Given that this is coming so far after the fact, I'll keep this (relatively) short and sweet. The biggest workshop project the past few weeks as been painting parts for Junior. In the past, I've been relegated to painting parts in the back yard, at the mercy of weather and wind conditions. With the new house in the back yard further limiting the favorable wind directions for painting, I decided to experiment with a home-built paint booth. long story-short, it worked great. The paint booth was relatively inexpensive to build, fairly easy to set up and take down, and produced excellent results. While I had it set up, I also painted the exhaust manifolds for the Ten, and even painted some of the sun-faded green parts of L's little power wheels tractor. Preparing for our vacation significantly limited my time to re-assemble Junior. What time I did find, things went fairly well. I still need to do some work on the engine before I put it back in. I expect things to mostly be smooth sailing from there, although in saying that I am probably jinxing myself.
Speaking of power wheels, we have fired up few of the boys' rides for the season. N still fits in the jeep. His driving skills were a little rusty at first, but he quickly got back up to speed, literally. L doesn't quite have the hang of a steering wheel, but does just fine on the Harley with its handle bars. He is already asking me to turn the "fast" back on so he can keep up with N. He also really likes riding along in the jeep while N drives, and N does a pretty good job of being careful with his little brother. The kid-powered rides have been getting a work out as well. N is getting really fast on his bike. L doesn't have the pedalling down yet, but he can scoot on his tricycle pretty fast, especially down hill.
All the spring weather has continued to motivate the wildlife around our house. We have had one more serenade from the coyotes, and the owl roosted one evening on the neighbor's roof, treating us to who-who-whoing as we were watching TV. While clearing some dead vegitation from the flower bed I found a pretty good sized toad. L wasn't quite ready to touch it, but it didn't bother N any. We turned it loose down by the creek.
One major task on our to-do list before leaving was upgrading our phones. 2 years ago when we got our last phones we opted not to jump on the smart phone bandwagon just yet. I still think that was the right decision then, but it isn't taking us long to fall in love with our new iPhones. C loves the apps for helping her find food that fits her dietary needs, and I love having maps and weather at my finger tips. We elected to hold off on buying any cases for our phones when we got them due to the mark ups at the phone store. We ordered some from Amazon as soon as we got home, but that still left us treating our unprotected phones with kid gloves for a few days. Fortunately, our "Otterbox" cases arrived just in time for us to take them on the trip. Both of us have managed to drop our phones already since getting them, and in both instances, they have already earned their keep.
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