The Harp Family

New Toilet Upstairs!

Matt — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:46:18 +0000

Last night Ava spotted a spider behind the toilet, and after working up the bravery to go get it, I went reaching around back there. No spider but I bumped a bolt and water started leaking, never a good sign. After some investigation, the culprit was essentially old age. 3 bolts held the bowl to the seat, and one nut had come loose and I guess due to a very slow drip slowly rusted with the bolt into one blob. I tried the mini hacksaw, but just no room to operate and after fighting it for a half hour the seal on the other two bolts broke so that was the end for our 1981 toilet!

For a replacement, my father-in law recommended the AS Champion series. He owns 3, primarily because they claim you can flush a whole bucket of golf balls down them!. The way the kids use TP we’re going to test that claim.

Pics below, installation was pretty easy. Took me about 2 hours to take out the old and put in the new.

Old Toilet

New Toilet

First Track Meet

Matt — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:38:42 +0000

Brutally cold (~45 degrees) and terminally boring (5 events in 4 hours), that’s the best assessment I can offer of our first ever track meet. At least it was at Oak Hills, so the drive wasn’t bad. Ava and Lily both ran in 2 events and did the long jump. Well, Ava did the long jump but Lilly was tired of waiting so we bailed and hit Skyline.

Waiting is the hardest part

Get set!

Go!

Taking off!

Stick the landing!

Chicago!

Matt — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:35:36 +0000

The Girls with their Dolls

So the kids somehow got wind of American Girl dolls, and decided that was going to be there big gift request for Santa! So given that, I figured why not head up to Chicago after Christmas to check out the store and take a mini-vacation! We left on the 28th, came back on the 30th and really felt like we could have stayed another day. Trip was a lot of fun, we hit:

Gino’s East
Ed Debevic’s
American Girl Store
Children’s Museum

And the Hilton Garden Inn on Grand is a great location!

Daddy Campout, Year 3

Matt — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:45:51 +0000

Kids in Hocking Hills

Kind of late this year, but we had a great weekend after the rain passed on Friday afternoon. We were back in Hocking Hills, but we went from 4 dads last year to about 10 this year! This was Cassie’s first year on the camp out, she was very excited and had a great time. We hit Old Man’s cave again this year, and then campground we were in had some Halloween stuff going on all weekend. Dance on Friday, trick-or-treating on Saturday. Click the pic to see more from the trip.

Ava stayed up late on Saturday, and we went through the Haunted Forest. It was actually pretty well done, very believable and she was pretty darned scared.

2011 Festivals

Matt — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:06:10 +0000

Summer is ending unfortunately, so wanted to quickly recap the 2011 festival circuit.

We hit several festivals this year, most of them while Julie was working so she didn’t get to partake in all of the good times. Ava really loved them, and sno cones and cotton candy were helpful while her jaws were wired shut for a couple weeks last month. Kids booths were weak at Little Flower, rides were expensive at Visi and everything was free at the Electricians Picnic at Stricker’s Grove!

Cassie, Driving the Helo	Ava, Riding Merry-go-Round at Visi
Lots of "Merry go Arounds"	Riding the Turtle Coaster at Stricker's Grove

St. James Festival (2011)

Matt — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 01:31:17 +0000

Julie and I volunteered to chair the Goldfish booth this year, our first time volunteering at the festival. We both worked it on Friday, Julie went to the Reds game with friends on Saturday and then had the kids on Sunday. So I was pretty busy… The booth was a blast though, we had an awesome group of volunteers all three days which made the whole weekend go well. I’m exhausted, should have taken today off to recuperate; was breaking down the booth until almost 1 this morning.

Not the prettiest booth, but it gets the job done

The UC Bearcat was a winner!

Put In Bay, 2011!!

Matt — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 02:54:38 +0000

Family vacation #3, and we made a repeat visit to Put In Bay and stayed about 4 doors down from where we were last year! Mom & Dad have been bugging us to go on an extended Harp family vacation for a couple years now, and thankfully we talked Mom out of Gatlinburg

We had a lot of fun, with lots of golf cart rides, ice cream and swimming! Mom & Dad took the kids one night so that we could do some bar hopping with Elaine & Kelli which was good. Cassie took the following weekend to recover, they all got to bed late and she was unable to function as a non-annoying person after only sleeping for 10 or so hours.

The Harp Family (click for more pics)

Soccer, Ava’s First Season

Matt — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:13:56 +0000

Early in the spring, before monsoon season struck, we signed Ava up for soccer with the WOAC. She waffled between excited and nervous but in the end we think she enjoyed it. The cost was annoying, $90 for essentially 3-4 practices and maybe 4 games because of all the rain.

Our most popular piece of advice from the coach was (said during a game) “Ava, stop playing with your hair. You can do that after the game!”

Yep, she's really into the game!

Ready for action!