The Harp Family

Put In Bay Vacation

Harp — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 03:35:53 +0000

Family vacation #2, not as much fun as Disney but we still had a good time! We had to go up near Cleveland for a wedding in late July, so we figured we’d make a vacation out of it. We spent 2 days in Put In Bay, at the Put-in-Bay Resort and loved it! We had a huge, 3-story condo there and it was just the 5 of us.

We finished the trip at Cedar Point and it was so-so. We did a night pass, so only spent ~4 hours in the park. Park was fine, some of the new coasters look pretty cool (we were stuck on the tea cups!) but otherwise the experience sucked. The Hotel Breakers absolutely sucked! $250 for the night, and our room was very small with a 20″ piece-o-crap TV. The kids were zonked by 9:30, would have been nice to watch some TV…

Pics are here!

Halloween, 2009

Harp — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:04:01 +0000

Lily picked out an awesome costume this year! The rest were recycled from previous years, it’s good to be the oldest! We had a good time as usual, just roamed around the neighborhood.

Pumpkin Patch

Harp — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:22:53 +0000

I really enjoyed the pumpkin patch last year, but Julie didn’t like that the pumpkins were already picked. She wants to pick them “in the field.” I looked into several, most were an hour or so away and we only had a couple hours between Cassie’s nap and Julie going into work. Plus, the “hayride” at Lobenstein is pretty weak but it’s only $0.50 per person versus $8-10 at other places.

In the end we decided to go back to Lobenstein Farm, and had a good time. I think they make up the hayride difference with pumpkin prices, we ended up spending $45!

Pics Here

Long Live Goldie, Goldie is Dead

Harp — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:31:11 +0000

Last weekend, we went up to the Brown County Fair to spend some quality time with the grandparents (and eat junk food). We had a great time, it’s been since HS that I went so it was fun to go back. Didn’t see many ppl I know, but the kids loved the rides and grandparents enjoyed spoiling them. They even let Ava throw the darts at the balloon game, which she nailed.

My parents then proceeded to break the cardinal rule of festivals, (Rule #1: No Goldfish) and “won” us a goldfish. So Julie bought a bowl, food and some rocks and we were nervous when we read that they can live up to 10 years! Ava named it Goldie, and Cassie was probably the most excited about the newest member of the family. She could spend a solid 5 minutes shouting and waving at Goldie, then come back and do it an hour later.

Unfortunately, Goldie did not make it ten years. He passed quietly this afternoon, and will be buried later tonight after the little ones are fast asleep. Goldie, it was fun while it lasted and you will be missed.

Dad’s Camping Trip

Harp — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:30:11 +0000

Did a camping trip to Carter Caves with a couple of friends this weekend, had a lot of fun! First time I’ve been camping in (at least) a couple decades and the girls had never been. We did a cave tour, short hike to a natural bridge and did some late night dancing!

Girls did great on the drive up and back, Google did not do so well. The directions took me through gravel roads, a creek bed (!!) and (pretty sure) where they filmed Deliverance. I took 64/75 back.

Pics Here

Labor Day Party

Harp — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:30:01 +0000

A long day & night of fun at Rock Bottom & the Reds game a couple weeks back led me to commit to a Labor Day party for friends. I think Julie liked it because it forced me to work non-stop to get the baseboards finished. Which I did, for the most part (2 bedrooms still to go).

Reason #1 for a new house: our yard is non-existant & more importantly doesn’t fit a bouncer! So we had to use part of our neighbors.

We had a full house on the deck & in the bouncer.

Germania

Harp — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:34:10 +0000

Julie’s sleeping off an all-nighter (working) so I took the kids to Germania.

36 hr Painting Marathon

Harp — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 07:48:16 +0000

We’re in the process of re-doing all of the baseboards and it seemed like a good time to re-paint the upstairs.

So we’ve painted the ceilings, kitchen & 2 coats in the living room in just over 36 hours. This is a pic of our kitchen, in the corner where the high chair has been off and on for the last 5+ years.If you look closely, you can see where I pulled off the border, and notice a distinct difference in cleanliness. VERY disgusting!

T-Ball All Star!

Harp — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:58:19 +0000

Lily missed the All Star game because of her surgery, and it took us a while to pick it up from the coach but it’s pretty cool.

Home Networking

Harp — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:58:26 +0000

Did some minor remodeling this weekend, and was surprised it went as well as it did. I’m not what you would call a “handy man” so this was a bit of an adventure. The job itself was fairly minor, I bought some Cat6 from Your Cable Hookup (dumb name, really cheap prices & fast shipping) to run in one section of the basement. I wanted to get my XBox hooked up to the internet and prep for a media server or new TV, whatever.

I decided to go with pass-through keystone jacks, since I don’t have the tools to do the push-down stuff properly (and test it) and they cost more than everything else combined. The one downside to the pass-throughs is they add at least an inch of addtl depth to the faceplate so you have to sort of cram the faceplate in to get it flush with the wall. I also had to buy pre-booted cables; needed about 30 ft, but it was 25 or 35 so ended up with an extra 5ft of cable to stuff behind the wall.

I ran 3 cables, 2 would have been easier but I think I’ll happier in the long run with 3. To run the cables, I stripped off the baseboards, then run about a half-inch of drywall off at the floor. The 3rd cable presented a challenge in some spots, getting it tucked under but think I accomplished that. I’ll know more once we do the new baseboards in early August.