The biggest and most excellent news of August was that Opa moved back out east.
We are so happy that he is here now. On his first weekend here we went to Walmart to get prescriptions switched over and got new haircuts.
He is as expected a joy to be around.
In August I found many 4 leaf clovers and used them as a talisman of good fortune whenever my anxiety got high.
The eggs under the milkweed leaves hatched and we got tiny monarch caterpillars.
The heat turned out peppers red but not hot. I wish they were hotter. The garden did pretty well this year so I wont complain but I am open to your suggestions on getting my hot peppers hot.
We went for a few hot weather hikes, always to water.
I worked on one of my longer term 3D printing projects. This is a 3D printed ukulele. I am interested in the ability to recreate historical instruments and museum pieces at home using the printer and this ukulele though not historical is a sort of proof of concept project. It works fairly well and even though its not as resonant as a wooden one is definitely playable.
We went up to Hagerstown to check out Aunt Lore and Opa's new place.
Its quite nice and within walking distance to both his church and her work so that's outstanding.
We are hoping to have lots of regular family get togethers as Hagerstown is only an hour away.
I went for a Haven group hike up to Cunningham Falls.
Megan got some braces on her bottom teeth and her top teeth are nearly straight.
I made 20ish breakfast burritos to get us ready for the new school year.
The kids are back in school full time and in person now. I don't think any of us were entirely ready for that.
Megan's class (all too young to be vaccinated) is 33 kids with no distancing and dubious ability to stay off each other and keep masks on.
We have had several emails from the school announcing that different kids in her class have Covid but because of privacy they cant say who...just someone in her class. There is an email for in the class and a different one for in the class and sitting within 6 feet.
Kiernan's school changed the way they did things last year when they were only in half time. This year all the hallways are open and the classes are all over the building.
Thank goodness he got vaccinated. We've gotten emails about Covid cases in his classes too, but of course they are less concerning.
I went in with him to do a walk though. I was very excited because I hadn't been able to see it before. When we went for 5th grade orientation they said the tour was for students and that parents would get their own. Then when 6th grade back to school night was supposed to happen we had Covid. Then when they went back to part time they wouldn't let anyone who wasn't a student in. But this time (yay for grade 7) they let in one parent.
Man his school is big! His schedule has him bouncing around the building like a ping pong ball. They have no lockers this year because they don't want the kids crowding together more than necessary so they all have giant backpacks.
He's going to be quite fit by the time school gets out in June.
So I cooked big breakfast burritos and crossed my fingers.
I am working on printing a Star Wars Stormtrooper blaster.
It came out not so great so I decided to make it look beat up and well used. I got to try a lot of new techniques for this. I did PLA welding for the first time and also used some auto repair bondo on some of the cracks. Banana for scale.
I took a friend from work and Megan on a one day beach trip to Ocean City. My friend (Lucero) hadnt been to the ocean before so that was pretty great.
We had a fun summer picnic with Kung Fu.
There was a giant water balloon and water gun battle plus a good potluck.
They even made these banners for the teams.
Kiernan did a little fishing. I am looking to get him a better fishing rod. Anyone know of a good and not to cheap starter rod for freshwater ideally for catfish and trout?
I took the kids to the Smithsonian. It was a stupidly hot day and they did not thank me.
I tried to use a stencil with middling success.
Wegmans had garlic shoots and said to treat them like green beans. So I cut them up and fried them with butter. They are sweeter and more mild than garlic bulbs and of course they are garlicy. I love them.
Our butterfly bush was doing a bang up job. I wish we had more bees but we are getting a ton of butterflies.
I finished these two door knockers from labyrinth
I printed them from a file I got on Etsy then primed and multi layer painted them.
The coper color and blue and black layers are supposed to make them look weathered.
You can see here some of the bondo and bends on the blaster as well. I am leaning a good bit and having fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment