Photo update

I use this blog as much as a scrapbook or journal as a family letter. So some posts are specifically for my own records. I recently went through my phone to swap out SD cards and I came across these pictures and decided I should post them. They are in no particular order and many are completely unrelated to the other, but here they are so that Kanga, Tigger, and Roo can enjoy them later.

Angel pulled the tent out a couple times this summer and the kids had a blast playing in it. The hard part was always making sure to clean it up before the next day so the sprinklers wouldn't douse it and everything inside it. The kids did spend a couple of nights outside in the tent over a Friday night. They got about as much sleep as if they'd had a slumber party (one of the greatest oxymorons ever created).

This was the picture that Angel sent me of the kids on their first day of school. Tigger started kindergarten and Kanga entered 2nd grade. As of now they are still enjoying school although Tigger can only tell me what he did at break. However, I was reading to him last night and quizzing him on his letters sounds and names and he did a lot better than he has in the past, so I guess we'll let him keep going. :) Kanga loves doing homework with friends and is glad that we had a new family move in that has kids her age that she can play with.She's still studying Chinese and doing a pretty good job of speaking it. I'll have to see what movies we have that have Chinese subtitles/language tracks. Their school was recently featured for it's "super readers" and we attended a celebration at the high school a could of weeks ago. They had superhero and princess look-a-likes. I thought it was funny how they use characters from predominately video based formats to advocate reading. I'm sure it has something to do with visibility.

I took this picture because it was just such a beautify image. I love the look of the clouds and flag. I was feeling very patriotic. This picture is from several weeks ago. The weather has been turning colder since then and it even snowed yesterday and today. There is snow on the caps of the mountain and we're going to buy Angel some new snow boots. I don't mind taking the bus when the weather is questionable because then I don't have to drive in it and can enjoy reading a book. Regardless, I love this was a good day and the Picture turned out pretty decent.

This is the last of my canning for the year. Last year we didn't get any apples (or at least not enough to do anything with). This year we didn't get as many as two years ago, but it was enough to make 11 quarts of applesauce. As with other canning projects, I managed the majority of the project, but I don't mind. I really enjoy being able to see the fruit-based-results of my labor. The kids helped me process one of the batches, using the plunger to push the boiled apples down the food processor. Two years ago I used my mom's old hand crank strainer, but this year I used one we got with our Kitchen Aid mixer. It was nice not to have to turn the handle, and it performed really well. It was a busy day because Angel went to a girl's night with her mother and sister and I had the kids and their friends for the afternoon. I'm glad that I can handle the kids while Angel gets away.

This was Halloween this year. It was a year of reused costumes. Kanga's was one she wore shortly after Tigger was born (Tigger her brother, not the brother dressed as Tigger). The didn't have her size when we bought it, so we got a size bigger. Turns out that 7 year-old Kanga can fit in 3 year-old Kanga's clothes. Tigger did get the armour and helmet this year, but the cape and the sword were from other occasions. He's also wearing camo pants. Roo is wearing his cousin's costume, or was it Tigger's costume? I can't remember, but we didn't buy it. As for myself, I'm just wearing my airsoft stuff with a nerf gun. Angel stayed at home and passed out candy. This was the best picture that we had form my phone. I don't look like much, but the kids are better here than in the other one. Either way, we had fun and got a lot of candy.

This is what I came home to the other day. I had my usual early morning Sunday meeting and as I come up the stairs I see Roo sitting on the table eating butter off the butter knife. He's started climbing more, despite not walking yet. Heights do not appear to worry him, although he doesn't like it when he can't reach the floor but can't pull himself up either. His feet swing like a pendulum and then he starts to worry. We're hoping he starts walking soon because he is getting heavy!

That catches us up on some more current pictures. I need to get some for my office because Roo doesn't even have a picture in my office. I'll work on that next.

Happenings of this last week

This last week had some highlights. Monday the Fire Department had an open house with demonstrations and exhibits of various tools and safety measures. While Kanga and Angel stood in line for the crash simulator Tigger, Roo, and I went and watched the heavy rescue workers turn a pick up truck into a door-less convertible (jaws of life demonstration). Tigger wasn't sure if he wanted to watch the demonstration and kept his ears covered for the majority of it. Whenever he is scared, he covers his ears. His grandmother things that he may be sensitive to loud noises. However, despite having his ears firmly covered he watched with rapped attention and, in the end, told me that he thought it was pretty cool. They also got a tour of an ambulance and a medical lift helicopter. The 'copter was smaller than the one that Tigger rode in when he was born, but it was still pretty neat. They also had some folks from the power company there showing why you don't touch power lines.

Wednesday found Angel, Tigger, and me at Primary Children's Hospital. For various reasons, including his being born early, Tigger was not circumcised when he was born. We've been able to trace some of his potty training difficulties to this and so we decided that it would help him if we did it now. He was a great patient and even woke up form the general anesthetic if a good mood, contrary to what was expected. We spent most of the day there checking him in, waiting for the doctor, waiting for the procedure, and then waiting for his meds. I think we were there for about eight hours when all was said and done. We had dinner at Angel's parent's house and Tigger was back to running around before too long. No, I don't have any pictures from Wednesday.

Saturday I got the lawn mowed - I would like to think for the last time this season. The apples are looking better and I'm thinking I may get some applesauce canned next weekend during General Conference. Angel went over to her mom's for the Women's General Broadcast while I watched the kids. I was just getting ready to start working on dinner when I got a text from some friends inviting the kids and I over for dinner and games. They had a bunch of left overs from a couple of birthday parties and I brought chips. Their kids line up pretty well with ours and so we dads (there were three of us fathers there) didn't have to do much. The kids were well behaved and everyone had fun. Dee came home just after we did and said she enjoyed the broadcast quite a bit.

Yesterday, we saw Angel's grandparents and chatted with them for a while. Her grandfather had a pretty sever stroke a little while ago and while he's recovering well he's starting to show his age a lot more. It was good to see them and Malcom was good for them. He was very content to sit on his great-grandfather's lap and be held. He's a pretty decent kid who goes really quiet when he's not sure what's going on.

Farewell first house

Many may know that since May of 2012 my wife and I have been trying to sell our previous home. With us moving closer to family we vacated the old home and put it on the market with high hopes. We had completely redone the wiring and had redone the cabinets, counters, and floor in the kitchen. We tore out old carpet and put in blinds which required a hammer-drill and masonry bits. We put money, time, and love into the house while we lived in it and were hoping that our work would pay of at sale time. But as my grandmother pointed out, "Any improvements you do are for your own benefit." The house sate on the market for over a year and a half. Finally selling a few days after Christmas. Ironically, it sold almost exactly two weeks and four years after we bought it. We did get some money from it, but nothing like what we initially thought we might. Yes we were disappointed but we were also very excited that we would no longer have two mortgages to pay each month. While we did have renters in it for about a year, the last seven months or so it's been empty and soaking up money. But we are free at last and can now use that money for much more worthwhile things.

While I am very happy to have that particular debt cut from our collection of them, I do have fond memories of that house. It was built in 1956 during a period of growth and is the same basic floor plan as almost every other house on the street. We bought it from the daughter of the original owners who had passed away only a handful of years before we moved in. Built of cinder block exterior it sat on a narrow lot that had an alley running along the back property line. The alley was useful for getting stuff in and out of the back yard. It was a little smaller than we originally wanted, but it had enough good stuff going for it that we were excited to move in. One of the biggest things that we liked was that it was in the same church boundaries as our apartment so we were able to continue to attend the same ward as before. The price was also something that was worth while. We knew that we would have to fix it up but with my in-laws help we knew that we could do it. We even liked the challenge that it presented.

It wasn't long before we were tearing into the electrical and replacing two pronged plugs with three pronged ones and pulling wire through every inch of the floor and walls. We added outlets, we fixed light fixtures, we increased the original 8 circuit breakers to 16 and then 20. We removed an old sliding door and framed in the wall, furring the entire surface out almost a full inch to accommodate wiring and a window sill we couldn't remove. We tore out three levels of flooring (while Tigger took a nap down the hall) and replaced it with laminate. We painted the night we signed the closing papers. We did a lot of things that I have never done before. I learned a lot about home repair. My tool box didn't just come into being, but actually began to grow with things I used often. I got to purchase the biggest, baddest drill ever! I have a collection of spare screws and nails. I wish I have taken some more pictures before we started, but here is a collection of before and after.

And after.

 

It was a good house. I hope the next owner appreciates what we did to it. I know that I will always appreciate what it did for us.

Burying Grounds

Along the Freedom trail are several burying grounds. I don't know why they are not called cemeteries. Perhaps that will be a post for my research blog. My family have been to a number of cemeteries. Just as any of my siblings about the trip to Boot Hill. As a kid i never really found them if much interest. I have much more interest in them now, although i must say that after visiting three in one day they started to look the same. It was still interesting to see what differences they had and I tried to find new ways at looking at them. First I was able to explore the Granary burying ground. This is where John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Benjamin Franklin's parents are buried alone with other notables. I just didn't get pictures of those other notables. 

That's Franklin's parents memorial in the center. You can see how many graves there are. They're quite worn down but it is still impressive. As I was leaving I saw Samuel Adams. It was interesting to see the dates going back to the 1600s. The earliest death dates I'm used to are late 1700s. 

The next stop alone the trail was another burying ground. This one next to the King's Chapel. Originally the two were not affiliated the burying ground being there before the church. I tried to grab pictures of some of the art on the grave stones. Here's a side note, there are about 550 grave stones and about 1000 dead. What blows my mind is that the space is so small. There are a couple of family tombs that actually extend below he sidewalk.

Sorry about the bad exposure on that second picture. It's of a headstone featuring a skeleton and a young women. You'll notice the a kill with the wings in the top photo. That was a very, very common engraving on grave stones. It is a symbol of death and the freedom of he soul. I overheard that from a class group that came through Park church burying ground. I ran into them a number of times along the trail. Final thought on King's church burying ground - I don't envy the angels who will have to open this tomb. 

The last burying ground kind of sneaked up on me. It's know as Copp's Hill burying ground. It was by far the largest of the three and had a look over the river. At this point o the day I had been on the move for several hours and was anxious to get to the USS Constitution so I really didn't stay long. I did get some decent shots of the trees though. Anyone who is familiar with Veggitales may know the song, "the Pirates who don't do Anything." The final phrase in each verse is, "And I've never been to Boston in the fall." I'm glad I came here in he fall because it is rather beautiful. 

Laying up food for the winter

My mother has always canned and bottled food. Growing up we considered it a crime against the family if we bought jam or salsa as those were two of her more prolific stored foods. When we moved when I was ten my parents scouted out houses and found one with raspberries, boysenberries, strawberries, and apples and were were so excited about the jams, applesauce, etc that we could do. Peaches and pears are the two staple fruits she does and she often would do most of the canning while we were at school. Pears were the one exception. I have vivid memories of my mother telling us that our schedules were booked on the day it was time to do pears. Peaches, jams, salsas, and just about everything else she could do on her own. But pears were a group effort and we were all needed. My mother didn't "book" our schedules much, but pears were scheduled every year.

So you can imagine my trepidation when I decided that I was going to can pears this year. And not just any pears, but pears from our own tree. I originally thought of doing pear honey - a mix of pears, pineapple, and sugar (in equal quantities) that my father has done before - but I decided that I could can our modest crop and then have them all year round. Canned pears are one of my favorite fruit. Many times I even prefer them to fresh, but that depends on ripeness of the fresh pear.

We got quart jars from my wife's grandparents, as well as a bath canner cage - we had the bath canner. I looked up the instructions for canning in my Better Homes and Garden's cookbook (14th edition). I still have my 11th edition that I bought when I left for college. I tend to use them as my first "go-to" cook book for everything. The problem this time was that I basically said that I shouldn't can pears the way I've seen my mother do it for years. A quick phone call to my mother took care of that. After running to the store for some more lids, I saddled up to start canning.

 First I washed and peeled them, which generally takes the longest time. The common problem with working with pears is that it's hard to get a whole crop (or box) that's ripe all together. This was about how many pears I had to work with, but you'll notice they range in color from green to yellow. Depending on how ripe they are you can skin them by blanching them, but often you just have to take the skins off by hand, with a sharp knife. Then you core them and slice them. My right had is still feeling a little cramping.

 Next of course, you put them in jars, add a sweet syrup (we used a 2 C. water for 1 C. sugar), attach the lids and put them in the bath canner. Reading up on a few things I learned that you use water to better transfer the heat to the bottles and, consequently, the fruit inside. I learned from my parents long ago that canning is far more comfortable in warm weather when you have a Camp Chef stove you can put it on outside. I was glad that I didn't run out of propane partway through, but even had enough for our fire pit to cook dinner over.

 After you pull the bottles out, they cool and create a vacuum inside the bottle which seals the lids. We had one that didn't seal for some reason - so we're eating those pears, but in the end we got 10 quarts of pears for this next year. I'm also glad that we were able to preserve a lot of fruit that would have otherwise gone bad. These bottles were the first batch we did and they all sealed.

This picture was from earlier that day. Tigger and Kanga were playing with the neighbor's pets, a couple of dogs and a couple of cats. I like their cats. 1 - because they're not bad mousers. 2 - they're pretty friendly. and 3 - they aren't mine. 

Family photos

With all of the other posts this week I almost forgot my usual weekly post. But as it is broiling hot and the whole family has retreated to the much cooler basement I was reminded of it and so sat down at the desktop to blog. Again, between finishing a couple of books and my grandmother's passing I was not sure on what to blog. The funeral was yesterday and passed well, but I do not see a need to detail its items as I had detailed my thoughts on the one who it was for. I will say that it was good to see my extended family again, although the circumstances were unfortunate. I feel blessed that I know my great uncles and aunts and most of my father's cousins by sight and have interactions with many of them. I am very grateful for my family.

Recently my cousin and his wife found a box of letters and photos in the basement of my grandparent's house. They scanned the contents of the box and uploaded it to Google Drive. Now we all have access to it and this morning I was showing it to my children. I thought that I would share some of those photos here.

These are a few of my progenitors Byron Harvey Jr. and Sen. (left) and William Moore (right). They are probably the earliest ones that we could have photographs of. William Moore was part of the early movements of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints who were driven from their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois back in the 1840s. My parents have been to see the plot of land he owned back in Nauvoo. His uncle, James, had 12 sons and is a big part of why my extended family is so large. Whenever someone asks if I'm related to so-and-so my answer is, "Yes, I just don't know how." In most cases it is through James, William Moore's uncle.

I found this picture of my grandparent's wedding and just had to chuckle. Grandmother looks like she's being ignored for a moment and is not too pleased. My Grandfather is talking with his brothers, Richard and Byron "Moony". I was speaking with Moony at the funeral yesterday and he mentioned that with exception of their father, my grandfather (his oldest brother) was the person he loved the most.

I had to share this one because it is of my grandparents and my father. I never saw them this way myself, but I love how they look here. The original of this picture was on a table at the funeral and my sisters were talking about how hansom our grandfather was. In most of our memories he had stomach difficulties and was very thin. There was little excess weight on him and probably less then there should have been. My grandmother was a very beautiful women as well. Al I can say for my father is that I've never seen him look this innocent before. It's still probably an act.

I hold my family very dear to me and am glad that I can share these photos with my children and now with you. Thank you.