More house

Boys' room, other side.













Fish bathroom.













Girls' room.


















Garage.

The greatest decade in history

Hard to believe but the decade of our youth is being memorialized. Friday was 80's dressup day at Tompkins Elementary School. These kids look great. We will continue to play 80's music (and that is some great music!) in the car and in our home and maybe they will want to dress like this all the time. I just wish I had some parachute pants to share with the boys. Awesome!

Continue the house tour

The great room. Kitchen in on the left.













The great room from the other side. Front door in the background.













The library/conservatory. The piano used to be in the great room but we moved it in here to enhance piano lessons and practice. This room is actually intended to be the dining room (it's behind the wall at the right of the front door in the picture above). We thought, "what are we going to do with a dining room?" And now it's a library.








The boys' room.

Shannon Shots part 1

Due to repeated requests from our good sister, we are introducing the first in a series of interior photos of our new home. The main delay has been remembering to take a photo when everything was cleaned up.

This spread shows the kitchen and eating area. I really like the tile - our old house's eating area was carpeted. The original floor-plan had a wall around the kitchen. Fortunately the wall was not structural and the builder was able to omit it. We lost some cabinet space with that change and made up for it with the full-height cabinets by the table. We also added the built-in pantry at the last minute. I think we ended up with even more storage space. We still haven't filled it all up.

Getting a little loopy

Behold, the world famous Tehachapi Loop. We went to visit one of the most famous railroad landmarks ever (it fulfilled a Cub Scout requirement). The Loop has been in use since it was built between 1874 and 1876. It was a novel solution to the need for the train track to climb 80 feet of elevation in a small space (there is a limit to the steepness a train can handle). The top photo is the view from the small pull-off-the-side-of-road area with a couple of historical markers. I was a little disappointed - I was expecting a park or something. You can't even see the whole loop because of that little pointy hill in the middle. Also we saw no train traffic.

That all changed on our way home. We saw a train approaching the Loop and we stopped for a photo. What you see in the lower photo is a train crossing over itself. The back end of the train is going into a tunnel while the front of the train crosses over above. That was much more exciting than the overlook spot.

The Loop is about 10 miles away from Tehachapi in a small town called Keene. Why it is not called the Keene Loop is not clear. By the time we got back to Tehachapi, the train we watched cross itself was just getting into town.

First self-portrait

Jessica is shown justifiably proud of her first self-portrait. I thought she captured her blue eyes especially well.

End of summer camping celebration

We went for a overnight campout before school started. Now that we live in Tehachapi, in the mountains, camping is just about 10 minutes away - very convenient. As usual, the favorite food item was s'mores or at least the mallows and the chocolate.

Activate house power on my mark

How often do you get to do this? Here is me switching on the electrical power to our house for the first time ever. Amazingly, the electric company showed up the day we moved in and installed the meter. After switch on the main breaker, we tried each of the individual breaker. No sparks! No smoke! We had to wait three days for the gas company to show up. I should not complain, though - a cold shower is always worse in the dark.

Bring on the school year

The last day of summer - cartoons in Mom & Dad's bed.
The school crew.
The place.

Meri looks and is happy in this photo. The smile disappeared when it was time for Mom to leave the classroom.

Fun in sun

I think we are ready for Baywatch. We just need a couple of those orange, banana, life-saving things. We visited the beach in Ventura before school just to make sure we were still living in southern California. It was a little further from our new home in the mountains but close enough.

Problem

Something is wrong with picture uploading. No new pictures for now. Sorry.

Perhaps as consolation you could check out my new blog, SRL.

Is that a buffalo or a bison?

 
During our homeless stretch, we spent a day in Yellowstone National Park. Of course, that is where the buffalo roam, right? Not this time. Though we saw some elk in the park, it was not until about 500 feet after exiting the park when we saw our first bison (not a buffalo).

En garde!

 

 

Brayton and Ethan took a fencing class. They really enjoyed. Unfortunately their large amount of lightsaber play carried over to their fencing. Most lightsaber techniques do not apply well to a game where you score by poking each other with the point of a sword. Oh well, they has a great time.

Wheel them in

 
Good thing we bought a hand-truck. It can be so useful for moving things.

Orion climbs to the top of the rope in gymnastics

 
 
 
 

The eagle has landed ... along with all the eaglets

Here is the new house. We are now residents of Tehachapi, CA. We spent about three weeks homeless as our Lancaster home sold before the Tehachapi home was finshed. Stay tuned for more pictures.

a temple in Laie Laie Hawaii Temple

Here's us outside the Laie Hawaii Temple. It's neat to see and visit such a historical building. I have always seen pictures of it (it has been around since 1919) and now I have lived it.

Thar she blows! (or at least waves)

We took a whale watch cruise from the North Shore. Nobody else had signed up so it was just us and two crewmen. Like having a private boat. The whale watching was just like videos that you see except that's a real whale and it's right there in front of you. Amazing! I was also impressed with the whale's breathing. Of course there is the blow when the whale surfaces but right before it dives, there is a very loud intake of breath. Whoooosh!

Ukulele lessons

Another picture from the island. This is ukulele lessons at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We brought a ukulele (should that be AN ukulele? It doesn't sound right) home and have been working on it since.

Aloha `oe, aloha `oe

I'm still not sure what that means. Part of our time away we spent in Hawaii. Well, some of us did anyway. Ylfelynn and I spent a great week on Oahu. Here is a picture of us the night before we came back (do we look at all like islanders?) enjoying a dinner cruise. There was a show downstairs after the dinner but we could not tear ourselves away from the show outside. We sailed across Waikiki to Diamondhead and back while the sun descended. Excellent scenery.

Belay that order! Lawn is restored!

Never fear. The new lawn has been installed. It was put in right before we left town for two-and-a-half weeks. When we returned, it had grown exceedingly. We are still trying to catch up to it. I'm starting to think of it of the big green monster in my yard. Maybe now we can sell the house. Here is the listing if you are interested.

Call the police! Our lawn is missing!

Behold our "scorched earth" yard, front and back. Just one day with the giant roto-tiller available at the neighborhood rent-a-center is all it took. Do you think the house will sell OK like this?

Construction continues

A view of our new house from the back yard (there is a little slope in the back of the back yard).

Another zoo trip, a new favorite

We went to the San Diego Zoo again (we bought memberships last year and we are maximizing our return on investment - they expire in April - and it was a good investment). Past favorites were the tapir and the okapi. Yesterday's favorite: Galapagos tortoise. The zoo has several that it acquired in the 1920's. That's 80+ years ago. And they have 50+ more years to live. It's a good thing, too. It takes them a while to do anything and go anywhere. Fascinating animals!

Meri - future air racer?

Meri is seen standing in Wildfire, air racing plane extraordinaire. I am designing the landing gear doors for it. The plan is to race it in Reno in September. We paid a visit to its hangar at the Mojave Spaceport on our way up to visit our house being built in Tehachapi.

So it begins ...

Framing on the new house has commenced. Stayed tuned for updates.

Jessica naps

Sometimes you just get real sleepy. Note the little spot of drool under her mouth.