Gavana

Today we said goodbye to Gavana, our (well, my - Kathryn's) sweet kitty that we have enjoyed for 9 years. We'll miss her!

Chivery

Some more photos of the furball...

Tara trained him right off to sit on her lap while she practices

His first bath, which he did not like

Training... he's a really good listener when he wants to be.

Complete exhaustion.

Check One Off The Bucket List!

Those of you who've been to my (Dave's) office know that I'm a huge auto racing fan.  Most of my focus is on open wheel racing (F1 & Indycar) but I do like NASCAR as well.  Because of our beliefs about the Sunday Christian Sabbath, I haven't attended or watched a sporting event on a Sunday for many years.  Of course, the great American media machine has every major sporting event culminate on Sundays.  Needless to say, I read about my favorite events in the news on Monday morning or I hear them recorded on podcasts.

Racing in the US has two big events annually.  For Indycar, it's the Indy 500 in May.  For NASCAR, it's the Daytona 500 which is actually the first race of the year.  I always said that if either of these events happened to be rained out on Sunday and moved to Monday, I'd try to make it.  The Indy 500 has been delayed before, but it is rare to delay it to Monday.  The Daytona 500 has never been rain delayed to Monday...  Until last Sunday.

Monday morning I read in the news that the Daytona 500 was rain delayed to Monday and scheduled for a noon start.  Unfortunately, I had been at a funeral pretty much all day on Sunday and wasn't even aware of the rain delay.  A little bummed there's no way to make it there, I resign myself to following it online during the day.  Mid-morning I checked the weather in Daytona and it said there were showers in the area.  At 10am, NASCAR.com posted that the race had been delayed again for a 7pm start.  First ever rain delay to Monday and first ever night race.

The Journey South
Mon. 10am - Toying with the idea to be spontaneous and impetuous.

Mon. 10:30am - Checking potential flights to see if it is even possible.  Orlando - None.  Lauderdale - Too late and too far.  Jacksonville - 1:15PM out of O'Hare.  Booked.

Mon. 11:00am - Leaving work.  Asked my admin to help me book a car and hotel.

Mon. 11:15am - Called Tara and asked her to pack my bag and be ready to throw it in the car when I got home.

Mon. 11:30am - Do my version of a pit stop by doing a 3 point turn in the driveway and stopping just long enough for Tara to throw my bag in the front seat of the MINI.

Mon. 12:20pm - Pull into O'Hare lot feeling pretty good about making the flight.  I've never made it to O'Hare in 50 minutes before.

Mon. 12:30pm - Priority security line is at half capacity and moving REALLY slow.  Patience IS a virtue.

Mon. 1:00pm - Board the flight just in time.  I'm on my way!!

Mon. 4:30pm (EST) - Flight lands on time.  I grab a late lunch to go and I grab my keys to the flaming red Ford Focus and I'm off down I95.  GPS says 1:45 to Daytona.

Mon. 6:30pm - Pull into Daytona and it is jammed packed.  I park on the street about a mile away from the track and walk in looking for a ticket.

Mon. 6:55pm - Scalpers galore, but most seats at the ends of the front stretch.  If I'm going to this race one time, I want a more centered ticket.  I cross the street and a guy is holding 2 tickets in Roberts Tower in Row 41.  These are just off center towards Turn 1.  A young student is also standing there looking for a single ticket.  After a little negotiation, I buy one of them for $60.

Mon. 7:00pm - Walking into the gate.  Amazing how all the timing worked out to make it.

An Unprecedented Race
Being a 2.5 mile track, it can take quite a while to get to the right place for your seats.  The green flag fell as I was walking to Roberts Tower and a quick wreck occurred on Lap 2 so by the time I got into my seat, the race was already under caution.  But it was an awesome sight.

Here's a short video of a lap around the Great American Race.

Here's Danica still having problems.  She was involved in the wreck on Lap2 but got repaired and returned.  But she continued to have issues all night.

This is a video of one of the pit stops under caution when everyone comes in at the same time.  I was focused on Tony Stewart #14 Office Depot and as you'll see he takes 4 tires while most everyone only takes 2 outside tires to get a shorter pit stop.  That strategy call may have cost Tony a good spot in the end.

But the most unique part of the night was definitely a freak accident under caution on Lap 160 when Juan Pablo Montoya was trying to catch up to the pack and something broke in his front end and he lost control and crashed into one of the Jet Dryer Trucks in Turn 3.  Now these Jet Dryers are literally Jet Engines mounted sideways and pulled by a truck to blow debris off the track.  They run on jet fuel so you can just imagine how dangerous this became.  Jet fuel began running down the banked turn and quickly ignited in flames and a swath of Turn 3 was now in flames.  Here's a video from YouTube of the crash.



Well, as you can imagine, the track practically melted where the fire was and jet fuel isn't really easy to clean up.  It took 2+ hours to put out the fire, wash the track down with Tide (yes, the laundry detergent), patch the burnt part of the track, dry the track, and test it out.  So, at midnight the race was restarted under caution for the final 40 laps.

After a final wreck on Lap 197 when Tony Stewart tried to make his final move and got tapped in the rear by another car, the race was under caution again, but NASCAR tries to not end races under caution because fans want to see a true race to the end.  So they do what is known as a Green/White/Checkered finish which is a 1 lap shootout.  So we actually got to see the 201st lap as the final lap.  In the end Matt Kenseth #17 Best Buy won the race as he should since he pretty much led the second half of the race.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. #88 Mountain Dew was just able to pass Greg Biffle #16 3M coming out of Turn 4 to grab 2nd place.

Mayhem in Victory Lane

So at 1am on Tuesday, the race was finally over.  Took me over an hour to get back to the car and crawl out of town along with 140,000 other fans who had witnessed a most unusual day at Daytona.  I finally rolled into the hotel back in Jacksonville at 3:45am and got up at 7:30am to get ready for my flight home.

This once in a lifetime opportunity was worth every penny and minute spent.  I'll probably never get another opportunity to see it live again.  Check this one off the bucket list.  Praying for rain the day before Memorial Day...

Bathroom Is Progressing...

The bathroom project is getting closer to the end...

The walls are now a nice shade of green

The unfinished corner where the shower will be

As of this posting the toilet and shower base are in and that extra insulation isn't showing, but these are the most recent pictures.

Come back later this week or so for a more interesting post of puppy pictures. :-) (I put some on my photography blog too).

Meet the newest member of the family...

Apparently this was pet-birthday-gift year at our house, because Tara got this little guy for hers (but he only just arrived this past week):

Tara's new puppy, Chivery

(named after John Chivery in Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit")

See more pictures on Tara's blog - and stay tuned because I'm sure there will be more on here before long. ;-)

Playing Catch-Up... Again!

February already... time just flies a little too quickly these days, or so it seems. I'll try to do a relatively short recap of life from Tara's birthday till now. :-)

We posted a happy birthday post for Tara as always, but we never posted about the fun visit from Grace that accompanied that birthday. :-) We had a great time, ate lots of good food, and generally laughed a little too much.

Out for dinner at the Melting Pot... yummmm!

I think this was the Flaming Turtle Chocolate Fondue.

Even the name makes you drool, doesn't it?

The silliness abounds...

We had a wonderful night at the Do-It-Yourself Messiah again, our yearly tradition. Great music and soloists, and best of all, the best lyrics ever. :-)

Me, Jessica & Laura trying to keep our eyes open on the train ride home. :-)

Mid-January found us trekking out to Indiana for a spontaneous trip to attend an English Country Dance hosted by our Reformation Day acquaintances, the Franks. We had a lovely evening of dancing; learning some new dances, meeting new friends, and socializing with "old" friends. :-) I heard we even made it into the local paper!

With Gretel, Rebecca, Lily and Emily Rose

More recently, we've been staying busy... We went sledding with our friends Christie, Lori & Luke, even though there really wasn't very much snow!

Christie was the first one to get the hang of our new little sled thing. If you have one of these things, and keep falling off - don't tuck your legs up on to it. Stick them out straight! :-)

Rehearsing for Liberty Day... it's coming together pretty well!

Visits from friends...

And the biggest thing going on right now is our bathroom is getting remodeled. It was REALLY in need of it. It will have a whole new layout and new color scheme (which is good considering it doesn't exactly have any color scheme right now :-).

Before pictures...

Gutted!

There hasn't been that much visual progress since that, but I'll post some more photos when there's more to see. I'm sure Mr. Riggenbach will be anxiously awaiting my updates... ;-)

That's about it for now, folks... see you in a couple months! (joke... or maybe not...)

Life, DeL-ified

We had the 4 little DeL kids with us this past week from Wednesday to Monday while their parents flew out to Idaho for Jonathan & Allie's wedding. As you can imagine, when you spend 4 1/2 days with 4 kids, 6 and under, there are quite a few opportunities for smiles and even out-loud laughs. :-) Enjoy this peek into the minds of the DeL kiddos...

Sunday night we played church. Corrine was the pastor, I think. :-)
Corrine: Now we will have the Passover. [takes out the fake money and starts passing it out] Here is your money to put in the plate. [proceeds to collect tithes and offerings]
Winston: No, Corrine! The Passover is when you eat FOOD.
Corrine: Oh! [does the Lord's Supper, making sure to assure us that it was gluten free]
Later on in the service it was time for the benediction.
Corrine: Now, a token from God----
Winston (interrupting): Corrine! A token is a INDIAN thing!
Corrine: [pause] Squanto was the best Indian... [and launches into the story of Squanto instead of the benediction]
--------------------------------------------------------
While baking cookies...
Winston: Do you know why I'm SO SMART? Because my mom teached me.
--------------------------------------------------------
The kids were going out to play in the snow. Because they didn't have snow pants, Tara told the girls to just wear their tights under their pants.
Camille: Mommy said to never wear tights under our pants.
Tara: Well, just this once it is okay.
Camille: But Mommy will know! Even if we don't tell her, she will know. She knows EVERYTHING.

In the car, Corrine was looking at a book, and Winston (in the back seat) could tell she was doing something but couldn't see what. Corrine told him it was a secret (they apparently have this thing about secrets - everything is a secret).
Winston (to me): SHE has a secret, and she's NOT telling me! And I am NOT HAPPY about that!
--------------------------------------------------------
We played house, and Tara was the mom, Winston was the dad, Corrine and Camille were the babies, and I was the grandma. First off, though, Tara and Winston had to get married (according to Corrine).
Me (I played a dual role as grandma and minister): Winston, do you want to marry Tara?
Winston (giggling): Yes.
Me: Tara, do you want to marry Winston?
Tara: Yes. [she's a very convincing liar. *winks*]
Me: I now pronounce you man and wife.
They walk back down the aisle.
Winston: That is the SILLIEST part!
--------------------------------------------------------
In the car on the way to church...
Winston: I smell beans! MAYBE, we have a BEAN FEEF!
Me: A bean feef? What's a feef?
Winston: A FEEF! Somebody who steals stuff! I bet, the feef was stealing some beans, and he dropped one under the seat! We better make a trap to catch that feef....

Camille: Aunt Joanna said that we can wear a pretty dress and be in her wedding.
Me: Really? That will be fun!
Corrine: Maybe you should have us in YOUR wedding!
--------------------------------------------------------
Mom went up to get the girls up from their nap/rest time and found them both cuddled under the covers. As they came down the stairs, though, Camille enlightened her...
Camille: I was dancing ballet in our room!
Mom: I thought you were taking a nap.
Camille: Well, I was dancing, and then I heard you coming up the stairs, and I jumped back in bed so you would think I was taking a nap.
--------------------------------------------------------
We went out to play in the snow, and Tara came out wearing her coat, black snow pants, and a bright pink headband/earmuff.
Winston: You look like Uncle Josiah!
--------------------------------------------------------

Winston and Corrine were going through what they could remember of the 10 commandments.

Corrine: Thou shalt not steal. Ummm... Thou shalt not kill.

Winston: Thou shalt not steal.

Corrine: Uhhh... Thou shalt not commit adulurity. Mmm... Thou shalt not steal.

Winston: Thou shalt not make a new covenant. THAT means, Thou shalt not worship a new car.

--------------------------------------------------------

I hope this put a smile on your face today. ;-)
-Kathryn