A message from the land of no internet access...

For some reason I no longer have internet access in our house. Although we live relatively near a major U.S. city we have little or no access to modern technology. There is very little cell phone service out here, no Fios,  no cable, in fact, since they converted television to all digital signal we have no TV reception! The only way to get TV or internet access is to have a satellite dish, we have one for internet but not for TV. But for some reason there is no longer a signal from the dish to the house, unfortunately they will probably have to dig up the line in the ground to correct the problem. So for the time being I have to take my computer out to the office in the garage and use Peter's work connection.
Anyway, it may be awhile before my next post.


‘til next time…

The second "1st Birthday Party"...

Wythe was a lucky boy and got to have a 2nd "first birthday" party. One of his friends in his playgroup was born 3 days after Wythe so we decided to have a joint party for the kiddos. We had the party on Saturday the 17th at a new park in Marshall. The day was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and very cool for July. The children got to play for awhile, the favorite toy of the day was a push wagon. They all took turns pushing and riding in the wagon. Wythe even pushed it a little, that was the first time we had seen him walking upright like a bi-ped, it was neat!  We had BBQ for the adults to eat and the kiddos had their own food.
The theme of the party was jungle animals.  I made matching "jungle" cakes for the birthday boys, I think they turned out pretty cute! Wythe was very careful with his cake again, he ate some and got his feet in the side but really didn’t dig in. His buddy wasn't shy about it and at one point was two-fisting the cake, he was taking full advantage of this opportunity to eat cake! It was a fun time to see Wythe celebrate his birthday with his friends!

'til next time...

One year later...

My darling little boy,

Today you are one year old!  Part of me can't believe that you have been with us for a year and the other part of me cannot imagine not knowing you. It is so hard to think back one year ago, the fear, the apprehension, the doubts of whether I was really in labor, getting to the hospital having the nursing staff take over and tell me that you were going to be born today! Then the hours that I will probably never forget, hours of absolute agony and misery, but I wouldn't trade it for the world because those hours brought me you! I would do it all over, I would do it 10x over, for you.
You are my firstborn, my son, my sunshine, you make me happier than I could imagine and more frightened that I ever could have thought.
I will love you forever birthday boy!

~Mommy

                                                         Wythe-one day old

Wythe-one year old

1st birthday party...

On the 4th of July weekend we invited some family and neighbors over for a cookout/birthday party for Wythe. We held it out back on the patio and stayed dry thanks to a tarp being draped over the top of the pergola. Actually, the rain didn’t last very long but it was misty for a while so the tarp was still nice. Since the tarp was bright blue it gave the impression of being blue sky! The temperature cooled down so much that some people were wearing jackets, who would have guessed that you would need a jacket on July 5th?? We had planned on having homemade ice-cream for dessert thinking everyone would love that on a hot, summer day! We did enjoy it, as long as you had a jacket on! While preparing for the party I was blowing up some balloons, I learned then that my son was terrified of balloons! I had planning on having balloons hanging from the top of the pergola, creating a balloon ceiling, but realized that could be traumatic to the little guy on his birthday! So the balloons went on the fence, far away from the party and out of Wythe's sight!

Wythe wasn’t sure what to do with his cake. At first he kept looking at me as if to say “Am I really allowed to touch this? Normally I’m not allowed to play with my food…” When he got a taste of the icing though he became a fan of sugar! He would stick his finger in the cake then lick the icing off but he didn’t really dive into it like I thought he might. At one point he leaned forward as if to do a face plant but then just inspected the cake. He did enjoy it though, and I’m sure the next day he was wondering why he had to go back to eating boring old healthy food. We had a great time with everyone and Wythe loved all his new toys!

 

'til next time...

Addition update...

At this point in the project there is visible progress each day, that makes it so much more interesting. Pretty soon, the visible progress will drastically slow once we move on to electrical, pluming, etc. But for now it is nice! All the walls got put up and Peter started on the roof.

Wythe supervising

At first Peter was worried that the trusses wouldn’t work since they were a couple of inches too short. He didn’t want to re-order the trusses and lose the money already put into them so we briefly contemplated (once again) putting a 2nd story on the house. He went down and talked to the county and they said that we would need to submit detailed floor plans to get the approval for the 2nd story. We worked the plans that evening and as much as having more space seemed appealing the task of deciding in one evening where every window, wall, door, washer, dryer, etc. would go was daunting. You can’t decide on a floor plan in a couple of hours that will work for years to come, so…we went back to the original plan on just having one level. Peter talked to an engineer and was able to make the trusses work so we didn’t have to reorder them after all! This past weekend he got a lot of the trusses put up, with the help of a neighbor, and he has continued working on it this week.

When working by himself he has used bungee cords to assist him in setting the trusses, always creative!

'til next time...