Welcome to the World

My dear friend Jessie and her husband Matt, and daughter Scarlette welcomed this little bundle of joy into their family Friday. His name is Maxwell Alexander! I think he is just precious.

I found some way cute clothes for little Max, and I even found a special shirt for his big sister! I just love giving baby gifts!!

The "To-Do" List

So, dad came down this weekend to help me get some of my home improvement projects done. We had a list of things to do, and did a pretty good job of getting many of the things done. We also did some things that were not on the list, but that's ok! One of our main projects was to try to stop the leak in my basement. We re-caulked around the windows and even poured some cement in front of one of the windows, to prevent water pooling in that area. I also patched the crack in the wall where the water had been leaking in...we'll see it that remedies the situation. We hung blinds and a curtain rod, put weather stripping along the bottom of the doors, fixed the down-spouts, changed out a couple screws in the garage door, so now it shouldn't fall off the track. I also bought a new weed eater because my old one was causing a lot of problems, and wasn't very reliable. Then dad and I moved on to our last project: changing out the bedroom fan. As I recall, dad said, "it should only take a couple hours." Well, 3-4 hours later, you have picture A (below)!!!

You are probably asking, so, where's the fan? Well, typically with projects around the Gittinger household they take longer than expected and we run into problems. Dad had the fan all hooked up and we turned the switch on, and it wouldn't work! Come to find out with his handy-dandy voltage meter there weren't enough volts coming from the switch. Dad wasn't sure why this was the case..maybe it was the broken wire in the ceiling. So he has wire nuts on the ends of the wires and is going to ask someone about this problem. So this little "2 hour job" stays on the "To-Do list" for another day when dad can come back down to finish it. So for now, if you come to be my guest, you have no light/ceiling fan in the guest room. I've set you up with the floor lamp pictured above!!!!!
The to-do list is getting things marked off of it!!!! How exciting! Thanks dad for helping out this weekend...I really appreciate it.

Here's some updates on other things going on since I last posted. Mom had her birthday on the 10th. Tim participated in his second demo derby and placed 5th overall...this was better than the first demmo of the season. His car is still running and there is rumor that he may in fact take it to Nebraska to finish it off. The motto of a good demo guy is: run it till it don't run anymore! For those of you who don't know, our Hawaii trip is booked, and we do have insurance. I'm back on track to sky dive!!!!! Word is I'm only being allowed one suitcase...size small to pack everything in. I'm not sure how I'm going to get all my clothes in, but I'll figure out a way, because I'm sure as heck not going to miss a trip to Hawaii! I may have to do a trial run in packing before the trip! Oh, our church is having an open house Sept. 6th! Our new addition is done and we are already putting it to good use. We have hosted youth conference and VBS and we have KidFest coming up. We are also adding a third service...yes, a third but this service is geared for youth and will be held in the new gym at the 10:45 service. What an exciting time for our growing church!

One more thing.....Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad on the 27th!!!!!

Tim's Tradition Continues

Well, it's official, derby season is here. Tim had his first of the season last weekend in Goodland. He was third in his heat, which qualified him to move on to the main event. Unfortunately, the distributor failed and there were some other problems that kept him from getting his car up and running in time to run in the main event. He decided to fix the car and is taking it to St. Francis this weekend. He has a really sturdy car this year, if only he can keep it running. Tim also has another car, which he may take some place else this year. Because of the problems in Goodland, he may get to run in 3 derbys this year! Tim just lives for this time of year. I'll keep you posted on Tim's achievements of the season.