New York city

This week we traveled to New York for an overnight stay. We were accompanied by two of Payton's cousins and their mom. Instead of driving we took the train. The train ride wasn't up to my acquired Swiss standards, but hey, it beat driving.

We stayed at Times Square; the convenient Marriott Marquis. A cool thing about this hotel is its elevators. They are centrally located in the building, traveling up and down the outside of a column. The elevators are each given a letter designation. Normally you press an up button to go up and then look all around to see which elevator opens up. Here you go to a centrally located panel and input your floor number. The panel then tells you which elevator to go to. So smart and so cool.

We didn't do much on our short trip. Tuesday night we walked to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree. Everyone but me and Parker got up early early on Wednesday to go ice skating at Rockefeller Center. Parker and I slept in. We woke up about the time the rest of them were finished skating.

Snow Ho Ho

We didn't get a white Christmas, but we had a nice one. Here it is the day after and the snow is starting to fall. Several inches are expected to fall overnight. Burrrrrrr.

Killing time

It's Christmas Eve and I have been sent out with boys to give Kathleen some time at home. She needed time to do a few things. I needed paint, but the Sherwin-Williams store was closed. We wound up at Starbucks. Parker is crashed. Payton is tired and waiting for me to finish this post so he can play Angry Birds.

Our first projects will be...

We have been in our new house for a couple of weeks now. What will be our first projects aren't exactly what we thought they would be.

Tomorrow I am supposed to get a shipment of flooring. We have a room in the basement that is finished, but the floor is bare concrete. This is going to be our exercise room. We found a 4 station home gym and decided to buy it. We chose the same kind of flooring the seller had in his home. It is rubber and a full 1/2" thick. Really heavy duty stuff - just like you'd find in a gym. This is going to be the first room we paint.
We have a nice laundry room. The problem is that it is just a room with a washer, dryer and laundry tub. I have found a source for specialty plywood and hope to get started building a couple of base cabinets and then putting in a new countertop across them and the washer and dryer. Phase I will have the laundry room looking pretty much like our laundry room in Ohio. But this is just the start. This room is big enough to be a mud room too. Phase II will be building a 'locker' for each of us to keep our coats and shoes in. Phase III will be adding shelving to get some storage out of the room as well.

Payton is doing well in school. There have been no issues with adjusting. He is riding the school bus and enjoying it. It has been some 35 years for me since I last road a school bus. Now I find myself waiting at the bus stop each morning and afternoon. Something ain't right here. I'm not going to school.

I got the garage straightened up. It is much bigger than our previous garage. It is a proper 3-car garage. The only problem I have is that I need a 4-car garage to store my stuff. We would like to build a detached garage. Then I would have a place for all my stuff and the house garage would then be just for the cars and bicycles.

The kid's playset and basketball goal were set up this past Sunday. A couple of guys did it all in about four hours. The backyard is looking a little more homey.

The basement is still a wreck. But the gym is in pieces all over the place. Once that is put together I can tackle putting the remaining stuff away. Ahh, the joy of moving. Try it. You'll like it. Not!

We were invited to a Christmas party at a neighbor's house this past Saturday. It was real nice. Met some more people around the neighborhood. They had a Santa come to the house. He road in in a local cop car with lights flashing and siren blazing. One of our neighbors is a retired G-Man. He has connections.

Any who, Merry Christmas to y'all and Happy New Year!

First night in the new house

We spent our first night in our new house. It was so much better than the hotel. We still have A LOT of unpacking and moving in to do. Our first impression is that we expect this house to be a right nice place to live. It would be incorrect to say the house is perfect because it does have its imperfections. There is plenty to do to make the house our home.

Payton's room is nearly setup. There is lots of room for the boat bed and then some. The undersea mural on the wall goes perfectly with his bedroom theme. Previously this was a girl's room; a blue room for a girl. At closing we were told she wanted to know if we were keeping the mural. Of course! It's why we bought the house.

The boys with the grandparents

I hustled everyone outside to try and get a picture of the boys with Grandma and Grandpa. I told them to be patient. We trekked out into the vacant lot next door and took the picture in the woods. It turned out fairly well and will look nice on our wall at home.