2007
Copyright © James W. Blilie, 2010: All rights reserved
Phyllis and Jim's family photos - Main Page
Phyllis and Jim's family photos 2007
It's been another year full of activity, including a lot of expensive work on our house. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in November. Hard to believe 5 years have flown by so quickly. Jamie and Joe are growing up fast. We had a nearly snowless winter last year until March: Then we got 34 inches in a week! Jamie and Joe enjoyed playing in the snow. Jim hit a deer (first time ever) with our Camry and it needed to be extensively repaired. The deer didn't fare well either. This year, we made more claims on our insurance than in all the previous 25 years Jim has carried insurance. One of those years I guess. We also had to put new tires on every vehicle.
We got to see a St. Paul Saints baseball game for free because last year's Guidant picnic game was rained out. Jamie loved it and got a baseball. Joe enjoyed the cheese curds and the mini-donuts. We had many fun outings this summer, including a hike at Willow River State Park in Wisconsin (very nice water fall), several trips to the Gateway Trail to ride our bikes, and a nice trip to the "big zoo" as Jamie calls the Minnesota Zoo, in contrast to the Como Zoo. The zoo has been dramatically improved and it was a very fun visit. We did not get a puppy: the breeder's dog did not get pregnant. I guess that's pretty common. We like her dogs, so we will wait. Annabelle is still going strong at 21-½ years old! She's still grooming herself; but she's completely deaf and pretty senile it seems.
We also continue to walk all around our local neighborhood often. We are lucky to have such great places to walk. We had a lovely dinner at La Belle Vie in Minneapolis to celebrate Jim's Mom and Dad's 49th wedding anniversary. The food was great, Jim looked after his Dad so that his Mom could relax for the meal, and they hired a limousine to take them to La Belle Vie - Jim's Mom's first limo ride. A good time was had by all.
We visited Phyllis's family twice during the fall and summer and had a fine time each time. The second visit, the family rented the Richmond Town Hall for a party. Jamie and his cousins had fun racing hotwheels across the floor. The first visit in July was for Phyllis's 30th reunion of the 1977 Oconto Fall High School graduating class. The reunion was held at the High School ball field and it was really fun and low-key. Jim enjoyed meeting many of Phyllis's classmates about whom he had heard for so many years.
Our big trips this year included a week in White Salmon during Memorial Day week. Joe couldn't come because we didn't want to take him out of school for that long. We had some great hikes there, especially including hiking to Wahclella Falls, in the Gorge between Hood River and Portland, the "the view point" above the Gorge at the top of Catherine Creek, to which we walked from our place - no driving required, and Three-Corner Rock, which gave great views for only about 1000-feet of elevation gain on a nice trail. Jamie's favorite activity was throwing rocks into whatever body of water was nearby. Eric and Allison Wetzel and their daughter Gretchen visited as did Ben, Gaye, and Cara. It was great to see them all. Many good meals were eaten and good bottles drunk. In November, Jim returned (free ticket from Frequent-Flyer miles!) to winterize the hose and also to plant 100 Douglas fir saplings. The fir trees were planted, with help from Eric Wetzel, along the county road, in three rows. These will eventually provide a wind-break and visual-break for the eventual homesite for the home we will build for our retirement. By the time we retire, they should be large trees. (We got the trees from Lava Nursery in Parkview - they are fine trees.)
We also were fortunate to be able to borrow Jim's brothers Charlie and Jon's cabin in the woods near Mitchell Lake for a week in August. It sits on "the 20-acres" which Jim's family owned since the 1960s in addition to the lake property, which was sold in the 1980s. Charlie and Jon have built a very nice little cabin on the site. It's only 3 hours from the Twin Cities and has all the amenities. We made many outings from the basecamp at the cabin, including Lake Itasca State Park (source of the Mississippi River), several hikes in the region, and several canoe trips, including a circumnavigation of nearby Eagle Lake. We had fantastic weather, sunny, 70s and dry. We heard loons every day, saw many of them, and heard barred owls at night.
On our return from the cabin, we found that our home had been hit by a severe hail storm in our absence. After two inspections by adjustors, we got a new roof and in the spring, we will be getting the house painted and s couple of new windows installed. This was only one of many expensive issues with our Shoreview house this year. In January, our furnace began to leak water. It was 20-years old, along with all the other parts of the mechanical plant in the house. We decided it would be best to install a new, highly-efficient furnace and AC system. We were told that the water heater needed to be replaced 5 years ago when we bought the house, so we replaced it as well. At the same time, we had the hot tub heater converted to natural gas - no more dragging 170-pound propane tanks around. We noticed an immediate improvement in comfort in the house. The system has a state-of-the-art thermostat that is fully programmable, which is really nice. In the early summer, our dishwasher gave up the ghost and we replaced it with a Bosch, which is a huge improvement in every way, especially the noise level. You can barely tell when it's running. Jim also replaced the door seal on the "garage fridge," which had been leaking so badly the fridge was malfunctioning (it's not a difficult job, really.) In November, the spring on one of the garage doors broke and had to be replaced. In the Spring, we lost our large maple trees in our back yard during a wind storm. We were exceptionally fortunate that it was a very rare east wind and it blew the tree away from the house and deck. This tree had helped shade the master bedroom and when we put up some curtains in the master bedroom to better control the light, the vinyl Venetian blinds melted during a hot day! Jim replaced these with aluminum blinds. Owning a home is expensive!
We also made some improvements to the house. We "built" a new beach: we turned over the beach soil, covered it with weed-cloth, and then laid 8-inches of pea-gravel onto the beach. We added a fire ring and two benches to that and now we have a fine beach to play on and for having evening fires. Phyllis and Joe did most of the hardest work, which was moving the 9-yards of pea gravel from the driveway to the beach by hand: shovels and wheel-barrows! Phyllis got motivated about cleaning up the pond in front of the beach and hauled many loads of weeds out of the pond, onto the drying rack Jim built, and then off to the compost site. After the pea gravel was moved, Phyllis and Joe repainted our driveway, primarily because some old graffiti, with a rude theme, was beginning to show through the old paint. Jim also dug up and established an herb garden between our back fence and the pond. We planted: tomatoes, peppers, garlic (in the fall), cilantro, sage, thyme, chives and oregano (the last two thanks to Nannette.) We had some decent harvests, but the August hail storm pretty well destroyed all the tomatoes and half the peppers. We also finally got a nice chest freezer. We plan to get some CSA meat this year and Phyllis wants to be able to take advantage of sales, so it was time for a chest freezer. They claim it only takes $32 a year to run it. We also, finally, got into the 21st century (some of Jim's colleagues say, the 20th century) and had DSL internet connection installed. We also got a wireless router and we have local WiFi in our house and yard now.
We also got a MacBook for Joe (he needs it for school and it should take him through college) and one for Phyllis and Jim to share. Being able to work anywhere around the house or yard is very nice. Jim was also able to connect in White Salmon over Jeanne and Steve's WiFi. We'll be putting up a repeater at our place for a local WiFi spot there as well. Cool.
Phyllis is again teaching at EXPO Elementary School in St. Paul. This year, she is teaching a class of all first-graders. She has been learning a lot about teaching beginning readers. Phyllis also got some hermit crabs this year. Most of the time, they are in her classroom for the kids to enjoy. Phyllis is taking piano lessons and she is doing great. She has flown through the first bunch of teaching books. She has a great teacher nearby in White Bear Lake, who teaches many adults. She practices regularly and has made great progress. Jamie also likes to play along with Mom, well play along sort of. Phyllis has managed to spend less time than ever outside of school doing school work. She has a student-teacher, Melanie, and that helps.
Joe continues to drive on his learner's permit and is doing very well with it. He's pretty comfortable driving now. Joe is doing well in school, including solid As in math. He has been helping the other kids in his math class with their work. This led us to ask him whether he might want to be a high school math teacher. He seems to think it's a pretty good idea - especially the summers off part. In September after school started, we had a birthday party for Joe. He invited a bunch of his friends and there was plenty of pizza, pop, and chips available. They mostly played video games, especially "Guitar Hero," but we also had a fire on the beach which they enjoyed. It was a great success. Joe has been going to a party at a friend's house about once a month. Joe is also working on a wolf costume including, eventually, a full suit of fur. He did all the research on it and is making the patterns and parts.
Jamie is potty-trained! The last vestige of babyhood is now gone. We enjoyed throwing away the diaper bag and changing platforms. See him showing of his Shrek underwear! Jamie has made dramatic changes in the last 12 months. In just the last few weeks, his drawing have gone from irregular scribbles to large blocks of fully colored-in areas to figures that have definite form and features. Jim just put up at work one of Jamie's drawings of "Jamie and Daddy." Jamie loves his "new daycare." Some days, he gets upset when it's time to go home - he doesn't want to stop playing with his friends. This past winter, Jamie did his first snow sliding: we have a great sliding hill in the park behind our house. Jamie also celebrated his 3rd birthday in March and received his favorite gifts: cars and books. Probably his favorite activities are: playing with cars and trucks, reading books with Mom or Dad, pushing big trucks around, and coloring. Jamie did his first trick-or-treating this October and was thrilled to receive a huge pile of candy at both his daycare (they make a Halloween parade around the buildings at Jim's work site) and around our neighborhood. Jamie was a White Power Ranger and he, "went super-fast and saved the world!"
Jim survived two rounds of layoffs at his job. We are pretty sure he's secure there. He doesn't want to change jobs and we are hoping the market for drug-eluting stents and defibrillators picks up in 2008. (Those are the two major products for Boston Scientific.) Jim has continued to do his physical therapy for his back and his back is actually better now than it was before it went out in October 2006. Unfortunately, he needs some minor hernia surgery in December. This is very simple surgery and he should recover very quickly. Guitar making has been pretty slow for Jim. He built three classical guitars and two steel string guitars last winter complete except for necks and finish; but since there's been little progress. He has only one order from a gentleman in Singapore; and that's OK for right now. Jim sold one guitar through Paramount Guitars in Watertown, Wisconsin; but since Jim hasn't been able to produce numbers of guitars desired by Paramount, this relationship seems to have ended. Jim is playing guitar more now that Phyllis is taking piano lessons and motivating him.
Phyllis and Jim's family photos - Main Page
Phyllis and Jim's family photos 2007
Last updated: 13-Jan-2010