Playing in the Minnehaha Creek

This is our second trip the Minnehaha Falls Park to take a Surrey ride.

We couldn't stay away for long. The kids saw these surreys and wanted a ride. These are the hardest things to peddle with a full load - three adults and four kids. All kids are supposed to wear bike helmets and all of them had them on except for one. Amelia was not about to have one on and she put up a terrible fuss. So she went on the ride without one. Needless to say we were all pretty pooped when we finished.

On our ride we stopped for a picnic lunch. Millie had other ideas. She would rather pick dandelions.

Hello. I can't talk right now because I have a mouthful of cheese and it has been there for five minutes. I might keep it in there for much longer. I'll let you know when I swallow it.

All of us on the surrey. Take a look at the devilish look on Charlie face. His hand is on the break.

We made it down the long staircase a second time to the base of the falls.

We got to the play area of the creek and we were almost the only ones there. Amelia loves the water.

This is going to be fun

Ellie trying to balance against the current.

She still has cheese in her mouth. Well it isn't the same batch as the first picture, but she likes to keep it in her mouth to completely digest it. Gross! Just don't sneeze.

Having fun.

Beautiful smile on this girl. Wow!

Keep those pants rolled up Charlie. Don't get wet. Well, the current knocked him over and he took a dive in the creek. Thanks dad for saving him.

Do I dare get closer?

I just love laying in the Minnehaha.

Our family picture in the creek.

Fearless Charlie.

Walking towards the rapids.

Add one more child.

Standing in the middle of some rapids in the middle of the Minnehaha Creek. Such a great time. Let's do it again.

Walking the Minnehaha to the Mississippi

We wanted to spend time at Minnehaha Falls Park and explore the creek all the way to the Mississippi River.

Hiawatha carrying the Princess Minnehaha so she would not get wet on the shores of the Minnehaha or was it Gitche Gumee?

The crew standing on the bridge right above the falls.

Hiawatha and Minnehaha again.

Charlie is trying to escape, but he can't quite fit through the bars.

The falls was really full because of all the rain we received last month, over nine inches in May at my house.

To get to the creek, many stairs had to be descended and this was the resting spot for Gramma and some kids.

The view of the falls from below. When I was a kid (9-10 years old) I used to ride my bike here (many miles from my house) and walk behind the falls. It has crumbled so much that you can't do that safely anymore, besides there are no trespassing signs posted all over the place.

Kyle, Tiffany with their kids, Erik, Amelia, Elisabeth and Charlie. What a great family.

Another break on our long one half mile trek to the Mississippi River. I think Charlie's thumb needs a break!

Then we found this very lifelike statue of Erik the Wonderful.

Ellie was showing off her graceful climbing skills.

Isn't this the best smile you ever saw?

Finally we see the Mississippi River, running high.

Ellie touching the river water. The current was running very fast.

Now it was a time for skipping stones. Kyle was the teacher and everyone practiced and practiced. Some skipped many times (guess who threw it) and some just dropped. By the time we were done, we almost filled up the river, well me throwing boulders in didn't help.

Millie wanted some of the action too. More to follow.

Ellie skipping rocks.

Watch this Grampa. It's going to be good.

She just was not satisfied standing on the shore. She wanted to get into the river and nothing was going to  stop her. "Hi", she seems to say. Or was she showing us that the rock she had is no longer in her hand. Mom didn't let go of her because of the swift current.

Happy Mother's day

Cherish every ordinary day with your kids.

The remodeling has begun

After almost two years of retirement, I have finally started remodeling the house.

This is what the bathroom, the only bathroom, looks like before I started ripping it up. Now mind you, I need to do this in stages so that we are only minus one of three items at a time (tub, sink, toilet); the rest of the time it will be worked around.

Nice bathroom!

The antique tub surround, but brand new showerhead (which will be replaced soon).

Our other two fixtures that will be replaced.

The shower doors and tub surround are gone.

 Plaster wall number one is now down.

Walls number two and three are down. I needed to be careful and had to cut through the plaster to make clean cuts (along the ceiling and window), rather than taking big chunks out that should have remained. This step took a couple of hours.

Most of the plaster walls fell into the old cast iron tub which made cleanup easier.

What is left after the first major demolition and cleanup.

So now it was time to start whacking the side of the old tub. After a couple of minutes, it started to crack. Then you just continue up the side. The porcelain coating was flying all over the place and the pieces are sharp. The cast iron was on average 3/8 of an inch thick and the tub weighed about 300 pounds and as I discovered, sat on the floor with four teeny tiny feet (probably not more than a square inch touching the floor).

This is a Whoops! I thought I was very careful where I was swinging that sledgehammer (between the sink and toilet and I didn't want to hit anything except the tub. But it happened anyway.

This is the correct way to fix a broken sink. I learned this trick from Red Green on PBS. Well it won't stay this way for long, because it will also be replaced in phase two.

After about fifteen minutes, I was completely through and the tub was in two pieces. Whew!

Now to get it out of the house. I started moving one piece out and that piece was over 100 pounds. So a furniture dolly was used to roll it out the door. Since the drain was still connected to the other half, I ended up breaking that part in half, through the drain and it fell into the basement.

The tub is out and the mess cleaned up.

I started un-boxing the new Whirlpool tub and noticed as I was installing the inline heater that it was cracked. The motor had come off the motor mounts and was banging against the front of the tub. Now Judy and I struggled getting the tub into the house and now I had to put my small trailer together and we had to bring the tub back outside to get it back to Home Depot. I was a bit mad. They had another in the store and I made them open it and checked it before they helped me get it on the trailer. Then the second one had to come into the house. What upset me was that I don't take the trailer out when there is snow on the ground and there was and the roads salted. So that meant that before I could put it away I had to pour a lot of hot water on the exposed wood and metal to get the frozen salty slush off.
I called a contractor friend to get some advice and he offered to come over to help me, because you cannot do this yourself.

 So in preparation, I installed backerboard to the floor and a ledger board to level the tub.

I also cut out the old faucet and copper and installed the new scald-proof faucet and added about four feet of new copper.  It is fun working with fire.

I also removed the door and vanity to make room. But these old houses do not have any extra room, as we found out. the new tum is 60 inches long and the opening is 60 1/4 inches. Plus this house has plaster throughout the house which makes the walls thicker than just sheetrock. And the window sill was in the way. so we needed to lift it up, jockey it around, tilt it, taking care not to break it in the process. We finally got the tub in but the ledger boards were a bit high so it would not blend with the floor. We raised the tum to the ceiling and I lowered the boards. Perfect. Then we needed to raise it once more so that we could put Custom Float mortar under the tub for support. It was set on the mortar and we pushed it down to the ledger boards. Done.

 New tub installed with backerboard on the walls. Jared Barnhart was really the key to getting this tub installed and I couldn't have done it without his help.  Getting closer to ending phase one, but there is a lot to do yet.

But of course I needed to install the new faucet and showerhead. We may not be able to have shower doors because the shortest ones we can find are almost 56 inches high and that puts it 4 inches to the ceiling. We will see.

Finish, working and no leaks anywhere. After I got the tub unpacked, all I saw were stickers all over the tub and in the instruction manual to check for leaks before bringing it into the house by filling it up to over flowing and turning on the motor. I couldn't do that because it's winter and I didn't want 70 gallons of ice on the driveway. I crossed my fingers and all was well. I claimed the right to have the first whirlpool bath. Det var flott!!!