No Longer the Ugliest Yard on the Block

Another big change over the last couple months is the work we did in our front yard. They yard was basically a weed patch and Jay and I were a little embarrassed of it. So back in November we contacted David Sandrock of Sandrock Sustainable Landscapes and came up with a plan. We did some of the labor... Kahlil and I took out the cinder block walls and we all pitched in with the plantings.,. to help bring the cost down. It was a fun project and I highly recommend David for other Oregon residents looking for some yard designs. Here are some photos of the project.

The BEFORE shot - Well work had already started. Kahlil (who you can just see in this photo) and I have already put some time into taking down the two old walls. The old walls followed the slope of the street making it feel like the house was sliding away. We always knew the walls looked 'wrong' but it wasn't until David mentioned that that we understood why they seemed 'off'.

The new wall going in. This was the biggest part of this project. David spent quite a bit of time to make sure the wall would be level and not 'slide' down the hill like the old ones. To save money and reduce environmental impact, we re-used the old cinder bricks. But they were to harsh for the look we wanted. To solve this problem, David broke up the new wall with natural stone and put a natural stone cap along the entire wall. This also ties in with some large stones that were placed in the planting bed.


The wall is done and the yard is ready for plants. It's too bad this is such a dark photo because the wall and rocks are really cool.

Planting - I didn't count exactly how many holes we dug, but I think it was close to 100. We got through most of in in a weekend... Kahlil worked on the little 4" pots and Jay and I handled the big perennials. Langston turned over clumps of dirt. Good family time :-)



DONE!!! It will take a couple years for the plants to fill in completely, but we are already happy with how much better the front looks. We spend a lot of time sitting on the wall (as Jay is doing) and are enjoying watching the new growth. When the plants are mature, there should be very little maintenance needed... most weeds should get choked out as the planting is dense. We went with all drought tolerant plants so we should only have to water once or twice a summer during the hottest spells. A little pruning once or twice a year is all it should need.

Holidays 2009

Well, I guess the holidays sort of came and went before I could write any blog posts. There have been some big things going on lately so I thought I should do some catch up. I'll just focus on a holiday recap this time...

Thanksgiving: We went to Albuquerque for Thanksgiving. It was a GREAT time with my family. Kahlil and Langston had fun spending time with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We spent the whole week there so it wasn't hectic traveling. There were over 20 people at Thanksgiving dinner so it was a little overwhelming!

One day during our visit, we went up the tram on Sandia mountain. It is a LONG tram with amazing views. At the top we had a drink at the bar and played in some snow. Langston had a great time but Kahlil...

Langston is enjoying the view on the tram up to Sandia...

Aunt Kataneh sharing Kahlil's sad face during timeout...

Uncle Dean with two of the cutest kiddos in the world!


Generation one of three...


Generation two of three...


Generation three of three...


Christmas: Grandma and Papa Friberg came here for Christmas. I had a great time decorating the tree with the boys. Kahlil really got into it but tended to focus the ornaments on the lower quarter of the tree. Leading up to Christmas, Langston wanted to take out the presents and open them, but we told him he had to put them back... then on Christmas eve when it was time to open presents, he kept taking them away from people and putting them back under the tree! Once we showed him he could open them, he abandoned the whole put away plan and had fun tearing into the wrapping.

Decorating the tree. The lower half had more than it's share of ornaments :-)
Kahlil and Grandma opening presents...
Langston and Papa hanging out...
Uncle Dean had Langston for Christmas and gave him Christmas hit of the year...

Us...

New Years: Grandpa Richard came to visit for a while. He and Kahlil really hit it off this trip. Richard took Kahlil to the movie, and they rode the bus home - who wouldn't love that! They also wrote a book together with Kahlil as the star :-) On New Years day, Kahlil and Jay joined the Polar Bears club by jumping in the outdoor pool here in town. I'll leave it to Jay to write more about that!

The boys with Grandpa Richard...

There was a person dressed as a polar bear at the entrance to the pool for the Polar Bear Plunge... Langston thought he was cool and a little scary...



The two crazies about to go in...

Training Wheels Are For Suckers

We learned of this bike that has pedals that are designed to come on and off easily with a single hex wrench. The idea is to have your kid learn to balance without the pedals and push with their feet, and when they can do that, you put the pedals on. The bike was too big for Kahlil initially (he couldn't reach the ground well enough with his feet), but once he was a smidge tall enough the process went fast. Maybe 2-3 days without pedals before he switched.

At the park today, where I filmed this, I pointed out to him that there was an older girl, I'd guess around 6 who still had training wheels on her bike. He immediately started riding over to her to inform her that he was only 4 and didn't need training wheels and what was her problem? You can see everything Kahlil is going to do on his face, so I stopped him before he could do it and gave him lecture #4,872 on interacting with people.

Later, as we were circling the park, I told him that maybe it wasn't that the girl was slow at learning to ride a bike, but that he was fast. And he thought a minute, whirring his pedals, and said, "Maybe it's because I'm gooder at riding a bike that I don't need training wheels? Yeah, I think that's right!"

jh

Dear Santa

This was too precious not to share right away. It is Kahlil's letter to Santa he dictated to me tonight. You know it's from him because he signed the page... you can just make out the letters of his name starting at the bottom and going up.

Since it's hard to read, here is the text:

Dear Santa,

Since I've been a little bad, I'm a little sorry!

**PAGE TWO (apparently
**that was a tough way
**to start so we started
**again)

Dear Santa and The Elves,

I want a dump truck! And a bulldozer, an excavator, and a backhoe. And a cement truck. And a street sweeper. And a live bunny.

I learned about tractors, big trucks, people, street sweepers, cars, and eyes for toys. And I learned about Buzz Lightyear.

I'm sorry for making a mess.

KAHLIL

All kinds of fun

We've had some good laughs lately so I thought I would share...

This is from a couple weekends ago when we were out raking leaves. Kahlil is wearing his ear protection because Jay was using the blower. We had fun that day, but the real Fall fun was just a couple days ago. There is a big pile of leaves in the street just down from our house. I didn't really grow up in places where there are seasons and you can have a true 'Fall' experience, but my kids are and Kahlil did. He was literally jumping head first into the pile. He would kick his feet and make the leaves go up into air while yelling "I'm a leaf volcano!". I was cracking up. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera on me.

Here is Langston putting in some serious time at the work bench:




Sometimes we make faces at each other. Kahlil was a little overcome with winking:



Kahlil and the kittens were having a good time tonight:



One of the kids at daycare, Leo, had his fourth birthday party this weekend. We went to his place to celebrate with Leo and his friends and family. There were about 30 people there including about 12 kiddos. The big activity for the kids was making their own pizza. They got to wear chef hats, roll out the dough, put on the toppings and eat it once it was cooked. It was really cool. In between chef-ing, the kids ran around, wrestled, and generally had a great time. The gift hit-of-the-party was a new firetruck. While Kahlil was finishing his lunch, Leo was pushing the truck around making siren noises... Kahlil told me Leo is the fireman but that he needs a fireman sidekick. I asked if he had any ideas who would make a good fireman sidekick... he thought he would do a good job. A few minutes later, Kahlil and three other kids were running after Leo making siren noises, I think the were all good fireman sidekicks. This picture was on the car ride home. I think the mark of a good party is how quickly your kids crash in the car.

Halloween and Checkup

Halloween was a lot of fun again this year. Since March, Kahlil has said he wants to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. I said that was fine and the Toy Story theme started to grow on me. By the time all was said and done we had Buzz, Woody, Jessie (the cowgirl), and Zurg (the space villain). I guess months to plan got me in a crafty mood and I made most of Jay, Langston, and my costumes. I was pretty happy with how they came out, but I wouldn't let a real seamstress take a close look. We found the Buzz costume at the used clothes shop and I had a special pair of Buzz boots made... it was perfect! Langston also got a new pair of boots out of the deal.

Once we all got done-up we hit the streets of downtown Corvallis for a little trick-or-treating on Friday afternoon. Kahlil was all over asking for candy... Langston was a little unsure at the start and wanted to stay in the wagon. But by the end, he was jumping out and leading the way into the stores - regardless of crowd size. As usual, the town was loaded with kids and great costumes. It was so fun to participate. Once we got back to Soft Star the boys both dug into their bags and had a little snack. Kahlil told Melissa he was going to give her some candy since she doesn't trick-or-treat... but his bag was empty by Saturday afternoon. When Melissa asked about the candy he told her he didn't get enough chocolate to bring her some. (We went to the store tonight and bought her a chunk of chocolate for him to give her tomorrow :-)

I forgot to give the update on the boys checkup last week - Kahlil had his 4 year and Langston his 18 month. They are both doing great... generally healthy and thriving. K is in the 75th percentile for height and weight while L is 50th percentile for both. K got a couple shots and didn't shed a single tear. The nurse was VERY impressed and said it took four people to hold her daughter down for those shots.

The kittens are doing great and I'm SO happy with how they are with Kahlil. It's been a little heart breaking the last year or so when Kahlil tried to make friends with Bubba and Bubba would have nothing to do with him. I'm sure that is why Kahlil started tell us he likes dogs better than cats and wanted us to get a dog. But now the kittens love to play with him, let him pet them, and will spend some time with him in bed at night. He loves to feed them and is gentle with them (most of the time). Of course he's still learning when to give them space and how to keep them happy so they don't run off, but the mom-can-we-get-a-dog mantra has stopped. Good job Egon and Ray!

Hoop Dreams

The nice people at Hewlett-Packard gave me a pair of tickets to the opening game for the Oregon State men's basketball team. If you're not from here, you may not know that the OSU coach is the brother-in-law of Barak Obama. Coach Robinson looks like his sister, Michelle Obama, but taller, heavier, mannier.

Anyway, the tix were for the first game, an exhibition game against Southern Oregon. One of those warm-up games where a major university is supposed to crush a smaller (literally) opponent. They're usually a bit boring, but hey! it's a live basketball game, and the seats were awesome -- center court in the first tier.

Oh yeah, I gave the second ticket to Kahlil.

The game went according to plan. I spent some timing thinking how if I could get Coach Robinson to learn my name I'd be two degrees of freedom from the leader of the free world. Gave my son some cogent explanations regarding the difference between a cheerleader and an OSU dancer (miniskirt versus hot pants.) And for balance, I showed him the band: See? You can be cool even without having and baring those awesome abs...just in a geeky band member sort of way.

Kahlil is four. He's inquisitive and talkative, and he likes games so I was interested to see how much of the game would be of interest. With our seats, dunks should look spectacular. And against Souther Oregon, I expected there to be a lot of dunking by OSU players. It started off great -- Kahlil was an enthusiastic clapper. That was pretty much his peak though, basketball-wise. Mostly, he would wait for a quiet moment to say something like: "Daddy, I have to tell you something! If you drink too much Gatorade than you have to spend the rest of your life on the potty!" Think I'm making it up? Ask Michelle Roeser, my co-worker who happened to be sitting right behind us. He also spent significant minutes under my seat playing a game he called 'pop-up toy'. He elbowed the lady sitting in front of me. I guess that was a baller move.

Benny Beaver, the OSU mascott, was a hit. Kahlil was stoked to run up to him and get a high five. It's a terrible picture, but you get the idea. That was the one thing that would keep Kahlil interested in looking at the court -- Where is Benny? Interestingly, Kahlil understands that the mascott isn't a giant, bipedal, speechless beaver. He casually referred to Benny later as a person in a beaver costume. I don't really know what he knows and doesn't know...

I guess the game itself should get a mention. Let's see: 40+ point blow out, maybe a one-third capacity crowd, two new giant TV screens on either end of Gill Arena, ruthless OSU defense that made me feel compassion towards the overmatched Southern Oregon squad, and a blindfolded free throw shooting contest that organizers must now understand is a bad idea.

After the game, it was a sunny, late fall afteroon. Those days are to die for around here. Walking back, the sky is blue, stunning yellow and gold trees, dry crispy maple leaves crunching underfoot. The onset of the Gloom here is heralded by these days that can make a sensible man cry. And this day was spiced up by the buzz of the victorious ball game, flag football games raging on the wide intramural fields, and students all over the place jogging, laughing. It's the kind of day you see on a university catalog.

Next month, not so much. Won't be sunny, the carpet of leaves will be brown and slimy, the trees bare. But I get ahead of myself. It's still early fall, and Kahlil was charged up. Here he is scooping up leaves...

and throwing them at me!

And finally throwing himself amongst the fallen foliage...

See that stick in Kahlil's hand? He picked that up along the way and informed me that it was simultaneously his exhaust port and it was the pump with which he drew 'cold solar energy' from the ground. You don't get 'cold solar energy' (CSE) from being in the sun, but rather from sticking the pump (stick) into the ground near a tree or a bush.

The walk home was continually interrupted by the need to get some CSE to charge up the 'ol batteries. I walked along slowly, and Kahlil would sprint past me, spraying his exhaust at me, then leaping toward the next tree or bush to charge up again.

Eventually, he became a very bold little energy explorer. He has Exxon potential: not much respect for the environment if gets between him and energy.

I guess the CSE is for real. He was charging around like this all the way to the car, all the way home, and all the way to bed. Where he finally ran out of gas, and since I made him leave his CSE pumping stick outside, he passed out.

jay