Formerly known as the Pleasure Palace

LuAnn named this room "The Pleasure Palace". I don't know what she was thinking. It was just a place to recover from the day. When all four of our kids were at home and we only had a three bedroom home, I built a bedroom in the basement for Judy and me, because we didn't think any of the kids would want to be in a very dark (the darker, the better for me), and very cold room in the winter (I didn't mind how cold it was because we had a heated waterbed). And it stayed cool in the summer. As the kids moved out of the house, we converted two of the bedrooms upstairs into a computer room and Gramma Room. And then I built a queen captain's bed complete with two armories and night stands and we moved back upstairs. That left an unused and out dated room in the basement. In November 2008 I started ripping out the old room, all the built-in bookcases and cabinets and preparing it for a new purpose. I chopped up the waterbed and threw it away. Well, it took a year (I was pretty slow at it) to fix it up and paint it. Then in the cold garage I started cutting the large pieces of wood but did all the assembly and finishing in the much warmer basement. And below you see the results. A very nice horizontal Murphy bed. This frees up most of the room to relax in and play Wii. So now this is "The Wii Room", which doubles as a guest bedroom, provided the guests like a very dark and cold room. Now all we need is new bedding for it. This is not for small kids that are being potty trained, because they might confuse the Wii with wee-wee, and I am not in the mood to clean up any new kind of liquids from the new rug. There you have it. The next project for that room is to make two floor-to-ceiling book cases so I can finally get all the books out of the shed, but this will come after making some frames for Judy's family portrait wall project. Be aware that we purposely made this bed a full sized bed (also known as a double) because we just didn't want too many guests staying tooooo long (we might make some exceptions for out of staters who are just visiting).

A New Barnhart is on the Block

Introducing Calvin John Barnhart. He made his grand entrance at 10:02PM on Jan 30, 2010. He was 22 inches long and 8 pounds and 15 ounces. Isn't he adorable? While Calvin was being born, Joseph, Lorelei and Gretchen had a sleep-over at our house and went to church with us. For the most part they were good kids and were cooperative, although, Gigi had a couple moments. She can be stubborn.
He just wanted to sleep and all we did was hold him, pass him around to everyone in the room and make bright lights flash in his face. Sorry.

All the older brother and sisters going gaga over Calvin.

Each of Calvin's siblings had their turn holding and kissing him.

Calvin's and Lorelei's hands.
Nope. They're not Joe's. Now you guessed it. They belong to Calvin.

The whole happy Barnhart family.

Doppelgänger week

Since a lot of friends on FaceBook are participating in the Doppelgänger week (celebrity look-a-like), I thought I would see who I look like. Not too successful. Most of the current photos I have of me say I resemble people of the opposite gender - like Charlize Theron, Natalie Wood, Amanda Peet, Lisa Kudrow, Kate Boseworth, Renee Russo, Goldie Hawn, and the list goes on. Now do any of them have mustaches and spikie hair? Some of the others at Heritage.com said I looked like were John Travolta (74%), Barry Gibb, Tab Hunter, Thomas Edison and the rest I have never heard of. It was too funny. So I tried one of my eight year old photos and got these results: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Sweetin, Drew Barrymore. So in other words I don't look like anybody! There is only one of me.

Visit with a Secretary

Today I had the unique experience of a 5 minute, one-on-one talk with the Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner. Here is the reason: I was his golf cart driver on part of a tour of my plant at Honeywell for our Green Technology. He is a very personable and friendly man. I wouldn't be if I was just reamed out by a Senate committee the day before. He asked me about my job, where I lived, about my commute and finally my feelings on the economy and if we are finally emerging. Guess what? I am actually taller than he is. Woo hoo! I had two secret service guys right behind me on the rear facing back seat and two more on the rear facing seat in the golf cart in front of me. So that means I was probably the safest one there besides Secretary Geithner because I was surrounded by Secret Service, or maybe the first to do down.

I knew I was going to be a driver but I didn't know that every one involved with this tour was required to wear a RED Honeywell T shirt. They passed out the shirts and I noticed the price tag on it - $5.95 and made in Nicaragua. I thought we should have gotten the nice button down long sleeved Honeywell shirt. It was after all below zero. Fun experience.

Start your engines - It's Pinewood Derby time

This is Joseph's first Pinewood Derby. He made a shiny red car and was excited to be running in the race.
Just look at that excitement.

Line 'em up!

There they go. Joe's car came in second.

The finish

Sisters.

Some of the people at the end;

Tyler was the overall winner and three other 1st places. He had a very fast car and did almost all the work on it himself.

Joseph and his award.

Lorelei had a birthday

Just a couple days after her brother was baptized, Lorelei had her sixth birthday.
She couldn't wait to open more presents. She knew there would be some doll accessories.

Besides there was also a dragon hand puppet.

Gigi was excited too 'cause she knew she would get to play with the new stuff.

Some of the loot.

Can you tell we all had chocolate ice cream? Good stuff.

The whole family got in on the playing. Fun for all.

Joseph's baptism

Joseph is eight years old and was excited to be a baptized member of the church. On Jan 9 at 10:00AM we had his baptism. I gave a 2.5 minute talk on Baptism.
Joseph and dad

Joseph and his family

Afterwards we were all hungry for something to eat and Culver's was right down the street. Smenteks and the elders joined us.

Liam was trying something.

Putting Katchup on his nose. He thought it was great fun.

All smiles.

See that straw? What just went through it, is now in Joseph's mouth and has yet to be swallowed.