Midweek today!

Yes, it's hump day even though it's only Tuesday. That's a relief since it already feels like vacation. Mostly it's that way because my cousin and her kids are visiting from Minneapolis for a few days. They were over for dinner and hanging out last night, and since our kids were up late, it felt like vacation ... or at least like a weekend!

It has been (again!) a while since I posted. So, no catchup, just a few random things that occur to me as I write:

• Last thursday was the kids' Pilgrim Dinner at school. That was fun. Grandma and Grandpa D were able to attend. Both kids dressed up really nicely.
  
• Over the weekend I constructed the skating rink for this year. I remembered that I have some materials left over from when the house was built that work great to make the sides of the rink. So, due to nice 8 foot sections of that, we have a 32x16 foot skating rink with nice 16 inch sides! After all the rain we got yesterday, it's probably 40% full! I also built the platform for the sled run. Since Papa Lee cleared out so much of the underbrush down the hill from the mound, we'll have a great area to sled.
  
• Yesterday Cyndie and I worked on putting in the steel pole for the basketball hoop. Timmy was a really big help too. He was in charge of getting the water (3/4 of a gallon ... he got it right every time!). We put 320 pounds of concrete on the bottom of the pole, so I think it will hold okay. The weather was great yesterday (or I should say the temperature). It was a near record high of 67 degrees. However, just as we were putting the concrete in the hole, it started to sprinkle. By the time we had all 4 bags in, it was pouring. So part of our effort was to build dams around the hole so that the water running down the driveway toward the concrete would be diverted! Then the weather changed so that I needed to cover the concrete with blankets since the temps are now in the low 30s!
  
• After a really fun and informative Coffee Shop (our church small group) at Laura and Gows, we spent the night. It was really fun and relaxing to hang out and do nothing! We watched Date Night, which was a really good and fun combination of the reality of married life with kids, and comedy.
• On Saturday morning Cyndie did her first 5k. It was at the local state park and many of her friends from the ladies group she's in also ran. She really enjoyed it, and I think will definitely do it again.
  
• On Saturday afternoon Cyndie had her first paid photo shoot. I think it went pretty well. She's learning a lot, that's for sure!
  
• Please pray for Jane Fraser, her kids, and Covenant Point Bible Camp up in the UP (upper pennisula). Covenant Point is a sister camp to Covenant Harbor here in Lake Geneva. Chuck Fraser, the director up at Point died suddenly of a heart attack last week. He was only 59 years old. He was loved by many, and impacted a huge number of people both directly and indirectly. He will be missed by his family, the staff at Point, and the many campers that go through Point. Here's a link to some thoughts on Chuck and his impact for those who may be interested. I went to Point 4 times (3 men's retreats, and for a week of family camp last summer). At the first men's retreat my dad introduced me to Chuck, who my dad has known for many years. As a result of that connection, the following times I'd visit Point, I'd usually have a 5 or so minute conversation with Chuck. Nothing deep, just being friendly. I didn't know Chuck well, but even in the few times I talked to him, I was impressed by his humble demeanor and servant's heart. Covenant Point will be very different without him.
  

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!

Yes, well, no good excuse!

That's right, I certainly have no good excuse for not blogging lately. I got out of the habit during the tail end of vacation, and then never got back to it here. My apologies to my loyal (do I have any of those) readers!

The end of vacation was more great times. The weather was beautiful, we had a number of outings to the beach, the park, restaurants, trick or treating*, the hospital.

*Okay, trick or treating in downtown Punta Gorda was CRAZY. There had to have been more than 1000 people (possibly much more) in about a one by four block area. The sidewalks were crammed! Interesting times. I'm not sure I'd go back there!

Yes, you read that correctly, the hospital. Literally five minutes before we were going to pack up and leave, Cyndie got stung by a sting ray. It was very painful. She and Cathy ended up going to the ER to get it treated. According to Cyndie ... make sure you do the sting ray shuffle, the alternative is not fun!

We spent a bit more time with Grandma Weaver too. Please pray for her ... she had her surgery and it went okay, but she's still having lots of pain. For a few days she was really confused and the medical team discovered that her kidneys had at least partially shut down, but they have fixed that now and are detoxing her body from the corresponding ammonia build up, but she's still experiencing a lot of pain.

So now were back in the swing of things. We have hundreds of boxes of girl scout cookies on our deck right now, though they are slowly being picked up by the troop members. Emma will probably spend much of the next week delivering hers. The kids' tree house is nearing completion thanks, in large part, to Grandpa D spending a lot of time on it. Cyndie and I's art class is nearing completion for this year. Here are the latest paintings:

Cyndie's painting "Beach Umbrella"

My painting "Keith Exploded"

So there you have it. I hope you feel as if you have caught up with things with the Wildwood DeVries.

80 degrees and headed to 89!

Yes, another beautiful day in southwest Florida. The day started with a jog for Cyndie and I. We went out at around 7:30a. I was expecting it to be cool and nice, but it was already pretty warm and very humid. I'm very glad there was a nice breeze or it would have been much worse for me! I was surprised to see, as I jogged around a golf course near Fred and Cathy's house, that so many lots were vacant. I assumed that this meant that the developer had hit a rough spot of some kind when building the golf course/development, but Cathy told me that that was the result of hurricane Charlie (which was 5 or so years ago). Apparently lots of homes were damaged so much, that they could not be repaired, and insurance, in many cases, didn't cover rebuilding. Crazy. She said that much of the damage was not just from the hurricane itself, but from mold and moisture damage after the fact. There was no power for 3 or 4 weeks, and those homeowners who were not physically present could often not get to their homes to clean up water, etc. leading to the mold and water damage.

Yesterday we headed back from a wonderful couple of days on Sanibel back up to Punta Gorda. We stopped along the way at Grandma Weaver's for dinner. She lives in a retirement community and has a very nice 2 bedroom (plus study), 2 bath apartment. We had dinner at a private dining room off the main restaurant there. It was very nice, and nice to be able to hang out a bit with Grandma Weaver. She's such a pleasant lady, very fun to be with.

This morning the kids are practicing trick or treating. They have on their Halloween costumes, supplemented by some jewelery and accessories that Grandma Cathy supplied, and are going from frog to frog (Cathy has 2 or 3 decorative frog "statues" that have little trays on which she has individually wrapped candies) trick or treating. Hilarious. Grandpa Fred is working this morning, as am I ... Grandma Cathy, Cyndie, and the kids are headed out soon for some activity or another.

Another beautiful day in Florida!

86 degrees with a nice breeze!

Yep, that title is redundant, but it's REALLY nice again today.

The day started (for me) with a jog on the beach ... nice. Cyndie and the kids ran over to the beach with Grandma Cathy for some low tide shelling. They found some fun stuff, but Cyndie found some even better stuff when she went for a jog at the beach.

We've been staying at the house of some friends of Fred and Cathy these first several nights (dog sitting) out on Sanibel Island (where Fred and Cathy had lived for 6 or 8 years). This afternoon we're cleaning up some and then heading back to their house up the coast in Punta Gorda. On the way, we'll stop to visit Grandma Weaver (and have dinner at a dress up only ... no shorts) restaurant in her complex ... very fancy!

While we've been here, the kids have had an absolutely great time in the pool at the house. They've spent a lot of time in there. Obviously, they enjoy the beach greatly too, but when we've been at the house with a spare moment, they've been in the pool. Good times.

In the midst of all the comings and goings, I've been working. Since I've used up almost all of my vacation time for this year, I'm trying to work a full schedule this week. It's actually worked great so far today.

So, vacation is ongoing and great!

86 degrees with a nice breeze!

Yes, we spent much of the morning through early afternoon sitting on the beach. As the title of the blog states, it was 86 degrees with a beautiful breeze! We're currently relaxing at a really nice home where Grandpa Fred and Grandma Cathy are dog sitting (complete with awesome swimming pool and large, friendly golden retriever). We'll head back to the beach later this afternoon.

The flight out was uneventful. It was smack dab in the middle of the day, so we didn't have to get up early, and we got back to the house early enough that the kids could hit the pool (in addition to stopping to see Cyndie's Grandma Weaver).

Vacation ... good times!

T-minus one day ...

Yes, there is only one day left until vacation. Today is filled with packing, cleaning, straightening and haircuts (me, maybe Tim, and definitely the dog). Oh, and some errands. Cyndie is taking the boat to be cleaned while we're gone (we're handling all the interior cleaning, but the hull really needs a scrubbing after having been in the lake all summer*). She's also dropping the dog off for a grooming and doing some clothing exchange related errands as well. We should be well occupied today!

*An interesting development on the boat front. A friend of ours is going to be the new volunteer coordinator (amongst other duties) at the camp. He asked us if we'd be interested in letting the camp use the boat for a couple of hours a morning for up to four weeks. In exchange, the camp would give us a lift on which to put our boat. The funny thing is that this is something we had proposed to camp last year! Anyway, we're going to do that. So, since next summer the boat won't be sitting in the water all summer growing algae, we decided to really get the hull cleaned up nicely so that it looks good as new! We're excited to save the money AND have a really great location for the boat.

The tree house continues to progress. The latest progress is starting to put siding on. The kids were playing out there yesterday. That was their "house" and they went to the guest room as their hotel/vacation house.

The next post will likely be from Florida, land of 80+ degree weather (as opposed to the frost on the roof and breath you can see while waiting for the bus to come)!