Fun and Business and Stuff

We are home now! Nicholas left on Sun for TX to spend a week training for his new job and on Tues I left for Destin with friends to spend the rest of the week having fun. I didn’t see any point in staying home by myself all week with nothing to do and it seemed like the perfect time to spend a few days with my best friend that I’m going to really miss when we move. We also invited a girl we met in zumba along and we had a blast! Nicholas didn’t have nearly as much fun as I did unfortunately, I guess learning about technical stuff doesn’t have the same awesome factor as floating in a pool on a sunny day.

At one point on Friday this exchange took place.

N- “what are you up to?”

Me- Ahhh beach.

N- Blood born pathogen training. MUCH more fun than the beach.

 

I still think I won that one.  

I have a few pictures but Mari and Maria took a lot on their cameras and have some good ones. I have to get them because Facebook has made it a lot harder to save pictures that are uploaded on there.

This week will be spent eating what food is left in the house and packing up everything that isn’t already in a box. We pick up the uhaul next Monday and head to Birmingham on Tues morning.  I’m sure it will be a busy week getting all the last minute stuff taken care of before heading south. I can’t believe it’s finally time to hit the road.

Project Time

When Nicholas got home in March we knew we had to get the house ready to go on the market so we did a lot of cleaning and organizing. Of course that involved cleaning out the garage and putting all the tools away which was a sad day for all involved. Since then we’ll  randomly mention how much we miss building but we couldn’t decide on anything that would be worth pulling all the tools out. Yesterday was the day though. I built chairs last year and at the time I really didn’t like the way the back was designed but figured I would give it a try anyway, well over time 2 of the chairs have broken and we would rather start over with a different design then try to fix them. We’ve also decided to lower the table so that standard size chairs will fit instead of the altered taller chairs. Yay woodworking.

A day of woodworking     always starts with a trip to  Zaxby’s before heading to Lowes for supplies. I must find the closest  Zaxby’s in Bham.

 

 

The garage was all clean and perfect when we started.

It didn’t stay that way for long! The chair that we decided to try out uses a 2x4 for the back and legs and the piece needs to be cut out with a skill saw.

After a couple of bad cuts and a quick trip back to Lowes for another 2x4 N had it under control and we were good to go!

The 2 backs with the side aprons and front legs.

Now it looks like a chair!

My new sander. It is AMAZING!! We have named it…

Sandasaurus

the sanding pads counter rotate to reduce vibrations so my hands don’t go numb after a few minutes of use. On the downside it’s pretty heavy so my arms still get tired. It is a super nice sander though and I was so excited to finally get to use her.

So much for that clean garage. We had to use N’s truck as our work bench since we took the table apart and the other work bench isn’t deep enough to put the miter saw up there.

And it was kinda covered in the rest of our crap.

I’m going to make a cushion and will be covering the seat in fabric but we wanted to bring the chair on inside just to see how we like it and really decide if we want to make more with this plan or try something else.

If we go with this plan and make more they will be stained the same color as the table so it all matches. We probably won’t get around to doing anything else until after the move because after sitting down to look at out calendar for the next few weeks we won’t have much free time. It sure was fun to get out in the garage for a few hours together though. I always forget just how differently N and I do things until we start woodworking. LOL We had a few moments where we just ended up staring at each other because we were coming at a problem from 2 completely different angles and it took a minute to get on the same page. I think it just adds to the fun.

Hail and Fair well

Or as we call it in the CAV, the ol’ Hail and Bail, hail the new guys in and say fair well to everyone bailing. N has been with the same troop our entire time here at Campbell and Friday night we had a H&B to honor a few of the guys coming into the troop and a few of the people leaving. We expected N to get a Saber because that’s the standard gift but since N has been there so long he got a super special gift that is really cool. The Commander gave a little speech about Nicholas and said what a great worker he is and called him a “quiet professional, but if you mess up he’ll call you dumb” and I wanted to fall out of my chair giggling. I took a video but it was a back yard BBQ so it was a little hard to hear over people talking and the kids. I did get some pictures though.

Nicholas and his Commander

At attention while his orders were being read. I wish you could hear the video better because it better because their Australian guy was the one reading. I might try to upload it later just to see if it will work at all.

His gift. This is a replica pistol and really cool looking and that’s a troop photo on the back from Afghanistan.

It was hard to get a picture of the plate but it has his call sign and dates of service.

Nicholas is looking forward to having a room in the next house to put all his Army stuff on display, I think this is really a cool piece to have out.

And now a few pictures of N with his favorite dog. She really needed some attention and made sure he was well aware of it!

They had a little convo about how spoiled she is.

And then they took a little puppy nap together.

Ki was glad to me in my lap instead.

Tomorrow I’m heading to GA to work at the shop for Mother’s day and Marklin and Derek are heading up here to get ready to head to the Derby on Friday. I’m sure they’ll have a fun weekend. I made sure that N knows I expect LOTS of pictures of all the crazy hats!!