DJ's Baptism

DJ was baptized last Saturday. He was very excited and very prepared. Lyman did the baptizing and confirming.

Since it was a stake baptism, we didn't have any part in the program. We just got to sit back and enjoy.

We hosted the usual dinner at our house for friends and family which was a lot of fun.

DJ and Gwennie started soccer a few weeks ago. Saturday morning we spent 3 hours at the soccer field, since DJ had two games. He's in a league of 3rd to 6th graders. That's quite a range in age and size! His favorite position is halfback.

Gwennie is in a league for 4 and 5 year olds. They play without a goalie and with the coach on the field. Gwennie is the only one who scored a goal on her team.

William and Amanda have a new favorite pasttime of picking and eating tomatoes straight out of the garden.

I'm still on light duty and so we are just hanging out enjoying the beautiful weather. And that's how our summer is drawing to a close.

Jennifer Goes on Bed Rest

On Wednesday, Jen planned this secret getaway for us, it being the last night that our live-in babysitter, Elyssa, would be with us. So we drove to Park City for dinner (she didn't tell me where to turn until we got to each turn, but I guessed Park City).

When we arrived at the restaurant, Jen got out of the car, and felt something tear. She went to the bathroom and when she came out, she told me we had to leave because she was bleeding. We thought the baby might be lost.

The staff said there was no hospital in Park City, but there was a clinic nearby. We went there, but they didn't have an ultrasound machine, so we had to drive back to Salt Lake. They did an ultrasound and found that the baby is still alive. We saw her moving around doing acrobatics. (We think it is a girl but have no physical evidence since it is too early to determine from an ultrasound.) They found a subchorionic hemorrhage, which means a blot clot formed and then broke away, tearing some of the placenta off of the uterine wall. The prognosis is worse for 1st trimester pregnancies and women 35 years and over, and we fit both of these categories. The doctor was surprised that the baby was still alive based on the amount of blood.

So now Jen is on bed rest by doctor's orders. She mostly follows these orders. Namma and the ward are helping us. We would love another one of these, so we hope everything works out:

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I just had to include this cute picture of William and his "Ruff-Ruff" taken shortly after he fell asleep tonight.

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The fetus is measuring due on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, giving us a reason to keep the green magnetic shamrock on our car. This is one day earlier than we had calculated based on ovulation (there is a +/- 1 day error bar on our calculation). Sorry Elyssa! (Elyssa was born on March 18th.)

The End of Summer

Summer has come to and end here in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. A big storm is dropping rain as I type this. This will make up for the dry summer we've had.


Earlier as the cold front was passing, I took a photo looking east toward the Wasatch Front. The only front visible is the cold front. This could be Erie. Gray, and no mountains visible. I'll try to remember to take a picture Tuesday after the storm passes so that a comparison to clear skies can be made. Update (9/1): I've added the clear sky picture and also a close up of the mountains with snow on the peaks (below).







This is a fairly early end to summer in comparison to recent years. Now we wait to see if winter arrives early. I remember 1985, when I was a sophomore at East High. At the end of September, it snowed and it didn't warm up. The PE coaches decided to take all activity inside that year until the spring. I wasn't too pleased. I doubt winter will arrive in September but I would not be surprised by an early winter in, say, mid-October this year.

DJ's Miniture Golfing Birthday Party

For DJ's birthday, he wanted to go miniature golfing. So Lyman took him and six of his friends golfing: Alex Richardson, Adam Aubrey, Anders Jensen, Fischer Jensen, Joseph Horne, Asael "Ace" Horne.

At left, see a picture of DJ watching his ball after hitting it.

This is a group shot. From left to right are: DJ, Adam, Ace, Joseph (behind others), Anders, Alex, Fischer.

Did you notice the red cast on Alex's right arm? (Alex = red striped shirt.) Alex was the only one to hit a hole in one.

After returning we had presents & cake. This is a video of us singing happy birthday to DJ.

DJ Becomes a Cub Scout

Here are some photos of DJ being inducted into the pack. They paint his face as you can see. It was a fun time and DJ enjoyed it. There is some saying that goes with each color, but I don't know them. Perhaps Jennifer can update with the appropriate meanings.

DJ's Birthday Lunch

Posted by Lyman

Happy Birthday DJ! We now have an 8 year old living in our house!

We just finished DJ's birthday lunch. We went to...wait for it...Sweet Tomato's, of course. While in line plating our salads, the power went out. We were able to eat our food in silence (no elevator music playing). However, we did not have the variety regularly available since electricity is required for some of the items (i.e. to cook to pasta, to push the ice cream out of the machine). As we were about to leave, the power was restored. The remainder of the family stayed for ice cream. I walked back to work.

The staff also returned our credit card they left in the paper credit card machine. Nice, eh?

The master bath floor

Alternate title: What I (Lyman) did Wednesday Night (and Thursday morning, to be technical)


We decided we needed to remove the carpet from the master bathroom because it was growing mildew. Why anyone puts carpet in their bathroom is beyond me (and beyond the scope of this article). We are planning on changing the layout of the bathrooms so this is just a temporary floor. It only cost $30 for the squares, so I think it is worth it.

This is the first step in the prep for us to meet Jennifer's requirement that we be moved from the downstairs bedroom where we are staying to the master bedroom by March, when the baby is due.

Here's how it went:
8:00 Mandy was asleep, Gwen was reading books to William, DJ was playing with Adam (the back-yard neighbor), Jen & I left for Home Depot for the project, leaving Elyssa with the children.

Jen knew about sticky back linoleum squares from her mom, who used them to redo their bathroom in Spokane. They have sticky backs, and can be cut with a knife or scissors. Jen wanted to buy a pattern with lines and a flower in the middle, but I convinced her we should get a marble looking pattern. This turned out well in my opinion, especially given the fact that I had to do some patching of missed spots. More on that later.

9:00 We were back with the materials, pictured below. We also bought: a knife & a threshold.



I neglected to take a before picture. Sorry! Use your imagination. You can see the carpet color & pattern in the picture below.

By 9:15 I had removed the carpet & the pad. Unfortunately, there were a lot of staples plus the carpet tacs to remove. These had to all be removed in order to obtain a flat surface to stick the sticky-back squares of linoleum down.






I used pliers, a pry bar, a claw hammer, and a screwdriver. By 9:45 I had removed some staples, and started the carpet tacs. It was not easy work because I had to either kneel or squat. I don't have any knee pads, but they sound like a good investment about now.

Below is a picture of the slightly water damaged floor near the shower. The carpet tacs pictured were badly water damaged and fell apart. I didn't need the pry bar for these.



Below is a picture of damage to the wall near the shower. The moulding appears to have been set in place, not attached, since it came right off and had no nails in it.



I had to use the pry bar to get under the sink area and near the toilet in order to lift the carpet tacs. After using my claw hammer to tap the pry bar under them for a while, I decided to try to find a rubber hammer. By this time is was 10:45. I could not find a rubber hammer, but I found I could place my knee between the hammer and pry bar and this would prevent my getting a metal shard in my eye. Yep, that's another tool I need: a rubber hammer.

11:00 The fasteners were all gone now except for around the toilet area. I needed a short break...had been kneeling/squatting too long. A quick check of the solar activity report revealed no sunspot seen today (Thursday in most of the world). That's 31 straight days and counting. Another week of this and we'll hit a top 20 for the longest spotless streak (since 1849). (At publication on Mon. the 25th, we are now up to 35 days, tying for the 21st longest streak of spotless days since 1849.)
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/index.html
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html

I got back to work and had all the carpet tacs and staples removed by 11:58. Whew. Then I sanded what appeared to be drywall joint compound on the floor around the toilet area. It was quite bumpy and would have prevented the squares from seating properly. Then I swept and vacuumed the floor, pictured below.



I started by placing a square tight against the wall on the left in the pictures and against the shower. I proceeded down the wall, requiring me to cut out portions of two of the squares so that the vent was not covered. After I had a part of the wall done, I started the next row.

I proceeded with most of two rows, then did the toilet area. This required me to cut out part of the squares using scissors. I'm not really good at matching the shape, but since it's just a temporary floor, I'm not too concerned. In a couple of spots, I cut off too much and had to use a scrap piece to fill in the area where the sub floor was showing. This is where the handy marble pattern came in to play, because it doesn't show the mistakes unless you look hard. The flower pattern would not have been so forgiving.

After finishing the toilet area, I proceeded to finish the remaining portion that required only straight cuts. It took a while to finish, and Jen woke up and came upstairs to see the progress. I finished at 2:50. I say "finished", but it's not actually done. I haven't yet installed the threshold.



The moulding is now an inch or two off the floor and doesn't look right. Another problem that remains is the hole in the wall that appears to be caused by water damage. However, the floor is now in and usable.

Here are all the tools I used for the project. The level was used as a straight edge for cutting the linoleum.



Today Jen told me she wants to just get a new toilet and cabinet/sink. That way we don't have to redo two bathrooms before March. We definitely have to remove this old carpet from the master bedroom area. It is worn out. We have some decisions to make.

Doesn't the new floor look great?