Backstory: This winter, on one of our bike rides to the grocery store, Hannah and I came upon a guy loading minibikes on the back of a trailer behind the K-mart. I struck up a converstation (much to Hannah’s dismay.. ha) and it turns out he travels the east coast, and has a contract to buy all retured minibikes from Kmart for a set price (I’m guess it’s, oh, ~75$ each?) Anyway, the returns run the gamut from completly worn out (why did they take it back?? the tires are WORN OUT.. you know what it takes to wear a tire off of a minibike??) to brand new, still in the box. Kmart sells them for 500$, 400$ on sale occationally. This guy said he would sell me one right there for 200$. Well, since is was one that was right out of the box with 0 miles, I figured that was a pretty good deal!
That said, it sat in the garage until recently when Melinda asked to ride it. I dont think they have been off of it since. Rockwell, Melinda and a couple friends have been riding it.
Rockwell in action.
Melinda is having way more fun on this than I expected her too.. I dont know why I didn’t think she would, She is inclined toward mechanical things…
When Melinda and her friend Hannah were not riding this thing, they were putting doors on the grounded tree house, and painting some things on the inside. Gotta like when kids weild hammers!
This weekend, Melinda and her friend Hannah set up a lemonade stand.. They pulled in 12 bucks. Not bad, but they have done better.
🙂
So here is a series of pictures from the Hog Roast at Chris and Pegs house this weekend! Wow, what a party. Although, we must be getting old.. there was still Beer in the Keg at the end of the night..
Chris made a haywagon just for the party. It was fun! Part of the path was int he neighbors yard, somwhere I have never gone before.
And the obligatory picture of all the siblings.. I’d say we are looking pretty good for our ages.
And Here is Rockwell playing with a bunch of his cousins (once removed -lol) They had a BLAST. This is one of those events they will all remember.
A Nannyrama for you. Pretty much the whole shebang.
Rockwell messing around with the liver that came with the pig. What a joker.
Rockwell checking out how they attach the pig to the spit.
The kids had a load of fun on this dinosour. It used to have three springs and it was hard to move, even for an adult. Take one of the springs off, and BAM, its a dangerous fun machine. Only small amounts of blood where shed.. No worries.
Rockwell riding Chris’s “irish Mail”. Its hard to figure out at first! Steering with your feet and “pedaling” with your hands! Rockwell mastered it before the weekend was over.
When I dropped off Hannah for the LUA Mincraft summer camp, we passed a guy that really goes all out in decorating the shrubs in his yard. He even got all his neighbors to do it.
And, from 2012 School Year (!) I finally have seen the actual Trophies Hannah won in the math counts competition in the virgin Islands.
And finally.. Hannah and I love eating fat. 🙂 This is a frustrating thing, because society does not, therefore does not supply it. Here is an example.. The first picture is the yogur isle at Wallmart. Look at the huge selection! (It goes down to where Hannah is standing. ) It’s HUGE. Do you think they had any flavored full fat yougurt? Not a single damn one. Not even one! WTF?
Here is the most yummy yogurt on the planet, mix this with cereal and you are in heaven. Hard to find. Its the ONLY full fat flavored yogurt we have found. It’s just not right. You are missing out if you dont lick the fat off the tinfoil when you take it off.. I have to assume its like joy people used to have drinking the cream off the top of the milk bottle.
OK< One more pic.. Here are some of our favorite teachers at North Augusta Elem. Making Cotton candy this spring at their fun fair.
Independence Day.. Perhaps we will have some pictures later.
So, its a long story.. but we don’t use the local library. I have issues with the way they do things. So, I pay 25$ a year to go across the river and use the Augusta Library. We really love it. This last weekend, they just had their grand opening to the new building they just spent the last 6 Months building. Hannah and I read that they were open on Saturday night, so we took our stack of books and were going to return them. When we got there, they were having a party.. that turned out to be invite only for “patrons of the library” only we did not know this. So, In we come with our Books to return to the nice new fancy library, and we set the alarm off.
Oops!
The librarian said, well, we are not really open tonight, but come here and I will check them in for you anyway. and then she invited us to have a piece of cake on our way out! See, There are reasons we really like our library.
Anyway.. the NEXT day, they had a small petting Zoo in the library.. so we had to go to that!
This parrot stayed on Hannah’s shoulder for, oh, about a half hour...(!) Hannah Informs me its name was “Caesar” and reminded me that she had to take her earrings and necklace off, because the bird wanted to constantly play with them. (at one point, we thought she/he had one in its mouth, and the trainer was saying “Caesar, give that back, and trying to pry its mouth open.. it turns our he dropped it on the floor at the first sign of being yelled at..hheh)
Melinda Insisted she wanted to hold the spider.. but was not so sure when the time came. (The expression on her face says a thousand words!)
Rockwell has been pestering me to buy him a blue tongued skink since we went here.
Melinda had no issues with the Rabbit..
This is just a good picture! You know, those “spikes” on the this lizard (I forget its name.. I will have to ask Rockwell) are soft! the whole lizard is soft and smooth like a snake.
Rockwell wants a lizard now.
WTHeck.. I have short stubby arms, and no lips whatsoever. And Melinda likes to point out, that the Skink Peed on me a second after this picture was taken.. Of which, she got a picture of.
The librarian was not so sure about this.. but she was a trooper.
Rockwell insisted I bring him to the Adult section of the library that had books about lizards. (Section 590 something?)
Here is a story.. We found this scooter in the garbage. i actually went up to the door and asked them if it was really trash, because it looked almost new.
They said “yes, it has a dead battery, and no charger”
So away we were! They rode it for a couple days. The origional motor was incredibly anemic, (probably ~50 watts?) so, we made it a little more fun by putting 24 volts to it.. That lasted two days, until we broke the belt. hello internet. a week and 10$ later we had another belt. Then, a day later.. the motor burned out. 🙁 that’s what happens when you over power the motor, and run it in grass I guess)
So, I figured we would go big, and put a 300 watt motor on it! 24$ eBay for the motor, another 12$ internet for the belt, and away we go!
So, it’s a 24 volt motor, but we have only attempted 12v so far. With the itty bitty wheels, it gets a tad squirrely at speeds.
No problem at all with heat so far though!
Here is our “free” pool, that we got from a friend of Kathi’s that was moving away, and did not want to take it.. Fun fun!
But, I have to say, Pool Chemicals are expensive. Even this little pools probably going to run about 50$/month if you include the filters.. and I even wash them out and use them again.
Here was a fun thing to watch. On our way back from the library Friday, there was the “first Friday” festival in down town Augusta.
Hannah and I stopped for a few minutes, an strolled down the boulevard to watch the sights.
Here is one of them.. you can see their web page at pyroteque
Posted on 4 July '10 by admin, under Activities, kids. 1 Comment.
Here is the tree house we built.. finally up in the tree! Another way that my kids can hurt themselves… But so far, they are really having fun with it. They are having a picnic in it as we speak.. Hot dogs chips and a drink.
I meant it to look precarious, but it is not. I can jump up and down in it, and it wont even swing the branch. Its in a Oak tree, and boy, is that tree hard.
If you don’t remember the previous post concerning this… Its built mostly out of scrap lumber I pulled out of the house when I was rebuilding the rooms. I cut up the ceiling joists for most of it, and I found some scrap plywood for the rest. The only thing purchased was the siding (50% of it) and the roofing, some special pieces of wood (like the side pieces to the ladder) and the nuts and bolts its assembled with. other than that, its from wood that I had been collecting just for this purpose. Turned out pretty good I would say! The remainder of the wood that was left over, I sold on Kraigs list. I got around 30$ for it. They guy that purchased it was also building a play house for his kids.
Ok, this one is going to get me in trouble. I did not intend to let them do this.. but they climbed up and wanted me to take a picture. They were more stable than I thought they would be. As Melinda demonstrates. 🙂
Posted on 13 June '10 by admin, under kids, seasons. 1 Comment.
