Yeah, well so I haven't blogged in about 5 months; I've been busy.  We have ALL been very busy actually, our summer was consumed by having the usual additional bunch of in-laws staying at the Foster Farm-let for several months; a fun but exhausting time, even if they weren't staying in our actual house with us.  Its pretty tough to be that uptight guy all the time in the middle of a bunch of really laid back people; most of whom are retired, currently unemployed, or on some sort of furlough.  Anyway, they all have more leisure time than I do, and if there is one thing besides my family that I am willing bare my teeth and rip out throats for, it is my personal space and privacy. But we made it through it, and due to the advent of an oversees marriage of one of them, it will make for a very small Christmas this year here in the States.  I am planning on sending Wifey over to see it, but am struggling to decide whether I am going or not, mostly because it hasn't exactly been a stellar year financially, due largely to the fact that nobody realizes they need gutters if it doesn't ever rain!
 
 But anyway, lest I sound bitter, I'll move on.  Again we have been VERY busy lately, and didn't ever take any time off work for family vacation time, so in an effort to rectify that we decided to take a series of mini-vacations and do some fun stuff without so much hullabaloo.  Yesterday we went to Kanopolis lake with my sister and her not unsubstantial family.  Very good to catch up and see their kids growing up and interact with them as adults or near to it.

   Wifey and I did find a little time here and there to work in a project or two.  Here is one that I am quite pleased with, although I sure had serious doubts about it all the way through it until it was truly competed:  My first ever chair remodel.  Wifey had been talking about it for a while, and so after coaxing (she should write a book on "How To Get Your Husband To Do Things He Doesn't Want To Without Making Him Feel Nagged" - I still don't know exactly how she pulled it off) I undertook the project as if it were my own.









Here are "before" pictures; you can't really see how  threadbare it is.
She kept telling me: "I reeeeeaaally want this to be good and I just need you to do it so that it looks good."  Stroke, Stroke; Niiiiiice husband!  NICE husband...

And "After" pictures

But it was fun to see her get excited and say "oh wow, this is going to be soooo cool!"  I kept telling her to calm down, because it was probably going to turn out awful, don't get your hopes up, we haven't even got to the hard part yet, etc. But overall, I'm pleased with the end result.
    Other than that, it doesn't feel like I got a lot of stuff done this summer; I did take advantage of the dryness to dig out our pond some; I took the CTL and shaved off the banks in order to make it a little more "beachy" and less "banky" so that the kids could get in without jumping in.
   Ahh, Fall! The Advent of Cooler Weather!!! So glad to see it in so many ways. Monday, Stu-Jack and I took our little pigs to the market.

Since he isn't officially in school, he got to do the ride along, and instantly decided that we had certainly better stop for doughnuts, as that was good and right.  I shouldn't worry about him eating too much doughnut, though, I found half of it in crumbs under his car seat the next day.

   Anyway, that's about the synopsis of our summer, and I'm looking forward to cutting some wood this fall and clearing some more pasture.