September 2022

Welcome to fall, with warm September days and chilly nights. Good for sleeping with the windows open, for sure. The pumpkins in the garden have been harvested and are chilling in the basement waiting for Halloween and the rest of the garden is slowly being cleared out. We already have next year's garden partially planned out. Maybe fewer tomatoes next time...

Also: gettin' mah hairs did while I watched mah stories:

They were disappointed that my hair wasn't long enough for liberty spikes.

Emily and Vanessa spotted me taking their picture before the homecoming game halftime performance:

Rose with the help of her cheer squad cleverly spelling out a message asking Fern to the homecoming dance:

And Mr. Ballard leading a cheer. Remember, it's always a great day to be a Warrior:

This is Rose's last year of cheering at Wash. It's all going so fast! More pictures from the homecoming game:

Friday night lights:

Leaving for the homecoming dance:

Cool siblings pose:

Cynthia picked up an old Fisher Price Little People house and began working on turning it into a haunted house:

After a coat of black primer and a coat of dark grayish brown paint leftover from the ceiling fan, Cynthia started painting around the raised details:

Some Family Dollar skulls were added:

Last coat of weathering paint done and painting in the small details:

Popsicle sticks were used to board up the windows and make window boxes. Dried moss was added, too:

If there was actually a spider on your house that size I think you would hear it before you saw it:

Speaking of haunted houses, the girls picked up a couple of haunted house cookie kits:

We tried eating some of the cookies and stuff used to decorate the houses, but they were not great. Not really intended for eating, just for looks, yo.

Rose and Fern's house is on the right:

We put the finishing touches on the kitchen, adding a glass mosaic backsplash, baseboards, and a range hood. The kitchen looks so friggin' awesome almost like it doesn't even belong in our house.

Working on the backsplash:

Backsplash done, range hood installed, microwave moved into the kitchen:

Baseboards installed:

Now we just have to wait for the window guy to come out and replace the two kitchen windows in October and we will be DONE.

When Halloween stuff started appearing on store shelves we picked up a life-size skeleton, which then began showing up in random places around the house to scare people. This time he's waiting for Rose to come home from work:

Cynthia and I spent a Saturday in Des Moines visiting some of our favorite places. We had lunch at the Drake Diner, which still looks exactly the way it did the first time I went there. The food was awesome:

In my day you wouldn't be caught dead wearing your jammies to school. That's the kind of thing kids used to have nightmares about. Also, if you and your crew all showed up and you're obviously all wearing the same pants. Times have changed:

Back to School 2022

In August Emily went to band camp and began learning to play the marimba. We got to visit her at camp during parent night and she seemed to be having fun. The kids played the Washington fight song for the parents, which is the first thing they learned to play. Then the week after camp she had band practice almost every evening at Wash and all day at Kingston on Saturday. She and Vanessa had some long days out in the sun practicing.

Reluctant photo op outside the band room at school:

Washington Athletic Club back-to-school night:

2022-23 cheer team:

First day of school! Rose and Emily will be in high school together for one year. Alice doesn't get to go to school:

Posing like rock stars with the car:

Sharon, Jeff, and Sue came down to watch the first football game. Emily is now playing the vibraphone. Emily and Vanessa playing during halftime at their first game:

Rose cheering during the first game. Wash beat Jefferson 47-6.

On August 1st we started our kitchen remodel by tearing up the linoleum and the hardwood underneath. Here's how it looked after we removed the fridge and stove:

Cabinets gone, the subfloor exposed, new HVAC opening on the left, and a surprise HVAC duct inside the pantry wall that we had no idea was there and had to be moved later:

Lots of holes in the walls as the electrician began running new wiring and installing new junction boxes:

Cynthia putting down mortar so we can fasten down the last section of cement board:

Laying new tiles next. It's easier to work in a room where you don't have to constantly cut tiles to go around stuff:

Look at all those straight grout lines! New drywall on the back wall, too:

No more pantry in the back hallway:

We painted the kitchen and then the carpenters installed the cabinets. They're pretty cool with their soft-close doors and whatnot. Alice approves:

We disassembled the old jankity-looking ceiling fan, cleaned and primed it, and painted the metal a dark grayish-brown and the blades a solid dark brown. With the new paint and new light covers it doesn't even look like the same ceiling fan:

New fridge fits into the pocket:

New countertops on both sides of the galley kitchen:

We're almost done!

In mid-August we took a break from the kitchen and visited the Iowa State Fair! On the road to DSM:

Rose and Fern went with us:

The state fair always has a lineup of weird/terrible foods for people to try. The winner this year was the OMG chicken sandwich, made up of fried chicken and bacon with maple syrup on a glazed donut bun. It probably took 6 months off my life, but it was worth it:

The following weekend we went to Independence to explore the underground downtown. Back in the day the town dealt with frequent flooding downtown due to it being built alongside the Wapsi, so they finally decided to raise the grade to keep the buildings from flooding. Massive amounts of dirt were brought in, burying the main floor level of all the buildings closest to the river. The second floor of each building then became the ground floor once the original entrances were buried. Today, much of the original ground levels have been restored and they are accessible enough to allow tours. It's a cool and creepy network of catacomb-like rooms and tunnels. There was even the remnant of an old bank with the original vault and under another building was an old timey bowling alley.

Here's the vault:

Underground doors and windows:

The foundations were painstakingly pieced together from stone when they were built in the 1800s:

The builders wrote their names on a wall in one of the buildings:

I think the tour guide said that the brick walls were added during a later era:

Another subterranean window:

Rose's senior pictures! She looks so grown up:

These were taken at the new arcade:

Emily's student ID photo. She's in high school now!