life with the Griswolds: November 2011

Monday at work we began laying out the glass inlays for the rest of the outdoor bar that goes to Paton, Iowa but we didn't have enough guys on hand for the pour. It will take all hands on deck for this pour. We have three giant pieces, all with fibers that need to be ran through the caps. I know that makes no sense to you but believe me, it is complicated and labor intensive.

fibers ran, inlays down

So we poured some small pieces that will adorn a patio locally

one down, one to go

Monday night we decided to take Canyon and four of his friends out to dinner to celebrate his birthday. We always go out to dinner for his and Robyn's birthday. Last year Robyn chose Red Lobster and it was delicious. This year it was Canyon's turn to choose. He picked a place called Zombie Burger. Yes, I said Zombie Burger. Here is a pic of Canyon and his friends as they wait for their food..

Looking hungry

Oh wait, that was the wrong picture

Canyon, Hai, Derek (D-Lo) and Casey

It was really a nice place just west of down town. They had a rather odd burger menu though. Canyon ordered a Project Nemises. It said it had deep fried mushrooms on it. I ordered an Undead Elvis. It had fried egg, bacon, fried bannannas and peanut butter on it. (I got it because it was the weirdest thing on the menu). Robyn ordered the Flame Thrower. I'm not sure what she was thinking because the poppers we ordered for appitizers were WAY to hot to eat, so I can only imagine what the Flame Thrower is all about. When the food arrived I dug right in. I was surprised at how good my Elvis actually was. Canyon was surprised as well, not at how good his was but at the fact that it was just a mushroom burger that included no meat. He had accidently ordered from the vegitarian side of the menu. Lucky for him I ordered a double patty. I gave him one of mine. Robyn found hers a little to hot and offered everybody else a bite (I passed). Judging by the faces they all made I figure it was just what the name implied.

The real strange thing was the burger that Hai got. I don't remember what it was called but the bun was made out of deep fried mac-n-cheese. It also had bacon so really it was breakfast (bacon) lunch (mac-n-cheese) and dinner (hamburger) all in one. Or just a heart attack waiting to happen. Check it out..

might be due for an oil change

Tuesday at work we popped the patio pieces and began processing. The rock face edge is becoming quite popular.

natural looking

Wednesday I began forming a bar for a clients man cave. It has some unique pieces to it. We spent quite a while deciding how best to seam it together. In the long run we decided on a new way to do it. We are always trying new ideas and formulas. That's why we are on the cutting edge of this industry.

difficult to imagine the end product

The bar only consists of four pieces but they will be put together in a cool fashion. We did this same clients kitchen over a year ago. That one was unique too, it included a concrete wine bottle holder/bar leg. I wish I had a pic. Here is a photo of another piece of the bar..

another odd shape

While I was working I got a phone call from my brother David in Sioux City. He asked when I would be coming up for Thanksgiving. My mom and dad were hosting a big get together for the holiday. There would be 27 people there for the Thanksgiving week end. I told him I was leaving right after work. He said "Good, then you can help me fix the plumbing at mom's." It turns out that the hot water quit working. David said that the hot water heater was working and full but no hot water was reaching anywhere in the house. That's great I thought, just when they have a couple dozen people coming in. It turns out I'm not the only Griswald in the family. I offered a couple of suggestions concerning plumbing problems (as we all know, I'm no plumber) and went back to work.

After work I went home, showered, packed the family truckster and headed for Sioux City. Hai joined us on our trip.

The family truckster is not as roomy as we would like

We arrived at around 9 PM, and the fun was already happening. The water problem was fixed so it was time to relax. As with most get togethers with my family there was plenty of card playing. Texas hold-em is the favorite. My first game went south so I decided to try my luck at the casino. (or the boat as it is called around there) As happens all too rarely, I walked away from the boat with all my money and a little of theirs.

Mom had been cooking since Monday making pies, peeling potatos, thawing things and preping everything. So she decided she deserved to taste test the beer.

one taste test too many

THANKSGIVING DAY!!!

the old homestead

What a feast. I brought a 16 pound turkey that Robyn had recieved from her boss and a wild turkey breast that my friend Danny gave to me. My dad got a turkey from work and they also had a 26 pound turkey. All those were cooked along with a ham, a prime rib, green bean casserole, 30 pounds of mashed potatos, corn, stuffing, macaroni salad, potato salad, apple sauce, sweet potatos, and any number of desserts. With all that cooking you can see why mom did some beer taste testing. She did have a lot of help in the kitchen though and even more help with the beer.

mouth watering

Robyn helps out in the kitchen

the men hold down the chairs

The weather couldn't have been more perfect. Everyone went outside to play games. There was some two hand touch football, three on three basketball, bags (also called cornhole but I'm not comfortable with that) and a new game...count the cans.

Boys against the girls. Hardly seems fair (girls won)

Harris goes for three points

someone should rake that yard

Count the cans isn't really a game but when you have 20 people staying at your house and a dozen more visiting daily you accumulate a lot of aluminum and glass.

a small portion of returnables

here's some more, and I think theres more in the garage

Very late Thursday night, or very early Friday morning (black Friday) Canyon and I went to Walmart to get an X-box. Target had them advertised for $60 off. We had called Walmart that morning to see if they would price match. They said they would. Canyon thought that way we wouldn't get involved in a brawl trying to get one at Target, an excellent idea. Since they weren't on special at Walmart we would be able to waltz right in, grab one and dance out very quickly. It was easy to get one, but we still had to get in line with the rest of the shoppers.

This next part I am not too proud of. As we approached the check out lines we noticed one was kind of short, only about six people in line. I wondered why the people in the other line that went completely out of sight wouldn't get in this line so we just got in line. (While waiting in line, Canyon found a discarded x-box game he wanted so he snatched it up.) It turns out that it was one line that divided into two. But they all had carts full of Christmas goodies and we only had one item. So we held our ground. I could hear the nice lady behind us talking to her friends (intentionaly loud enough for us to hear) about how we had cut but she would let us do it this time. I could tell she wasn't happy. I never turned around.

After 45 minutes we finally got to the counter. I felt bad for the lady behind us because when it comes to price matching, they have to call over a manager. I asked if it would take long and the cashier said no, because there were three managers on duty. Doing the math in my head I thought that three managers for ten thousand angry shoppers wan't quite enough.

After an extremely long five minutes the manager arrived. The X-box was rung up at the reduced price and the manager left. Then they scanned the game and the X-box went back to the origional price, so they had to call a manager again. Another grueling 10 minutes later and we were heading out the door. I never turned to see the people behind us but Canyon said he looked at the lady during the manager fiasco and she looked pissed. As she glared at him, he let a sheepish grin crawl across his face. Then we ran away. I hope the rest of their week end went better. I appoligize to them here.

Sadly, the Griswald effect wasn't over. Friday, as my mom loaded the car with cans to return, she accidently locked her keys in the trunk. Her spare key was missing. As she searched for that, we tried to recover her keys from the trunk through a small opening between the rear seats using a flash light and a pole with a magnet on the end. There was talk of buttering up one of the small children and squeezing them in there.

gonna take a lot of butter

Mom found her spare, but it wouldn't open the trunk. David tried to hot wire the trunk button on the door but that didn't work either. Mike finally inspected the closed trunk lid more closley and noticed the key chain barely visible from the outside. We used a coat hanger to retrieve them and celebrated our victory by making more empty cans (if you know what I mean). At last count there were over 1000 cans. Seriously.

Mom felt silly for locking her keys in the trunk so Robyn tried to console her with stories of doing the same, many times. I collaberated her stories.

More cards, more boat, more food, more beer.

Saturday things started winding down. Several people started heading home. But that gave us some time to visit with some of my brothers and sister's grand kids. David's daughter Ashley brought over her daughter, Peyten. Here is a pic of grampa Dave and Peyton discovering her first candy cane

She's gonna love Christmas

David and I ran a bed over to my sister Diane's house that she had let mom borrow. While we were there we got to see Diane's son Kendall's son, Bentlee

they should make candy cane flavored binkys (Million $ idea?)

We took a tour of her house. It is a beautiful old house with some very unique shaped rooms and trim work. Diane's boyfriend, Sean was up for the holiday. He is currently working in Texas so it was nice to see him too

I think Sean would like candy cane flavored foreheads

Then it was time to pack up and head home ourselves. We were all loaded, we had said our good byes and everyone was crammed in for the ride home, but as luck would have it, we couldn't find our keys. I'm serious. Robyn used them to unlock the car and that's the last time we saw them. I knew they were at the bottom of the pile so we started unpacking. I think it was a relief to mom to witness this. She wasn't laughing but I'm sure I caught her smiling a couple of times. We located the missing keys and reloaded. One more round of hugs and we were off.

Mom and dad, happy for some peace and quiet

Sunday we went to church for the last in the series on envy and bitterness. To truly eliminate these emotions from your life you must learn to forgive. They played a ten minute video at the close of the service that has a powerful message in it about forgiveness. The service won't be on the Point of Grace web site for a few days but you should with out a doubt see the video. It's a true story of a man named Grover Norwood. I was able to find his story online. I've included a link here..

http://www.purposedriven.com/article.html?c=201724&l=1

If you can't click on it, copy and paste it in your browser. It isn't the video but it is an account of the story. It's sure to make you cry and feel incredible joy. And it's a lesson we should all learn from.

After church we went home, had some pizza and put a roaring fire in the fireplace, then sat down to watch a Lifetime movie. (Not my favorite, but I love watching a movie in front of a fire with Robyn)
There was someone else enjoying the fire and glad to have us home..

one happy cat

I hope Everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. And I promise I won't cut in line again (or shop on black Friday)

Peace

Dan

OK. The Monday night football game didn't go so well. I went to my sister's house to watch the second half and you can tell by her expression that there wasn't a lot of celebrating going on...

This football face has been common this year

But we are training a rookie QB and maybe in a year or two we will have a contender.

Tuesday at work I began running fiber optics for the large outdoor bar in Paton, Iowa. The two lower bar pieces didn't call for a lot of fibers so that went rather quickly. We then placed some red glass on the fibers for inlays. When it is done the glass will be lit up at night. It should look awesome. After getting that started we got ready for a different install.

This piece is extremely large..over 9' long

On Wednesday we installed the powder room and master bath for the client we had installed the kitchen and fireplace the week before.

Top looks stunning with the black cabinet

She will have matching tile backsplash

After the install we went back to the shop and poured the lower bar pieces for Paton. We have to pour the concrete carefully around the glass inlays to try to prevent it from moving. Wednesday was also Robyn's birthday. She asked if we could stay home from small group, rent a movie, put a fire in the fireplace and spend a quiet evening at home. That is a birthday present I was happy to give.

Thursday I built and installed a door. I have been meaning to do this since we opened our shop. It was a door for the stall in the shop restroom.

Finally, some privacy

We also flipped the bar pieces for processing. I told you earlier that the one piece was big, as a matter of fact it would be impossible to flip. But we are prepared for that, with our hoist.

Russ advises keeping your fingers out of the way

After a successful flip they had to go help pour a floor while I prepared for a template job. While everyone was away we had a power outage. I was in the back of the shop when the lights went out and let me tell you, although your cell phone helps when you are in the dark at home, it was no help in the shop. I stumbled toward where I had last seen the flashlight and finally found my way to the front of the building. I saw that the car dealership across the street had no power nor did the fitness center at the end of the block.

even with the overhead door open it is still dark in there

After about a half hour the lights came back on and I loaded up to go do my template job. When I got there I was a little confused. You can see in this photo that I had little to go on...

can you picture the bar? Me neither.

I took some measurements but told the home owner I would have to come back later to template.

Friday we processed the bar pieces. Here are a couple pics.

a small row of pea gravel adds detail

it has a rock face edge also

This will be a sharp looking bar when complete.

Friday was also Canyon's birthday. He turned 17. He wanted to go see the Harold and Kumar movie with out adult supervision. (it's rated R) That was a birthday wish that although I was not thrilled about, at least it was affordable. Robyn and Canyon shared a birthday cake.

a lot of hot air

It so happens that Robyn's boss has the same birthday as Canyon and he and his wife asked us to go see a movie with them. They wanted to see Couragious. That is a movie I wanted to see too so we were excited to go.

Robyn's boss Rick with daughter Anna

The movie is Christ based and calls for all men to stand up and be dads of courage and valor. I suggest that all see this movie. They don't make them like this very often. The message is clear. I loved it.

Afterwards Rick suprised us and took us to a place called Orange Leaf. I had never heard of it but it is a yogurt buffet. You go in, grab a bowl and fill it with any number of soft serve, flavored yogurts. Then continue thru the line to the topping area. When you are ready you place your bowl on a scale and pay by the pound. Check this out..

Mine is on the far left, I may have went overboard

Saturday we felt like staying home and watching a movie. We stopped at Walgreens for snacks.

Robyn does not like to be seen in the snack isle

Then we ran across the street to the red box to get a movie. It is an outdoor kiosk and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was freezing and windy. Robyn gave up and ran back to the car for warmth. I continued looking for a good movie. I was having trouble getting the machine to accept my touch on the touch screen. I was actually getting aggitated because it was not going to the right screen and it kept prompting me to add a game for 50 cents. I started saying no when I touched the no button. But it kept sending me to the wrong screen and asking if I wanted blu-ray instead. "NO!", I shouted as I jabbed at the no button. Would you like another movie before you check out? No! No! No! Finally I just said the heck with it. I was getting frost bite by this time anyway. I turned around and there were three families sitting in their cars behind me. They were all very wide eyed. I jumped in my car and took off. I told Robyn I knew where there was an indoor red box. I dropped her off at home so she could order a pizza and I ran to the convience store. I noticed my index finger was feeling numb but it was dark so I didn't look at it. When I got to the store and went in I Checked out my finger...

my "NO!" finger

Isn't it ironic that there is a "red box" at my finger tip in that photo? Eventually the color and feeling returned.

Sunday's service was a new series called Clean and Clear. It's about what bitterness and envy can do to our lives and souls.

the church program

We talked about how we loose sight of the blessings in our own lives when we start comparing ourselves to others and wanting what they have. I find myself sometimes looking at things others have and desiring them, I mean who wouldn't want an Escalade or a vacation home on a lake. But I don't feel envious to the point of forgetting how very much God has blessed me. I have a home, two cars, a flat screen TV and all the other trappings of a comfortable living space. I also have a job I love, where I can be creative and use the skills I was gifted with. And most importantly, I have a family where love is overflowing. My mom and dad, my siblings but especially my wife and son. And that is the secret to dealing with envy, keeping the focus on our own blessings. You may say that you don't have those blessings. Well, if you are saying that then you are blessed to be alive and breathing, and you can obviously read which is another blessing, and the greatest blessing of all is yours for the taking. Accepting the offer of Jesus Christ as your savior. If you never have done that but want to, all you need to do is say yes. It's that simple. If in your heart you know that He is there for you then just ask him in. At that moment you become a child of God and your eyes will be opened to so many more blessings you will not be able to contain it all.

After church we went to a couple places to find a yard decoration for Christmas. We checked out a couple hats that we may go back and get. We think they would be fun to wear caroling

Elfs rule

While we were checking out all the decorations I came across this ornament...

Seriously?

An Egyptian false god as a Christmas tree ornament? Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking. Anyway, the snowmen we looked at were a little pricey, between $90 and $120. We changed our ideas to accomadate our wallet and picked up a less expensive yard decoration.

So here is a before picture of the front of our house. I began putting up lights and what not around 4 in the afternoon.

not much to work with

My finger started getting numb so I took a break and ran Canyon and Hai to church for the student services. After I dropped them off I went back to the car and saw this beautiful sunset (another blessing from God)