Oh in all my updates below I forgot! Ethan got another car...

Maybe this car will be the one that lasts through till he graduates. He has gone through two so far.
The Probe has gone to the... ? where do dead cars go? I don't know.

I guess you could say it has become an organ donor for other cars.
I am sure it is being parted out to make other Probes work again...

The Mercury had failed and it would cost more than we paid to buy it to fix it.

But it has found a new life.
The mechanic bought it from us so he can rebuild it for his own car.


So now he has his first car that is not black.
A Ford Escort.


Fair Oaks Ford in Naperville had this car on the lot.
And they were willing to deal so we were able to get a very good price for this and it is running very well.
Rides nice and seems very solid.
And it it the first car he has had that is not missing a hub cap!

I haven't told him yet that red cars are more likely to be pulled over.


OK now that is three cars... the next one Ethan buys for himself.

New Doors! Yeah!

Well I said I would post pictures when I had the doors completed...
So here you go.... Not quite done yet, but this is the new doors!


This is the Bathroom and Mary and my bedroom doors.


This is the boys bedroom doors!

Ethan and Jordan both helped me put up the trim today to finish up the outside of the doors.
Now I still have to put trim on the inside of the doors and fill the nail holes, so not quite finished yet, but Don't they look nice?

Catching Up 1

Wow More than a month and I have not posted... Well Gotta fix that.... so here is a bunch of updates in one. Hope this is not too much to read all at once!

Let me see now.... have a lot to remember...

On Fathers day I received several gifts that I was extremely happy with and surprised!
I was given the third Prophecy movie (Christopher Walkin as the Angel Gabriel in this creepy series! now I have all three movies!)

The three books in the Bourne trilogy.

I am so looking forward to finishing reading them!
Also two music CDs from Trace Adkins!

I always liked his music but had never purchased a CD from him yet. I have them on my IPOD now and am very happy with them!
Yes. I am extremely happy with these gifts from my boys.
The Surprise I received from Mary, I received a Derby Cover for my Sportster!

This is something I pointed out to her and said that it would be the only type of change to the bike I would make... I had mentioned that a long time ago and I had completely forgotten about it. So this was a big Surprise!

This is how it looks on the bike!

I went for a long ride on Monday 29th. I was part of the Million Mile Ride! It is an annual event that many dealerships participate in. They host a ride and total up the mileage and add to the other dealerships totals to try to reach a minimum of 1 million miles.

This is just just a few of the bikes that went along.


This was the first stop in Wisconsin. This is where we all met up to make sure everyone was still together before we finished up the final leg of the trip.


Here are a few more of the bikes at the broken spoke while we were waiting for the rest of the riders.

They said last year that the total was over 5 million miles and this year rumor had it that there were more participating. I never did hear the total but the dealership I rode with had 40 bikes and we went over 100 miles up into Wisconsin. We were very near Madison.
We stopped at this restaurant Anchors Away on the Rock River

Very good food!
The bikes ranged from an old Honda shadow to a tricked out chopper!
Very interesting.

This is the chopper next to my sporty!

By the time I got home I had ridden over 225 miles. Some sites were taking longer rides, and had many more riders going. So total that up for all sites and it should add up great.

Catching up 2

We went to see UP finally... in 3D ... it was a very good movie, but the 3D work was not quite up to what was done with Monsters vs Aliens. The story was excellent and Ed Asner is the perfect choice for Carl. We all enjoyed the movie... I liked Doug, the dog. He was very enterta... SQUIRREL!!! ... I liked Doug, the dog. He was very entertaining!

During this past week I have been on a Staycation... I was away from work but we didn't go anywhere. We stayed at home mostly.
We had guests over on the 3rd. We grilled a whole turkey, that was so good!
Played bags and sat on the deck all afternoon. The weather was beautiful.
Gary was the odd man in the last games and had no partner... and he won....

We went to Six Flags, and that was a lot of fun. ( I have to upload the pictures later) Ethan took his friend Jerry, they insisted that we meet for lunch at 1:00pm, then went off on their own to go ride the Superman ride.
Mary, Jordan, Raelynn, Nikolas, and I went the other direction. We enjoyed the morning and rode many rides and had a lot of fun. We went back at 1:00pm.
Ethan and Jerry? Nowhere to be found... we waited... and waited... and waited...
Finally I went out to the car to see if they were waiting there.... nope.
I called Raelynn's phone and let them know. Mary said she would wait for them and sent Jordan Raelynn and Nik out to eat lunch. I ate and went back so Mary could go eat.
Still no Ethan and Jerry...
At about 2:00pm they come strolling up... "Sorry, when we went to Superman the line was too long so we went and rode other rides, then on the way back the line was shorter so we got in.. we thought we would have plenty of time."
I looked at them and said... "Well, You didn't" we went out so they could eat too.
The afternoon was fun as we rode a few more rides. I went on the American Eagle with Ethan.... It was his first roller coaster he had ever ridden at Six Flags, and that was with me, so we had to go and ride it again... It was fun.
All in all a very good day.

Marvin came up and helped us put in new doors. He was a tremendous help! Thank you Dad!
We really needed them as the doors we had were going bad.

they were over 40 years old and were splintering.
So we bought new doors.

This is the doors as we bought them.

I stained them over the last month so they would be ready for when Marvin arrived.
He did the bathroom door to show us how it was done correctly....
We removed the old door (Jordan enjoyed the demolition) and found that this house had another surprise for us. Non Standard Stud sizes! What joy!
This meant that we had to cut almost 1/2 inches from the new door framing, and not the easy way. Marvin did the measuring and most of the cutting, I did a few cuts after he showed what was needed. Of course he did the measuring... I am not going to go into how many times I measure 4 times and then cut wrong anyway.... But we got all four ready then did the installing.

Here is Jordan and I helping Marvin on the Bathroom Door.
I then worked with Jordan to put in my door...(incorrectly of course, but Marvin has already told me how to fix it, so no big deal.) Then we did Jordan's door. Then we broke for supper. I had recieved some Lake Trout from my neighbor, (Thank you Bob!) Mary seasoned it up and also preped some chicken breasts. Jordan took to the grill and grilled up the fish and chicken.
This was a very good meal! Jordan has taken over the grilling for our family... I guess I have to admit that he is better at it than I am now... but that's ok as long as it keeps coming out so good!
After supper Marvin went home and Ethan and I worked on putting in his door. It was more difficult to get it as his walls were a bit more out of square then the rest of the openings, but with effort we were able to get them all in... All I have left to do now is put up the trim. I am still varnishing it now but it is looking so good!

Today we took a trip up to Kenosha for breakfast... If you read my older posts you will see a post from a motorcycle trip that Mary and I took up to Franks Diner in Kenosha.

This time we drove up with the boys and had a very good trip.
We stopped at the lake on the way back to look at the boats and enjoy the views.

Boats


Mary and I in front of the boats

Jordan enjoying the view

Boys on the rocks!

That gets us fairly close to being up to date. Sorry bout the long pause!