I am home alone, at least for this week.  Everyone else is at Breezy Point, swimming and having a great time.  I have to work, so I stay home. A little break for me too.

My foot is healing, but still not all together better.  Since it is such a nice day today, temp in the upper 50’s and sunny.  I tried to take one last ride on the bike.  I haven’t ridden for almost 3 months.  I went about 2 miles.  I don’t really have the up motion in my left foot back yet, so shifting was hard, and it hurt, so I guess I will have to wait until spring.  I just parked it, but in some gas stabilizer and will take out the battery and cover it for the winter later this week.  I was really hoping that I would get a nice ride in today, but also, it was not meant to be.

Another of my tasks this week is to try to fix the dip in the floor trusses.  I have a couple of jacks set up, and hopefully over the week I can raise it up to level.  I will be nice to not have everything roll off the counters all the time.  Measuring liquids will be much easier also.

Sorry, no updates about my Seattle trip today.  I don’t have the pictures on the computer, and my wife took the laptop on vacation.  It will have to wait.

Have a nice day. That’s all for now.  Off to get some more stuff done around here.

No, I don’t have it, and no one in my family has it either.  But, someone at my work had it, and a few friends at church, so it’s going around and we need to be careful.

I have had quite a few people asking me about getting the flu shot, either myself, or my family.  I honestly don’t think we will be.  More for the reason that I believe that it won’t even be AVAILABLE to us until after the flu season is over.  At my clinic, they have a sign up stating they will not be getting any more flu vaccine ( H1N1 or regular) until the end of November, beginning of December.  That will probably be in a limited number also.  There is a good chance that one of us will have gotten some form of flu by then.  And those of you with kids know, if one gets sick, ALL get sick.  What would be the point of getting the shot then?

I am not against the shot, so please don’t think that.  However, I do feel that the way this entire fiasco has been handled by all involved is a little scary.  I feel that the media, government, health care system has really pounded it out and scared most everyone over something that does not at this time appear to be much worse that the seasonal flu.  What really scares me is that if this really were a health emergency, the government and health care system has proven how ineffective it would be.  This is the same government that wants to take over (or reform, however you want to look at it) the system. 

I am hoping that my family doesn’t get sick.  I am also thankful that should we get sick, we do have good insurance and I will not hesitate to take them to the doctor to get it checked out.

Stay healthy, and God bless you all.

Well, we have been back for a week, so I guess I should post something about the trip I took with the boys to Seattle.  We took the train from Minneapolis to Seattle, stayed there for  a couple of days, and then took the train back. 

We all had a really good time.  The train ride out there was great!  The boys had a really fun time seeing the train, and riding in the observation car.  Sleeping was not a problem.  If the boys were a little older, the sleeperette room we had would not have been large enough, but it worked well for what we needed.  The food on the train was excellent.  I tip my hat to the cooks on Amtrak’s Empire Builder route.

In Seattle we saw the aquarium, the Museum of Flight, Pikes Market, and went to a neighborhood park, and a neat park with a beach on Puget Sound.  We also got lost while driving, stung by a yellow jacket, and had some exciting taxi cab rides.

I will be writing a little about each of these experiences more in depth in the coming posts, but it may take me a while to get that done.

The train ride back as a different experience. I am glad the ride there was such a great one, otherwise I may have had a different opinion of Amtrak.  I know of at least one fellow passenger who will likely not ride the train again. 

Have a great week.

Well, today was the day for health!  The Peanut, Walnut, Almond and I all had dentists appointments today.  The Peanut is in 4th grade this year, which is the same age that I was when I started going to our dentist.  He has worked on 3 generations of Overtooms!  It is a little far to drive, but I am not sure that I would want to go anywhere else.  All the kids had good checkups.  Not so much for me.  One preventative filling today, and I will get another next time.  Arghh!  I hope my kids take better care of their teeth from the start, and never have to have a filling.

I also had my follow-up from my MRI last week.  Torn ligaments.  I will have to wear the boot-cast for another 4 weeks, then likely some therapy.  At least it sounds like surgery is not needed. 

Hope everyone had a great day.

I spent the day cleaning out the workshop and garage with the kids.  Ok, maybe the word day isn’t correct.  And ‘with’ is stretching it a little bit.  They did do quite a bit of work, when they wanted to.  I can’t say that I did much, with a bum ankle still.  I probably did more than I should have, but that’s what dad do, right?  Can’t let the kids see us hurt for too long, even if we pay for it later.

I think my kids are great.  Most fathers would agree, they may even think their kids are great also!  I love how they get so excited about things. How they have such reckless abandon when they don’t know any better.  How they have this air of invincibility about them, yet they don’t hold it against us when they get hurt. ( Or when we get hurt either.)

Today was a day of planning for the future.  We are cleaning out what was my woodworking shop, to make it into a train room.  Model trains.  The Walnut is extremely excited, and wants to run the trains now.  I have a small oval set up for him to do just that.  He has learned to use the controls.  Move the train forward and back.  Today he learned how to couple and un-couple cars, and to put cars on the track.  Very exciting.  During all this time, I was cleaning, and moving stuff.  Later, all the kids helped empty two cabinets, and move them  into the garage proper. We also spent some time putting away camping gear from the ill-fated camping trip where I hurt my ankle.

The ankle is still bothering me. Two weeks ago, I told the Peanut we would be able to finish out hiking and geocaching in two weeks, when my ankle was all better.  Yet, here we are two weeks later, and it still feels like someone is stabbing the side of my ankle, most of the time, and I still can only walk short distances w/o the brace.  It sucks.  I thought I would have healed much faster.  Heck, it’s only a sprain, right.  Unfortunately, I don’t seem to heal as fast as when I was 20.

The kids seem to understand. Even though we couldn’t hike after my fall, the Peanut and I still had a good time the rest of the camping trip.  The Walnut and I still can run the train a few times around the track.  The Almond still wants to play games and the Pecan is…well, the Pecan is only 11 months old, so he doesn’t really do much yet.  They are great kids.

They are also, daring and don’t listen.  While cooking hamburgers on the grill, the boys were playing on top of the hot tub, which is drained ( bad thermostat ).  I know that there are wasps in the hot tub, so I told them to get down and not play.  Not two minutes later and the Almond has been stung in the neck.  I really wanted to say I told you so, but I couldn’t.  He was hurt, and crying and needed comfort.  After checking to make sure he wasn’t going to have a nasty allergic reaction, a little cream, and ice on the sting.  He fell asleep in my lap.  Now that he is awake, you can’t really tell he was stung.  Perhaps I should try the same thing.  Dad, I’m on my way with my ice, and I plan on falling asleep in your lap, and when I wake up, I expect my ankle to be better, ok?