Congratulations Kim and Greg

We all got home Friday evening and I made shepherds pie/hamburger pie/ mashed potatoes, hamburger, green bean and tomato sauce casserole. Peanut and Heath made chocolate pudding
and Pumpkin explored the kitchen.

Peanut had been sick from school Friday so we wanted to take it easy and we ate dinner in the basement and watched Richie Rich. For some reason Peanut had been asking about playing pool all night so after the movie we worked on teaching him to play.

He was resistant to the correct techniques but we stayed after him and made him do it right. Pumpkin hung from the front pack and enjoyed the lesson too.

At 8 Peanut went to bed and we watched some tv and went to bed early. I got up at 7 Saturday morning and head to Jon’s house. I worked over there several times over the weekend and instead of tell you what we did time by time I’ll just run though it all now. First we made long stiff back boards (two 2×4 boards nailed together into an upside down T shape. We made 4 of these at 12 feet each and then attached them down the middle of our joists on either side.

Then we made big L shaped boards very similar to these and attached them to the rafters on the roof. Then we made giant triangles that connected the beam in the middle of the house to the L shaped boards running down the length of the roof on either side. Here is the view standing in the attic looking across.

Here is just looking at 1 side.

So the stiff backs we put in first keep the joists from moving back and forth and the giant triangles prevent the roof from sagging and put any weight from the roof down on the main wall down the middle of the house.

It is quite impressive to see and amazingly more sturdy then the few random 2x4s that held everything for the last 50 or so years.

Ok so Jon and I worked Saturday morning till about noon. Heath dropped Peanut off at 10:30 and he played while we worked. At noon we went home and cooked up a quick lunch and Heath and Pumpkin came home from helping a friend move and joined us. After lunch we quickly took showers and got on fancy clothes then headed to our friend Kim’s wedding and a full mass. 

The kids were a little bored and troublesome during mass but not too bad so we got ice cream on the way home. Once home I split wood and Peanut played in the yard for about 45 minutes. Then I came in and did dishes and cleaned the family room then the kids and I played on the couch and watched TV and I cooled off with a beer. Heath made a fancy wedding card and got our gift ready. Then we put back on the fancy clothes and headed to the reception. We were a little late to the wedding so rushed more and were a little early to the reception. We got some drinks and a plate of veggies and hung out waiting for more guests. Peanut made a little friend and started getting wound up and asking when he could dance.

Everyone showed up and we got our table and hung out and talked and had some awesome food and free drinks and tried to keep Peanut and Pumpkin calm.

Eventually they let him on the dance floor and he and the other kids went nuts dancing and having a blast. Pumpkin and Heath got worn out and made us leave. We all went to bed pretty quick after going home and in the morning I went over to Jon’s at 8. He was not there so I headed home and made coffee and peanut butter chocolate pancakes then went back to Jon’s. We worked for a couple hours then Heath wanted to help a friend move some more so I headed home and watched the kids so she could go. We did laundry and picked up and cooked some chicken and pasta for dinner and then went for a walk in the wagon. After the walk Peanut pushed Pumpkin around in her car for a while.

Then Peanut jumped in the trampoline and Pumpkin and I took pictures of flowers.
(what is this?)

We pushed Peanut in the tire swing a while then everything kind of fell apart. I had fed Pumpkin some carrots earlier but those were not enough and she was super hungry and angry and I was hungry and so was Peanut. It was a rough 30 minutes or so but I got food for everyone and everyone calmed down.  Around this time Heath came home and finished feeding Pumpkin and put her to sleep. Then Peanut and I headed to my moms house to help her hook up a new web cam so she could talk to Carri.

Of course we ran into some other computer problems but eventually got things all fixed up. Then I took Peanut home and grabbed my tool belt and headed back to Jon’s. We finished everything up (he had been working on it all day both days and me just here and there) then I headed back home. At first no one was hungry so I took my time cutting up some potatoes and getting stuff ready. Then everyone was starving so I rushed to grill cheese inside hot dogs and fry up some home made chips and store bought fries. I also grilled some asparagus and broke out my chicken veggie pasta.

Everything turned out really good considering we have been putting off going to get groceries and have been just piecing together whatever we can find.

After dinner we played on the deck for a while

and Stooks came over to join us for dessert.

After dessert we hung out a bit then he headed home, Peanut showered and went to bed, then Pumpkin went to bed then Heath and I tried to get to bed early but I was thinking of my alarm that would go off at 11:15pm and did not fall asleep long before it went off.

I got up and drove to the KCUR transmitter arriving a little before midnight. I met the chief engineer there and we just hung out till we heard the announcer alert listeners we would be off the air for a bit then he flipped the switch and we were off. We cut the power then go to the fun stuff. We had to take apart some giant copper pipe (probably 4 inches thick) and put in a 60lbs switch about 7 feet high that switches our signal between the main transmitter and the backup one. Taking it out a few months ago was a little tough and we actually dropped it on the engineers foot but putting it back in went great. We had the ratchets going and tossed it into place and tightened a ton of bolts and clamps and thing and about 40 min later it was rocking. After a little tweaking we turned the power back on and we were on the air again. The engineer had some readings to take so I headed home. I ate some more pasta drank some water then went back to bed.