Archive for October, 2008

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Happy Halloween!!!

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Wow, what an experience. I learned several things in my first year Halloween-ing w children:

1–we need a 4 wheeler to keep up with the Joneses. I seriously think we were the only ones who walked the neighborhood. Most others rode the 4 wheeler or A TRAILER being pulled by a 4 wheeler. Then we scratch our heads wondering where the childhood obesity epidemic comes from, yeah?

2–Anna and Tyler will be the Michelin (sp?) Man next year. The best costume I can come up with to stuff lots of clothes under.

3–The skeleton with the goalie mask and bloody machete is NOT scary (see pic of Tyler), while the house w the chihuahuas is (we had to talk him into going).

Tyler Kills Jason

Tyler Kills Jason

4–2 pieces of candy really means like 15… and it makes bedtime QUITE a bit different.

You can see the rest of the pics here and here–I am about to pass out tired. More tomorrow from the zoo!!!!! (whose idea was THAT?)

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Posted in Family, Holiday | No Comments »

Blog Comments

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Susan and I were talking and we know that it can be annoying sometimes to have to log in to post a comment. Because of that we decided to make it where you can post comments without creating a user or logging in. My concern with this is that I have run sites where people can post things before and ended up spending tons of time deleting spam. So we are going to leave it open to posting comments without creating a user or logging in as long as we, meaning me, don’t spend all day dealing with spam problems. Hopefully this will work out.

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Posted in Family | 4 Comments »

ante-Halloween antics

Friday, October 31st, 2008

and by ante, I mean pre…

Tyler’s daycare is trick or treating to several depts at the the hospital (not mine) today so I took the day off to go w them. I have been looking forward to it for weeks! Welp, major meltdowns this morning included Anna crying b/c she could not wear HER costume to school and Tyler b/c he had to wear a coat over his costume to the bus stop w Anna (it is 32 degrees).

I am SURE this occured in our house regularly growing up (it was always cold for H-ween). I owe huge apologies to my parents–Ma and Pa Edwards, I will blow up your cellie later to beg your forgiveness.

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Posted in Family, Holiday | 4 Comments »

Ubuntu 8.10 Released

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

The newest version of Ubuntu (8.10, Intrepid Ibex) was released today. For those of you who don’t know Ubuntu is a great Linux distribution which is much nicer, has less crashes and has far less security risks than Windows.  You can get it from here. It is completely free and all the programs (and there are thousands of them) are free so give it a try.

I know Susan will tell me I am a nerd for this but I couldn’t resist :-) .

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Posted in Tech | 5 Comments »

Run, Forest! Run!

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Welp, we just finished our 12 mile run. That’s right folks–amazing for many reasons:

1–It is 9:09pm and usually we are asleep by 8:30pm.

2–It is 9:10pm and we are about to eat dinner. This is a big deal b/c we usually eat between 5:30 and 6pm. Paul was STARVING by the time we finished our run.

3–This is 2 miles further than Paul has ever run.

4–We killed it! I am SUPER slow and make Paul slum it w me. But tonight we did our first 6 miles in 72 min (perfect 12 min miles as planned), then crushed a negative split w 64 min 2nd 6 miles! Same course!

5–It is crazy cold here for Halloween. It was about 58 when we started, dropped to about 43 at the end. Paul usually runs around in shorts and maybe a T shirt. Post shower he is in sweats, sweatshirt and a ski hat (they call them toboggans here…). Madness! But it could be cold on race day!

Myrtle, here we come!

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Posted in Running, Training | 2 Comments »

The Floors are Done!

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Our new floors are done and they look great! We ripped out the carpet on Monday and Wednesday nights and Graham put in the new flooring Thursday and Friday. Going from Monday to Friday with the floors in various states of completion was difficult, especially on the days we had the kids, but it was well worth it.  The carpet needed to go badly and now there will be no more stepping on carpet tacks!

Graham Blue from High Country Flooring did the work and he was great to work with. If anyone is thinking about doing their floors we would highly recommend him. Give him a call at 828-406-9221.

You can see pictures here.

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Stay in school, kids

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
Susan Pulling Out the Carpet

Susan Pulling Out the Carpet

The Original Carpet Color

The Original Carpet Color

What a nasty nasty thing it is to tear out carpet. We skipped our run to do demolition. Which started out as PARTY! Just think of the word: DEMOLISH. How excellent is that?!?! When I first moved into the house, I stepped on the threshold and the carpet tackstrip (the wood strip thingy with nails in it that looks like a midevil torture device) was poking through the carpet and I stepped on it. Let’s just say I probably scared the children.

So that was where we started. Paul gave me the first tear–at that section. It was cool for about 15 minutes. Then we saw all the dirt that accumulates under the carpet and padding. Then we saw the color the carpet originally was. In the words of Everybody Loves Raymond, “Holy CRAP, Marie!”

Needless to say, this is one of those “character building” tasks. Like moving stuffed animals from the school library (Susan) or a job cutting paper (Paul)–THIS is the kind of thing that makes me glad that this is not my everyday job.

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Posted in Home Improvement | 3 Comments »

I Hope We Can Make It Home Like This!

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Susan and I are getting new floors put in this week so we went out to buy the materials last night on our way to eat dinner with the Blues. When we got there the floor guy obviously didn’t want to work with us and he wasn’t exactly the brightest guy either. This became obvious when Susan asked him how much the padding was per square foot and he said:

We don’t sell the padding by the square foot, it is $25 for a 100 square foot roll.

Since we were short on time we didn’t even bother trying to explain to him how a roll that covers 100 square feet is the same as selling us a box of flooring that covers 12 square feet…it’s all sold by the square foot.

When we got out of there we were worried {{Susan edit:only Paul was worried, not me}} that everything wasn’t going to fit into the car (we had 62 boxes of flooring and 8 roles off padding). Surprisingly everything fit into the back of the Fit. The suspension was completely compressed in the back and the bumper was about to drag the ground (see the picture) but we made it home without any problems.

Tonight we start ripping out the carpet and getting things ready. Elliot’s brother Graham is coming this Thursday and Friday to put the flooring in.

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It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

Last Monday night Tyler asked me when we were going to go camping, so Susan and I decided to take them “camping” in the back yard Friday. As it turns out Friday was the only day all week that it rained (and it rained all day and night). Anna and Tyler knew about the plans and were excited all week about their first “camping trip”, so as soon as I picked Tyler up from daycare on Friday he asked if we were still going to get to go even though it was raining. Because it wasn’t raining very hard at the time and they were so excited we decided to do it anyway and here is what we learned from the experience.

  1. Tyler is the smallest of all of us but somehow still needed a entire tent to himself.
  2. Even with a rain fly on the tent the edges get wet on the inside.
  3. Tyler doesn’t like to be wet.
  4. Anna LOVES sleeping in a tent and even if she is soaking wet at 2 in the morning she still gets very upset when we tell her that we are going inside.
  5. We need a bigger tent.

Neither Tyler nor Anna wanted to go inside but Tyler finally decided at 2 a.m. that he would like to. We got Anna in but only with a promise to do it again when it was dry out. Hopefully we can get a 4 person tent by that time!

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Posted in Family | 2 Comments »

I Married A Nerd

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Susan's first day of middle school

I’m sitting here with Susan right now as she goes through her old school stuff and I have learned some interesting things. First, she likes to make fun of the North Carolina education system but I have just learned that she won a science fair after coming to a incorrect conclusion in her project. There are pictures from band camp, spelling bee awards, a participation certificate for a calculator tournament…the list just keeps going.

There was also the C+ she got in advanced chemistry, “her only C”. Although there was the year where she had not one but two P.E. classes. One of these P.E. classes was “officiating” where she became a licensed referee. As a high school basketball player I am sure this was very difficult for her.

By the way: This picture was from Susan’s first day of middle school where it was “VERY” important to pick a good outfit.

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Posted in Family | 2 Comments »

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