We Like Earl

Hola!

HURRICANE EARL. The title of this blog is to show gratitude for the change in weather. Last week was so hot and humid (95 degrees with 85% humidity=YUK), I was going to just melt. But "Hurricane Earl" came through, and for all the hype (you should have heard the drama, for Pete's sake), we only got a few hours of rain on Friday night. This is a cool Internet satellite image I found. It does look pretty intimidating. The coast and Cape Cod received more, but our storm was pretty mild.

What it did, however, was reduce the humidity and decrease our temps back down into the 70's. Whew! Thank you, Earl.

DAVID's BACK. Well! Cause for celebration at our house: David had his 6-month check with the orthopaedic surgeon, who did the spinal fusion last March. The biggest questions concerned what activities he could participate in: for the last 6 months, David has been limited on activities. And...

He is good to go! He wanted to participate in Cross-Country again this fall, and...he can!
He asked about rock-climbing and rapelling. Lifting weights as part of his sports workout. Climbing, jumping, etc., etc. It's all good.

The doctor DID recommend waiting a little on one request: the trampoline. Maybe he should take it slow on that, since he hasn't done any real exercise for 6 months. But his back looks great.

KARA's LEG. Kara also had her follow-up appointment, and her leg is healing very well. She is still going to physical therapy but can resume "normal activity" as she feels like she can. She is not quite back to "normal," of course. She limps some, and puts ice on her leg after she's been out playing for awhile, or walking a lot. She has been on her bicycle, inline skates, and she wants to be in soccer again...we'll see.

TUTORING. I started tutoring again, same Elementary Schools as last year. It will be 3 days a week, with the English Language Learners (ELL, an interchangable phrase with ESL, English as a Second Language).

BASEMENT. We are almost to the point of feeling like we have our house back. Just moving a few more things out to the garage, and of course labeling all those bins, so Mom is not the only one who knows where things are. Maybe I'll post some basement photos next time or so--then you can see results of a few of these looooooooooong projects we've plodded through.

Have a great week! Kari

Another House Saturday

Hola--

Another House Saturday. We made it through another Saturday. Yessssss! It's been all about the house lately, I'm sure you're getting tired of it. I know I am! Teresa, too: "I just wish all this house stuff would be over with..." (I feel your pain, Teresa!)

Loam and Gravel. Yesterday we spent our hours hauling loam (dirt) to one side of the house, and hauling gravel to the other side. Did you know they have "regular" gravel, and "rounded" gravel? We chose "rounded." It's not jagged or sharp, as the name implies. Fewer injuries that way. It also looks more "landscaped," in my opinion.

Cutting Shelves. We threw out all our particle board shelves that we had in the garage. Particle board grows mold very easily, and we'll have none of that, thank you very much!!! The experiment was to buy plywood, cut it and paint it: mold spores will not permeate the paint.

So, Frank cut shelves. The kids sanded and painted them. They are drying as I type this. Of course, it took longer than we thought. (No. Really??) We will cut and paint shelves for one more round, saving 4 shelving units (18 shelves total). Then we'll decide what makes sense from there.

Woodpecker Hole. Frank also patched a woodpecker hole: yes, a woodpecker tried to drill a hole in our house...sigh.

(My friend told me they're buying a house that "needs work." I did not say it out loud, but inside I screamed "RUN!! RUN AWAY FAST!!")

IN OTHER NEWS.

Kara had a good x-ray last Thursday! She can slowly use the boot less and less over the next 2 weeks. The bone is healing well and for that we are extremely grateful. She's still going to physical therapy and doing exercises to strengthen the muscles and increase flexibility.

Fisher Cat. Teresa and I saw a fisher cat in the backyard this week! Bigger than cats, kind of a weasel-y face, and furry. They really have no enemies except humans, and they're agressive: a little mean. You just leave them alone, and walk away slowly. Now we know what might have dug around the wasp nests we had, and possibly what brought about the demise of the neighbor's cat a couple of weeks ago. :(

That sums it up for the Boston Whitesells. May your week be full of productivity and progress! Kari

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?

Hola!

OK, I have to admit, I mostly post the "fun" stuff that we do, on this blog. It's more motivating and enjoyable for me to share, post pictures, and journal the fun memories that we have as a family or with friends.

But believe it or not, we also do tasks around our old house, many of which are long, boring, and tedious! They need to be done if we want to still HAVE a house.

GARAGE EEEEEEEWW. It has been hot and humid in New England this summer. We came back from our family reunion vacation in July to ...(drumroll)... MOLD in the garage. Fuzzy growth on tons of our camping gear, sports equipment, a big desk we have out there, etc., etc. Nasty.

Lest you have forgotten about our basement renovation (we try hard to, but haven't): our house has been a disaster since about March, because of flooding this past spring. The remodeling goes on. Then add to that: we have been emptying the garage piece by piece, recycling all cardboard boxes (mold grows easily in boxes and particle board) and putting our stuff in plastic bins.

We have been EMPTYING the garage, but hmmmm, surprise, it all has to GO somewhere. So all these new plastic bins? Have been relocated to other rooms in the house: bedrooms, the living room, the family room...you get the picture. We can barely walk through the house.

Yesterday, after weeks of working on this, we finally got to the "empty garage stage." (Here is a photo from 2 years ago, so you remember the general size of the garage.) We treated the walls, ceiling and floor in there with a non-toxic, mold-killing mixture. It was about a 7-hour procedure.

This whole process has taken...it has seemed like forever. The last 5 months have been slow and torturous.

FALLING TREE PROJECT. Then by late afternoon, Frank moved on to another project. He had to cut down our poor tree in the backyard, that has been leaning further and further to the ground.

He took it down with the chain saw and he found many inhabitants inside: 1) carpenter ants, 2) termites, AND 3) two kinds of beetles. No wonder it had started to fall down...this tree didn't have a chance!

Now we have a stump. It's a lot harder to eliminate a stump than I thought. The whole bottom of the tree is a huge knot, plus all those roots and all those bugs. Frank's entertainment last night was lighting a fire underneath it and trying to burn out the bugs.

IN OTHER NEWS. Meanwhile, David & Teresa have been mowing lawns for some extra cash this summer, and a little babysitting.

David went to a 2-day scout activity. They worked on merit badges that have been retired--you can't earn them today. It was a special thing for the 100-year anniversary of scouting. He earned 4: Pathfinding, Tracking, Signaling, and Carpentry.

Kara has a removable "boot" and she goes to physical therapy twice a week. They have her do exercises in the pool and she does other exercises here at the house each day, to strengthen muscles and increase flexibility. She goes to the doctor this week and she'll have more x-rays taken.

I'm having the kids figure out what they want to do in their waning weeks of summer! They only have 3 weeks before school starts.

Have a great week! Kari

Washington D.C.

Hola!

We just returned from our jaunt to Washington D.C.

The timing of this trip was pretty much for David and Frank to be able to go to a little bit of the Boy Scout Jamboree 2010, their 100-year celebration. To send a scout for the entire 10 days, was around $2200. We quickly calculated and decided, "We could take our whole family down for that much!" (And actually, this little vacation was even less expensive because Frank's sister, Dana, lives just outside D.C. in northern Virginia. She was very kind to let us stay with her.)

Anyway. True to this Whitesell family's form, we crammed as much as we could into each day. Here's our summary...

DRIVING. Mapquest said this trip would take us 8.5 hours. Considering we would drive through New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. to get to Dana's house, we scoffed and said "add 4 hours to that!" Luck was with us and we made it down in 9.5 hours, and back in 9. Whew!

D.C. TRAFFIC. We avoided rush hours, and did relatively well, actually.

D.C. PARKING. No need to worry about this one: there quite simply IS NO PUBLIC PARKING IN DOWNTOWN D.C.!!! Nope. Nada. None. Ridiculous. So much to do and see, and these multiple thousands of tourists are supposed to share approximately 12 parking places. Frank would drop us off, then drive around 25 minutes to find a space. Feed the meter, watch your clock, and go move the car--most said "2 hours max." At any given moment, you could look up and down the street and see no fewer than 3 meter people giving out tickets.

WASHINGTON MONUMENT. Striking and beautiful, we hiked around it (photo in header). We would have loved to go up the elevator also and see the city view, but tickets, while free, disappeared quickly every day, by 10 a.m. It was hard for us to get into the city before that; like I mentioned before, we avoided rush hours.

SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS. We went to the National Air and Space Museum (see photo), the Museum of Natural History, the Postal Museum, the Gallery of Art, and the Zoo. Each is an amazing collection--huge, beautiful, clean, and free to the public. I don't mind one bit that my tax money goes towards the upkeep of these valuable resources! They are incredible.

PRINTING MONEY. We also visited the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Here are the kids (Kara, Teresa, & their cousin Nick) next to money sheets totaling a million dollars.

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE. This kind of surprised me, but my very favorite place that we visited was Mt. Vernon, the home of General and President George Washington. A beautiful, huge complex of many buildings and gardens, set right on the Potomac River.

They tried to make the complex self-contained: they grew their own food and had a blacksmith shop. We learned about the leadership and life of our amazing first President. He could have stayed President for life, but instead served two terms and handed power over to the next leader.

Sadly, after so much success as a General and 2 terms as president, he went home to live out his days, and only lived 2 more years. He thought he was catching a cold, but it was some infection, and he died within a few days. He was only 67 yrs. old.

It's a lovely home, though (see header). Seems he was a sort of celebrity near the end, and people kept showing up to stay as houseguests of the Washingtons. One year, Mt. Vernon had (drumroll...) SEVEN HUNDRED overnight guests! Quite an expensive feat to feed and provide liquor for all those people.

Vacations are a wonderful chance to remember that there's a world out there, with beautiful things in it.

Well, now we're back! Let the house problems continue. I'd list them all but I think it would make me cry...I know that patience is a virtue. I'd just prefer other people to have it instead of me. :)

Have a great week, Kari

Phase Three

Hola!

Well, another milestone for Kara this week-- Let's recap.

First it was the Nightmare on Memorial Day: Broken leg -- 7 sheets of drywall, roughly 400 lbs. fell on her leg and broke both bones a few inches above her ankle.

Phase one: huge thigh cast, heavy-heavy, using a wheelchair for the last 3 weeks of school.

Phase two: shorter cast, below the knee--MUCH lighter, mostly on crutches but sometimes in the wheelchair. And waterproof! Swim, shower--get in the water and it's fine.

Now, for phase three. Last Thursday (drum-roll, please)...she got the cast cut off...

...and she got an "Aircast," like a ski boot with an air bladder in it. She can inflate it, or deflate it to her own comfort. She can take it off to SLEEP at night! Yessssssssssss! If she's just sitting around for awhile on the computer, or reading, or watching a movie, she can take it off. Or if she's in the water to shower, or in the swimming pool to play (gently, still, no horseplay or serious racing/pushing off the side or anything).

The amazing thing for me is to look at the xrays and see actual growth. Yes, even in this past month, her bones have been growing together and over time will grow straight again. You can see right at the break, little spider-web-looking new growth is filling in. (Go ahead, enlarge it--it's really cool!)

This aircast will be on for at least 4 weeks. (Yes, that will pretty much be her WHOLE summer, sigh...) But we are happy for the good news on growth. She walks around withOUT crutches, and that's pretty cool, too.

Here is her cast-less leg. Her healthy leg has a calf--just by walking around each day, your calf muscle stays toned. She hasn't used the other calf for 6 weeks, so it kind of disappeared.

In Other Whitesell News, David gets to go to a Leadership training this week in Phoenix, with 6 other students from his school. The rest of us will drive to Washington D.C. on Tuesday, and he'll meet us later in the week. He and Frank will attend a couple of days of the Scout Jamboree while the rest of the family tours a little.

Frank and I spent Saturday in the garage fighting mold and mildew: throwing stuff away, making donation piles and putting previously boxed items into plastic bins.

(Did you ever wake up and say "Gee, I sure wish I could go through all the vivid and tedious MOTIONS of moving, without actually moving?" If so, you have got to try this! It's such a rare treat... :0) )

Stay cool this week! Kari

New York excursion

Hello!

We drove in last night from a few days' road trip to New York! Not the city, this time. We'll save that for another vacation. We drove "Upstate."

PALMYRA. We started out with Palmyra, a tiny little village, which has an annual pageant. This show, depicting different scripture stories, has cast members dress up in ancient time period costumes. With 800 in the cast, a huge set up on the hill, and 6000 chairs down on the field below, it's pretty impressive!

There are also a lot of church history sites right around Palmyra. We got to visit them during the day -- the Smith family home, and the printing press building where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed.

Then we saw the pageant that night.

NIAGARA FALLS. After Palmyra, we had to zip up to the border, and visit Niagara Falls National Park. Frank and I had been there previously (and I went with my family when I was in college, too). But we wanted the kids to go, and I could actually visit often and not be tired of it. What a beautiful place! It's a popular spot for people from all over the world. But even with so many tourists, there are enough trails and activities that we didn't feel like it was too-too crowded.

The Canadians may be a bit biased, but in this case I think they are right...the Canadian view is better. If you can, you should take a passport and view the falls from the Canadian side -- you can see more of them. Also, New York has not built up hotels and tall buildings RIGHT next to the falls as much as Canada has. If you stand in Canada and take pics of New York, your photos will have more trees and fewer neon-sign buildings.

The American Falls are the straight stretch, then Bridal Veil Falls are the small ones to the right of American Falls. Horseshoe Falls curve around at the other end, like a horseshoe.

It's all beautiful, though, either side. They light up the falls at night, and 3 nights a week they do fireworks over the falls. Frank took some great night-time shots. Here's one of them.

Here is everybody before our "Cave of the Winds" walk, where you get ponchos and sandals to walk right under the falls.

We also rode the "Maid of the Mist" boat. It takes you into the mist of the Horseshoe Falls.

We had good weather for the trip--only got rained on when we were driving a few times.

We have such beauty in this country. I could visit national parks every week! This one was also very clean. With so many people visiting, that was a pleasant surprise.

Another perk on this trip: no stomach flu. :)

Have a great week! Kari

Time Away with the Fam

Hola!

Well, we made it back. My family had our every-five-years-or-so family reunion at Aspen Grove Family Camp in Utah! I put our backdrop on the header. Just beautiful.









Of course there are tons of activities at a family camp, and the best part was that I didn't have to cook! :) One of Teresa's highlights was the High Ropes course:

















The cousins tried out slingshots.






One of Kara's highlights was being in the pool--yes, her cast is truly waterproof! Unlimited time in the water, if she wants.








We took a morning to go horseback riding.

















And here is Frank playing horseshoes...he's actually pretty good.











The flights to and from were of course loaded with adventure, from construction detours getting us lost so we almost missed the first flight, to delayed flights later in the day, to losing our luggage! Luckily, the losing luggage was on the way BACK, so we could just come home and have them bring it to us another day.

The one big bummer was the stomach flu. :( We hit the very unusual week where stomach flu spread like wildfire through the whole camp, for Pete's sake! Our week, there were a total of 450 campers attending. Probably 75% of the campers caught this silly stomach flu at some point during the week. Of our 21 who went, only 3 stayed healthy. All the others were sick in bed for 24-48 hours during the week sometime. Kara's age group had 22 kids in it, and one day they only had 6 show up! All the rest were sick in bed.

Oh well, what can you do about that...? (Wash your hands, for one thing...but THAT's another soap box for another blog entry, of course--)

After a lovely week in cooler, dry temps, we are now back to the humidity of the east coast.

Have a great weekend, Kari