Chinny, Chin and Chin: April 2006

Babies and Trees!

This past weekend Irene and I decided to try to lay low to get some rest and peace and quiet, as it very well could've been our last weekend without parental responsibilities. However, it seems that the term 'laying low' means something different these days compared to those of the mid-20's. Back then, 'laying low' may have meant heading to Newport, RI or Vermont for a quiet weekend, hiking in a state park, or just flopping down on the couch with a bag of cheetos and a 2-litre of coke for an entire weekend, never getting out of your PJ's. These days, we found, are definitively different.

Saturday morning we woke up and hustled out to a used baby stuff sale at a local church. We didn't need much coming out of our baby shower last week, but you can never have enough books (sounds funny coming from someone who spent so much time looking for the movie versions of books I had to read in school) and we also got a few more toys and stuff. Then we spent the rest of the day running errands, fixing things around the house and random work. The hammock was not touched all weekend - a disappointing day 1 of the weekend.

Sunday, was not much better. After taking a long walk around Needham to get some excercise, we decided to start to do our landscaping in the front of our house. The project seemed daunting, especially since it started at 1pm, but we had done some research on what we wanted and decided to try to keep it simple for the day. All in all, it was pretty simple and lots of fun. But by the time we were done, it was 7pm and time for dinnner, a shower, and bed. Again, the hammock was not touched on Sunday....

4pm Sunday, April 30

We tried growing pitchforks, but only one bloomed

Tree #1

"Oh yeah, this is definitely better than that Cheeto's and couch idea"

My Cousin, Roger

There's no marathon like the Boston Marathon - at least that's what I'm told. I've never run it, nor do I plan to really. My former roommate and good friend, Jamie, has run many marathons so I've learned that Boston is a great race. This year, my cousin Roger decided to join the proud ranks of people who can lay claim that they ran the Boston marathon. He just recently picked up running and this was his first marathon, so it's a great accomplishment. My dad was out on the course cheering runners on and sent me some pictures so I figured I'd post them for posterity.

My parents and Roger's parents anxiously waiting for a Roger sighting

And then he emerged from the masses....

"Hey Roger, if you're not busy or anything, can you take a picture with us?"

He doesn't even look tired and this is at mile 20! Look at the big smile on his face. That's so inspiring I may start running myself and run next year. Ummm, okay, maybe not. I'm actually more of a sitter than a runner. I like to reserve my long runs for when I'm chasing someone or being chased. Running from Hopkington to Boston still doesn't appeal to me that much (sorry Jamie!), but hats off to Roger and everyone else that took on the challenge that is the Boston Marathon!

Preemptive attack

Ever heard the phrase "flushing money down the toilet?" Well, here's a new one, "pouring money into the ground." Okay, so it doesn't have the same ring, but it has the same financial pain. Last fall we found out that our hemlocks in our backyard are slowly being killed by Adelgid's. So, we are fighting back. What's worse, I researched them and they are native of Asia! It's like a civil war in our backyard! But hey, war is war, so we talked with the local Gardening Center and found that we could save the trees using Bayer Tree & Shrub Insect Control. Sounded like it was worth a shot, so I purchased enough for all of our hemlocks. 75 buckaroos and it took me all of ten minutes to dig holes around the tree roots and pour this stuff into them. So that's $7.50 per minute. 10 minutes and our first battle with the feared Adelgid's was over. And worse, I don't know who is going to win. Money may not grow on trees, but I hope it may help trees grow!

You don't look like $75 worth of goods

Close up shots of the mighty Adelgids (the white bastards on the tree limbs)

Spring Fever

Now that the nursery is done, it's back to taking care of the small stuff around the house. And we had great weather all weekend to do all the random stuff. On Saturday I rented an aerator to aerate the lawn (or dirt posing as a lawn) for next week's seeding festival at chez Chin. I don't have any pictures of me working that baby, but let's just say the guy at the store was right - "you don't want to set it to go its max speed otherwise you'll be running behind it and won't stop until you go through the fence." I didn't exactly go through a fence, but I did get nicked up in the trees in my back yard (note, I did say *in* the trees). I also almost flew off the front wall of my yard, which would have been an expensive mistake to have made. Fortunately I recovered in time. Anyway, besides my adventures, Irene found some time to make a nice decorative addition to our master bathroom. ..

And of course, at the end of a long, warm Spring day, there's nothing like kicking the feet back on a hammock and knocking a few back to relax...

(okay, okay. So that's really my beer she's holding. It just made for a better photo-op!)

The building of a baby Chin's nursery room

In case you didn't hear, the local baby furniture store, Boston Baby recently closed up shop and ran for the hills. And of course it happened in week 10 of our supposed ten week lead time for our crib and changing station order. So, like many other dazed and confused parents-to-be, we were left to scramble a bit. Actually, it might have been a blessing in disguise because it really kicked us into gear in getting the nursery together. With just six weeks left, and Easter and a baby shower taking up two weekends, we felt we had to hustle a bit more. So we borrowed mitre saw, bought some paint and a sander, and went to work - putting up chair rail molding and refinishing some of our other serviceable furniture for bookshelves and stuff. We got so confident with the mitre saw that we took on building our own little changing table - and it came out pretty good! We were quite amazed actually. After two weekends of almost non-stop hustling, we now have a nursery ready for the chaos to come. Looks like watching all those home improvement shows on TLC is starting to pay off!

Nursery or just another green bedroom?

Time to revisit woodworking and home-ec 101.

After weekend #1, things were starting to look a little more nursery-like....

By the end of week 2, we hope we are done....

Senior Citizen Village People

By request, here are the infamous pictures from my father's performance at the Gah-den. How can you beat four 70+ old men dressed like the Village People and dancing in front of 20,000 people. The epitome of self confidence. You have to give especially big props to the 75 year old cowboy dressed in leather pants!