The Lieslands

I added some new pics to our 2009 photo gallery, including some shots from Elliot’s birthday and Easter.

We just got back from a week-long visit to Cincinnati. We drove there last Saturday, meeting my parents as they returned from an Easter dinner in Columbus. On Sunday we hunted for eggs, went to Mass, and attended Easter dinner with some folks from my Mom’s family – mostly just the Van Horns.

Monday I was off, so we ran some Cincinnati errands – including trips to Kroger, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods. I also got to stop by my eye Dr, so he could tell me I have pink eye. I could have told him that, but then maybe he would have had to pay me, so we just kept it the way it is supposed to be.

Tuesday, and for the rest of the week, I was off to work. Susan spent her days visiting Cincinnati friends and doing Cincinnati things. We also had the chance to catch up with some friends during the evenings, which was nice.

Saturday we were off to Bloomington, IN for my cousin’s wedding. It was a nice wedding, and it was nice to see some folks from the Hyland clan. We stayed in a hotel after the wedding, as we do maybe one or two times a year. This was our easiest stay ever – I think because the kids are getting older. They are sleeping better than ever and Andrew is getting to the age where we hardly have to worry about him at all.

Sunday morning we were up just before the continental breakfast ended, grabbed a bite to eat, hit the road and were home by dinner time.

Mimi & Papa were waiting for us when we arrived, with some real food, which we definitely needed.

Welcome home, us.

We have been in Des Moines for over 5 months now, and in our house for four. I feel like we are getting settled in well.

Our house is coming along nicely. I feel like we have taken care of all of the immediate things that needed to be done inside – including some painting and room re-working. Our bedrooms our set, with the kids in one bedroom and us in another. They have been doing great on their own.

As the weather gets nicer we are starting to turn our attention outside. There is a lot of landscaping that needs to be done as things have been neglected for a couple of years and there are several vacant spots in the yard. We also need to do some gutter work and paint our trim, both of which I plan to tackle.

Susan’s Bean Sprout Parents & Tots class has had three classes so far, and has gone well. She has really been enjoying it and the kids have as well. It is really neat to have the class in our house and it also gives us a nice excuse to clean every week. I feel a little like we are getting ready for a showing every time we have to clean.

Andrew has been playing soccer for the first time, and he has loved it. He just has a great time running around. He is not in a school yet here, and we are not sure what the future will hold in that department.

Mari can’t wait until next year when she is able to play. She loves to be as involved as possible with Andrew’s soccer, which is nice. She is not nearly as athletic as he is, but she has a great time.

Elliot has been doing well also. We still think of him as our baby, even though he is two now. He is a very quiet boy, unless he is talking about animals, sees water, or I am trying to get him to sleep.

My work has been going well. I feel like I have gotten into a bit of a rhythm and have found the right communication balance to keep things flowing. I have been working on some fun projects and I have more coming up.

We spend most of our free time outside when the weather is nice. We all like to ride bikes and play in the back yard. Whenever it is reasonable I have been trying to ride my bike instead of taking my car, which has been sitting idle a lot lately. We have a nice bike trailer for Mari and Elliot and we recently stole Mary’s tag-along (which they no longer use), to make longer rides possible with the whole family.

Andrew started soccer yesterday, which was interesting. He has been wanting to play for a while so we signed him up on a team with a couple of other kids that he knows. He has a great time out there, but he is totally in his own world. I guess he does not have to listen to instructions a lot because he is not good at it at all. Whenever someone tells him what to do it is like he has ear plugs in.

He had a great time and will hopefully have a fun season. Next year I think that Mari will be ready to join him, which will be even more of a treat.

Another funny thing is that there is another Andrew on his team, and we have yet to come up with a naming convention.

A couple of years back, when Andrew was starting to ride a bike with training wheels, an older gentleman who was out walking his dog said to me, “Take your time, Dad.” I am not sure if he meant in the short term or the long term, and I am not exactly sure what caused him to say it, but I think about that every now and then.

Yesterday evening I was out working on our swing set and the NFC/city inspector stopped by to check out our garage. As he was leaving he said to me, “Hurry up, if you get the chance.” I am not sure exactly what he meant, or what caused him to say it.

Should I slow down?
Is there something wrong with youthful zeal?
Do they want me to slow down for me, or for them?

I know that I probably do need to slow down, but there is just so much to do. Gotta go finish lunch. . .

So I have two bikes – one that I ride around town and one that I use to tow the kids. Neither of them are in the greatest shape, but they get the job done. The one that I ride around town is an old bike, even older than me, and has been dormant for many years. I dusted it off, put some air in the dry-rotted tires, and was off. It seemed to be doing just fine for a while.

After a few longs rides, some of the dried plastic parts started to fall off, which was no big deal. The front basket collapsed, so I tightened some screws. One major problem that it had was that it kept shifting gears on me, so I stopped into a bike shop and they showed me how to keep that from happening, basically turn a screw.

On the way home from the bike shop everything froze up, and when I looked back my rear derailleur was in pieces behind me. I knew that this was not good. The bike was dead in the water, and I was not in the mood to be buying parts. My friend Tom had the great idea of picking a gear and simply converting it to a single speed, which I did. This took some tweaking, but also gave me another opportunity to clean the bike up some. Eventually this was done and riding the bike was even more pleasurable. It was liberating to ride a bike without worrying about switching gears, and the relatively flat terrain in Des Moines makes this possible.

Then, one day when I was riding around the block with the kids it happened. I went to move the pedals backwards and CLICK, they were locked. Now whenever my bike is moving, the pedals are moving. I know that some people do this on purpose (Tom being one of them), but I am not sure how I feel about it. I may try to make this permanent, so I no longer have to worry about hand brakes, but I am not sure yet.

On Sunday I picked up a swing set that we bought off of Craigslist. It is just a simple A-frame with swings, but I think that the kids will enjoy it.

We plan on having a nice vegetable garden of some sort at our new house. We aren’t totally sure yet what form it is going to take, but we definitely have plans.

This past weekend we start some seeds. We started 12 tomato plants and we have plans to start some cucumbers in a few weeks.

We don’t know where we are going to get a lot of sun, so we are going to have to see how our garden plays out over the next couple of years. We have visions of raised-beds and containers. I want to plant a garden in our tree-lawn – the area between our sidewalk and the street. We have a corner lot, so we have 150 feet of curb that runs down the side of our house. It will be a little weird to try a garden there, but I think it could work, and it wouldn’t have to take up any space in our yard.

Susan comes up with a lot of sort of ‘entrepreneurial’ ideas. Not always business related, but usually ideas that involve starting something. Most of the time these ideas leave as quickly as they came, but one actually managed to make its way to fruition.

Starting in a few weeks, Susan is going to be leading Bean Sprout Parents & Tots in our house. It will be a Waldorf-inspired Parents & Tots class, similar to what she used to attend with Andrew, Mari, & Elliot in Cincinnati.

She is really excited about it, and I am too. It has made us think a lot about the layout of our house and what is in each room – mostly on the first floor. I think it will be great to have a living space that is Waldorf-inspired.

We have been doing a lot of work around the house lately. We took out the closet in our dining room a few weeks back and a couple of weeks ago Tom and I got some drywall up to make the room look more normal. This past weekend Susan and I textured the wall, to match the others, and painted the room blue, cornflower blue. I still need to finish up some of the trim, but the room is just about done.

Up next is the entry way and the stairs. The stairs had some paint on them that we have been removing. We are going to refinish the stairs and repaint the walls and trim. Right now all of the trim in the main entryway is still mauve and forest green. Like most of the painted trim in our house, we are going to be painting it white.

Once the entryway is done we are going to move on to the living room, where we are going to repaint the walls and trim. After that, I think we are going to be moving outside. I can’t wait to get out and get some work done. There is just as much to do outside as there has been inside.

I just added some new photos to our 2008 II gallery and also I started our 2009 gallery.