The deck is really starting to come along now! We only have the border
boards to go around the frame, some feet for the railing and a little glue
to keep stuff from blowing off (mostly the caps on the posts). We managed
to get our patio set out this past weekend, and it looks really good on
our shiny new deck. Little did I know the boards we needed and had order
were already in at Home Depot, but they decided not to tell me. We went
grill shopping (my birthday present from Susan), and I was able to
convince them to put the grill on the truck with the boards and have it
all delivered this week (at no charge 🙂 ). Last week was our first week
of “real” summer, but it started off with a downpour.

The Pig Gig was in town August 6-9 and we had decided it would be fun to
run the 5K. Little did we know it was going to be a chilly, rainy run.
When we got there, we made our way to the registration tent, which had a
huge line. We registered online and thought that was the late registration
line, we were wrong. If you were a late registration, you could go to the
front of the line (makes sense, doesn’t it?) After standing in line, in
the rain for awhile, we noticed the start time was quickly coming up!
Lucky for us, they wouldn’t start until everyone was registered, but by
the time we threw our shirts in the car and got to the start line, it was
time to go! I managed to beat my last time by two minutes and Susan stayed
ahead of her competition! After the race we met up with one of my
co-workers waiting for the times. He decided it was not worth sticking
around and took off, we followed shortly afterwards. Cold, soaking, and
exhausted, we hit up the local Tim Horton’s for a hot cocoa and something
to eat. We both took naps later that day, but it was actually a lot of
fun.

Figure I’d start this off with a little recap of our weekend. We ran up
to Tawas for a 5K and a little fun in the sun. After getting all our
camping gear out and in the car, we were on our way… until we had to
turn around and get Susan’s socks for the race. It was getting late into the
evening, and we decided to hit up A&W for a little grub. They were serving
outdoors to the cars pulled up, but we went inside only to find out we
didn’t really order with a server. Each table has a phone on it and once you
were ready, you placed your order through the phone. That was pretty neat!
The food was good, we got some burgers and a couple of huge root beer
floats (at least I thought it was good, I didn’t throw, my onion rings on
the ground 😉 ). Being well fed, we headed up north on a two-lane road,
which seemed to take a really long time. We managed to find the KoA
Camground even though Google maps told us to turn to the right, when it
was actually to the left.

The campground was really nice, the bathrooms were probably the nicest
campground bathrooms I’d ever seen! We managed to get our tent set up
without too much trouble (seemed to take awhile to find just the “right”
spot to set it up and the grey poles are definitely shorter than the red
ones 🙂 ). After a long day at work, driving, camp site setting up, we
were pretty tired, only problem was it was pretty warm and super humid
(not ideal sleep conditions the day before a race!) With my cellphone set
as an alarm clock we tried to sleep through that nasty humidity, I managed
only a couple hours of sleep. When the phone/alarm clock went off, we
started getting ready for the race by the bay. Although the campground had
a pancake breakfast going on, we were already in Tawas, fueled and ready.
A work buddy of mine was checking in at the last minute as I picked up our
shirts and numbers. A quick warm up back to the car and race time was
getting close.

The only thing nice I can say about the weather was it didn’t rain, but
man was it horrible to race in. It was still very humid and trying to run
(walk) through it was not an easy task. Susan thought she did good in the
walk, so we stayed for the awards ceremony (she finished 8th overall,
three away from a prize…) My time was pretty bad, but at least I crossed
the finish line still standing! After the awards were handed out, we went
over to the beach for a little kite flying. I somehow managed to get the
big kite up this weekend! In the process I nearly lost my index finger
(ok, maybe just a little cut, but it still hurt!) A sudden wind change
brought it back down nearly hitting the kids playing underneath the kites
(that’s right, a whole big beach to play on, go right where a kite could
hit you…) I pulled my little one out and it went up without much effort
(even after crashing into the water, whoops…) The kids weren’t moving
and by this time we were getting kind of hungry, so we retreated from the
beach. We hit up a pizzeria for lunch.

After lunch, we checked out the dog show that was happening in the
little park across the street (they were doing sprints and not the
obstacle course, so that got boring pretty quickly.) There was a kite shop
down by the beach, we stepped in and hadn’t realized it was the tiniest
shop you’d ever been in. It was getting pretty close to nap-time, so we
went back to the campsite for a little rest. Noticing a mini-golf course
alongside the road, we thought it’d be fun to try. We didn’t realize it
was the #5 mini-golf course in the state rated by AAA (it wasn’t all that
impressive, but it was pretty fun). Susan managed to get two hole-in-ones,
but I somehow ended up a couple strokes ahead in the end (and almost a
hole-in-one on the last hole for a free game, this close > < ). Our
bellies were rumbling after that intense round of golf and we headed over
to a locally owned restaurant. The food was really good there and we had
some entertainment on the streets.

Hitting up the ice cream shoppe we listened to a band play a couple
songs (…Susan didn’t even want to dance with me). It was getting dark
and the bands weren’t all that great, so we went back to the campsite to
sit around the camp fire (we actually weren’t tired enough to not have a
camp fire this trip!) After demonstrating my boyscout skills, I had what
you could call a fire that didn’t want to show its flames very much. I
think the wood might have been damp, as there was a lot of smoke and not a
lot of flames. After going through nearly a bundle of wood, it was smore
time! The smores were awesome and the temperature had cooled off to be
quite comfortable (well in a snug sleeping bag that is 😉 )
On the way back home, I had wanted to get a sweatshirt, but the shops
were closed… we did get to see some classic cars as a show was
happening… (wonder if the streets are ever open). We did pretty good on
packing, only managed to forget some pillowcases (which K-Mart had some on
sale) and all and all it was a pretty awesome weekend.

So it’s been a couple days… er… months since I last wrote, I figured
I’d break this blog up into sections. Grab a cool beverage, put your feet
up and get reading!

The Lawn

Okay, I last left you off thinking our lawn was about to become the “It”
spot in Falcon Crest. People would come from far and wide to see how
beautiful a lawn could really be… Unfortunately things didn’t work out
this way. A day or two after my last blog entry (first week of June), a
funny thing happened… it rained… and when it rains it pours… We
ended up having a stretch of three or four days with severe thunderstorms
and showers… you can just guess what happened, all our seed washed away!
We learned two important things from this… firstly – never seed before
heavy rains and secondly – always know where your gutters downspouts
drain. Not sure exactly what the builders were thinking, but they decided
to have one of the downspouts go under the sidewalk that leads to the side
door of our garage. This is all and well, except they didn’t have any
where for the water to go. We got so much rain, it created a small hole
were water was coming up out of the ground. I’m glad to say this problem
is fixed. Our lawn guy put in what he called a “pop-up”. It’s a little
green thing in the ground that raises when the water fills up the
downspout, and settles back down once it stops raining. For a small fee,
he redid all our downspouts this way, which is really cool as I don’t have
to move them when I’m mowing the grass (once we get grass…) and we don’t
have to worry about them blowing away, which has happened in the past!

I bet right about now, you’re wondering when we’ll actually have a nice,
lush, soft, green lawn… I’m thinking the same thing myself. After the
seed washed away, we started getting a little growth. Some of it was good
grass, while most of it was weeds… Not wanting to spray over the weeds,
the lawn guy came out and killed off the lawn (for the second time now…)
A few days went by, then weeks, then finally he came out again to kill off
some more growth that had occurred (third time…). Finally, this past
weekend, he brought his tiller and broke the crust that had formed,
re-raked the yard, and sprayed it once more (four times… man weeds can
be tough =P). Right now the lawn looks really good compared to what it did
a few days ago, it’s just missing that green stuff on top… you know…
grass! Looks like rain is in the forecast, so maybe he’s putting off
spraying for a couple days. Boy, I’m glad I’m saving all this gas money
not having to run my lawnmower =/.

Running

If you haven’t heard we’ve done quite a few races already this summer.
There was the Loons Pennant Race I had mentioned in a blog earlier, the
Pinconning Cheese Fest Fun Run, the Dow Run/Walk, and the Cheasning
Riverboat run. The Dow one was really nice, it started off at the Midland
Community Center and looped through various streets of Midland. It would
have been nice if the water they handed out along the way was colder, but
it was a fun race. I signed up to do the 5K run and managed to finish just
over 37 minutes. Susan did the walk and was a little disappointed she
didn’t beat her time from the Pennant race. We also learned never to
forget your safety pins, but a quick run to Walgreen’s never hurts! The
Cheese Fest run was two miles and everyone that entered got a small block
of cheese, well almost everyone… Susan didn’t… It was a warm day and I
really wanted to run the whole thing ( well as least the first mile anyway
;)), but I was overcoming a cold and was only able to run part of it. When
I crossed the finish line, the clock said “21:25”, but to get our
“official” time we had to hand in our numbers. The only problem with this
is there was a bunch of kids that cut in front of me, I managed to get my
position back, but unfortunately Susan wasn’t able to and got a slightly
worse time then she actually finished… oh well… I ran the Cheasning
race and beat my previous time… I finished in 33:03. Susan also ran in
this race and almost got her time put down as a walker, which would have
given her a really good walk time, but she told them she signed up to run.

Scout

Scout’s doing well, even if she hasn’t reached her recommended weight
yet (she might be gaining =/). We got her back on the old food which
probably doesn’t help things much, but we had so much left over we thought
we’d better use it. She still begs for food and gets really annoying until
we feed her… It’s been pretty warm lately and Scout’s been losing quite
a bit of fur. To help with this problem we usually brush her, but one day
we (and when I say “we” I really mean Susan) thought it would be a good
idea to give her a bath. Out came the small tub we use to bath the cat in
and the struggle began. Scout’s big enough now that should could spread all
four legs across the lip of the tub and not get wet. After quite a bit of
struggle, we (both of us now) got her feet wet. She wasn’t too happy about
this and managed to dig one of her back claws pretty deep into my palm.
I’ve never seen Scout’s tail so big… it was super-puffed out. After she
scratched me I gave up on the whole bath thing. Susan tried to get her in
the water again, but Scout was helping things and managed to avoid getting
a bath. I think if we (Susan) try this again, we’ll be getting a bigger
tub! If you haven’t seen the latest pictures of her, head on over to the
pictures of the week!

Racquetball

I played the infamous child star in the area. He’s 16 and if he doesn’t
win the Michigan championship, he’s in second! I was able to get 5 points
against him, while everyone else that tried, couldn’t get more then 2!
He’s been playing since he was 5 and is extremely talented. Even though I
got banged up the other night (took a racquet to the face, hit myself in
the leg with my racquet and got drilled just below the rib cage on a
serve that was long anyway =/), I still try to get down to the courts to
play once or twice a week. I even got to play doubles a couple times…
which at first seems like there’s a lot of people on the court, but it’s
actuallypretty fun. I’m really excited for the ladder season to start up,
sounds like Mittag will be doing it too!

Work

Work’s been going great, I’m getting a lot done and my boss says I’m
doing a good job. I’ll be a full time employee (for real this time) on
September 15th and am pretty excited for that! Susan’s job has been kind
of hectic lately… she started up a new process not too long ago and was
on call for the DeHate family camp out… She thinks she may have found a
lead on solving a problem she’s been working on for awhile now.

Once we get the data converted properly, we’ll be deploying our software to a
client for beta testing. It was suppose to happen this week, but some
issues needed to be fixed before we could go… maybe next week… The
company picnic is this weekend, it sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun!

DeHate Campout

Even though Susan couldn’t go, I went out to the camp out for the day.
Instead of a canoe trip, this year we had the DeHate Olympic Games. We all
drew from a hat to pick teams. The I’s and H’s looked pretty similar and
we had to figure who was on which team. We *cough* rigged *cough* it so my
mom and I were on the same team. We also had another team mate who was
pretty young (and pretty annoying…) There was horseshoes, mini-golf
(from hell), water balloon toss, bocche ball, cornhole, mini-basketball,
and ladder ball. Each station you met up with another team and played the
game together except for cornhole. Depending on how well you did, you got
a gold, silver, or bronze (aka pink) star. The team with the most gold and
silver stars was the winner. Our first event was the mini-golf, and man
that was tough, it was one hole at the bottom of an eight foot incline
with all kinds of roots growing out of the ground… we got the bronze
star on this one. We did pretty good on the other events, and when we got
to cornhole, we ripped it up. Not having played the game before, we
managed to get quite a few in the hole… “CORNHOLE!!!” yeah you have to
say it for it to count! 😉 The food was really good, especially Susan’s
Pizza Pasta, and pretty soon it was time to go. Next year, we’ll be
camping (hopefully… if someone isn’t on call.)

Cedar Point

We have been making good use of our season passes so far. We even got to
be chaperones for one trip. That was kind of fun, except for the annoying
bus driver. Dow Corning treated all their interns to a trip to the park
and Susan signed us up to be chaperones (even though technically I should
have been a guest 🙂 ). The plan was to leave early on a Saturday morning,
the only problem with this was sometimes plans don’t go according to the
plan… We headed over to the meeting spot for the two buses, only problem
was, there was a total of four people there… yup the buses were in the
wrong spot (or 50 interns were, you pick =P). So after getting to the
right spot, the day snacks were no where to be found (oh yeah, we got
fed!) So we waited around for the food to arrive, packed up the buses, and
were off, about an hour later then the plan. The bus driver told the same
story over a few times, but it was a good trip. We got to watch movies,
got to go to the park for free, got to eat for free, and didn’t have to
pay for gas, can’t hardly beat that!

Our last trip wasn’t as much fun as the others though… Someone said it
wasn’t suppose to rain, someone was wrong… We got to our camp site (same
place as last time and probably will be the last time there…) and it was
incredibly muggy out… and the bugs were out. After getting the tent set
up, I was pretty dang sweaty, and hopped in the shower, while Susan
attended to all her bug bites… The next day we went to the park, and it
was pretty cloudy. It rained a little, and a lot of the rides shutdown.
Then, near the end of the day it started to rain a little harder, we
decided to go, hoping Sunday would be clear… it wasn’t, we packed up our
went tent and came home… almost without getting lost. We were coming
back and past an exited I thought we should have taken. Well being
adventurous, I decided to stay on the road we were on – that’s the way the
bus driver did it afterall. All was good and well until we got to Toledo,
I missed another exit I should have taken… after driving around and
circling back, I managed to find that exit again and was able to get back
into Michigan, from there it was easy and all while my avigator was
sleeping… Halloween weekends start in September and you better believe
we’ll be there as much as we can!

Okay, so maybe you didn’t need a cold beverage to get through this blog,
but atleast you won’t be thirsty now!