April 23, 2000 - Happy Easter, Everyone!! The kids' spring break officially ended today and they are back to school tomorrow. Mary Ann appears to have caught a flu and is feeling very achy with a bad sinus headache. Her dad had some complications this weekend, but she doesn't want to go see him for fear she would get him sick. I finally got the saline level in the aquarium to a normal level and I think we will get some fish tomorrow. We now have 5 fish tanks in our house!! Both Mary Ann and I had to work today. Work was work with the exception of a very large potluck. Between chores I grazed and I'm feeling it now. I redesigned the pages just to give it a new look, let me know what you think.
April 20, 2000 - What a week. I took the van in last Tuesday and this Tuesday and got a heck of a lot repaired for a nasty price of around $1250. I made the kids wait outside as I wrote the check (I didn't want them to see me cry :^> ). With that done, I headed up to Nancy and Dave's house Tuesday afternoon and helped him empty and move his Aquarium to its new stand. If you've been following here, you know what that means ... I can finally set up my Aquarium. I paid him $630 for the 65 gallon acrylic tank, the stand, filter, 80 lb. of crushed coral, and two sets of coral. Really, I just paid the price of his new stand and $200 worth of live sand to replace his crushed coral (he's making a reef tank). Yesterday I bought about $250 worth of aquarium odds and ends and set up the tank .... and here it is.
It matches our living room nicely. Dave gave me so much coral, I have less than half of it in the tank. The stand was a hand-painted original by Nancy and is really a piece of art. We plan to get some fish in a few days, and we have a very good biological base in that Dave's crushed coral came straight from his tank. It may sound like we paid a lot for this, but Dave was really generous with what he gave us and giving up this stand was very hard for him. We thank you guys and we will certainly enjoy this tank. The weather has been in the 60's all week and it afforded me some time to do yard work last Sunday. I've talked with Mary Ann and we plan to redo our front yard this year. We plan to cut down our walnut and ornamental plum trees, lay down some topsoil and sod, put in some beauty bark and flowers, level a parking area with some gravel, and put in a a white picket fence with a gate. I'm going to pick up about 4-5 extra shifts over the next 2-3 months and I figure I can cover the expenses that way. In any case, I'll post before, during, and after pictures. We stopped by the hospital this morning to see Mary Ann's dad. He really is having a hard time and is experiencing a few more complications that have gotten him down. We've been worried about him and are hoping things get better for him real soon.
April 14, 2000 - all right!!! The weekend is here. During my afternoon break at work today, I jumped unto www.mensa.org and took the Mensa workout. The Mensa workout is a 30 question test to determine if you have the mental stuff to be a cerebral heavyweight. You have thirty minutes to complete the test. I, unfortunately, had less than 20 minutes, and therefore skipped 3 questions that were giving me problems. Even so, I got 26 correct and am in the 96th percentile, BABY!!! How do you like them apples? Given that everyone in my family are naturally as smart as I am, I challenge you all to give it a try. I'll be happy to post the score of whomever is the top brainiac of the clan :^) So, everyone, flex the biggest muscle you have and let's find a Mensa amongst us. Heather celebrated her 12th birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday, not-so-little little girl. We are proud of you and love you much. Tonight, I also added definitive proof to this page of the existence of aliens amongst us. You will believe. Mary Ann's dad got through his surgery this week with little complications. Although he's been in a lot of pain, things are going good and hopefully he'll get to go home soon.
April 11, 2000 - Hi, everybody. Mary Ann's dad is suppose to have his surgery today. They did his oral surgery last Thursday and he was scheduled for bypass yesterday morning, but was bumped. Mary Ann is planning to go into work early today in hopes of getting to the hospital early this evening. Her aunts came in from Alaska at 5am yesterday and Mary Ann had picked them up at the airport, so she is pretty tired. Zephen earned his fire chit and knife chit on the boy scout trip and so I gave him a pocket knife last night (with the understanding it goes in his camping gear and IS NOT played with). I was going to try to sleep in this morning, but work called looking for someone to come in ... and once I'm awake, I'm awake. I need to talk to my friend, Dave, this week, to see what we can do about the fishtank stand. I'd like to get our saltwater aquarium going real soon. Heather's birthday is this Thursday, so I also need to find her some gifts today. I will also be bringing Zephen over to the Covington Library after school today so that he may volunteer.
April 7, 2000 - Well, Mary Ann's sister, Jean, and her nieces went back to Fairbanks on Wednesday. Mary Ann's dad will have oral surgery Monday and is tentatively scheduled for his heart surgery on Wednesday. The week seemed to have gone by pretty quick. Zephen went with his boy scout troop to the coast for the weekend today. It looks like the weather's going to be pretty nice this weekend, so hopefully he'll have a good time. I have to work this weekend and I'm hoping it will go by pretty quick. I've been going on very little sleep the past week and I just want to get done with work. I ordered an inexpensive digital camera last week and have been playing with it since Monday. It was less than $100 on sale and can do 640X480 resolution, just good enough for some pictures to put on the web like ...
So, I'll be posting a few more pictures soon :^)
April 3, 2000 - Man ... the weather has just remained beautiful the past few days. Mary Ann, Heather, and I went up to the UW Medical Center yesterday and spent the day with Mary Ann's dad. He's very upbeat and in relatively good spirits and talked my ear off with several of his stories of his military career and afterwards up in Alaska. It was truly entertaining and his tales were almost unbelievable. We waited all day for the rest of Mary Ann's family to arrive, but they had a late night Saturday and the trip from Bremerton is a long one, so they didn't arrive at the hospital until 6-7 PM. Mary Ann, Heather, and I took a few walks along the ship canal during the day (it is just behind the UWMC) and later we walked over to Husky Stadium along the western bank of Lake Washington. The University has a waterfront activity center there, and because I am staff, we were able to rent a canoe. We paddled across the ship canal into the Arboretum - a large waterway of nesting water fowl, calm water and islands, nestled within the confines of a large park. It was a great day to be outside and it was a good break from the hospital. The rest of the family arrived at UWMC as we were playing on the water. Mary Ann's nieces, Michele and Patricia, spent the night last evening and did some catching up with their aunt. I think Heather enjoyed having some older girls around as well. I worked today and missed out on another warm sunny afternoon. Although they initially planned Ervin's bypass surgery for tomorrow, it looks like it has been postponed for later in the week.
March 2000
February 2000
December 1999/January 2000
