So there you have it. Normalcy, whatever that is!?

Monday Morning

It's Monday morning ... the week is starting ... life moves along.

The weekend was good. Cyndie did her scrapbooking thing. It was the biggest one her friend has ever hosted ... 32 ladies ... so Cyndie didn't get quite as much scrapbooking done as she sometimes does as she was pretty busy helping out. I think she enjoyed herself though. The kids and I worked on the treehouse some, did a little visiting, swam at the pool at Cyndie's hotel, ate at McDonalds, and drove around in the new truck (which the kids both love). At one point Timmy kept saying over and over "this is the most awesome truck ever". I think they just like the TV in it. It's nice that it has a step up into in (the Suburban didn't have that so it was quite a high step for the kids to get into).

This weekend should be a bit slower, though I think Cyndie will be pretty busy with several meetings in the evenings earlier in the week. The kids' soccer is done, so that makes the early evenings a bit less scheduled. I'm guessing there may be some girls scout cookie selling happening too. But that should be it. Overall we're just really enjoying the beautiful end to summer ... it's been in the 70s and 80s for the last 4 or 5 days, which make it a real delight to be outside ... perfect for working on the treefort!

This blog is turning ...

700

No, not years old, 700 posts. Yes, this is kind of a boring celebration of the fact, but I don't really have anything horribly interesting to say or commemorate, so this is what you're stuck with. Happy 700th blogday to the Life and Times of the Wildwood DeVries.

In other news, it's Friday. Yea! It seems like this was a long week. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe the on again, off again nature of the truck thing. On that topic, I got it registered this morning, and just sent our insurance guy an email to get started with that portion of vehicle ownership. We also figured out (via a phone call to the previous owner) how to turn off the aftermarket, really sensitive security system which went off multiple times. Hurray! Marking the unofficial start to the weekend, Cyndie just left for her scrappin' *.

*Does scrapping mean that she and Sherri are going to get in a brawl with a rival gang of scrapbooking gals? I'm thinking this could be epic on the scale of the sharks and the jets. Whoohoo, look out. Which makes me wonder, are Sherri, Cyndie and their crew the sharks or the jets?


The kids had their last soccer last night. A friend whose kids also played asked if we were going to do wrestling next. Uh, no. We're both ready for a little break in the weekly commitments. I'm guessing that the next thing will probably be swimming. For now, I want the kids to be free to enjoy the beautiful weather we've been having ... it's supposed to be in the low 80s today, tomorrow, and Sunday ... awesome. Does anyone that lives near Lake Geneva want to go water skiing over the weekend. I'm thinking one more good run would be great!

So, happy birthday blog, you don't look a post over 300.

Excitement!

Well then, we just returned from buying a new vehicle ... introducing Big Whitey, our "new" 2003 Excursion.

Here's a picture of Cyndie with her new ride.

It's not going to get great gas mileage, but we really felt like we needed a vehicle with a heavier frame (this is a 3/4 ton versus the 1/2 ton chassis of the Suburban) and a bigger engine (this has a 6.8L V10) in order to really be able to pull the boat and not put too much stress on the transmission. Here are a few more pictures from the Craigslist listing:

Midweek Bullets ...

How about some midweek bullets (for lack of any "big" things to write about) ...

• Some sports stuff ... the Vikings have re-acquired star receiver (and sometime pain in the butt) Randy Moss. Exciting times for the Vikes who need to get their season rolling.
• Liverpool has been bought (pending approval from the league and some legal details). This is very good. Their current owners are, to put it succinctly, lame.
• The kids had soccer last night and had a great time there.
• We babysat the local cousins last night while Laura and Gow had a date ... both girls were really interested in the gerbils, but didn't quite know what to do with them. Sally wanted to hold them, but everytime one touched here, she'd jump back and be pretty timid. Daisy was very excited by the gerbils, but lacked any finesse, so was restricted to just looking!
• The Excursion is still on hold while we get the DVD situation straightened out. The seller is getting it repaired, and then we'll (I think) go through with the sale.
• Cyndie and I had art class this morning and really enjoyed that. We were both very happy with the paintings that we came up with.
• Tonight is Cyndie's last sailing event of the year. She's really enjoyed that.
• We worked on our budget last night. We're going to try very hard over the winter to really curtail our expenses so that we can pay cash for the new truck (assuming that happens) and still do some of the projects around the house that we want to do.
• The jacuzzi has sprung another leak. We're really getting tired of that. We'll see where we decide to go with that little gem.
  
• It's a beautiful fall day ... I think the temperature readout in the car on the way home from art class said 73. Awesome!
  

So there you have it, some midweek fun.

Monday ... completed

Monday ... finished. I guess the development to report is that we did NOT go to pick up the Excursion we're in talks over. I'm not sure if I mentioned that yesterday, but the plan was to go get it at 5p in Janesville. When I had seen it, the DVD player was not working. Cyndie and I discussed it and decided that we didn't want to deal with stuff not working. The guy said he'd knock $200 off the price. I called the local Ford dealer and they said that it would most likely cost $665 to fix/replace, with a small chance that it would be less if it was just a loose connection or something. So, we (me and the seller) decided that he'd take it into his shop and they'd get the DVD working. So I should hear from him today regarding that. If the DVD works, the deal is on. If not, then we'll have to see if he's willing to lower the price by $655. If so, the deals is on, if not, we'll probably walk away. More on this breaking story as it develops!

On the gerbil front ... they are here and installed in Emma's room. She's really excited to have them. The kids both played with them and held them. We made a little hut/play thing out of a used cottage cheese container and some wood. I don't think it will last, however, as by this morning the gerbils had chewed it up pretty good. I guess we'll have to go with wood toys and stuff bought from the store made out of harder plastic. Pepper is fascinated by the gerbils. The aquarium that they're in is right at his eye level (currently on top of Emma's dress up box). He just stands there staring at them. We'll see where that goes. This morning when I went in to wake up Emma for her shower, she was up already and rearranging the "furniture" in the aquarium. Funny!

Today Timmy's home from school with a bit of a sore throat. He and Cyndie ran some errands this morning and also got the Suburban back from the shop. Cyndie reports that it is running well, so that's a nice thing. It definitely gives us plenty of time to find the right replacement vehicle.

Crazy Week

Well now, that week didn't go exactly as anticipated. As you may recall, we started the week with a strange Monday where we spent much of the day getting us and the boat back from the weekend up at Green Lake. Well, we've been without the Suburban now for 10 days or so. The shop where we had the transmission warranty is fixing it, though they outsource that work to a different shop, a transmission specialist, down in Illinois. So the Suburban was supposed to be fixed that Friday and being brought back up to Lake Geneva, where we could pick it up on Saturday. That didn't happen. Cyndie talked to "our" (the LG shop) this morning and apparently the "other" shop started driving the truck back up here and something when wrong. I'm not sure what, I'm not sure if Cyndie was told any details, but we're still waiting on that front. A good thing is that we're going to get a loaner car in the interim. It's going to be a Ford Taurus with no power steering ... so Cyndie should get a good workout from that!

Aside from the car dealings, midway through the week my laptop crapped out, so I spent a good portion of Thursday working with the tech guy at work to try to get it moving again, then most of Friday getting my files transferred from the old, non-working machine to a new laptop. Then the rest of the day getting the new one configured and putting software on it, etc. So now I'm up and running again, with a spiffy new laptop. It's got a new operating system on it, Windows 7, so that's both fun, and challenging! So, that's the biggest reason behind not doing any blog posts, my apologies.

The rest of the week was normal ... soccer for the kids, Emma started Girl Scouts (Brownies) for the year. They're already selling girl scout cookies. If you want to buy any, please let me (or Emma) know. If you're at a distance and don't anticipate seeing us soon after the November 8 (I think) receive date for the cookies, you can also participate by buying boxes of cookies that will be donated to a local food pantry. Timmy is very much enjoying practicing soccer at home. We have a goal set up that we gave him for Christmas last year. He digs doing drills and shooting into the net. Lately he's been very into being a goalie. He loves to dive after the ball.

Over the weekend my Auntie Diane and Uncle John (whose cabin near Kansas City we've gone to multiple times) stopped through. It was fun to see them and head out on the lake with them for a late afternoon. Uncle John is a "car guy", so he went with us to look at a Ford Excursion we were interested in. Which leads us too ...

We started looking for a Suburban replacement. Before the transmission went out, we were thinking we'd have a year or two before we'd have to replace it. However, this event got us thinking that we should start looking around to at least see what's out there. We have, we think pending a final, successful return of the Suburban, some time to shop and get a good deal. We're looking for a truck that can easily pull the boat (we think the Suburban may be a bit underpowered to handle the boat) and something that we can, at least, fit our family into, but preferably a 7 or 8 seater. So we went to see this Excursion that was for sale by a private party near the kids' school. It was a good deal in theory, but the truck was not in good shape. It had been in an accident (replaced headlight and fenders, chassis welds, etc), had some rust that had been painted over, the transmission didn't feel right (lots of hesitation in shifting, really high revving), and the oil was REALLY dirty. So we didn't jump at that. Obviously. But yesterday I drove over to Janesville to look at another Excursion. As bad as that first one was, this one was great. The Excursion is built on a Ford F250 chassis, so it's got a good starting basis to tow the boat. This one has a 6.8 liter V10, plenty to pull the boat. It also has a Banks Power system which is an exhaust system add-on which increases the power of the engine. It rides really nice, has been well taken care of, has some nice add-ons (like a DVD player), and, most importantly, is a pretty nice deal. it's around $3000 less and blue book (for a private party seller). So we made an offer, and it was accepted. Now we're dealing with the bank and getting enough cash to make the deal. Right now, maybe because it's early in the week, the local bank doesn't have enough cash for us. I may need to end up getting a bank check or something like that to pay the guy (and asking him if he'll accept that). Fun times.

Oh, and another new toy is coming today. Emma has been saving her money and doing extra chores all summer in order to get a gerbil. I'm not sure what got that into her head, but she's been very persistent. She's managed to save $42.16. So starting around a month and a half ago, she and Cyndie started checking Craigslist and ebay and the newspapers, for cages/aquariums and accessories. Well, yesterday they found someone up in Milwaukee (not too far from my office) who is selling 3 gerbils and all the accessories. She was asking $80, but Emma emailed and told her about herself and that she'd been saving all summer and got a reply along the lines of "awwwww, of course I'll take that =)".* So needless to say, Emma is VERY excited for those gerbils to arrive and become a part of her room.

*Those extra w's and the smiley face where part of the e-mail, I didn't even have to add them for emphasis.

So, there you go, our week begins with some new excitement!