Family on Mt Lemmon

Abby's first snow

She didn't seem too excited about it, honestly. But the desert baby has now experienced snow!

SNOW

We drove up Mt. Lemmon today to see some snow in Tucson. I found enough to make a snowball (which got thrown at David). :)

Christmas outfits

Aunt Britni is here to visit Abby for Christmas- and coordinated outfits!

Christmas preparations and cheer

We are at home today preparing for Christmas dinner tomorrow. David is making cheesecake (while enjoying a holiday brew) and Erika is contributing by keeping the munchkin busy. Merry Christmas everyone!

More pictures

 

Week 1 - with Pooh as a size measure.

 

Abigail - week 2.

Going to the doctor in style!

The Arrival

                We finally got everything (and everyone) settled and headed home yesterday. Some of us were obviously elated... some of us don't know enough yet that it was a moment for celebration.

 

Totally unenthused:

 

                Once home Abby opened a few more gifts that have still been trickling in (many thanks to everyone).

 

 

                Later in the evening once things had settled down a bit, it was time to unfunkify.

 

 

                Then get dressed to prep for the rest of the night and relax.

 

Munchkining is exhausting work:

 

Abigail Inez Eggers Henson

    Born on 11-23-12 8:59pm.

    6lbs 10oz.

    19.5 inches long.

 

    Mom and baby are doing just fine, but all of us are pretty much wiped out.

 

 

 

Pre-Thanksgiving Emergency, 2012 Edition

                So last year a week or so before Thanksgiving our oven decided to depart this Earth in a blaze of circuit-arc firework glory. Thankfully the tech whose face was 10 inches away from said glory was unscathed by his bearing witness. It just so happened that we were hosting the holiday for some friends here in Tucson, so a mad scramble began to replace said oven, burn all the manufacturing smell out of said oven, get used to said oven, and then proceed to cook a "Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat" (name that song!)... in like 5 days?

 

                Mission accomplished.

 

                Of course, we had no idea that the universe had decided that this was not an isolated incident, but rather a vector of what now appears to be a yearly event.

 

                This morning I wander out to the kitchen as usual to cook up a tasty breakfast for Erika and I only to find that our kitchen drain wasn't living up to its namesake. No big deal. Throw some liquid drain unclogger on the shopping list, pick up said product after work, arrive home and pour away.

 

                Didn't work. Hrm...

 

                Long story only slightly shorter, after futzing with the drain and the chemical solution for about an hour, my dander was raised. Two calls to local plumbers to see how much they charge to visit us for tea tomorrow afternoon and take a peek at the drain... well, let's just say I wasn't enthused by their offers. 10 minutes later and I'm on my way to the local hardware store: two low profile plastic oil pans, one 25 foot drain auger. Just add my drill and stir!

 

                Drain's fixed. HandyHusband status renewed.

 

                Hey, universe. Just a heads up. I got a baby due in a matter of days. Don't taunt me.

 

                Oh, and I didn't figure you'd guys would want to see pictures on this one, so...

New trees!

The trees in our front yard died, so we just got them replaced. This involves jackhammers in Arizona. :). So the baby has a new tree just for her.

Baby update

We had another ultrasound this morning, so I thought I would post a picture from it.  The baby is definitely a girl (thankfully since we have lots of pink things) and is a good size - potentially on her way to being tall.  Definitely a little more crowded than the last one!

Pergola!

Lantern festival

Lantern festival

Karl is on TV!

Karl has been playing with Beth Bombara in St. Louis for a while now.  They recently had a little clip on a television station in St. Louis. The banjo sounds pretty good.

http://fox2now.com/2012/07/24/beth-bombara-band/

Baby pictures

We were recently at the doctor's office for the big ultrasound.  Everything was fine - and the tech informed us that we are having a girl.  Still working on the name...  But she did manage to get some (cute?) pictures.

Let the Nesting Begin

                So the word has gotten out to some of you via grapevines, etc... but we realized this morning that we hadn't put out a mass broadcast.

 

                Baby.

 

                November.

 

                Boy or girl? No clue.

 

                Paint got finished yesterday (the new Behr premium paint + primer in one kinda rules). Furniture got assembled yesterday and today.

 

                All the necessities covered. Place to sleep, place to clean up, place to store stuff, place to sit, speakers. Done and done.

Cake!

Erika and I took a 4 week introductory course in cake decorating down a Jo-Ann fabrics, sponsored by Wilton. It finished up a week ago and our final assignment pulled from all the skills we learned. Devil's food with home made chocolate icing using penzey's cocoa, and the white beading and roses.

A step forward in an old hobby

I've had the stuff to build these for a few months. I finally got off my butt and built them this weekend. Solid hickory is not necessarily the best material for speaker cabinets, but at this size, power and application, cabinet resonances aren't so much of a concern. Small, full range desktop or maybe alarm clock speaker for a portable music device.

Glued, sanded and smoothed out with 320 grit then just some tung oil.

Oh, pretty...

We finally were able to frame and hang a small quilting project Pauline made for us. As you can see it is very colorful with the shades of Tucson sunsets. It looks awesome in our kitchen/den. :)

The Last Bastion of Caffienation

David here.

 

So I got to drinking coffee at a very young age, and as any family or friend will tell you... it's kind of what I think water should actually taste like (I kid, I kid).

 

Anyway, my morning brew is kind of a ritual for me these days and since I don't drink anywhere near the amount of coffee I used to, I want what I do drink to be pretty tasty.

 

I'd been reading about roasting coffee for years and hadn't paid too much of a mind to it, but recently I figured what the heck.

 

You don't need all that much, really.

 

1 hot air vortex popcorn popper

1 bag of green coffee beans (sourced from the internet)

1 metal colander

1 pair of oven mits

1 glass mason jar for the final product

 

 

First up, turn on the popper and pour in about 1/5 lb of beans.

 

This is about 90 seconds into the roasting process (aka "First Crack" in roasting parlance). The beans will begin to pop (much like popcorn), and start to shed their hulls.

 

 

After a while, the hulls will come off the beans, they'll lose water, expand, and begin to darken. This is the window where various roasts can be achieved. The bean I'm roasting here for Erika is from Rwanda and is said to do well at "Full City" roasts, which are in the darker range.

 

After about 4 more minutes we hit "Second Crack", which is much more quiet. This is when you begin to enter the range of "Full City" roasts. I let Second Crack go for about another minute and turned off the popper. I immediately dumped the beans into the colander and shook for a couple of minutes to cool them.

 

In the end, this is what they look like.

 

And here they are in their jar, awaiting tomorrow morning. The lid is on very loosely because the beans will give off gas over night as they cool and recover from the roasting process. By the morning they'll be good to go.

 

A bit later I did a batch of an espresso blend for myself, but went a bit farther into second crack to darken the roast a bit more. Both final products are resting away in the cabinet right now, and I must say the kitchen smells utterly fantastic.

Britni's new designs

Many of you may have seen some of my sister-in-law's Britni's work in cards or other prints.  She has just finished a new project that I think is very cute - an alphabet poster perfect for any kid's room!  I just thought I would share the link to her store on Etsy - click on the picture and it will take you there.

New chair

We had an antique chair that my great-grandfather made and my father recovered. But it was recovered in the 70s, with a horrible brown and orange fabric (on the right on this picture). My mom is visiting this week and made a new cover- much improved!

New Resident at the E&D Household

 

A couple of weeks ago we noticed a new hole in the ground by our back wall. Only one critter around here really digs holes quite as big as this one was (and in this fashion), so we knew we had a new squirrel tenant.

 

We presume it's a she because of her size. She's showing a lot of pooch in her belly, so we may have a litter soon. She's shown herself a couple of times over with the birds at the bird feeder, and has been peeking out from her hole around sun-up and sun-down. Skittish though. Even from the far side of the house as soon as I would poke my lens around to get a shot, she'd escape down her hole before I could get one taken. This morning she paused a bit before vanishing.

 

Hopefully she'll become friendly over time. Another reason to keep the bird feeder stocked. :)

Karl is famous!

http://youtu.be/tHNaaGHR4uk

This recently got posted as part of the Chevy Music showcase.  Fun!

The patio is now more... um... patious? Patioer?

   Late update on this one.

 

   A couple of months ago we finally ditched the last of the "grass" in the back yard. The pavers were extended out for the most part, then they matched the gravel color and worked it all in. While they had the ground tore up doing various things they were also nice enough to tie two channels into the irrigation for us. One is for the native ground plants and will give them the tiniest amount of water. The other channel, which has several drops around the yard, is higher flow for potted plants, the herbs, etc... Even though they're tiny in the shot, there's some new lantana there, gopher plant and some other thing I can't remember the name of at the moment.

 

   Anywhoo... we can now have 1. more people on the patio and 2. have a table sitting out where there's some room instead of being smack in the middle of a 6 foot wide paver walkway.

 

Sometimes it's like I know what I'm doing...

Look, ma! I made cappuccino art!

Mythbusters tour

This is from the Mythbusters live show we went to tonight.