Swinging a Hammer Into the New Year

 Transitioning a second story kitchen into a bedroom is harder than you might imagine. Here's a shot of the cabinets mostly demolished. The uppers have already been moved to the garage to make storage space (imagine the white area on the wall as the "backsplash"). In this picture you can see a number of potentially deadly DIY projects:

The rest of the demo work reveals missing baseboard and miserable water  damage to the flooring.

W. M. Rutter- apparently a now defunct WV lumber  company.
Difficult to obtain 1 1/2 x 5/16 red oak strip flooring.

My pathetic first attempts at soldering copper pipes in the wall between the room and a closet. You can see that the first try didn't work (water sprayed on  lathe).  On a second try, I forgot to empty the active water line down to the valve in the basement and nearly lost an eye when steam in the pipe built up and shot off the end cap like a bullet!

Plaster patching finished (I was forced to cap the waste water line and leave it protruding slightly from the wall). It connects to an air vent directly on the other side of this wall in the corner of the closet. Since we didn't want to remove the whole thing, which would have also involved roof work, we settled for a small oddity. It will likely be behind a bed or some other piece of furniture anyway!

You can see the electrical outlet now moved to the baseboard just to the right of the ladder.

Well, it's still a work in progress. I was able to reuse baseboard from the kitchen in this room, except for one stretch. I also found trim work I had saved to match the existing wood around the closet door. I would not have been able to match it otherwise, short of custom millwork (hah!). What remains? SERIOUS flooring work (2 inch x 5/16 straight edge is on order- I will have to rip each piece), then refinishing the entire floor and lots of painting. Stay tuned!

A Church Family Christmas

Our Christmas holiday was very full! This year we traveled to both halves of our families splitting our vacation time right down the middle. But of course, it all begins a few weeks earlier with the annual Christmas tree hunt:

We found this tree very quickly, a Blue Spruce with incredible coloring, very slim, and what I estimated to be the perfect height (just over 9 feet). I had forgotten a tape measure (contrary to my father's excellent tree selection training growing up) and had to judge off my own height. In the picture, we are standing on higher ground.

The tree fit wonderfully!

On further inspection, we found that our tree, with its "incredible coloring," had been sprayed with dye! I complained and was told that it was standard industry practice these days and that I was the only one who didn't like it. I don't know about you, but if I am going to buy a natural tree, I would prefer it to be natural! I actually tend to think that the Blue Spruces had a rough summer\fall and had a lot of yellow in their needles prompting Family Christmas Tree Farm of Red Lion, PA (among others) to spray them. 

Jericho looks cute while trying to electrocute herself.

Pop Pop!
We headed south to Harrisonburg as soon as we got free from work. Jericho Faye adores her Pop Pop, along with cousin Rachel May.

Snuggle time with Momma and baby brothers...

Cousins!

More cousins!
This is up at the extended Church family gathering in Woodstown, NJ.  Judah and Isaac are anticipating the birth of another sibling (each in their own way I believe), and Jericho looks forward to cousin #8, with #9 on the way too!

Laura and I approached the "gingerbread house" making competition full throttle, preparing in advance to build  this church using Jolly Ranchers to create stained glass. We ran into some structural difficulties, and the steeple got nixed (all Asa's fault), but were still pleased with the results!

The Big Reveal

Short of a cutesy blue\pink icing in the middle of the cupcake party, we trained Jericho to reveal the sex of our twins. Now how cute is that?

If you can't understand toddler talk, the proof is in the pudding below:

Looking from below Twin A, you can see thighs sticking out at 90 degrees and pronounced genitalia. The mass above\right of the thin line is Twin B.

Less clear, but you can once again see thighs with genitalia on Twin B.

Of course the tech could be wrong (but it sure looks like she is right on at least 1 count!)

The Church Twins at 14 Weeks

Have you ever wondered what difference 4 weeks makes in the life of a baby in the womb?
Here you are!

Baby Twins at 10 weeks! This is pretty zoomed out, as to capture the womb and separate sacks, but  here the twins are still in a "blob stage," albeit with beating hearts and the start of digits!

At 14 weeks, we have fully formed babies! What isn't there are lots of internal organs that would allow for  life on the outside. Otherwise, the twins have fingers, lips, toes, and even baby sex parts... stay tuned for further news on that front!

   Thanks for your congratulations, thoughts, and prayers. Everything looks great! The twins are about 4 ozs each and 3 and half inches long, crown to rump! Laura turned a corner with her nausea and fatigue just about two weeks ago now, so that is a blessing. That isn't to say that she's not completely exhausted at the end of a teaching day!
    The current challenge is to gain the weight she is supposed to while downing over 14 full size vitamin pills a day. She was told that she is behind the game in twin-pregnancy weight gain, which should be frontloaded in the 1st and 2nd trimester to safeguard against low birth weight. She has been asked to consume 3000 calories a day! I'm trying to avoid sympathy poundage with all the extra food around. She's expected to gain 45 lbs. by D-day.
    The twin hoarding has already started. Baby food on clearance? I bought them all. Friends with twin toddlers are giving us their baby carriers. Perfect. And another set of friends are passing off a crib. We are still looking for another wooden full-size crib for Baby B. Let us know if we can help de-clutter someone's home!
    I leave you with this:

Wacky Day at School, the perfect opportunity to wear a bowl cut, pencil beard, and my  favorite sweatshirt.

The Big Big News News

Laura and I are excited to announce that we are expecting TWINS in mid-March. While we were planning on our second child this spring, the news of twins at our first ultrasound Wednesday was quite a shock! The very smooth technician asked Laura how she had been feeling, to which Laura replied "Not very well." "Well that can sometimes be a sign of twins," he replied. At this point I was scrunching my eyes at what appeared to be a mirror image on the monitor screen. "You're kidding!" Laura gasped. "I never kid about twins," he said. "But that's impossible, there's no twins in either of our families!" Sagely, the technician reminded us, "Well there is now."

So yes, we're still absorbing the news. We are, or course, thrilled! As teachers and Christians, we believe that educating and raising children is the primary means of changing the world! We have been doubly blessed! At the same time, we can't help but be terrified. We realize our lives are about to change drastically. A new car, job\career decisions, an accelerated home re-model timetable, 3 under 3... the implications are endless! Your wisdom and advice are welcome. Knowing that we are are surrounded by an incredible community of support here in York, south Jersey, Virginia, and beyond makes us feel a lot better.

Lots of ultrasound and bump pictures to come! Praise God. 

We all fall down...

Fun with friends!

Jericho has been having a lot of fun around here!



Cousing Rachel and Jericho had a great time exploring the wonder of belly buttons and giving each other wagon rides!



Jericho has warmed up to classroom-pet-at-home-for-the-summer-only, Joe.

Couzin Tirzah found a great pal to rough house with.

Jericho loves popsicles (in hand) and saying "cheese," among other things.





Jericho goes sailing (again!).

Last week was our "annual" family week on my brother's 34-foot Hunter, Miss Eve.

This was a more ambitious trip than last year- six days and five nights. Here's what our itinerary ended up looking like:

Sunday PM- Bohemia River to Wharton Creek
Monday- Wharton Creek to St. Michael's
Tuesday PM- St. Michael's to Crab Alley Creek (Kent Island)
Wednesday- Crab Alley to Annapolis Harbor
Thursday- Annapolis to Tenthouse Creek (West River)
Friday- Tenthouse to Knapp's Narrow (Tilghman Island)

2012- Jericho at 1.5 years

Jericho, one year removed from her last sailing trip was a ton of fun, if not a bit more difficult. Look at the difference!

2011- Jericho is approx. 6 months

We had overall great weather with the nights cooling off considerably and enough storms\frontal movement to give us some periods of great wind. Highlights were 10+ kts from Wharton Creek to Rock Hall in cool overcast skies and a banner day of 15-25 kts out of the SE sailing upwind and then reaching from Annapolis straight into the West River.

It was great having college buddy and Sigma Chi brother Steve Richter along with us from the Bohemia to Annapolis. We did a good bit of reading aloud from The Horse and His Boy.

Jericho stayed busy on the Miss Eve, coloring, climbing, and generally being silly. It took a few days of adjustment, but she was really awesome overall.

No Pain, No Gain: How to Revive Old and Overgrown Bushes

The mantra of anyone attempting to resurrect overgrown bushes should be, "no pain, no gain." Unfortunately, that applies both to the bush and the bush owner. Just like trees, its amazing how much stuff ends up on the ground for cleaning up when you begin the process of trimming (in this case, more like extreme pruning).

After 40 years as citizens of York City, the former owners of 665 Madison weren't exactly on top of their landscaping . Beautiful flowering bushes had been neglected beyond a cursory "shape-up" far too long. In the picture to the left, the base of these bushes is on average five feet from the front of the bush, but a mere 2 feet from the back of the bush

Less visible in the pictures below, are "three" yew bushes covering well over 300 sq. feet of both our front yard and the neighbor's. After some consideration and debate, the verdict was passed. Our with the Yew bushes and radical intervention for the flowering bushes along the side of the house. 

Now that we removed them, the front is a lot more open.

The bushes are not attractive but are showing new growth, even in the midst of a hot summer.

Roof Job Unwanted: Why You Should Fix It Now, Not Later

This spring, while we we were making wild plans for a privacy fence along our corner lot backyard, rain water was slipping between crumbling slate and nonexistent sheathing on our porch roof. Its sudden condemnation re-routed our plans and we immediately launched a semi-DYI roofing project. Go-week was June 14th until finished (one week to the day), and I hired friend Steve Williamson for the expertise and tools [I am likely the most tool impoverished DYI'er in the U.S.]. Happy to provide a contractor recommendation for anyone in York County!

As it turns out, most of the roof damage was a result of a leaky roof that had been fixed some time ago, albeit very shoddily. The fix had come a bit too late to prevent serious rotting.

Since our neighbor's had already shed the slate from their side of the porch roof and the slate on our side was in very poor condition, our decision was easy. Pull off the slate and anything rotted beneath (crossed fingers, crossed fingers...) and replace with asphalt shingles.

Here's a few pictures to show what we did:

Demolition day rolled around and we made fairly quick work of removing the slate. It's a job best done primarily with a small pry bar and your hands, working from the top down. We dedicated a significant amount of time huffing the 1/3 or so of the slate tiles that were in good condition to the garage for re-use on our slate main roof or for landscaping purposes. We found significant parts of the old planking completely disintegrated, and I fell through on one or two occasions!

Proving that TV ads do occasionally work even on those who don't have a TV in their house, I signed up for WM's "Bagster" for this project and was impressed by the amount of stuff we put in it. A few days after scheduling pickup, a large truck showed up and lifted the bag by remote control crane into the bed of the truck. I paid short of $40 for the bag and $144 for the pickup. Totally worth it.

After removing all the old sheathing, we found the beams to be in pretty good shape, save for some rotting on the tops of the wood beams as seen below. It was beyond irritating to realize that the rotting was all dated and now completely dry. The previous owners had let the roof become leaky for some time, before they finally decided to do something about it. Excited that we'd be able to sister a few 2xs and get on with the new roof...

We got held up by the middle section of the eaves shared with our neighbor. There the rotting was significant. This wasn't altogether surprising- we knew water was slipping between some broken tiles and filtering down into the eaves. We just hoped that there was something left to hold the new roof up.

In the picture below you can see a new beam we managed to wedge on the neighbor's side of the roof to prop up their sagging shingles, and then a second sistered beam on my side (the right side). In retrospect, I wish we had extended a new beam the full length of the roof for peace of mind. The reality is, however, if we keep water out by maintaining the roof, it really won't matter.

We also took a big dip out of the roof by slapping 2xs along the beams.

Here's the repair on the eaves and corner of the roof a bit further along. We put the aluminum soffit (just like the neighbor's on the right) back up once we were finished.

At the end of day 2, this is what the roof looked like.

The old roof had no true flashing. Here, we used a grinder and then tucked the flashing into the brick.

On a side note, Linden Painters finished our neighbor's house, which included portions of shared architecture. Below, the left window is our and the right window is our neighbor's. Interestingly, the neighbor's window opens into a closet, whereas in our house the closet was removed to make more space in the bedroom.