ClintandTina.com

So I turn around the other day as I’m putting in a new DVD for Tina and I to watch (we’re hooked on Babylon 5 and are on the final Season 5) and I notice Season 5 disc 2 laying on top of my receiver. Disc 2? We’re on Disc 4. We already sent back Disc 2… oh man. Yeah. I’m one of those people who sent back in my own DVD (I have no idea which one) to Netflix instead of their own.

Here’s the cool email you get for being a doofus:

They were nice. If it were me I would have titled it “Hey, Dufus, you sent in the wrong movie – haha, moron!” Oh well, at least they are on the ball and will return it for their own. Meanwhile I must hang my head on shame for yet another thing I can no longer make fun of other people for… along with speeding, losing my wallet, running out of gas (though that wasn’t entirely my fault) and hitting my finger with a hammer…

We are taking a cruise this January, so we are prepping Caleb and Caeden by applying for their passports… Here are the photos:

Yeah, we kinda think they look like mug shots, too – but  these should work well enough to get them ready for the cruise. The ship leaves out of Tampa and we’re heading into the Caribbean for 5 days and 4 nights. Caleb is excited about the ship since he’s never been on a big boat (the ferry over at Disney is about the biggest he’s experienced.) We’ve tried to explain it, but I think seeing it first hand is the ticket. Caeden was so excited he started drooling… oh wait, that’s normal.

Yesterday we got to ride on Tim and Amy’s boat in Lake Hunter. We had fun and Caleb got to watch TJ, his 6 year-old cousin, water ski (sorry, no pics).  Caleb liked sitting in back and watching the wake and experiencing the raw power of what an 8 cylinder Ford inboard engine can do in a tony little boat. It was fun.

Caleb started pre-K on Tuesday. He goes two days a week (same as last year). His new teacher, seems very nice (has been teaching for 30 years.) This is a photo we snapped before he left with Mommy to go to school. He had a great day, though with his limited responses I think he’s entering his quiet teenage year early:

Daddy: “What did you do today, Caleb?”

Caleb: “Um… Nothing.” Read the rest of this entry »

So I was playing with Caleb the other day and Tina drops off Caeden to play as well (which typically means that he sits on the floor and just enjoys watching his Daddy and big brother flying around the room in various activities… This time I decide he should play as well. We were playing Star Wars and Caleb was Darth Vader. He decided Caeden needed to be a storm trooper. Of course, you need a helmet to be a storm trooper. I had my camera handy so I snapped this shot… Read the rest of this entry »

Last night Tina called out “Clint, come here. Something is wrong!” Sure enough, that steady drip of water landing on the dining room table didn’t come from a leaky roof – there had been no rain yesterday. That meant AC leak. See, when cold air escapes into the 100-plus-degree attic – that’s “bad”.

I went up to investigate and found a bunch of  leaks coming out of the opening of main air handler. I went to work adding metal tape to it and shoring it up. And then I added mastic to seal it up good. Except of course that mastic has a 24-hour cure time… And this was last night at 7PM… So we’re at about 84 degrees (yes it could be worse) and waiting for dinner time to pop on the AC again.

And of course it’s about 95 degrees in the superheated gas chamber known as my office. Fueled by PCs, projectors and various and asundry electronics component, that room is the hardest to cool down.

Needless to say, I moved to the bedroom with my trusty laptop to sit under a nice ceiling fan placed on high.

Clint is trying to teach me how to use the new system, so I decided to post one of my favorite pictures of Caeden. He is such a happy, laid back little guy. He also seems to be an extrovert like his brother. Neither of them like to be alone.

Two guys. 9.5 days. 6 cases of bottled water. 20 sandwiches. Lots of tools:

• Pull off vinyl siding
• Pull off wood siding
• Repair wood as needed
• Remove all windows
• Replace windows
• Insulate
• Install Tyvek housewrap
• Trim out windows
• Nail up Hardiplank
• Finish accent trim and lookouts
• Caulk trim

We did everything except the back of the house – I took care of that after Tom went back home. Pics on the following page… Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to pop in a few pics of Caleb at the British Soccer camp. It was really fun for him and we enjoyed ourselves too.  He did very well and was able to really get that soccer ball around the field. Too bad soccer ranks just above ping pong in terms of US popularity.

 As you may (or may not) know, I’ve been working on the house here in Lakeland for about 3 months now. In 9 1/2 days my friend Tom and I ripped off all the vinyl siding, removed the original wood siding underneath, replaced all the windows and added R-13 insulation. We did everything but the back of the house… It took me about 2.5 more months to wrap that up and the rest… Taking over a week off and having help really makes things go faster! Read the rest of this entry »

 Caeden has 5 teeth now and is an extremely happy child. We took both of them camping with us a few weeks ago with our friends Marji and Sean. It was camper-camping so we didn’t exactly “rough it” but it was fun nevertheless. Caeden really liked his backpack that allowe dhim to ride with Mommy and Caleb had a blast practicing his bike riding skills and riding on the back of a bike with his Daddy.This week we are attempting to get our house painted. I typically do all the work myself, but painting this thing seems like a rather tedious task and I’ll hire out to pros if the costs aren’t terribly expensive (remains to be seen).