Happy New Year!!!

These past two weeks were not necessarily packed with events, but we had some get-togethers and Sundays are still busy... so I didn't get around to updating. But here's what's happened.

Mom and Dad Misseldine were still in town until the 30th of December. So Julie and I were able to get to the temple and hang-out without the kids.  The kids had fun too, so it was win-win-win. Lulu and Pizza had fun at the Portland Children's Museum. I got some pictures of them at the museum from Mom and Dad.

So on Friday, (the day Mom and Dad left Oregon to go back home) Julie, Lulu, and Mom went to a yard sale in our area whilst I was still in bed sleeping. Julie and I had agreed previous to the yard sale date that a purchase would be warranted if she thought it was a good deal and sends me a picture.

So I received a text of her in front of this play structure. I half-asleepingly texted her in the affirmative. I rolled over and went back to sleep. 

Upon returning home (what seemed like 10 minutes later) Julie informed me that I was to go and get the purchase and that Brother So-and-so was going to meet Dad and I there (which, she attempted to ask me if I was OK doing while I rolled out the bed, but didn't wait for me to answer.)

And when I got there, I was kind of annoyed at the sheer amount of work it would take to get the thing disassembled and put into our Van. Luckily, Bro. Nadauld was there and had brought some quality tools which I don't own. My cheap hammer broke after trying in vain to remove one of the thousands of nails the architect of this monstrosity had used to reinforce the 1/2"x 8" bolts. We had brought a couple of crow-bars--but because of the sheer tightness of each fastened joint they weren't much use without a hammer. Two hours later, we loaded the muddy and nail-ridden boards into Brother Nadauld's truck and our van. I felt so bad about imposing on him, since he had told us at first he didn't have that much time. But we fed him lunch and he seemed generally happy to help us. Maybe we should give him a Thank You card...

It's waterlogged and some of the support beams and bolts and stuff needs to be replaced, but it's cool to have a potential play structure. I hope I can get ambitious enough to build it again.

Finally, as I said before, I've been working on this DIY Camera Stabilizer. Here it is. It's got some issues (like it rocks up and down after I stop walking and the bearings are loose which makes the rig over-rotate when I pan), but it's way smoother than my raw hand-held camerawork. Here's some pics. Let me know if you want any information on how I made it.