Back when Tim and I were roommates, he had the idea to paint my cornhole boards. He started by drawing a John Deere logo on one but that’s as far as it got. He recently borrowed my boards and when I got them back, wow! I now have the best looking cornhole boards around! He did this all with tape and paint, not decals. It looks incredible! Thanks Tim!
Tyla’s first birthday surprise this year was staying a night at Treehouse Point. It’s a local bed and breakfast made up of a bunch of individual treehouses. It’s pretty difficult to get a reservation, but somehow I got lucky and snagged a spot in the Bonbibi which is their newest treehouse.
Our room was barely bigger than a double bed (or was it a queen?) but it was exceptionally nice inside. There was power and a small heater which we obviously didn’t need. We spent the evening relaxing down by the river and reading our books.
At breakfast the next morning, we were chatting with one of the lady’s who works there. She said that Animal Planet has been on site quite a bit lately filming for a new reality show called Treehouse Men. The guy who builds the treehouses is apparently quite famous in the treehouse community and the show features his work. I think that the facility also serves as a school for people who want to learn to build these structures. It could be an interesting show so you might want to check it out. It’s currently scheduled to air on 8/22 after the finale of Tanked.
It was a very unique night and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. If I had to nitpick I’d say it’s unfortunate that they are so close to a fairly busy road. It would be more peaceful in a different setting but they can’t very well pack up and move! If you’re interested in staying, you might want to make reservations now. I’d bet they’re going to get a lot more busy once the TV show airs!
I wrote a couple months ago about the renovation I oversaw of the house on the church property. The final step in that project was fixing up the landscaping, but we wanted to wait for nicer weather. The big day arrived a couple weeks ago and Tim had a great plan laid out for us and a bunch of nice plants picked out. The main projects were taking down two small trees, removing a bunch of bushes, taking out a huge out-of-control rhododendron, and moving a LOT of rock from the planter area to the church driveway. We rented a Dingo to help move all the rock and rip out the stumps and that ended up being the best decision of the day. There’s no way the work would have been finished with out it! I posted a bunch of photos at the end of this Facebook photo album but here is a before and after photo that shows part of the area we worked on.
Tyla’s company operates a booth every year at the Kirkland 5k and they encourage their employees to run. This year Tyla, Chelsea, Nancy and Megan all ran. Tim and I watched from the side of the road and snapped some photos.
My wisdom teeth are a mess. I started typing out the details in this post, but really it’s just gross. Suffice it to say that many dentists and oral surgeons have taken a peek inside my mouth but since I wasn’t having any pain at the time, they reluctantly decided to just leave well enough alone. One of them is starting to cause some trouble and thankfully it’s one that they think they can get out of my mouth so this morning I’m having done. The oral surgeon said he didn’t want to attempt it unless I was under full anesthesia and I happily agreed to that. Hopefully I’ll come out of the surgery with only a little pain and none of the nasty potential complications. I’ll be out of commission for a couple days though. Bring on the soft foods and video games!
Maybe Tyla will bring a video camera along in case I act like this kid:
PS. Happy Birthday Mom! I got you bloody tooth remnants.
For the last couple years, I’ve been the property guy at church. Normally it’s just small tasks and general upkeep, but late last summer, I started a huge project. The church received a very large anonymous donation designated for remodeling the house that’s on the church property.
In the past, the house has been used as a place for our Pastor’s to live, a place for our teachers to live, and extra space for classes and events. It has been falling in to disrepair and that seems to have accelerated the last couple years since no one was living there.
I gathered a bunch of input from people who had lived there before and other congregation members, got bids from two contractors, and finally signed a contract. There’s way too much to cover here, but this is a small subset of the improvements we made:
I was responsible for drawing up the basic plans and work item list, but from that point I handed over the reigns. Our general contractor was Jim Lawrence of Lawrence Construction Company and I highly recommend him. We’ll hopefully be giving him a call in the future for some work on our house. He finished the project quickly and did a lot of the interior design himself which removed a lot of decisions from my plate.
It would be much better if we had more “before” pictures, but here’s comparison of the old kitchen and the old kitchen to give you a little taste of the scope of this project.
Every year flies by faster than the one before. I look back on a long list of great experiences and some missed opportunities as well. But all in all, it was another good year and it reconfirmed the fact that I’m blessed way more than I deserve. This website might be a bit of a silly hobby, but it’s times like these when I’m very happy to have it around. It’s fun to look back through the year and remember all the things we did!
The first big trip of the year was up to Whistler for skiing with Jay. We just missed a big snow storm and ended up with high winds and icy conditions, but we still had a good time. Tim, Chelsea and Tyla came up for one night too which made it even better. Soon after we got back, the four of us headed through Stevens Pass to check out the Cascade Quest dog sled race.
I took a peek into the world of homebrew electronics when I built an LCD readout for my Media Center TV. The Arduino platform was very impressive and I have a couple more project ideas if I can find the time to work on them.
In March we began the seven month journey to our new home. Even when I bought the condo in 2006, I knew that I would eventually want something bigger, but the condo was supposed to be a stepping stone. The economics of it didn’t work out as planned, but we did eventually end up in a great new house. The first project was moving a bunch of our stuff into Tim and Chelsea’s garage so that we had more room to stage our home. They were a huge help throughout the whole process! We cleaned up the house, repainted the orange living room back to beige, and put it on the market in April. Every morning we had to leave the house in perfect condition in case a prospective buyer stopped by.
April was our first anniversary and we celebrated by heading out to the San Juan Islands for a stay at a bed and breakfast. It was a working ranch for rescued animals. We were given free run of the property and Tyla was in heaven petting all the goats, horses, sheep and dogs.
For Memorial Day, we camped with Tyla’s family at Grand Coulee Dam. While our last-minute campsite left much to be desired, the area was very impressive. I’m continually amazed at the incredible variety of terrain we can access with a few hours in the car. In April we drove a couple hours and ended up on a beautiful island in the Puget Sound. The next month we drove a few hours and ended up in the middle of a desert. And oh yeah, we drove through a big mountain range to get there. I love the Pacific Northwest!
In June we headed to Kanaskat Palmer State Park with a group from church. The weekend was fun, but right before we left we got word from our realtor that we might be receiving and offer over the weekend. That was on my mind for much of the trip. It didn’t pan out, but after dropping the price a little the following week, we received an offer! Even though it wasn’t quite as much as we hoped, we came to an agreement and the packing process began in earnest.
Between the time we accepted the offer and the day we closed, we were only at home for two weekends! It was a lot of work to cram into a short amount of time, but it all went well. With the help of a lot of friends and family, most of our belongings went into storage. A few more things went to Tim and Chelsea’s house and we moved into Logan’s apartment. Logan, we can’t thank you enough for opening up your home to us!
In the middle of the packing process, Luke, Rachel and David flew out to Washington for their summer vacation. After they left, we flew out east for our summer vacation. It began with a couple days in New York City and then ended with almost a week in Maine at Camp Ticawa. Thanks to the Abendroths for once again making us feel like family!
We closed on the sale of our home a few days after returning from vacation and then headed south to SeaQuest State Park for another camping trip. We picked this park because it was so close to Mt. St. Helens. The volcano didn’t blow and we had a great trip! This year-in-review contains never-before-released material because I apparently never blogged about that trip!
We spent a lot of time in August and September with our realtor. Typically we would look through piles of houses, pick a few to go see, and then we’d meet up with him after work to check them out. We saw a lot of instant duds and a few that made us think. I’d guess that we saw between 40 and 50 houses before settling on our current place in Woodinville. The purchase process was anything but smooth, but through it all we felt like the Lord wanted us to be in this house so we pressed forward.
Dad, Mom, Uncle Dean and Aunt Sandy came out for Labor Day weekend. By that point we were pretty sure we were getting the house but we couldn’t take them inside yet. Instead we took them on a whirlwind tour of the area including Boeing, Deception Pass, Red Hook Brewery, Mt. St. Helens and Canon Beach. I always enjoy playing tour guide and showing off this part of the country!
Church kept me very busy this year. I play the piano for our Monday night services sometimes and I’m also the property deacon. In addition to normal upkeep and repairs, we had a very large donation come through to renovate the house that is on our property. I gathered lots of input, drew up some plans, hired a general contractor, handed him a check and cut him loose. That project should be finishing up in about a month and I think the end product is going to look amazing! I’ll have to post some more information about that project once it’s done. You can spot a few photos on the church’s Facebook page.
I’ve been doing this blogging thing for so long that I completely missed the 9th anniversary of this blog in July. Roughly 10,000 unique visitors came to the site in 2011 and about half of them came back for more. Some probably came to find about one of my dozen Windows Phone apps. I’ve sold over 1000 of those this year, and while it doesn’t even come close to compensating me for my time, it’s fun to know that others enjoy my hobby.
When we look back at 2011, we’ll probably focus on the house, but we sure had a lot more going on than just that! What will be the big story of 2012?
Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Every year Tyla and I try to buy a Christmas ornament from some memorable point in the year. This year we bought an ornament at the top of Rockefeller Center and another when we stopped in Maine. I started posting about them last year and I think I’ll continue this ever year.
|
|
Technically this wasn’t from a trip during the past year. I put this ornament of Oskar in Tyla’s stocking last year. |
 |
It’s a bit hard to see in this photo but this is the ornament we bought at the top of Rockefeller Center. I’ve been up in the Empire State Building a few times but Rockefeller Center was first from me. It was a magnificent view made all the better having my beautiful bride by my side. |
 |
What other ornament would you get in Maine? We picked up this lobster on our way to Ticawa. |
We had more than ornaments to add to our collection this Christmas. Last year Tyla’s family got us a bunch of Thomas Kinkade Christmas village pieces. This year Tyla arranged them on the hearth but I think next year I want to get a table set up for them and get a train to go around the village. There is a train set that is made to go with the village (hint hint!)
While Luke, Rachel and David were here last week, we had a sunny BBQ up at Tim and Chelsea’s house. They made one of the most amazing lunches I’ve ever eaten: grilled carne asada, rice, refried beans, guacamole, salsa, and buffalo fries. Everything was homemade (except the rice I guess?) and fantastically delicious. We played cornhole and lazed around in the sun. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery (posted on July 1.)
Cornhole Boards Update
The paint didn’t adhere real well to the MDF and we were concerned that it would scrape off as soon as we started playing. So when Dad was here over the weekend, we bought some sheets of acrylic and applied them to the top of the boards. That involved securing the sheet to the boards with screws (countersunk so the bags wouldn’t catch), trimming the sheets to match the size of the boards and then cutting out new holes to match the existing holes. We weren’t sure how we’d do the trimming and cutting but after experimenting with a Dremel, we switched to the router and it worked remarkably well! I had a bit with a bearing on the bottom the same diameter as the cutting blade. That rode along the edge of the wood while the blade cut the acrylic. We were able to quickly cut an exact match for the boards!
The other concern with this plan was that the boards would end up being way too slippery, but surprisingly they were LESS slippery than before due to the static from the protective plastic that was on the acrylic. I think that will wear off over time and once the boards got a little dusty, they played very close to the original, unpainted boards.
The only downside to this approach was that as the boards heated up in the direct sunlight, the acrylic started to warp a bit. It doesn’t expand at the same rate as the wood underneath. That wasn’t a huge deal though so hopefully this will be the final solution.
Eventually the acrylic will get scuffed up but it should be a pretty quick job to replace them and keep the boards looking like new!