Water Day at Meridian Elementary

Today was a special day for Garrett. It is his second to last day of preschool and they had a Water Day. They played in sprinklers, little swimming pools, tossed water balloons, and stomped shaving cream. Pictures are below.

Water Day at Meridian Elementary PreSchool

A Major Award

Justin received a major award. He got it for the most improved Wind Ensemble student. Wind Ensemble is the highest level achievable in band at Desert Ridge High School. Not only did Justin try out and make it into Wind Ensemble, he also achieved first chair in the Alto Saxophones. Justin has also lettered in bed so he will be needing a jacket to attach his letter to or he will look really funny with the letter on a necklace.

Swim Season Begins

We used a pool cover to heat our pool up earlier than usual this year. The water was actually close to 90 degrees when we went for our first swim on Saturday the 12th of May. Sounds a little warm, but it was perfect considering the low humidity and breeze. The kids had a blast as usual. The chlorine level was too high because of the pool cover. I had forgotten about that issue. It was tolerable though. Some pics are below.

Swim Season

Complete

The great swingset is complete. It's actually been complete since early last week, but I put the finishing touches on today. It turned out fantastic.

Swingset Completed

Construction Continues

We are continuuing to build the big swingset. It's more work than I anticipated and it's starting to get hot here in the desert. I didn't do anything during the week last week because I had a strange throat and ear problem.

The swingset is much taller than I expected. I hope the HOA nazi's don't hassle me. I hope we are done with the hardest parts. The roof and rock wall were time consuming.

We decided it would be really cool for the kids to have lights out there so maybe when Alex has friends over to spend the night they can sleep in the new fort part of the swingset. I am thinking about installing low Voltage landscape lighting. Even if kids don't play out there at night I think it will look cool.

Here are some pics and movies of the swingset plus a few shots of Garrett in an old halloween costume.

Swing Set Part Two and Caterpillar

Justified

When we bought our current house with a pool we were worried about Garrett around the pool. It has a fence and we keep it locked, but you hear about kids drowning even in that situation. Sure enough, not long after moving in, I was skimming the surface of the pool and Garrett fell in while right next to me. I will never forget the look on his face while looking up at me from under the surface of the water. He was okay. The worst thing was he split his lip on the edge and needed stitches.

That event convinced me beyond doubt that Garrett needed swim lessons and not the useless ones supplied by the city. We used Infant Swim Resource (ISR). It's expensive, but worth every penny. The kids get one on one training for just a few minutes each day. They quickly learn to flip on their back and breath and eventually flip over and swim in spurts until they reach the side.

Yesterday, Garrett fell in again. He immediately flipped to his back and did just fine. It scared me and Tandi, but it was obvious he knew exactly what to do and could do it even with his heavy clothes on.

Construction

We have begun construction on a new swing set. It has turned into a very big project. We started Saturday the 21st, but it was slow going. I intended to get an early start, but it rained early Saturday. We needed to mow before starting and it was too wet. I decided to install a new sprinkler controller to pass the time until the grass was dry enough. I also got a new cordless electric drill to aid in assembly. Late Saturday we finally got started on the swingset. I don't know why the knuckleheads that make swingsets tell you to assemble them on a flat level surface. Even if such a thing existed there is no way a giant swingset could be assembled on one and then moved to the proper location in the yard. I have been taking my time to make sure I'm doing things correctly. You actually have to measure to assemble this thing. It's a pretty fun project. Justin has been a huge help. There are a million parts to this thing and he gets all the wood pieces and fasteners together for each step for me. Pictures of the first two days of construction are below.

Construction

I didn't feel like working on it today. I'm always tired on Mondays and I got myself an early birthday present.

The present is a Russion M44 WWII vintage rifle. It fires a 7.62x54R round. It's in really good shape. It came with a field kit including the dual chamber oil/solvent container. I can't wait to shoot it, but it may only happen once. I suspect this thing will have one hell of a kick.