Basement Bathroom Remodel...

The basement bathroom in our house was in need of some freshening up when we bought the house almost five years ago. The bathroom had a new vanity, cabinet, and tile floor but the walls had ugly wallpaper that was in poor condition, the trim work was mismatched, and the window blinds were also ugly and broken.

We figured since we were having Shannon's mom and step-dad up from Texas for Will's birthday we would try to get it finished by then. The first step was taking down the old mirror. Next is was removing the wallpaper. I think it took me about six hours total over a couple days to get it all down and the walls wiped clean of the glue. Shannon (who is a master of design) picked the colors and plans for the bathroom and it involved painting the existing trim work semi-gloss bright white. This would consist of two coats of primer, then two coats of paint. However, when I went to remove the old baseboards I found a little problem. Mold. I knew when we bought the house, the upstairs bathroom faucet leaked and caused some water damage in the basement bathroom. I knew they did some drywall work, but it appears they didn't get all of the mold/water issues fixed. I ended up having to remove the bottom two feet of drywall from behind the toilet and under the window. I didn't notice anything still wet or damp, just mold that needed to be cleaned. Long story short, I replaced all the trim, drywall, and some of the studs. Everything else was washed/wiped down with a 10% bleach solution. When I was done, I felt better about the mold and the bathroom smelled great.

Once I got past the little issue with the mold, I was able to get going on the painting. Two coats of primer and paint on all the existing trim that was to be painted, and all the new trim (including the new wainscoting). Then two coats of semi-gloss bright white on the ceiling. Finished up with two coats of semi-gloss blue paint called "Mesmerize." After all the paint was up, we got the wainscoting installed, trimmed, baseboards on.

The next step came installing the new blinds, closet doors, mirror, shaving mirror, light fixture, paper holder, and sink faucet. Shannon finished the remodel by getting new bath mats, trash can, and drinking glasses. We used some of the existing white towels we had and the end result was awesome!

I have to say Shannon has awesome taste! I would have never envisioned anything close to this! It looks like a spa! We have a couple things we still need to do to call it 100%, we have to paint the closet doors and redo some of the shelving inside the closet. Originally we were going to paint the vanity semi-gloss bright white and get a new vanity top. At this point I just don't know. I don't think the wood color looks bad and the vanity top sort of matches, but looks a little dull next to the bright white paint. What do you think? Feel free to leave me a comment!

Putting Down a Screaming Chicken...

10/21/10

Mileage: 88,443

This above date marked the last ride for the Trans Am for the 2010 driving season! I had driven it to work the last couple of times I drove it and actually needed to turn the heater on a little bit on the way home! For some reason, this October got pretty cold, pretty quick, with only an occasional warm day. I had a chance to get the Trans Am cleaned up real good both inside and out, got it parked close to the wall of the garage and got the car cover on with time to spare before the first snow fall!

This season, I logged 539 miles on it! I used it mainly to go to work but did go out for a few date nights with Shannon and attend couple car shows. I really want to try and get some of the parts that I have purchased for the car painted over the winter so they can be ready to install in the spring. I also need to do a mechanical repair in the spring before I drive it very far. The heater core is starting to leak, which is a common problem with GM F-Body cars, but the job takes about 10 hours to do (it can be read about HERE) and involves taking most of the dashboard apart!

So, there in the garage the Trans Am will sit in hibernation until next April! I am still planning on starting it once during the winter and letting it run for a half hour or so, then trickle charge the battery full again!

A New (Old) Motor!

As you may have noticed in the duck hunting posts over the last couple years, HERE and HERE, we have not been using a motor on the duck boat. This was mainly because the old Johnson seen HERE, has not been running at 100%. We have done some work to it, but most likely need to crack the case open and install new rings and just haven't had the time.

A while back my Uncle Lee had mentioned that he had his Uncle Jerry's (my Great-Uncle?) old boat motor. We started asking questions about it and he mentioned he wasn't going to use it for anything. We made arraignments for him to bring it from Mandan, ND to the Twin Cities next time he came into town. He dropped it off on 10/14/10 and just gave it to me! I was very honored and thankful!

The motor is a 1951 Scott-Atwater 5 hp. The model is a 1-16, it has the gas tank located on the top of the motor, and even has reverse. A website Dad found (HERE) claims the 1-16 means this motor will propel a boat 16 mph in ideal conditions. I'm not sure on the logic of that claim!

The motor is in wonderful shape considering it is almost 60 years old! It hardly has a scratch or dent on it! We haven't had a chance to run it yet, but it sounds like it did run when it was put away. The tank is totally dry but clean. We did a quick spark test and one of the cylinders does not have a spark, but I'm not that worried about it, I'm guessing a loose wire is the cause, but I won't know for sure until we get it apart! The neat thing about this motor is that it even came with the original box and warranty card!

I am very honored to have this motor and keep it in the family. I can't wait until we get it going and for it's maiden voyage on the S. S. Dinghy! I think with this motor being a 5 hp and having reverse, it might move to the top of the list when we select a motor for duck hunting!

Five Amazing Years...

10/15/10

This year Shannon and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary! Neither one of us can believe it has gone by so fast! We look back to where we were five years ago and so much has changed: we had sold our townhouse, bought a single family home, I changed careers, and we brought two awesome children into this world. It seems like just yesterday we were planning a wedding!

We went back and forth about what we wanted to do for our anniversary this year. Originally we were thinking about going up to the north shore and renting a cabin or rustic retreat for a weekend, but due our budget (and the hotels up north still in their "peak" rate season), child care, and work schedules, we changed our plans a little bit. We decided on a two event anniversary celebration:

First, on September 16th, we headed to downtown Minneapolis for a night on the town. We started with dinner at the Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery. We both had a very good meal complete with appetizers! For dessert we wondered down the street and had some very elegant treats at Seven. I would highly recommend both! For the conclusion of the evening, we attended the Broadway Musical "Wicked" at the Orpheum Theatre. We had attempted to get tickets the last time this show was in town, but they were sold out in about 10 minutes and I didn't stand a chance! We were both very impressed with the show and with our seats! It was an awesome evening spent together!

The second half of our anniversary celebration was a little more low-key, but still very nice. We got a hotel room at the Hotel Sofitel in Bloomington for the night of our anniversary. We also made dinner reservations at the gourmet restaurant in the lobby, which we both enjoy, the Collete Bar & Bistro. We both had a very relaxing dinner and dessert and then slept like babies in the amazing hotel room. We woke up the next day and had breakfast at the Collete Bar & Bistro and headed home, totally recharged and relaxed!

We both had an amazing five year wedding anniversary with each other. Very relaxing and we were able to spend time alone together.

Shannon, I love you! You are the most amazing wife in the world and everyday I look forward to the rest of our lives together!

Duck Hunting 2010

This is the fourth duck hunting season that I will have written about on my journal since I started keeping it back in 2006. To be completely honest, duck hunting is one of my favorite hobbies, but there is only so much you can do when writing about it to keep it exciting for someone reading it. So in an effort to keep my duck hunting posts less boring this year, I am going to combine all my duck hunting trips into one post and just hit the basic highlights of each trip. I'm not sure if I am going to stick with this format or not, so let me know what you think!


10/06/10

Since we were hunting public land, we decided we were going to try and do most of our hunting during the week to avoid over crowding. This worked out well since I work on a rotating schedule and often get days off during the week. This was out first trip out for the season and first trip to the MM WMA. We arrived and got set up on the west side of the slough close to the boat launch area. It was a warmer morning and we only needed light coats. We heard one other hunter on the east side who must have walked in. There was a moderate amount of activity and Dad bagged two drake Mallards. It was a beautiful morning and we really enjoyed this new area.

10/15/10

Another trip during the week for Dad and I to the MM WMA. The temperatures were much cooler and required us to actually wear our full hunting gear. We arrived and set up on the southwest corner of the slough. We saw one hunter who arrived later than us and set up on the east side of the slough. Moderate amount of birds early, but once the sun was up, the birds were no longer flying. We didn't bag any birds this morning but had a couple shots.

10/19/10

Dad and I again on our third trip to the MM WMA. The temperatures were still a little cooler, right around 30 degrees. We got set up and got our decoys out on the south side of the slough. We had no other hunters on the slough today. Beautiful morning, but no birds were flying. Most of the crops have been harvested and the local ducks are gone and very spooked. It hasn't got cold enough up north for the northern birds to come down yet. Neither of us got a shot of today.

10/29/10

I visited the MM WMA with a couple guys from work who are just getting into duck hunting. The temperatures were cold. It was about 20 degree when we arrived. We set up on the south end again. The slough had ice in the shallow areas and frost on everything. The birds were very active. We had one other person on the slough with us who was on the southeast corner. The birds loved our decoy spread and were very responsive to calling. However, the other hunter was using a motorized decoy (which are not allowed on WMA's) and he was getting all the bird to land by him. We didn't get any shots off, but it was impressive watching a flock of 40 birds land on the slough bases on our decoy spread and calling!

11/02/10

Dad and I again, back to the MM WMA. The temperatures were in the high 20's and we had a pretty strong wind from the northwest. We set up on the northwest corner of the slough. We saw a couple small flocks cruise over but nothing was interested. The wind made the morning very cold. We packed it up around 0900 and headed back. No shots, no birds. Still nice to be out though!

We still have over a half month to go before the end of the season and I think the northern birds are just starting to get here, so hopefully we will a chance to go out again, but if not, it was a great season trying new things and exploring new areas!

2010 Duck Hunting Prep...

Now that we have an area picked out that we want to try this season, we had to get our gear ready. I knew we were going to be doing most of our hunting out of the boat so we needed to make sure it was ready to go. Since we only used it once last year, I didn't have many worries, but it is always better to be safe than sorry!

We got the boat and trailer out from the backyard and hooked up to the Suburban. The trailer lights were having a couple issues, and it turns out is was actually the socket on the Suburban that needed some cleaning and adjusting. After getting that fixed, the boat and trailer were ready! Since we would not be using any outboard motors this year, we saved a bunch of time not having to test those! The 3 hp Johnson is still not 100% I haven't had any time to work on it and Dad hasn't finished bringing his 7.5 hp Mercury back to life yet either! When we were done with the boat and the trailer, we had a little help from Maeve and Will getting our gear loaded up and decoys checked!

We got all of the gear down and accounted for. We ended up restringing a couple decoys, but had all the parts we needed to fix them. We loaded most of the gear up in the back of the Suburban (which will serve as "Home Base" this hunting season) and the bigger stuff we left in the boat. We put the boat and trailer away in the backyard and called it a day. Now all we had to do was pick a day and hit the road!

2010 Duck Hunting Scouting...

Once again, I managed to get behind with my journal. In my own defense it has been a very busy last month or so between family activites, work, hunting, and stuff around the house! Including this post, I have about eight other posts that I will have coming soon and one more to follow after those (once I get the work done)!

This year, mainly due to time and schedule issues, we (Dad and I) decided we wanted to find some areas close to home to go hunting this year. We were looking for a place where we could get up early, drive to, get set up, hunt the morning, and come home all before lunch. We figured we would have more opportunities to hunt when it didn't involve planning a weekend get away. In order to accomplish this, we would be hunting on public land and needed to do some "scouting!" In the State of Minnesota we are fortunate enough to have many public hunting areas. Some are on Federal (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service) land, but most are state owned WMA's (Wildlife Managment Areas) and WPA's (Waterfowl Production Areas). After talking with a few people and doing some research online that would allow us an hour drive one way or less, I narrowed down the possibilities to six areas.

Since I didn't want the first time we saw these areas to be in the dark when we wanted to hunt them, we (Dad, Maeve, Will, and I) loaded up the Suburban and set out on a "scouting" trip on the Thursday before duck opener. Of the six areas that I wanted to checked out, two were instantly eliminated because they involved the Minnesota River backwaters and all of these were all severly flooded. So, we set off to see ome WMA's in southern Scott County first. The first one we checked out was pretty dried up and we quickly moved onto the next. The second area had some potential, but invovled a very long portage with the duck boat in order to get to the water. We kept the second area on our list and moved onto the third. The third area was perfect! I will refer to it as "MM WMA." It was a faiely large body of water, with great cover along the shore, isolated between corn and soy bean fields, had some wooded areas around it, had easy boat access, and even had an off the road parking area also. The MM WMA quickly moved to the top of our list.

After we got done exploring the MM WMA, we still had one more area to check out. This one was in the southeastern part of Carver County. This area also had potential and placed second on the list. I will refer to it as AL WMA. This area was right outside a small town and was essinially a lake surrounded be farm feilds on three side and the road on the last. The AL WMA had a long driveway into it which was pretty much a boat launch. Dad, Maeve, and I got out and did some exploring while Will took a little nap in the Suburban.

When we were done checking out AL WMA, we started on the journey back home. I was glad we had the chance to do this scouting so we had a good idea on where we wanted to go and where to set up when we got there. After talking it over, Dad and I decided the MM WMA would be our first spot for the 2010 duck hunting season. Now we just needed to get our gear ready!

(You may have noticed, I intentionally left the names and locations of these WMA's off of this post. I have heard some horror stories from a couple other "blogging" friends who put this information into thier blogs and were taken advantage of. I have no problem sharing these with other people, just leave me a comment with your contact information and if I feel you are well intentioned, I will send you the information. Thanks for reading!)