Flat Thursday

I am sure a lot of you are wondering where I have been for the past month. I wish I could say I have been so busy and here are a bunch of pictures to prove it.........but I can't. I was sick most of last weekend and luckly Erin took breaks from studying to make sure I had soup and 7-up and a blanket, she is the best. I have been working on the house mostly while Erin studies her butt off. I did squeeze in some time to go up north with my aunt and uncle to go snowmobiling, here are some pictures.

Here is the Cabin.



Snowmobilers at a lunch spot.


The Trail.


The groomer.


I haven't talked much about it, but here is a picture of something we are working on at work. It is the new Blue Chip Casino Hotel in Michigan City. It will be 24 stories when it is all done. They are 18 floors up right now, and you can see the Chicago skyline from the top on a clear day.


The title of this blog is to thank Erin. She was kind enough to let me come change her flat tire on the side of the By-Pass at 7:30 this morning. THANKS DEAR!

The 1,300 Mile Tractor

This past Friday and Saturday I spent on the road with my dad, grandpa, and great uncle. We were in search of a Grand Haven tractor located in Chattanooga, Tenn. The tractor is the same kind as my grandpa's first tractor. It was made back in 1953 or 1954. There was an article in a magazine a while ago that told that there were less than 1,000 of these tractors ever made, and the writer only knew where 15 of them were left. This makes number 16. My great uncle found it advertised in a magazine and got some pictures to see what it looked like. It was in good shape, so we decided to take a road trip. We left Friday afternoon and got to Nashville by midnight, then got up first thing Saturday, drove to Chattanooga, loaded up the tractor and some other good finds, and made it back to Michigan by 12:30am, putting me back in South Bend by about 2:00 Sunday morning. It was very draining, but a blast. I got to hear all sorts of stories. I realized the next day that the entire ride down and back that radio had not been on once, a good indication of many stories being told. We ended up driving through 5 states on the trip, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia (only for 4 miles, but it counts).

Here is a picture of the tractor.


I fit on the tractor, but not sure if I could drive it for hours on end.


Here is the crew, my dad, great uncle, grandpa, and me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHIL!!!

Kim (Phil's wife) had the great idea of going to a Piston's game for Phil's birthday last Friday. So Erin and I went up to Kalamazoo and met up with them after dropping the dogs off at my parents (thanks again for watching the monsters). We carpooled over to Jess' apartment and then met up with Phil's brother Robbie at the game. It was Erin's and my first Pistons game, which was very fun. They lost at the end, but it was a pretty close game. It took us a while to get back home because of the snow and icy roads, but we made it safe and sound.

Here are the girls with their FREE hats.


The guys with our FREE hats.


Erin and me by our seats.


On Saturday night I went looking through boxes of my old stuff and found this sweet soccer ball nose.

Happy New Year!

Our new year celebration was quite eventful. We traveled to Indianapolis to see some of my cousins in the afternoon and then went to the Harberts for new years eve. We played all sorts of games with a large group of people. We came home in the afternoon on New Years Day to this....



thats right, TWELVE INCHES of snow had fallen, and we got another 4 inches over the next two days.

Erin went up to Kalamazoo the next weekend, and I since I was bored, I decided to make a snowman in the front yard. I didn't have much to use, so I used some 2x4's I found and some shingle scraps. He didn't last very long because we had 60 degree weather.



Another thing I like to do while Erin is away is to start large construction projects. I pulled up the carpet in the dining room and started installing "fake" wood flooring. My mom and dad came down one day and my dad helped me on the flooring installation while Erin and my mom went shopping.

The Best Christmas Gift EVER!!

As usual, this was a very busy christmas season for us trying to fit in going to all of the famlies. I won't bore you with all the details, but some of the highlights were Erin making christmas cookies with he family. Then over at her grandparents house she got to open my gift which was a digital camera. It was very exciting. The funny part was that her grandma bought her the EXACT same one that I did.



Erin's uncle Brad got her cousin a spiderman toy that shoots webs (silly string) and most of us got hit after we put it together. Here is a picture of Em after she has been web-i-fied.



Erin and I at christmas.



My sister got a very nice GIGANTIC remote control. I guess that makes sense because she is getting up there in age :) Love ya Kristin.



My dad got a horn for his golf cart, it makes 50 animal sounds and 30 other songs. My mom was extremely excited about it also.



Santa brought my sister and I headlamps, here we are trying them out. The do both white light and red.



My dad made my sister and Erin veggie bins.



The best present ever came about 3 days before christmas though in the mail when I found out that I passed my engineering (PE) test!!! So I am offically done with test taking! My uncle Mel bought me an "engineer" hat and a box of good and plenty so I could renact the old good and plenty commercial.

OH CHRISTMAS TREE....

This past weekend was VERY eventful. We went up to Kalamazoo for Erin's birthday party (she is officially 1/4 of a century old). We met my family for a birthday breakfast for Erin. Then our friends from Indy came up and we all got to hang out at Phil and Kim's house. On Saturday the girls went and got massages and went shopping while the guys got to babysit and play ping pong. We all went out to eat after.








There was a "blizzard" on Saturday night and the dogs enjoyed playing in the snow on Sunday morning.


On Sunday we went over to Erin's family's house for a birthday lunch and cake. It was a wonderful time. Erin's sister even was nice enough to put 40 candles on her cake instead of 25.

On Sunday night we finally got to decorate the Christmas tree. We played Christmas music and the dogs helped out a lot by getting in the way.

Slacking

I know I have been slacking on the blog, I will try to keep up as the holiday season is creeping up. We have been busy over the past few weeks with Thanksgiving, and Erin's first semester coming to a close. My sister came down with her friend to see the Garth Brooks concert in a theater in South Bend. I made her take a picture in a fun hat.



For thanksgiving Erin made a pumpkin cake for dessert that was wonderful.



For my sisters birthday I told her I would provide work to turn her carport into a garage. My dad, my sister, and I worked on it the day after thanksgiving and got it completely closed in and siding on one side.







This past weekend we went up to Kalamazoo to visit with Phil and Kim (Erin's friends, I am not very fond of them, but I like Tula) We hung out with them on Friday night, then Erin went to a big craft show with her mom, grama, and sister. Lucky I was able to do other things.






This is a picture of how my cousins house is progressing, it is the same one that I helped on earlier this summer.



On a sad note my parents big oak tree in their front yard was struck by lightning last year, and marked earlier this year by the county to be cut down. They came out on Friday and took the tree down. My dad and I measured the base of the tree, it was 5 feet across. He was going to count the rings to find out exactly how old the tree was. On the bright side, there will be a lot of fire wood.