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!!!