Rosehill Academy

Friday, July 27, 2007

Rocky Mount, a Work in Progress

It's been awhile since anyone updated the family blog. So, I thought I'd post a few pictures, so everyone what all we'd accomplished at Rocky Mount. It was a very tiring three weeks, as you can imagine. But, a lot of progress was made.

Some before pictures:

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This is the Laundry Nook's floor. As you can see, it's pretty messed up. The last people who rented the place had a leak in the washing machine's feed, and never bothered to fix it. Talk about a mess! There's a great big hole there, under the jumbled together mess of scrap wood that we put up to make sure nobody fell out and no animals crawled in.

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More of the Laundry Nook

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And even more!

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Stage 2: with the walls that make up the nook gone, but still with the bad floor.

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Stage 3, I guess you'd call it. The new subflooring is in, and at least part of it is painted to protect it from random water. Yes, there are exposed pipes, still. A little wall is going to go in, to cover those pipes and give us a "landing pad". There's also going to be a bench and shelves for things as we come in the door.

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The kitchen overall, before. With Dev!

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The kitchen, now. You can't really see it, but Dev removed a silly little desk from beside the former laundry nook, and also the island from the middle of the kitchen. Without the island, it's a nice, wide open kitchen. Yay for space!

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One of my projects: the deck. 900 square foot deck, covered in green algae, warped, etc. It's been one of our priorities, since wood is so expensive. We want to salvage as much as possible on it.

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The deck, now. As you can see, we ran out of time with the rented pressure washer, and ended up not cleaning and sealing the rails. But, we found out we know someone with a pressure washer, so that'll be easy to deal with the next time we're up. I think the deck also needs a second coat of sealer, since you can tell where I overlapped. There's still boards that will need to be replaced, but at least they won't rot from under our feet now.

Now, a few fun pictures! Peanut Butter and Jelly!

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Peanut Butter, with cobwebs around his ears and horns, if you look close. This was the morning that they had been under the trailer.

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Jelly, also with cobwebs.

Well, that's it! Yes, I did do more than just the deck while I was up there. I also fixed the plumbing leak we knew about. Leak is such a mild word for it. The intake line to the trailer was sheared completely in half! It should have been a pretty easy fix, except for the lying on my side on a 2x4, which hurts like the dickens a day later, let me tell you! It actually was still an easy fix, but it took a few tries, because no matter how many times I measured the damn repair, it still came up too short. Not to mention that the last idiots who "fixed" it did the Oh-So-Smart thing of glueing a male PVC piece into a female $40 pressure regulator. I'm still mad over that stupidity! I also installed an outside faucet at the same time (yes, I'm handy!) which is good, since we discovered another leak in the master bath. Dev and I both agreed that we have no desire to deal with that one. It involves crawling under the trailer farther than either of us want to and working in basically complete darkness. He's going to get a friend to do it for him, in exchange for a gun that Dev doesn't want any more. And, with the outside faucet, we can turn off the flow to the trailer and still water the animals! You'd almost think we planned that, huh?

Well, that is basically the entire sum of my three week "vacation". Next time I take a vacation, I really need to insist on actual relaxation!

What else has happened... Not much, lately. DC finally has another loose tooth. Dev is ready to leave Ft. Benning and go anywhere else. Brian is Brian, which as we all know, is a scary, scary thing. *grin*

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Freddy and the Black Knight

Wow, it's been forever since this blog was updated. I tried to do it right after I signed the papers for Rocky Mount, but Blogger decided to encounter a fatal error and deleted the whole long post. I was too frustrated to try and recreate it at that point.

So, what's been happening in the Cannon family... Dev just graduated from OCS. At the moment he's attending BOLC II, which is a new program that, honestly, no one knows much about at the moment, even the instructors. So far it's been all paperwork and drawing additional equipment. Tomorrow eveninig there will be some sort of social for Dev as the Army works to make sure that the baby LTs can manage conversing with senior officers.

The end of BOLC II should be interesting as they always ask the students their opinions about how the class went and what could be improved. They should know by now that asking Dev questions like that is dangerous. To say he'll tell it like it is will no doubt be an understatement.

Life here in GA is pretty good. The boys enjoy having a playground in what is basically the back yard and weather that allows them to use it. We just finished up the local homeschool group's fall co-op, which they both loved. They also really enjoy Fridays at the park with the homeschoolers, though they've been too tired to go after co-op. They also love driving by the Jump Towers and watching the baby Airborne fall.

We just bought a new vehicle, a Dodge Durango. We traded the van for it. Very comfortable to drive and better gas milage, yay! And, even better for me, I can park it! No more docking the Queen Mary in the back fourty of the lot!

Trick or Treating went well, with Brian being Freddy from Scooby Doo and DC going as a Knight. Lots of loot was collected and for the first time one of the boys got sick from eating too much candy. Poor Brian.

Anyway, here's a picture of the monsters:



Yesterday Brian decided that hot, sweaty hair was uncomfortable and found my cuticle scissors... He now has a nice hunk of bangs missing. I'll probably take him to the barber to get it fixed today, despite Dev wanting to leave it the way it is. Of course, he wants that so that he can laugh at Brian. He's so mean at times...

That's all for now. *waves*

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

OCS

Dev just got his class date! July 9th, branched Infantry. He's happy.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Spam!

Yuck! We got spammed!

So... Back in LA... Again. The stores here are completely sold out. The Commisary only had pork in the meat section, Wal-mart wasn't much better.

I've started working on cleaning out the salt water tank. I've even found a hermit crab! So, once I start the in depth cleaning, I'm going to have to be careful to make sure I don't throw out anything that's live.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Cake's Done!

Just finished the cake for Brian's birthday. I was at a loss about what to do until I realized one of the presents Dev picked up the other day had Power Rangers of a perfect size. So, that present got seized and used.

Nora, you'll enjoy this: I nailed the cake together. To make sure the figures stayed upright, I inserted a nail into the existing holes they have in their feet. I guess so that they'll stand on some playset or something. With one execption, the nails fit tightly into the holes and were long enough to provide stability without being too long. Of course, there is the one bad guy who has bigger holes for some strange reason...

Brian has suddenly become interested in potty training. He's wearing big boy underwear and constantly running to the bathroom yelling "Potty!"

Life is pretty good.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Start Spreading the News

Wahoo! From Adam and Lara Miller: Hey! Spreading the good news - Lara and I are having a baby! Should be due around January 26.

Friday, June 03, 2005

Here, Fishy, Fishy, Fishy.

Managed to get actual pictures of the new fish! Yay!

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This is a Lyre-Tail or Moon Wrasse. Can't see the cool iridescent colors in the photo, though.

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Goa'uld, the Freshwater Moray Eel. He doesn't actually live in freshwater, but has been know to meander into rivers and such. Luckily, he'll only get about 3 inches longer.

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I was told this is a Damsel and was once named Midnight. I think it might specifically be a Dusky Chromis, which is a subspecies of Damsel. I was told by the very nice fish guy that Damsels turn black when they're mad... I guess, considering they named him Midnight, he was mad for a very long time.