Rhode Island Whirlwind Tour

Well, you gotta love Thanksgiving! (OK--I know, everybody really doesn't love it...but lets put the story of how the Europeans ruthlessly took away the Native Americans' land, into a different blog post, another day...)

What I MEAN is, who can't love being with good people and eating lots of good food? So we take a long weekend and stuff ourselves.

We finally got together with Amelia, Frank's cousin, who lives just an hour away from us in Rhode Island. I remember her 2 kids years ago, being very small, and now they are both very TALL! :) Katherine (senior) and Sean (9th grade) are a lot of fun. Here are some group cousin shots, although I don't really know what relation the "children-of-first-cousins" are.
We were entertained by good company, DDR, and of course their cat.

The next day, we got to explore Rhode Island some, having never been there before. It is the smallest state, with the shortest motto: "Hope." We toured the State House.
Very ornate.




The lobby houses this cannon with a cannonball wedged in.




We also visited the Roger Williams National Memorial. Williams founded Providence, after much persecution and being driven from Massachusetts as an outlaw.
This Christian preacher believed in the separation of church and state, since the government was run at that time by church officials who had little to no tolerance for a lot of things. He wanted a place of religious freedom, where people could practice, or not practice religion, in a manner they felt was right, and not be given grief about it. A very radical position for him to take, 300 years ago.

The park ranger we met was a WEALTH of information, working first as an archaeologist in the area for 10 yrs, then as a park ranger, for the past 15 years or so. He made it all really interesting, too--that was a treat.

Our last stop was the RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design. It's an art school, of sorts, with the design being textiles, architecture, sculpture, glass blowing, and more. My favorite was the glass. This particular artist was fine with people taking pictures of his work, so here is my favorite display:

Now you know a bit about Rhode Island.

The official name, by the way, is a mouthful: "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." Have a great week!

P.S. Yesterday Frank filled up the car at $1.79 per gallon. Can anybody beat that?

The Tile Guy

Once upon a time, there was a Tile Guy. He was very competent, came in and did his job well, and cleaned up after himself. He tiled the bathroom upstairs, the shower walls and floor, and the kitchen floor. A personable fellow, he was a joy to be around, and left the job without a trace of his being there. The Whitesells were delighted.

(And then I woke up laughing...hard...
or maybe I was crying...it's so hard to tell the difference sometimes...)

I wish so much that I could tell you that story! Oh, please! And maybe I could finish it with "I even recommended him to my friends!" YES!

HA! Instead, I have plodded through torturous weeks, day after day of bracing myself: what is coming next??!?

I will say that he did a good job with the bathroom floor and shower walls. THEN there was the shower floor. Finish that one, and it's covered with haze, I can't tell the colors I have picked out from the grout. I clean it up -- repeatedly -- and see that "Hmmm, when I turn on the water in this shower for 15 seconds, the water pools up in this corner and on this side..."

Days Later, he tears out the shower floor and starts over. The SECOND time around, it actually looks good, nice slant, drains well. I am cleaning it up after he leaves, and hey, wait...he didn't tile the inside portion under the threshold...

Days Later, he comes back to tile that little part, and also do the kitchen floor...he leaves, and wait, why does this row of tiles in the kitchen look so slanted, and why did he do such a good job cutting around this corner and such a terrible job with this identical corner on the other side?

Days Later, he is back to re-do that row and corner in the kitchen. He leaves, and THEN Frank notices the shower upstairs, the new underneath tile he laid by the threshold...he didn't grout it!??! (I'm dying a slow and painful death, here...)

Days Later, he comes back (4 days ago) for that missed grout. He leaves, THEN the carpenter drills into the kitchen floor to put in the refrigerator water line...drills through the grout and the tile CRACKS...why??! Because the Tile Guy left spaces in the cement there, and he didn't do a complete job with that layer, there was a cracked tile needing to be replaced and re-grouted. Sigh.

Well, HERE is your CHANCE! Please, give me some perspective!! I'm asking everybody for a few sentences of your own Contractor Horror Story. I know you have a better story than mine. Let's hear it! I may as well laugh a little from YOUR hindsight story. :)

Love, Kari

Many Different, Varied Places

Hi!

Well, another weekend. Not that you'd know it...we spent the entire day Saturday on little pieces of yes, you guessed it!! But believe it or not, I am not going to write about the above-mentioned topic. I am sick of those.

A good friend of mine commented that I have lived a lot of places. Which place have I liked the best, and why?

This has made me think. I am a little surprised when I list the places I have lived. It SOUNDS like a lot of places, but it doesn't FEEL like that many. I was born in Washington state (2 years--don't remember that one), then Arizona, Missouri, Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma (summers & holidays during college...don't know if that counts), then as a married person Michigan, Colorado, California, Mexico City, and Massachusetts. Here is a photo narrative, and no, I did not take these pictures! Most are ClipArt from Microsoft Word.

I have some great memories of each of these places! Although I don't remember living in WA, I have visited there as an adult. It is very green because of the beautiful rain there.



We were in Arizona until 4th grade for me. I think temperature doesn't affect kids as much as it does adults, because I don't remember complaining about the heat. Instead, I remember exploring the desert and looking for lizards, and also the big saguaro cactus everywhere.








Missouri was pretty humid in the summertime! I remember playing with our dog (a black Peekapoo named Macho) in the fields and along a creek close to our house.
(OK, so this photo is not even CLOSE to what Macho looked like, but I couldn't find a Peekapoo picture that wasn't copyrighted!!!!!)

Then there was Colorado. The mountains there are so beautiful. That is where I learned to ski. Colorado is a GREAT place.

I went to College in Utah--beautiful mountains there, too.

Oklahoma? Nice wheat, I believe...or is Kansas known for wheat? Anyway here is a good wheat photo.
Michigan must be remembered for the University of Michigan.


Then Colorado again...ditto above.

California has very walkable beaches! One of my favorite parts of living close to the ocean is walking in the sand along the water.


Mexico City has so much history, including but not limited to all the pyramid sites. It was grand to be so close to so many cultural gems.

And now, Massachusetts! I have commented on the fall colors in a previous blog. Just breathtaking.
I believe I will paraphrase my mom's or my dad's saying about living in different places. "My favorite place to live is the place I'm living in today."

Enjoy something about your week! Love, Kari

Teresa's Day!

Hello!

Here is another post which is a "break" from the dreaded

This Tuesday is Teresa's Birthday!!!!!!! Actually it is a very COOL birthday for her: she turns ELEVEN on ELEVEN/ELEVEN this year!

AND she gets the day off school, so all her classmates can thank her because they also get the day off for her birthday. (Well, ok, coincidentally it is also Veteran's Day, but the REAL reason there is no school is to celebrate her day...)

Here is a chance to reminisce, and show a few Teresa photos. I will also give some adjectives that remind me of Teresa.

9 months


3 years





















Last winter, sledding in southern CA


Teresa is:

TERRIFIC
ENERGETIC
RUNNER
EXCEPTIONAL
SMART
AMAZING

She is also kind, caring, thoughtful, and has a contagious smile. She loves to have fun more than anything, and here is last week's answer to raking the hundred million leaves that have fallen on our front yard:




We think Teresa is just grand!

David's Day!

Hi!

This blog is to take a restful moment from the dreaded
TIRED are WE of living in chaos, boxes, wood and nails, setting up cots in the back of Home Depot because we just have "5 more things" to decide on and buy. Enough already.

David turned 13 yesterday! Happy Birthday, David! Frank found our "Happy Birthday" banner and some balloons, and they bought some for breakfast.

Here's the banner, and yes those are the new cabinets in the background.






Then here is David, after lighting candles on his very own donut! (OK--he ALSO got a cake and opened presents later in the day--not TOTALLY neglected, after all...)

I can't say the rest of the day was spectacular--we unpacked boxes, raked leaves and ran errands...we promised both David & Teresa a couple of fun family activities later in the month, to make up for not really doing "birthday activities" at this crazy time where normalcy has gone out the window.

Here is a "Tribute to David" that I made a few months back, in another lifetime when I used to scrapbook and do other things besides

The fact is, David is a pretty neat part of our family. We think he's awesome. You can click on this to enlarge.



Happy Birthday, David!