Our woodpecker!

This guy visits Julie’s feeders all the time and lives in our front yard trees.  I was sitting in the living room the other day when he crashed into the window, HARD! He really rung his bell! We checked him over and couldn’t find anything obviously wrong.  Julie put him up on the ledge where he could recover out of the reach of local cats.  After 10 mins he finally stood up and started looking around.  Shortly after he flew back up into the trees.  We hope he’ll be ok and keep coming back WITHOUT crashing into the window again…

This is a sweet watch!

We’ve enjoyed working with our jeweler over the years on rings for Julie, Ian, Johnny, Julie, me, etc. It doesn’t matter if it’s a little repair, sizing, new setting, or design from scratch he takes good care of us.  Each time I’m there, I take a moment to admire these watches he has.  All mechanical, Swiss jeweled movement, chronograph, sapphire crystal, and even automatic winding.  You can see the movement through the back of the case too.  For now, I enjoy having a picture of it.  One day maybe it will compliment my grandfather’s version in my collection.  But that all depends on how things unfold I guess.  A guy can dream about a retirement watch, right…?! Such a mechanical work of art!

As I consider the next steps in my life…

…it’s nice to sit around with friends for their birthday right in the middle of the day.  We relived old times for sure! Julie and I enjoyed catching up.

Mowing the grass at 10a on a weekday…

I always said that I woudl enjoy mowing if I had the time to do it.  I guess I am putting that to the test. So far so good.  I’ve realized if I get my chores done during the day in the middle of the week it frees me up to do things with and for the kids on the evenings and weekends :)

It’s nice to have time to read a book with coffee.

I really enjoyed this book my mom loaned me (that Susan and Larry had given her) about some of the lost history of Dayton.  

Julie’s 3D designs and prints in action

Check out those parts with the slots in them. Julie designed, model, and printed them. They’re to keep her stupid fish and shrimp from jumping into the filters!

Sabbatical days be like…

…”Hey dad, you willing to run to Louisville on a hot Facebook Marketplace deal?!”  Yeah!

Andy found a great deal on a core drill so I learned how to use them and headed down for the day to check it out.  Turned out to be a win-win!  I had to take one of his batteries along to test it out.  He used the drill all day the very next day!

Cinci Fountain Square lights

It’s fun to remember the days of taking pictures of the boys playing in it as toddlers…❤️

They gave us this adorable little seal for dessert too… 🤪

The fancy room at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse…

We took the Barton’s out to celebrate!

We figured buying a house was a big enough deal that we better make a special double date night out of it with John and Savannah.  The staff heard about the marriage, job, and house.  They liked the story so much they bought us out a “slice” of carrot cake on the house, pun intended! 🤪 A great night!

A different pose and view of Zoe…

That feeling when you see YOUR jeep pass you on the road…

My neighbor kindly offered to help me get it down for service after I threw out an axle seal.  It was leaking bad enough I didn’t want to run the diff dry or sling the gear oil all over it.  I need to get myself a bearing press and try doing one of them myself.  But I had it scheduled for other service anyhow, so…

Julie’s impressing me!

I knew she was a geek’s geek when she referred to a ruler as a scale not long after I first met her in high school.  She has jumped into 3D printing with both feet.  Not only has she printed stuff for friends and family, but she’s not designing her own things to solve problems in her hobbies and around the house.  This shows her iterating on a replacement skimmer plate for her fish tank.  She wanted a way to hold it in place, balance the flow rate, AND keep the little fish and shrimp babies from getting in.  It worked out perfectly.  Then she went on to add some barriers to prevent them jumping over the sump wall.  

Next project is a case for Johnny’s handheld game unit.  She’s awesome and I lover her❣️

We got these cool ice cream treats at Jungle Jim’s!

They’re like a dip top popsicle. Mango flavored and REALLY yummy.  A nice little treat to celebrate.