Fair week
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Joe

Joe has been having a fun summer. Now it is fair time and he is staying over at Kyles and going each day to the fair with him. He has some money from baling hay to have a good time, plus some money from me for helping to reroof the house.

 Ran into Jackie Cox's mother and father the other day. Found out that she got a scholarship to play basketball at Urbana.  So I was very happy to hear about that. Chelsea is working hard to get ready for her season as well.

Chad is trying for another house outside of Germantown. It can be moved into as is, but someone else is putting a bid in on it. So he will have to wait and see if it goes thru or not. Sarah is a big sister for a local girl, she took her to the fair.

July vaca and work
Mood:  not sure
Topic: General

Went to Louisville to visit the Deeters.  Little Elaina is becoming more aware of her surroundings.  When Joe was in the loft she kept looking at him.  She also seems to like the light from the windows. Becky is content to be with the baby. I think that I could leave her with Vanessa and Eric for a month and she would be find with that - as along as she gets to hold the baby. 

 We meant to go boating and towed the boat all the way to Louisville. We got the boat in the Ohio River and then the prop would not lower into the water. I tried everything I knew and even stopped by boat shop but had no luck. We made the best of it.  We stopped by a go-cart place and raced.  I did OK in the beginning, but Joe caught on about mid way thru and passed me up.  I stayed on his tail but could not pass him.  Did eat a lot of dust and pebbles. Chelsea's cart was a dog, she could not catch us at all. 

Chelsea did excel at air hockey.  She beat both me and Joe.  I was the winner at putt putt golf.  We visited the Frazier arms and armour museum on Sunday. It had a lot of medevial armor that we all found interesting. We ended the weekend with a meal at the Kingfish restaraunt by the Ohio River. 

 With the boat out we had to cancel the trip to Lake Erie. We will try again in August. Kyle is going to the fair, so moving it back a week is not an option. So it has become a working vacation. Joe has been helping me reroof the house. He is doing a good job so far. Chelsea is at the UC basketball camp with her new team.  She was enthused to go.  Becky said she shot a three point shot in her first game.  I have not had a chance to speak with her.

 Chad in back in house hunting mode again. He backed out of the deal for the first house. It was going no where. We looked at a couple of houses around Eaton - one in town, one outside of town. I think he will be happier if he can find a place in the country. Oh, he is moving in with Sarah this week.  Seems like a lot of work when he might end up moving again in a few months after he buys a place. I did find out that she is a country music fan. So that is another mark in the plus column. 

4th of July
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: General
Well the fourth of July went OK. We had an OK display this year. It was smaller than last years. We did have one close call. One of the multiple tube displays fell over. It became the wheel of death. Every time it shot off a tube, it spun until the next shot. The chairs around the campfire emptied in a hurry. They were rocketing by and exploding all over the yard and tree's.

Joe earned his first check. He baled straw for the Metzgers. He seemed quite proud of earning the money. They pay $10 an hour now, I earned like $2 or $2.50 an hour back in the day. Joe also got a Remington 710. He seems quite proud of it. He still owes me some money, but between his allowance and his work, he should pay it off soon.

Joe and Chad were in the Mary Kay during the Eaton bicentennial parade. There was a car show afterward, and they got some hotdogs and a drink.

Elaina Arrives
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Elaina
The Eagle has Landed.


We drove to Louisville early in the morning. We left at 4am. Everyone was excited and we decided that we wouldn't be able to sleep anyway so we left. It was stormy and raining as we got closer to the city. We could see the lightening in the distance as we travelled thru the hills of central Kentucky. It rained so hard that we had to slow down a couple of times.

Elaina Jane Deeter arrived Tuesday morning June 20th 9:15 am. She weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces, height is 20 1/2 inches. Delivery was via c-section. Vanessa and baby are doing fine. She is due to be released from the hospital on Friday.

Baby has dark brown hair. Big feet. She has big blue eyes, which we hope that she will keep. Two nurses said that they see lots of babies go thru the hospital, but that none of them have her pretty blue eyes - which we think come from her Dad. The nose is unmistakable - definitely the Tilton nose. Nursing is slow, Vanessa is trying to breast feed, but it is not working real well - although progress is being made. They think that things will work out better once they are home. The baby is taking some formula for the time being.

Since the delivery was via c-section Elaina looks like a little china doll, very pretty. She has some brusing to the top of her head, but other than that she seems to be fine. Very alert when she is awake, she seems to be taking it all in. She likes to keep her feet moving, kicking when she can.

Another life's journey has begun. It will be fun watching the young lady follow her path.

I did take Joe and Chelsea to the Louisville Zoo. One of the highlights was feeding the birds. They had cups of nectar for a dollar. I had one on each shoulder and one was licking me on the neck - for the salt I suspect. I couldn't get them to leave me - I had to ask one of zoo people "How do I get them off me?"

Joe's favorite was the Lemur's at the end of the visit. They got into a fight over some leaves and carrots. So it added some excitement at the end of the trip.

sweet 18
Mood:  suave
Topic: Chelsea
Well chelsea turned 18 this past weekend. She celebrated with an Cold Stone Creamery ice cream cake, a night at Jokers Comedy Club, and a rose tattoo on her back. The rose is unique, but we'll see if she still likes it 20 years from now.

Joe played some air soft at Kyle's. Kyle stepped on two of his clips and now the air gun won't work and we can't find any new clips. Kyle offered to buy him a new one. He likes the glow in the dark pellets for night actions. The boy is having a fun summer, thats for sure.

Chad worked like crazy this past week end getting his house in order. They are to do a final inspection today or tomorrow. Sarah and Joe and a friend gave him a hand. Looks like this is finally coming to a conclusion.

Vanessa is patiently waiting on Elaina. Her due date is this weekend. The doctor gave a hint that a caesaran section is not out of the question. At this point I don't think she cares, she just wants to ge this over with. We will see what happens, the due date is 5 days away.

Bunny and shooting
Mood:  incredulous
No one shot a bunny - yet. They are two seperate topics. For some reason Chelsea decided to go out and buy a rabbit. Don't ask me why. I feel that by the end of summer it will be forgotten about and we will have to turn it loose. Already it resides in Joe's room.

Joe did a good job at the shooting range for 4H. They had some fun and shot at a lump of charcoal. Joe hit his on the first shot and had some ammunition left. So the guy next to him said in a joking manner - go ahead and try to shoot the string. One shot later and he drilled it. Fancy shooting there Tex. He also put 5 shots in the black - all touching in the paper target. So needless to say he was proud of himself.

Joe is going to Kyle's to shoot those 6mm plastic pellets at each other. They even have glow in the dark pellets for night time use. He is going to have a busy weekend.

Vanessa is going to the doctor weekly. Baby is estimated at 7 and a half pounds and seems to getting in position. Delivery is still a week or two away at least.

Sarah hung out with Chad this weekend. He is making rumblings that he would like to switch jobs again. He has looked at some county maintenance jobs. It would be nice if he could hook up with either the state or county highway deparments.

fawn
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Chelsea
Chelsea and I went bicycle riding last weekend. She noticed a fawn byside the road. She was able to walk up to it and it went to run away. It tangled in a brushpile and she was able to catch it. It bleated once for it's mother. But she was able to get it to settle down and pet it. The fawn was very small, certainly less than a week old. She did she some bigger tracks along side of it, so I imagine the mother was moving with the fawn and we startled her away.

Joe has had several friends stay over this summer already. So it has been busy already for the young man.

Chad took another girl up to Utica with him for a car show with the car club that he is a member of. Her name is Cheryl, her father is also a member of the club which how they met. I think that they are hitting it off fine initially. We'll see how far this goes. The Sarah thing seems to be fading.

We are all anxiously waiting on Elaina Jane. Vanessa wants to get this over with. I think she got most everything she needed from the baby shower which seemed to go fairly well. We will be taking a couple of days off when the baby is born to see the new arrival.

DC
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Joe
I was an escourt for Joe's Washington DC trip. All in all it was good time. We were in the first bus and we had to switch drivers outside of DC. Our driver was on the radio to the other driver saying that by his GPS, we were 50 feet away from the building. The other driver replied that we were like 2.5 miles away. So much for modern technology. AFter they figured things out we finally made the rendevoux.

The hotel was under renovation and one of the elevators was out. So with 90 kids trying to use the elevator, we opted to take the stairway - to the 8th floor. What a hike it was, I called it the 8 mile hike, because it felt like we went that far by the time we got up there.

We got to see a play "sheer madness" that was interactive. Mount Vernon was fun. Saw all the memorials and several of the Smithsonian museums. We did have a 'sock incident' where someone propped open a door at night with a sock. I imagine that they are being interrogated by now.

I saw Grace, the girl that Joe is sweet on, she seems nice. He said that he would dance with her tonight at the dance that they holding after 8th grade graduation.

Vanessa's baby shower was this weekend. Becky did a great job of decorating and everyone had a good time. Eric and Vanessa almost did not have enough room for everything.

Went bicycling with Chelsea, legs held up fairly well. She wants to go kayaking - I told her that we would go the week of her birthday.

Chad one step closer to his house.
Mood:  cool
Well Chad is one step closer to getting his house. The flurry of inspections is over. There is some work to be done with the electrical and also the septic system. Around $2000 worth of work according to Chad. However the seller is going to cover the cost of doing this - so that will work out just fine. Once the work is done a closing date can be set!

Joe and I have been working on refurbishing our utility trailer. Fixing the side rails and reworking the wiring on the trailer lights. I got to use a TIG welder for the first time. Chad let me borrow his because the oxygen was used in the acetylene welder. So far the welds have held up fairly well. I may have to buy one of these for myself. It did good with the thinner steel.

I plan to haul away the last of the sheet metal roofing from the old barn and miscellanous scrap metal from the barn yard with the trailer. I told Joe that since he has been so helpful that I would let him have the money from that to spend in Washington DC. I think that I will take it this Saturday so that Joe can come with me and see all the heavy equipment. I remember going with Dad to the scrap yards and I always enjoyed seeing all the big cranes and so forth.

He is doing shooting sports with 4H. All of the other kids are younger than him. But I told him that after this year he can go into the advanced with the older kids. He had fun the first meeting at the Eaton Rod and Gun Club. He got to shoot at his first target and got all of the shots in the black. His first shot was at the wrong target - so the kid next to him ended up with 6 holes on the target, while Joe only had 4.

I am taking Chelsea to the University of Cincinnati this Friday. She wants to see about the biotech program that they have there. Well it is closer than San Diego State.

Vanessa's baby shower is fast approaching; this May 20th. I am feeling a little anticipation. Hard to imagine that in a month and a week there will be a little Deeter. Vanessa helped out at the Kentucky Derby again this year. She helped with clerical duties this time, I guess they were falling behind and she had to make deposits at the bank, run errands, and the like. Eric did get home at 3pm on race day this year. I'll bet he had a few cold ones after the busy weekend.

Nuther week gone by
Mood:  not sure
Went to go visit Nellie this weekend. She certainly seemed to be upbeat after all that she has been thru. It is not a question of if she will do this or that, it is a question of when. She complains that the therapists are not giving her enough to do and that she has to do stuff on her own to challenger herself. If mental toughness counts for anything she will pull thru this situation.

We stopped at a store on the way back to 75 and got a few things. We found a sign that said "Pop's Garage" that I put overtop the big entrance to the barn.

Joe has helped with the landscaping. I had him drive the tractor to pull up some old bushes. I was a bit nervous about letting him do it, but you can't baby them all their lives. He did fine and was a big help with the landscaping. I joked that at this rate we will have 10 foot X 10 foot square of grass surrounded by an ocean of mulch. Oh, he made a 3 story hamster condo out of lego's with like a little see-thru penthouse on top.

Chelsea wanted to go camping at Hueston Woods for her 18th birthday. I told her if you go, we'll go camping too. Plus there is plenty of space at our place for a campfire and campout where we can keep an eye on things. She still wants to do the tattoo thing. But she may only have money for an outline, then would have to go back and have it colored in. The way she spends money she would have it filled in by the time she's 35.

Vanessa is doing OK. Just wanting to go ahead and have the baby, she says it feels like she has been pregnant forever. Eric got a healthy payraise, so that will help them out. The ice business is heating up. With the Kentucky derby coming up, they are gearing up full production and he is gearing up for 14+ hour days until it is over. They bring in people from other districts to help with the deliveries during the week. Last year Vanessa helped by cooking meals for Eric's deliverymen.

Chad is working on the Honda Civic. As much money and time as what he is putting into it, it had best run on air so that he gets a payback.