Kate's Atlanta Visit - Summer 2010

Kate visited Atlanta for three weeks in August 2010. She and Grandma worked on lots of projects. Three pictures below illustrate the cardboard playhouse they built. The fourth picture was taken on a great playground nearby.

Michael Completes Lithia Loop Trail Marathon

Michael came in 42nd in the Lithia Loop Trail Marathon on November 6, 2010, with a time of 3:40:09. There were about 200 people registered and 171 finished the race. He beat his time from last year by over 17 minutes and he moved up 17 places in the results.

Only about two miles of the roughly 26 miles was on paved surfaces. The rest of the way was on dirt roads or mountain trails. Here's a link to the results: http://roguevalleyrunners.blogspot.com/.

The Perfect Birthday Gift

Reid's birthday was in August but we've been lazy in posting! Here he is trying out his new birthday present.

Hayes loves it, too!

An Interesting Home Repair Project

I don't normally think home repair is very interesting. Here's a case where it was.
We have an addition to our house that is about twelve years old. For the past few years, we've noticed that one corner seemed to be settling a bit too much. In the past year, a crack appeared in the brick on the lower level below the deck. The first picture below was taken after the crack had been partially repaired. Originally, it was about as wide as your pinkie finger.


We called a foundation repair company and they recommended installing three support "piers", two near the crack and one around the corner. A pier is essentially a lip that fits under the edge of the foundation supported by a steel pole that goes all the way down to bedrock. The next picture shows the three "lips" to be used on our piers.

The next picture illustrates the basic pier installation. One edge of the the lip is now under the foundation and the support pole is in place.

Here you see two of the piers ready for installation. The rig above each pier is a pneumatic device that will keep driving sections of support pole down until it hits bedrock. The operator keeps adding two-foot sections of pole as it goes down. The pier support on the left went down 44 feet before it hit bedrock.

Here's another view of the driving position.

Once bedrock is reached, all three pneumatic devices operate together to actually lift the house up. The operators move slowly here to make sure stress is distributed as evenly as possible. We're lifting the foundation, the frame of the house and the brick veneer all at once. New cracks could develop if care is not taken.

The picture below shows a pier after everything has been completed. It will stay in the ground as a support for the house. Dirt is replaced in the hole, hiding the pier and the surface is restored to its original condition. The white lines are just sunlight shining through the deck.

Here's the crack after the lifting process was complete. A little colored caulk was used later to touch it up for cosmetic purposes and to keep water out.

Next week, we'll cover how to hold your house together with caulk!

Spring Break

During spring break, Jim and MH took Reid and Hayes to Seagrove Beach, Florida, for a few days. Here's Reid doing just about his favorite thing to do at the beach - writing in the sand. It could be English, Spanish, Japanese, numbers or whatever comes to mind.

Something Really "Eggciting"

Reid's horseback riding instructor has a small farm where she keeps chickens. She brings the eggs each week to sell at the horse stables. We typically buy a dozen. It's always interesting to see the different colors, sizes and shapes of the eggs.

At our age, it doesn't take much to excite us!

Hayes Discovers this Blog

Hayes recently discovered this blog. Here, he reads an entry about Reid's horseback riding. It's hard to understand somewhat but you can make out the last word, "Shadow". That's the name of the horse Reid rides.

You can find the blog entry he is reading about six or seven posts down from here, "A Real Horsey Guy".

Pre-Christmas Events at Hayes' School

Hayes' school was a beehive of activity the week before Christmas. On Thursday night, each class performed a seasonal number for other family members. Here you see Hayes' class doing their "bubblegum" number. Hayes is third from the right. As always, you can click on a picture to see a larger version.

Hayes really got into the hand motions of the song.

On Friday, while Mommy was at Reid's class party, Grandma and Granddaddy visited Hayes' class party. Here, Grandma helps Hayes plan out his reindeer face.

The finished product!

The final project was edible.