Nagel Family Website

Lots going on in the Nagel household now that summer is here - and it’s officially here! It was hot here this past weekend - hitting 82 on Saturday and 87 on Sunday.

We had plans to open the pool, so Saturday morning I was out in the yard at 6:30 to get started on things. Aside from a backwards check-valve causing a minor flood as the filter pumped the pool water onto my lawn, things went pretty well. I shocked the pool & got the solar heater installed, set the winter cover over the swing set to dry, and was pretty much done in time to take the kids to the monthly Home Depot workshop.

It was so nice on Saturday that they decided to hold the workshop outside! In the parking lot! In the direct sun! Man, it felt like it was well over 100 degrees out there. We quickly (very quickly) got the project done & went inside. I picked up a few things for future projects and we were home in 45 minutes. Just thinking about being out there makes me sweat.

Laura & the kids went to Art Alive at the Albright Knox while I stayed home & finished up the pool and got started on the hot tub. The hot tub was emptied, cleaned, filter cleaned, and fresh water put in. I can’t wait to get in there tonight! Being in the sun all that time made us all sleepy, so we were able to sneak in a quick nap before friends came over for dinner.

After dinner we drove down to Penn Dixie to look at the stars, the moon, and Saturn. We also saw the International Space Station zoom overhead. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty amazing. It looks like a really, really high plane going super fast. The Space Station travels at 17,000 miles / hour. Hopefully we’ll be able to see it tonight, too (at 9:47 here in Buffalo).

Sunday morning we were all up early and headed up to the cottage to have fun & get some work done. I was up on the roof with my father-in-law (who I still insist on calling Mr. Bishop, although my mother-in-law is “Mom”), finishing the front of the garage roof. That went pretty well, despite the hot temperatures. Hauling 90 lb. rolls of roofing up a ladder is much easier this year now that I’m in better shape. The hardest part is remembering where NOT to step, as we haven’t done the back side of the garage yet, and that’s where we were bringing the supplies up from.

When we were done roofing, Jason was out playing in the water and almost floated back to Dunkirk in his raft, and I had to run after him (fully dressed, mind you) before he was swept out too far. I think I went out about 150 yards - but the water was still only chest deep. Lake Erie, by the way, is still pretty darn cold these days! As soon as I got to him, Jason said, “I know… I’m dead.” How can I be mad at him when I get a response like that??? And besides, any 9-year old boy gets in situations like that. I’m just glad he’s OK.

Coming home from the cottage is always an adventure, but we pulled right into customs (no line on a Sunday night!) and got though after answering hardly any questions at all (just “Citizenship?” and “Anything to declare?”). It helps having the packet of paperwork all neatly presented for customs.

Then there was Monday… boy, was it HOT. And there’s no A/C in my office yet, and my office is in the attic. Well, I wasn’t very effective at work yesterday. It was just miserable. I took some time to get in the air conditioned car and headed to Best Buy to buy a new camera. Ours is dying, and with Rebecca’s pre-K graduation coming up, I didn’t want to take chances. I’ll write a review on the camera soon - so far, I like it.

This morning I signed on to the computer, checked email, etc. then turned off IM, email and all other distractions. I worked ’til lunch, ate and quickly checked in, then back to work ’til 4:30 before checking in one more time for the day. I had a SUPER productive day today and can’t wait to try this again tomorrow. Some things still take time, like working in PHP, then realizing I need a header, so going to Photoshop and making it, then editing the CSS to display it, then back to the PHP task I was originally working on, but I feel like I got a lot done today.

OK - this is a long post. Quickly - the vegetable garden is coming along very nicely and we’ve already harvested some spinach for a salad the other evening. I think Laura is getting some of the lettuce out today. Fresh picked spinach tastes far superior to the stuff you get in stores!

This long post is proof I need to blog more often. I’ll try to get 1 more in this week!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.