Harley's gift

One of the young women in my ward asked me about a month ago to help her make a gift for her Dad for Christmas. 

Harley loves basketball.  She tried out for the Riverton High School basketball team as a sophomore and got cut.

She tried out as a junior and made the team.  In one of the last practises before the first game, she tore her ACL and other muscles.  Had surgery, worked her butt off to get back in shape.

She tried out her senior year  and she got cut.  Great young woman.  She wanted to do something special for her Dad, who has supported her through all the ups and down of playing basketball.

Harley made a desk caddy for her Dad.  The wood is coffee wood, very similar to oak.  The caddy has 3 storage areas on top and a drawer in the front.  We did not have the drawer pull on yet.

What a great chance to visit with Harley as she worked on this gift.

Idaho grand kids

When we got home from the zoo, the Idaho grandkids were at the house.  They planned to come down for the Mann family Christmas party and had the wrong weekend.  That's next weekend, but we had fun playing.

Saturday we went Christmas shopping for Cristal and Mike, so the kids could give them something.  Then we went to the Fun Center.  Lots of running and jumping and burning up energy.  Always good.

Sunday, Cristal was flying home from Nevada, so when the kids went to church, I picked up Cristal and surprized the kids.

Great weekend and able to spend some time with most of the grandkids and we had lots of fun!!

Christmas lights at the Zoo

 

This past weekend got to spend quite a bit of time with Grandkids.  Friday night, we met the local grandkids at Spaghetti Factory for dinner.  That is always good.  Then went to Hogle Zoo for Christmas lights at the zoo.  It rained, no it poured on us the whole time.   Luckily it was not bitter cold or that would have been miserable.  Kids seemed to have a good time.  Below are samples of what "animals" we saw at the zoo.

 

We did get to see some tigers, seals and other animals, but it was a fun evening.  The hot chocolate at the end tasted really good.  By the time we got done, we were wet and cold, but we had fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Thanksgiving pictures

Cristal and the kids were down for Thanksgiving week.  Mike was in Kenya, so we had several days to play.

Saturday night, we went downtown to check out the new City Center mall and to see the lights at Temple Square.

Stairs finished!! FINALLY!!!

The last few weeks we have been working on the back stairs.  When we moved in to the house, the stairs were made out of redwood, but they had not been stained or maintained in years.  The stairs were leaning and not looking pretty at all.

We tore the old stairs off and went all the way back to the house.  The ledger board only had 4 bolts holding it to the house.  When I took those bolts out, 2 were broken off and only 2 holding the ledger board to the house.  No wonder they were leaning!!

A few weeks ago,  we got the stairs all put together, Trex on and doing the railings.  That's when we figured out we did not do the top step correctly.  The bottom railing interferred with the top step.  So, we had to take the Trex off, remove the stairs, and cut the riser down to 3 steps instead of 4 steps. 

Getting the Trex off was a major undertaking.  Some of the screws were stripped out and would not come o ut.  The recipricating saw always fixes those things.

Saturday, got the risers put back on, all the Trex replaced and finally got the railings done.

Hmmm.... a little bit of an improvement!!  Love to finish projects!!!

Thanksgiving 2012

Cristal and the kids came for the week of Thanksgiving.  We did lots of stuff. 

Ken, Myles and Grandpa went out one day to test out Grandpa's new "toy".  Scott bought an AR 15 and Kenyon loves to shoot, so they had a great day on Wednesday shooting guns.  Went out in the west desert and found a good spot to destroy some boxes, milk jugs, campaign signs, etc.

The girls hit the mall, to do some other "important" stuff.  The girls needed church clothes, so we did some shopping for that and we were successful.

The most important thing though was getting ears pierced.  The girls have wanted to do that for a long time, so it was done.

It was quite comical.  Kyra was ready to go, gung ho, let's get 'er done. 

Myka, on the other hand was a bit nervous.  Wanted to get the ears pierced, but wondered about the pain.  She picked out pretty rhinestone type earrings.  Bright, sparklers and very pretty.


Friday night we went to a Jazz game.  Sacrament Kings were in town and that meant Jimmer Fredette was going to be there.  The kids loved the game.  It was a close game and lots of screaming and alot of fun.

We also spent alot of time in the shop this week.  I have a bunch of Build and Grow kits from Lowe's and the kids each built two different kits.  They picked different things and so we usually did that two at a time in the shop.

Ken needed to build something out of wood for one of his badges for Cub scouts.  We did the classic tool box.  The other kids wanted to build one of them, as well.  They used the drill press, the handheld drill, the tape measure, and they all signed the bottom of their boxes.

Went to see the movie "Wreck It Ralph".  It was fun and the kids loved it.

Great weekend!!  Loved having the kids in town and playing together.

Trex is on the stairs

Worked on the stairs again this weekend.  Got the Trex on and some of the railing.  Tried to do the railing on the stairs and ran in to a minor problem.  The top step interfere with the railing.  Have to do some "adjusting" of the stairs.  Another day.....

Update on back stairs

Spent a good part of the weekend working on the back stairs/deck.  Got all the framing and structure done with with pressure treated wood and started adding the Trex.

Going with gray Trex, to match the house.  We have post sleeves, to cover the pressure treated wood posts, and then the railings have to go on still.

It was only about 40 degrees over the weekend, but once we got working, it was not bad at all.  The worst part was clearing off the 6+ inches of snow that had accumulated on the Trex boards.  We always need the snow, so it was nice.

Halloween 2012

On Halloween night, all the Utah grandkids came by and they were all there at the same time!!  We could not have planned that any better.

Parker - spaceman
Zoey - witch
Payson - Hulk
Ashton -
Davis - pumpkin
Bailey - Rapunzel

Before all the kids got there, Bailey and Grandpa and Jacob went Trick or Treating around the neighborhood.  The Bishop was serving hot dogs, so they got to eat while they were out.

A few days later Bailey was coming over to visit.  When  Becca told her she was coming to Grandma and Grampa's, she wanted to know if she was going Trick or Treating again?

Great memory huh?

New stairs

Spent the weekend working on a project that needed to be done since we moved in to the house.  The stairs on the back of the house were weathered, leaning and not very pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday tore the old stairs and deck off the house and Saturday started rebuilding.  The support wood is pressure treated wood and so it's not pretty, but it will do well in the weather.  Did some other fun things over the weekend so did not get done with the stairs, but they are a huge improvement over what was there.

These are going to be way over built, but they won't weather because we will put Trex on the top, exposed parts and there will be a ton of structure and support underneath so we won't ever have to replace these stairs.

Arrow for a wedding reception

A young woman in our ward is getting married and her reception is in a recreation area.  She wanted a big arrow with lights to direct people to the reception.  They had a picture of how they wanted it to look.

It was actually quite fun figuring out how to put it together and how to do the lights.  Got the frame put together pretty easily.  Cut some 1/4 inch plywood for the middle part, put sheetrock mud on it for texturing and then drilled holes for the lights to go in.

I read the box wrong and thought there were 40 lights, so I drilled 40 holes.  After I got everything painted and lights installed, I realized it was 40 watt and had only 25 lights.  I thought at first I could do another string of lights and drill 10 more holes.  Decided that would be too many lights, so I redid the middle part of the arrow, did the texturing and let it dry while I was in Illinois.

Last night, drilled 24 holes, painted the middle part of the arrow and installed the lights.  Also put hooks on the arrow for them to hang it.

It turned out being about 39 inches long and about 24 inches wide, at the widest part.  Wedding is Thursday and I delivered it last night.

Another Illinois trip

Last week went to Illinois to help my sister.  Had lots of jobs to do around the house and got all of them done. Woo hoo!!!

One thing that needed fixing was the stairs on the back deck.  Needed to add a railing.  The weather did not cooperate, so I had to run in and hide from the lighting, thunder and massive rain storms, but we got the railings done and got a coat of poly on them to protect from the rain.

Got the kitchen faucett replaced, it was dripping, got the dog to the vet and the groomer, did some touch up painting in the kitchen, weeded the flower beds and restack the brick.  The flower bed had to be redone next time.  Ran out of time.  Need to do a better job on the brick, but the weeds and uglies are out of the flower bed

Great trip.  Got lots done and had fun visiting.

Davis Bradley Mann's blessing

Sunday, October 14th was Davis' blessing.  Jacob and Becca live in Lehi.  Davis was 3 months when he was blessed and beautiful Bailey is about 2 1/2.  Such beautiful kids and a great little family.

Jacob gave a beautiful blessing for Davis.

Remodel the shop

The woodshop is in constant change; remodel to make more stuff fit, move stuff around, use space more effeciently, on and on and on.

This past weekend, I put cabinets up on the east wall to increase storage space.

Priced the cabinets at Home Depot, Lowes and IKEA.  IKEA was $20 cheaper per cabinet.  After I put them together and hung them, I would buy a ton of cabinets from IKEA.  Their methods and how they go together was incredible. 

I put five cabinets between the window and then end wall.  Doing three more cabinets between the door and the window.  Eight cabinets total and lots of storage.  I have several tools on wheels and I like having them mobile so when I am working on long pieces of wood, I can move them around.  This allows me to park the tools under the cabinets on that east wall, but still have lots of storage space.

Little Tweeks on Beesley's Flag Case

A few weeks ago, I called Trooper Aaron Beesley's wife to see if she needed help getting the flag case set up with Aaron's medals.  She said she had gotten that set up fine, but the flag was too bulky to fit in the case and the door would not stay closed.  I used rare earth magnets to hold the door closed, but that was not doing it.

She also said that all his badges and medals were making the satin covered foam, sag in the case and asked if I could fix that.

My new miracle cure for what ails me is Industrial Strength Velcro.  Put velcro on the back of the foam and on the back inside of the cabinet to help hold up all the medals, pins, etc.

Bought some brass clasps and mounted those on the side of the cabinet to help hold the door closed.

All in all, the cabinet looks really good.

BYU Football

Utah State University  was playing BYU in Provo.  A few months ago, I invited all the kids to go to a football game.  Musingi's came down for the weekend, Jacob went and Louise went with us.  Mariah and her family went to Disneyland that weekend, so they could not come with us.

The kids had a ball.  The band was great.  The crowd the great.  The weather was a bit chilly, but  light coats felt good.  The game....well it was not that exciting.  I had hoped for more scoring and more excitement for the kids, but they had fun.

Slaying dragons!!

I have had a list of projects to get done and luckily I have been able to get alot of them completed.  The arrow above is for a wedding reception for a young woman in our ward.  She wants to be able to mount some small lights on the arrow and use it some how in her reception decoration.  I still need to put the wood through the middle so they have some where to attach the lights, but wanted to make sure the size was what they wanted.  This means 49 inches long.

This is a stand for an iPad.  Scott has a co-worker who's daughter was involved in a car accident several years ago and it has left the daughter bed ridden.  The daughter loves to use the iPad, but it moves around on her table.  Made this out of walnut.  The biggest unknown on this was at what angle she needed the iPod to sit, so the block behind the main board is one of three that I made.  The leading edges on the blocks are cut at three different angles.  The blocks are attached to the base with industrial strength velcro.  As the iPad is put on the stand, it will be held at whatever angle they decide.  The wood is walnut,with hand rubbed Watco Danish Oil.

Last week I finished cutting all the wood for the Relief Society craft meeting.  I cut about 20  of the turkey/sucker holders.  They are in a previous post.  I also cut three of these witches boots for a neighbor.  I really liked the pattern, so I cut enough so we had a pair at all of our grandkids houses.  Musingi's were down this weekend, so we painted witches boots during conference.  Painting with kids is always an adventure, but we had fun. 

Shop Time!!!

Been busy in the shop lately.  I do the missionary plaques for our ward.  I buy the rough cut walnut, make all kinds of saw dust, glue them together, route the edges and then sand the heck out of them.  Once they have alot of oil on them, I take the plaques to an engraving shop and they engrave the map of the country where the missionary is going, as well as their favorite scripture.

We have had four young men in our ward get their missionary callings, so I did a bunch of plaques.  Those are done and ready to go.

The Relief Society is getting ready for their fall craft meeting and asked me to cut some things out of wood.  The turkey's are small, probalby only about 4 or 5 inches across.  They asked for five, I did ten and then found out last night I need to do five more.  Just when you think you are ahead???

Then they asked me to do some witches boots.  I really liked these.  Got the RS ones done and made a bunch for the grand kids.

These could work for witches boots or elf shoes, depending on how they are painted.  Have to get some paint and now I have a project for the grandkids to paint.  They like helping!!

Time in Chicago

My sister Jan's friend Jean has been very sick in Chicago.  I have made a few trips back to Illinois over the past few months to help.

On one of our trips downtown Chicago to the hospital, got a glimpse of Lake Michigan from the 13 floor of the hospital.

Beautiful lake and blue skies.

On another trip, that my sister Pat went with me to help Jan and Jean, we went by the old Masonic Hall.  When we first joined the LDS Church in Illinois, there was only a branch in the northern suburbs.  We met  in a Masonic Hall.

Lots of times when we showed up for church on a Sunday morning, we had to clean up the bingo cards, cigarette butts and beer bottles, to hold church.

The Masonic Hall was located in Libertyville.  We met in this building for a few years until we built our own chapel in Gurnee.  At that time, church members helped with the construction of the building.  There were many YW activites spent at the construction site cleaning up garbage and debris from the construction workers.  I remember pouring concrete down the cinder block walls and tamping the concrete down so the walls would be very strong and durable.

On another trip, I 'll have to get a picture of the chapel in Gurnee.  It's still standing!!!

Anderson's cabinet

Some of our neighbors asked if I could build a cabinet to cover their power boxes for their house and a new generator, they recently put it.  Both boxes are in the kitchen, so I tried to make the cabinet to make their other kitchen cabinets.

The kitchen cabinet doors are raised panel, cathedral doors, out of oak.  This was a first for me.  Learned how to use a set of 3 router bits to do the raised panel doors, then used templates to route the shapes of the panel and rails.

This is the door, without the panels in place yet.

Dry fit on the doors.

The finished product.  Yes!!

Babysitting grandkids

This past weekend, we watched Jacob and Becca's kids while they went out for the evening. 

One of the "activities" we did with Bailey is something my sister Pat found on Pinterest.  She is addicted!!!

I had a glass dish with baking soda in it.  Put food dye and vinega in four different glasses.  Bailey used an eye dropper in the glasses with the food dye and put it in the pan with the baking soda.

When the vinegar/food dye mix hit the baking soda, it would buble up, fizzle and change the color of the baking soda. 

Bailey was fascinated and so intent on doing it right.

She kept all her colors separated and they did not touch for a long time.

Ta da!!  The finished product.  Thanks Pat for sharing the idea.  Bailey loved it!!

More from helicopter ride!!!

Twin Falls Idaho Temple, from the helicopter.

My sister Pat's house.....Murtaugh, Idaho - - - ya hoo!!!

The farm!!!  Lots and lots of fields.