A New Starting Gate

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. I could blame it on the season and we are way too busy to be blogging. That's partly true. Around here you need to enjoy the beautiful weather while it is here because it never seems to last long enough.

A couple of weeks ago the track operator at our local BMX track approached Bryan about building a new starting gate for the track. It has been on its last leg for a while and she wanted to get it replaced. She was asking if he knew anyone that could help, but of course he volunteered himself to make the gate. He wanted to make sure it was done right and well, he has amazing skills and know how to do the project. Afterall I think his first love is steel. DId I mention he has amazing skills? 

Anyway our days recently have been filled with making a new starting gate. From scratch. He drew up the plans, cleaned the garage (wish I had some before pictures of that!) then started cutting steel and building. He hasn't built anything like this for a while and while it was a TON of work, I think he really enjoyed building again. So here are some construction pictures of the build:

The first cut for the new frame.

The starting gate frame taking shape.

Just about finished and ready for paint.

Wait. Are we building a gate or a bridge? Actually he is straightening out the bend. It's very important the gate be perfectly straight so it drops correctly and doesn't put too much stress on the joints. 

Straight as can be. Now a little paint and it's ready to be installed.

Cutting out the old gate. While we were in the middle of construction of the new gate the old one died. It finally broke pretty much all its hinges off in the middle of gate practice. Now racing is totally stopped until the gate is finished. Lucky for them Bryan is a quick worker!

Attaching the new gate. The frame is 4 inches taller than what was there so they had to pour a new concrete pad. The old one had settled so much and was so uneven that Gate 8 was 5 inches lower than gate 1. No wonder the old gate was so crooked! Pouring a new pad would help insure it would be level and function properly.

Look how dirty my hubby is! He had lots of help getting the gate installed. Even though there was a big state race going on at another track, and it was 92 degrees that day. They spent 8 hours getting that all installed. And Nick worked right along with the rest of them. In fact he was telling the guys how to build the forms for the concrete and they were following his directions. Guess Bryan's handiness is rubbing off on those kids. They know more about construction and building than a lot of people.

The gate is straight. The dirt is not. You can see how much lower the left hand side is than the right hand side. They will need to bring more dirt in to level the starting hill out.

Freshly poured concrete and brand new gate. Looks amazing and should outlast us! He did such an amazing job and has helping out more than he will ever know. I am so lucky to have such an amazing husband. About 40 hours of labor at home, and 2 days at the track leads to years more of great BMX racing. So many families and racers will benefit from the new gate. 

 That track is a dirty place! This is the dirt line on Nick's leg from the day at the track. Both boys came home so dirty they weren't allowed to touch anything until they had taken a shower. It was pretty disgusting. But we are so grateful for the hard work they did. Can't wait to race on Sunday with the new gate. Should be a great time!

Now that the gate project is completed we can get back to finishing some projects around the house. And racing more. And bike riding. And maybe get out on the river again for some water fun. Lets hope the weather continues to stay warm!

Camping - Memorial Day 2010

We went camping and riding in Florence for Memorial Day weekend. The weather turned out to be perfect for most of the weekend which was wonderful. We are so tired of the rain we were glad to get some much needed sunshine. Here are some highlights of our weekend:

Our group on the beach taking a break & enjoying the beautiful weather.

The water had such a beautiful blue-green color to it. Haven't seen the water so beautiful and calm in a long time. Almost felt like it wasn't the Oregon coast!

Climbing the hills are fun.

The little energizer bunny never stops. He doesn't back down from any challenge.

Sometimes climbing hills doesn't work out so well. He didn't quite make it up the hill and got himself wedged against a tree stump. Of course I took photos instead of helping get him unstuck. I'm helpful like that!

The energizer bunny up close. Such concentration on his face.

There is nothing the kids love more than jumping.

Nick's friend Riley is just as brave as Nick is.

Gabi is not to be outdone by the boys.

She shows no fear on a quad, but bicycles are scary. Go figure.

The boy can jump! Look at that air.

I love the little humps of sand all over covered by sand grasses. Very cool.

Love the yellow scotch bloom (or is that Scott's Bloom?) It was all over the place and blooming like crazy. Such a bright yellow. It was pretty.

We rode in the annual poker run which is always a blast. A poker run involves riding around trying to find different checkpoints. You then draw a card for every checkpoint you find and attempt to create a great poker hand from your cards. Prizes are awarded for highest hand and lowest hand. We never seem to draw very good hands, but we scored on the raffle drawing. We purchased 8 tickets and won 5 things. Not bad! 2 of our prizes were the matching yellow hats. We won them at different times. What are the odds of actually winning matching hats?

One of our favorite places to ride. There is a quiet secluded lake set back on some awesome trails. It is always so beautiful back there. We always mention how we'd like to go swimming there sometime. 

You can access the lake from a short hike at the campground too, but riding the quads there is so much more fun!

Nick almost went swimming here - quad and all. He hit some tracks when riding around the edge of the water (About halfway up on the photo) and they caused him to bounce and head straight for the water. He barely stopped in time. It was a little scary for my poor heart. It's fairly steep and I wasn't sure how we would have gotten him out of there, but luckily that boy has some serious skills and prevented a major catastrophe! You can see the tracks I'm talking about. They are on the right hand side of the photo in the upper 3rd of the photo. They look like 2 lines heading from the top straight down to the water. Then the little squiggly lines along side the water are from him taking off and getting out of there. I think we'll leave this area alone until some of the water disappears again!
 

This is Oz. The boxer who thinks he's a lap dog. He's pretty cute but seriously thinks he fits in your lap like he did when he was a puppy. Did I mention he weighs around 70 pounds? Good thing he's so cute!

On to the next project

Came home from work to this. Actually the front door was opened with an air hose was running up the stairs and behind the mysterious curtain. Just what is behind the curtain you ask?

 

The wall that will soon be hosting my new pantry! Bryan started on the next project before I could get good before pictures, so this is the best I can do. All my pantry items used to be in the cabinets down in the laundry room. Extremely inconvenient when cooking and I constantly had to run downstairs to get something from the pantry. (Actually the kids had to run up and down the stairs to bring me things. I'm not crazy, that's what I had them for isn't it?)

Anyway, since we took all the extra cabinets down in the laundry room I needed a new pantry. I have been wanting to move the pantry up in the kitchen for a long time, just hadn't figured out how to do it yet. We decided we no longer needed an eating area in the kitchen when the dining room is just on the other side of the kitchen. So that's where my new pantry is going. Then at the end of the wall by the french doors will be a recycling center with a built in cabinet to hold the garbage can & pop cans. 

Hopefully it will be a quick project and then we can tackle the rest of the kitchen. The rest of the kitchen includes new flooring, new countertops & backsplash, and reconfiguring a couple of cabinets to get more counter space. Fairly easy and inexpensive I hope! 

So it's been a while

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, and that's because we've been really busy! Not only did we take a great vacation to San Diego for Spring Break, but we also started some house projects, and Nick broke his wrist in the middle of everything too. Just more craziness in the Geddis Household. So here are some photos of what we have been up to. I will try to get back to more regular postings as we have some big house projects on the near horizon!

The sunset from our Hotel window

The fam at the Flower Fields in Carlsbad. Beautiful Ranunculus flowers as far as the eye could see!

Crazy boy!

Our new teenager! Can't believe she's 13 already!

What a sweet couple!

Overlooking the San Diego Wild Animal Park - These are the lions.

Took the tram tour to see most of the animals in more natural habitats.

He's really yawning. But I love this picture!

Flamingos were everywhere it seemed!

The cheetah was purring the entire time he was out. Didn't get to pet him. Kinda like my arms the way they are, but we were really really close to him!

All of us at the Wild Animal Park.

This statue is awesome! Huge and way cool!

The Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum. We toured most of it. Took us over 3 hours! But a very cool thing to see.

Here are Nick, Gabi & Bryan in the sleeping bunks on the midway, pretending to be sailors.

Sea World was cool!

Fed the dolphins at Sea World

Watched the Shamu Show. Way cool! Such amazing animals!

The Sea Lion show was also very funny & entertaining.

The San Diego zoo was way too amazing for words, but I'll sum it up with this: PANDAS!

They were so adorable! Loved finally being able to see pandas first hand.

There were other animals too - like baby giraffes!

And baby Orangutans. Oh wait. That was mom posing as one!

I have so many more great photos and video of our trip, but I think that's a pretty good over view for you guys. Don't want to bore you too much with our vacation photos.

All in all it was an amazing trip. The weather was great, the food was amazing and the company was pretty great too. So many great memories from that trip. Can't wait to go back! Maybe when Nick doesn't have a broken arm so maybe the kids can learn to surf. Cause what trip to San Diego doesn't include a little ocean time?

Next post will be an update of the house and the newest project we are working on!