Year: 2008

Sean’s Drawing – Submarine

Here is the latest of Sean's drawings - a submarine. He drew it for the first time yesterday, while we were at the hospital to visit Tracy, Mike, and Baby Olivia. It's funny - when he draws it, he also makes a point of saying that he is drawing "a submarine, with no face". I'm not sure what kind of submarines have faces, but I'm glad he's so specific.

Coffee Table – 3D Model

Andi has asked me to build her a coffee table once she moves into her own place. Here is a 3D model (again done with Google SketchUp) of one of the ideas I've been floating around in my head the last couple of weeks. I'm going to try to model the other ideas I've been considering over the next couple of weeks.


Fast Friends

Sean, Carter, and Ely are becoming fast friends, as you can see. Both kids ask about him when he's not here. It's so cute. It's nice for them to have a regular playmate. Sometimes I think they get sick of each other. Heh.


Baby Olivia

Tracy had her baby today! Woohoo! Her name is Olivia - the jury is still out on a middle name. She was 8 pounds, 15 ounces. Aye carumba! That's a biggun! I'm so happy we're back in New Hampshire now - we are going to get to see her grow up, instead of experiencing it secondhand through pictures from two thousand miles away. I got a chance to hold her, and it satisfied that itch to hold a newborn again. I think Lori is safe now from us having any thoughts of having a third. This is the perfect substitute - we get all of the sweet moments, and then have someone else to hand her to if she gets fussy! Awesome!

Medicine Cabinet – 3D Model

I've been wanting to play around with Google SketchUp, and making a 3D model of the medicine cabinet I plan to build served two purposes - it gave me a chance to play with the tool, and it also gave me a chance to see what the cabinet would look like. I must say, I like it on both counts! Google SketchUp is pretty neat, although I feel like I must have done a few things the hard way while making this model. Hopefully with experience, I'll figure out the easy way. And now that I've seen it in 3D, I'm liking this cabinet design better and better. Can't wait to start building!

Sean’s Drawing – Tape Recorder

Here's another of Sean's drawings. He's trying to learn how to draw his tape recorder. I've included a photo of the recorder itself so you can see just how close he is. It blows my mind. His pediatrician said that at his age, kids are usually learning how to draw a circle and a line. Good for you, Seanyman!


First Day of School

Sean started preschool today! He's going to go two days a week for now, so that he can get some exposure to other kids and kickstart his social skills. :) Doesn't he look so cute holding his little lunchbox? He's been talking about school for the past two weeks - he's been incredibly excited. And he's already started telling me about the things he did there. I'm so happy to see that he is so happy too.

High School Drawings

When we moving from Texas back to New Hampshire, I found an old portfolio from high school, and it had a handful of drawings in it. I know I used to draw almost every day back then, so I have no idea what happened to the bulk of that stuff. But these few were still floating around. So I scanned them for you all to see. Apparently, I was really into drawing hands and eyes at the time. Sometimes when I see some of my old sketches, it makes me wish I still had time to draw now. But it looks like Sean is turning into our little artist, so maybe I can live vicariously through him. :)



Pick a Peck

We went apple picking today, with Grammy, Auntie Tracy and Uncle Mike, and Cousin Ryan. It's almost exactly a year since that last time we did this, which was right after we moved back to the Northeast. Last time, Carter was so small that I had to carry her on my back, and she had barely enough teeth to scrape at an apple. Today, everyone was walking and exploring - Sean was climbing ladders, Carter was picking her own apples off of the low-hanging branches, and everyone was chatting up a storm. It was hard to limit myself to posting only seven photos!



Woodworking – Medicine Cabinet

Getting ready to start a new project. Both our upstairs and downstairs bathrooms are in need of new medicine cabinets. The type the previous owners left behind are the bargain-basement particle board type, and they are falling apart. I think that I am going to work on this project in parallel with finishing the work on building my router table. I'm hoping to learn some new techniques on this project - inset frame-and-panel cabinet doors, and I also plan to try and veneer the panels using some fancy burl veneer I picked up in a veneer lot on Ebay a few years ago (and haven't touched since). Below is my concept drawing for the piece - I am going to try and document the project on our blog as I go.