What Ryan Did on His Summer Vacation

This was a busy summer for Ryan.  He started it off by travelling to Washington DC with 13 seventh and eighth graders and one other teacher.  Before he left, he was getting frustrated with the paper work and vowed to never do this again.  After the trip, he was talking about doing it every year.  Yes, it was that good!  He said it was much more education-oriented than he thought it would be.  Not your typical sight-seeing tour.  The thing that topped it off for him was that on a trip to Senator Inouye’s office, one of his students wanted to know how she could get a job working there.  That made it all worth it for him.  Of course, the all-you-can-eat bacon in the complimentary breakfast buffet didn’t hurt either.  

Don’t worry.   He did get to see the sights, too.  They went to the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, The Library of Congress,  Union Station, The White House (at least the outside of it), all of the war memorials, The Lincoln Memorial, The Jefferson Memorial, FDR Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, The Changing of the Guards, Washington Monument, and several malls.  This was a trip of firsts for a lot of his students.  Some of them had never been to the mainland before.  For most of them, it was the first trip without their parents.  For some it was the first time they got to use an escalator.  Many of them got to ride on a subway for the first time.  They got to meet kids from Texas, Chicago, New York, Ohio, and California.  Ryan learned that kids from New York walk really fast.  Kids from California walk really slowly.  Hawaii kids were in the middle of the pack with the mid-west kids.

Here are a few pictures.  Unfortunately, Ryan didn’t get any pictures with him in them.  You know that he was behind the camera, though, because of the bacon picture above.  Who else would take a picture of a huge pan of bacon?  We are also a little limited in what I can post because I don’t want to post pictures of his students on our blog.  So here are some beautiful and anonymous pictures of what Ryan saw on his trip.

The Smithsonian:

The National Archives:

Capitol Hill:

The White House:

Vietnam War Memorial:

Iwo Jima Memorial (US Marine Corps Memorial):

Arlington Cemetery:

Washington Monument:

A Big Mall:

But the fun did not stop there.  When he got home he delved into a number of home improvement projects.   Get, ready!  It is a long list.  He installed a recessed light in the shower stall of the laundry room shower.  It really lights up the space well. 

He repaired the table leg that was missing when we bought the table second-hand.  It came with the leg, but we needed to reattach it. 

He installed the baseboard trim and door trim in the hallway. 

We painted the baby’s room Celestial Blue. 

He replaced the missing screen clips in the clearstory and put weather stripping around those screens.  No more bugs or geckos can get in through those!  In case they don’t look high in the picture, the ceiling in the clearstory is 16 ft tall.  Ryan doesn’t like climbing the ladder that high, but he was a trooper. 

We potted some flowers in ornamental urns for our front entry way. 

He put weed cloth and mulch around all of the plants in our front flower bed and mowed our expansive lawn about a million times.

He re-potted our ever-growing Rosemary plant. 

He removed a lot of rubbish and took it to the dump.  We had two big rotting greenhouse tables in the corner of our backyard.  He dismantled them and took them to the dump.  In their place, he set up a composting bin system.  It is made up of three trash cans with holes drilled in the sides, and top.  We’re excited to see how it works.  Hopefully the neighbor’s wall won’t destroy it before we get some results.  No “black gold” yet. 

He added more gravel to the walkway of the side of the house.  While Elspeth was here helping us, we got gravel down most of that side of the house, but we ran out of steam and money part of the way down.  Ryan extended our efforts to go all the way down the side of the house and he added more gravel to what we had done to make it thicker.  It might still need a little bit of gravel, but it looks really nice. 

He finally got rid of the rolls of carpet and huge buckets of paint that were left at our house by the previous owner.  We had been talking about donating it to Habitat for Humanity from the day we moved in.  Now, one year later, it is finally gone.  Of course, it wasn't as easy as you might think.  Ryan called Habitat and was told that they would love the carpet and paint.  They would call him the next week when they were in the area.  No phone call.  So Ryan called them again.  They would pick it up that Friday between the hours of 10am and 2pm.  No one came.  Saturday morning at 7:15am, Ryan posted an add on Craig's list for free carpet and paint.  By 9am we had gotten rid of it and had three other callers.  If we had known it would be that easy, we might have started with Craig's list.

His last project of the summer was to replace the garage entry door frame.  We used the old door, but the frame was rotting, so he replaced that part.  It turned out to be much more difficult than expected.  None of the doors in our house were framed straight evidently.  That makes replacing them a big pain!  So far, no more rain has been sneaking in through that door since he fixed it! 

In his spare time, Ryan played his favorite video game, Dark Age of Camelot.  His highest level character is a druid named Eansainne.  His next favorite character is a champ named Hobble.  I’m sure the realm of Hibernia is missing his presence since he has reluctantly started back to school.  He wasn’t ready for the summer to end.  This week was the first week with kids.  So far, they are all on their best behavior.  He said that usually wears off by the second week. 

So, you may be thinking, what has Wendy been doing this summer?  Well, working is the short answer.  Last week was my last week of field work until after my maternity leave.  I will be stuck in the office for the next two months.  And, of course, I have been busy making a baby.  This is hard work in case you don’t already know that.  I am now looking very pregnant, but most people still think I am small for being seven months along.  It’s ok with me.  I can still see my toes.  Technically, I can still reach my toes, but that is very uncomfortable.  

Of course, I can’t forget to introduce the newest members of our family…the house plants!  They were my project this summer.  They add a feel of completion and warmness to the house.  At least, I think so.