School's back in session

A few weeks ago we drove all of Alissa's "stuff" up to University of Oklahoma and dropped it off at her new apartment. Her apartment is so much nicer than the dorms, and it's less expensive, which is an added bonus. She'll be living with 3 other girls, 2 of which she knows from last year, one of which she went to high school with.

Here's the new place.

Here are some of the other roommates organizing the kitchen.

And here's her new room.

All 4 girls share a common kitchen and living area. The apartment complex provides the TV, furniture, WIFI, and cable. Not a bad set-up. Much nicer than anything I ever lived in at school.

And Taylor started her senior year this week. 

Here she is getting ready to head out for the first day of class.

And here she is making fun of her mother who is lamenting the idea of sending our youngest off to the first day of school, for the last time.

Ready to roll.

We went to the first football game of the season last night. Here are the Drum Majors leading the band to their place in the stadium. It was 103F at the start of the game, so the students were allowed to wear their hot weather uniforms (smart move band director). We've had some unseasonably hot weather lately, and there have been a number of kids who have passed out from heat stroke during practice. I think the ambulance has only been called to the practice area twice in the past week. Believe it or not, it's been a good week.

Getting ready for the football players to run the gauntlet onto the field.

During the game the band occupies the south end of the stands. The Drum Majors are placed throughout the band to conduct the various school/fight songs while the football game is underway. Taylor is standing in the middle (gray shirt).

The Drum Majors getting ready to lead the band onto the field. Taylor is on the left.

Another view. There's a lot of kids out there.

Here are the Marquettes (drill team) and backed up by the band in the "M" formation. 

Every halftime show starts this way.

And here is the band getting ready to start their show. Taylor has been given the honor of starting off every show this year. She's under the arrow. After the start, and while the band is marching/playing, she makes her way to the front of the field to conduct throughout the rest of the performance.

Just before the show I turned over our latest foster dog to her new family. It's the first dog we've ever fostered that has become attached to Jen, so Jen couldn't bring herself to be there when I turned the dog over to the new owners. Aside from that, work continues on the Wanderlust house. Between me and Alissa we've repainted almost the entire interior, gutted and rebuilt the girl's bathroom, textured and painted the kitchen, installed all new plumbing and electrical fixtures in the bathroom, kitchen and dining room, and are getting ready to finish the build out of the master bathroom. We had to hold off doing a lot of the interior work until the foundation had completely settled after having the foundation work done. I'm thinking in about another month the entire interior will be finished and then it will be time to bring in the carpet installers. Before that happens I have to lay about 1,000 square feet of hardwood flooring, but that should go pretty quickly since I've had some experience with that before.

And that's what we've been up to lately.

Random happenings around here

 Taylor made her drum major debut this week. 

It was around 103F outside. Looking forward to fall.

Here's the performance they gave a few weeks back for the parents. It's the first time the incoming freshman perform with the band in front of an audience. It was so hot they did it in one of the middle schools. They usually do this at the high school, but Marcus has been under construction all summer as they expand and do additional asbestos abatement inside the school.

 The front wooden fence is done. I'll tackle the back fence this fall once it cools down.

One of the puppies we recently fostered. They came to us at about 5 weeks. 

This boy was tired. Probably woke up with a stiff neck.

Here he is a week before he was adopted. One of the top 3 dogs we've fostered over the years. 

One I definitely would have considered adopting if we were in the market.

The Lifeguard getting ready to head into work to rescue young rich white children.

I was up way too early one morning to sit on the porch and watch the brightest moon in 100 years show his face. It would have been nice to have a decent camera to do a proper time exposure. This doesn't really do it justice, but believe me, it was so bright it was hard to believe.

This is Max. We fostered him for several weeks. He was adopted Saturday by a family with 4 other dogs, 5 boys, and 6 acres. I think he'll enjoy his life at the new digs. He was a really sweet dog.

Here's the Wanderlust girls' bathroom. It was a complete gut except for the vanity. I just finished it today, after having laid a new Travertine floor, texturing and painting the walls and ceiling, redoing all the plumbing, all new plumbing fixtures and trim. Getting closer to having it ready to rent this fall.

And here's a video of Taylor's conducting debut this past week.
(Sorry about the quality. I'll upload it to YouTube and re-link it here shortly.
Should be much better video and sound quality then)

The bird man flyeth toward the heavens

Eat right, exercise, and you too may be doing this after you retire.

My father-in-law doing his thing

Canada wrap-up part deux

 Swimming at sunset

 Reeves caught another minnow

Uncle Steve instructing the boys on the finer points of hazardous behavior, 

although he did move the 5-gallon container of gas well out of range before the show

Canada wrap-up

The second shift: Shanosky, Horn, Vernot, Crome

Young boys and explosives

The finished product

Still a small space, but feels a little bigger after the renovation

The new bunkie gangplank

My summer vacation...or lack thereof

Our family's summer vacation trip to Canada was canceled at the last minute due to an unexpected water leak. When my brother arrived at the cottage 2 days before we were all scheduled to fly in, he found the cottage had been flooded by a leaking toilet valve. Although this should have been discovered by the person who opened the cottage and turned on the water, it wasn't. It leaked profusely for around a full week before it was discovered by my brother. Everyone except me canceled their plane tickets and vacationed elsewhere while my brother and I completely gutted and renovated the bathroom. It was not a fun week.

This is what the bathroom looked like within a few hours after I arrived. The first step was to strip out all the buckled flooring down to the subfloor, remove all the fixtures, and then cut out all the wet and moldy sheetrock. In the picture above I hadn't yet cut out the sheetrock, but everything else was gone. We opted to leave the toilet in until just before I laid the new floor. Wise move.

As the old saying goes, "You can take the boy out of California, but you can't take California out of the boy." Here is a California style restroom which served the needs of the Californians while I removed the toilet and laid the new floor. I couldn't get that new floor laid and that toilet installed fast enough.

Here is what the bathroom looked like after about 4 days of work. It still needs final paint, fixtures and trim, but my brother and his friends can handle that in the coming week.

There will be a full sized mirror above the vanity when all is said and done. I also wired in a new GFI protected outlet next to the sink, since it was lacking in the previous bathroom.

The new floor went down fairly easily and looks great. The bathroom is the nicest room in the cottage at this point – far superior to the previous bathroom that was installed. We did notice a number of technical deficiencies in the previous bathroom which we corrected during the renovation. I should have a few photos with all the paint, fixtures, mirror and trim installed in the next few days, and will post them once they arrive.

 Tim's boys spent half their time in our recently acquired 4-person paddle boat. A neighbor generously donated it to us as he was trying to get rid of things that he really wasn't using anymore. Both boys had a blast pedaling all over the cove and around the island without adult supervision. This vessel isn't pretty (unless you like pink boats) but is very stable and makes a great fishing platform.

The boys had never set off any fireworks before, so on one of my trips to the local Home Depot, I stopped at a questionable little roadside fireworks stand/gas station/Taliban hangout and bought a box of fireworks. We (they) set them off that night in celebration of Canada Day. They were pretty excited (look at their expressions in the above photo) that their crazy Uncle brought home the contraband and gave them a quick lesson in how to safely detonate the explosives. Tim shot some great photos with his new camera of the boys setting them off that night, so I'll post those once they're sent to me.

After the week of renovation, I flew to Ohio where I picked up my daughter's car, and drove all the way back to Texas the following day. It was a pretty quick trip, and I made the 1,150 mile drive in just under 15 hours. The only way I could have made it in less time would have been if I were wearing Astronaut Diapers. I'll leave that to the Californians.

This just in from our Field Office in California...

If this is the case, we are now classified as a Holy Shrine over here at the HornHaus. Somebody at the HornHaus' only comment was "Holy Shit!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/dog-butt-looks-like-jesus-photo_n_3436086.html

Taylor has a new chair

Taylor auditioned earlier this spring for a position, and was just offered a chair in the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. Their representative informed her today that they would be sending her a contract to sign. A contract?

Kids these days...

http://www.gdyo.org/

The past 30 days...

Been a little busy around here lately, hence no blog updates. 

Here's a little of what we've been up to.

We recently attended the year-end band banquet at a moderately fancy hotel. Below are some pics.

Here are 3 of the Directors involved with the band, meticulously arranging the band's winnings from this past year. The band basically swept all the competitions, bringing home a bevy of impressive hardware. It's no wonder the other schools in Texas have it in for Marcus. Nobody can compete on their level.

 Full-frontal hardware view.

Taylor was called up front and presented with numerous awards for her accomplishments this past year. There were only 4 other students out of the entire band that matched her accomplishments. NONE of them were Drum Majors, I might add.

Just so you know, Taylor has been selected as a Drum Major for the coming academic year. And here are some of her accomplishments this past year: Regional Wind Symphony, Regional Orchestra, Advancement to Area, Texas All State Band, Outstanding Soloist at Solo and Ensemble, Performed at Midwest in Chicago in December.

 Receiving awards.

  Receiving more awards.

 Receiving more awards.

  Receiving more awards.

We are currently fostering 2 puppies for the Humane Society. They were rescued by a college student, and turned over to us. It was a little challenging since they were so young. They required bottle feeding when we first took them in. It would have been much easier of I was currently lactating...but thankfully, I'm not.

 This is what they do most of the day.

 Ready to pee and defecate on anything that is NOT in the crate.

This wooden fence has been my project over the past 2 weekends. I'm adamant about getting rid of the cobbled together electric fence that has been our method of keeping the horses in the pasture the past 10 years. Lord knows I have absorbed more voltage than I care to remember – or even CAN remember, for that matter (the fence puts out 10,000 volts). I mean, who wants to instantly urinate or defecate in their pants when their leg accidentally brushes against the hot wire? I'm done with that. We have indoor plumbing and I'd prefer to take care of my business inside the house, not inside my attire, thank you very much.

After digging the first 5 post holes with my tractor, the damn governor decided to call it quits. Since parts are a little hard to come by for a 1957 Ford tractor, I had to dig the rest of the holes by hand. This is not fun, people. After about the 20th hole, that 10,000 volt fence and soiled drawers began to look like a pretty attractive alternative to digging more post holes.

We had rain last night which has suspended the fence operation this weekend. I was hoping to finish it today, but it's going to have to wait. Once this run is finished I have about another 20 holes to dig to get to the far side of the property. I'm trying to get the tractor running for that section. I'll post a few pictures of that effort the next post. Since the tractor is so old, it's not easy to find anybody who knows how to work on 'em. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy, so should have it back in the game by next weekend.

 I also stopped by a tractor show several weeks ago and got some advice from the old timers on fixing the governor on my tractor. I spotted this odd 3-wheeled tractor while I was there. Never saw one like this before.

Alissa is about half way through her summer internship at this point. She was quite proud of her participation in one of the latest Reinvention Dayton stories. She's having a great time. We're both very proud of her!

Until next time...whenever that may be.