Productive!

The record-breaking high temperatures we've been having of late, seem to have come to an end. This weekend, the temperatures returned to their seasonal norms, which was perfect for what we had in store! On Saturday morning, the awesome foursome headed to a couple of stores. Liesel found exactly what she needed at the first store, while Nathan and Josh earned some prizes for shooting some basketball hoops! Win-win :) The next stop was Home Depot, where I bought our weekend project, a raised garden bed for our very own vegetable garden!
When we got home, Nathan and I started working on our project. We soon had our 16 square foot garden bed assembled. Since it looked a bit too small, we turned it into an 32 square foot bed. But wait! There's more! After some creative thinking, we managed to turn it into a 48 square foot bed! Once the bed was in place, Nathan and I had to go back to a garden store to buy the soil to fill the bed! We stacked around 800 pounds of bagged soil into the back of my Nissan and headed home to finish off the task. We ferried the bags of soil to back with the use of a wheelbarrow, with Nathan lending a helping hand moving the bags of soil that weighed 2/3 of his total body weight!
We cut up a weed cover and laid that at the base of the bed, then covered that with topsoil. Next, we got a healthy load of home-made compost and threw that in, followed by 400 pounds of fertilized garden soil! Nathan was a great assistant, and literally got his hands dirty! Here is a picture of the finished result.

On Sunday, we all were healthy enough to attend church. Afterward, Liesel and I rearranged Josh's bedroom, another thing off my honey-do list! Later that afternoon, I played some basketball and baseball with the boys, before being called inside for supper! By this time the sun had come out after being hidden since Friday morning, so we decided to go for a post-dinner bike ride around the neighborhood! A great way to wrap up a productive weekend!

Spring has sprung..... EARLY!!!!

While this weekend is officially the last weekend of winter, these past ten days or so seem to have made the case for Global Warming! For our family, this has been the mildest winter since moving to Cleveland, and we are loving it! In fact, this was the hottest St Patrick's Day ever recorded here, and in  hundreds of other cities across the USA. The temperature peaked at 77 (25C) which is a typical Summer time temperature in North East Ohio!

Look at the blue sky!

Even with these warm days that we've been experiencing, germs are still doing their rounds, and Nathan became their unfortunate victim, as he was diagnosed with Strep throat. Luckily we picked it up early and he was soon on anti-biotics and back to his normal self. However, we decided to play it safe and kept him indoors most of the time. I, on the other hand, was out in the front yard removing a thorn bush. This was my weekend workout, and after a hour of cutting, chopping and digging, sweat was rolling off my face! Later that afternoon, Lieel took Josh out with her to a playground to use up some of his energy, and on the way back, stopped at our favorite frozen yogurt place and brought us all back our favorite flavors and toppings! What a wonderful wife!
Later that evening, I started working on my band's website. It's still in it's infancy, but I have made two sites some slight differences. Feel free to take a look at it at them: Remnant Band Site 1 and Remnant Band Site 2 . Both sites have videos of all the songs we performed last week! Click on the >| button when you hover over the YouTube player to move to the next song. Enjoy!

On Sunday, I took Josh to church with me, while Liesel and Nathan stayed at home. It was another low key day, with a beautiful thunderstorm late in the afternoon to round off the weekend!

Beautiful weekend!

One of the final touches to our master bedroom's long-overdue makeover was completed on Friday. The final coat of our brand new color was applied to the walls, giving our bedroom a much more intimate, and color-coordinated feel! The full makeover so far includes new bedding, new window blinds, new lamps, a new TV and now the new wall color! 

Waking up to bright sunlight and bird's chirping set the tone for the weekend! The weather has finally turned the corner and is heading directly to Destination Spring! In fact, I left the house in shorts as I headed for my gym workout! However, the bright sunshine was deceptive, as when I pulled into our driveway after gym, I offered Josh a bike ride around our neighborhood. He, of course, said YES (probably because he had a nice warm tracksuit on!) I should have checked my dashboard to check the outside temperature beforehand, as the temperature was 34F (1C). But being true to my word, I fastened Josh into his backseat, and I mounted the bike and headed into the near-freezing air. By the time I got home, my legs, hands and face were frozen!

Later that afternoon, I had to get ready for my band's first ever "concert". Our church had graciously offered us the use of their hall for the "Praise and Worship Night". The band I play in, The Remnant, had been rehearsing for this evening for months! The idea was simple, choose our favorite praise and worship songs, and then invite our friends and families and whoever to come and worship along with us. We had a wonderful turnout, and the evening was divine in all senses of the word! We felt God's presence amongst us, and felt really privileged to lead so many in worship. We had so much positive feedback, with many people asking us to do this on a regular basis! The possibilities are endless, and we will go wherever God leads us! 

My favorite part of the evening, was when Liesel said to me: "Your dad would have loved this, and I know he was looking down at you, and he must have been so proud!"

I will be uploading video of the songs that we performed video YouTube in the near future, but until then, enjoy this clip that Nathan took from his vantage point in the audience!



If you want to see more photos and videos, search for The Remnant on Facebook and like us :)
 

Wind, wind, go away!

As most of you have heard by now, the USA has experienced some severe weather recently. One day last week alone, more than 40 tornadoes were reported, which is a record for the most tornadoes in a day! Fortunately, there was no severe weather reported in northern Ohio, other than gale force winds.
This entire week was a roller-coaster of extreme weather! On Wednesday, the temperatures got up into the mid 60's (18C to 20C), which is unheard of in February! In fact, after dinner that night, we all went on a bike ride around the neighborhood! Usually in February, the ground is covered by two feet of snow (60cm) and even the maximum temperatures stay considerably below the freezing mark! Thursday was considerably coller, yet still above freezing, but Friday again reached the sixties, and although it was raining, it was pleasant! It was also the day that the wind picked up and it started howling! Strong gusts blew continuously for more than 24 hours as another cold front was ushered into the Cleveland area. As I type this blog, heavy snow is falling outside and we are expecting tomorrow's temperatures to be sub-freezing (even the maximum). But, strangely enough, after living here for a while, you get used to these crazy meteorological cycles and learn to take advantage of the good days!

Friday night was date night for Liesel and myself. We wanted to go to a restaurant, so we decided to try a new restaurant for the first time. Considering that this restaurant was situated in a three star hotel in Westlake, Liesel and I didn't think it could be that bad. As we walked in, we actually made a list of signs that indicated the place was not nearly as classy as what we had hoped for. Some of these signs included:

1. An entire menu printed on one side of a single laminated page.
2. A waitress that seemed to have come straight out of a 1960's style diner.
3. The restaurant at any time had no more than 5 people, and that included the staff!
4. The padded booth benches that had lost their padding.
5. An advertisement for Pizza Hut Express on the table.
6. The furnishings might have been better suited for the 1980's.

Nevertheless, the food was quite good, and Liesel and I had plenty of time to talk, laugh and find the lighter side of the restaurant that we will never venture into again!

On Saturday night, it was family fun night! Liesel had found that the Cleveland Aquarium was staying open later for their annual pass holders (which we happen to be!) So after the venue had shut its doors to the general public, we were allowed in and were free to explore the magical underwater world with a few other annual pass holders. Liesel, who had been there a few times before, said she had never seen it that quiet. It was awesome! No crowds, and plenty of space around the touch pools, made for a very enjoyable evening out with the family!

On Sunday morning, it was KidStuff at Church. This happens the first Sunday of every month, and parents are asked to join their children for a hour's production put on by the KidsStuff team. These are always so well done and well rehearsed! I love that one of our associate pastors always gets dressed up and plays one of the funnier characters and keeps the children entertained! After the production, we have the "family huddle" time, where parents sit with there children, read some bible verses together and then discuss what we saw and learnt during KidStuff that morning! These are some of my favorite times at Church!

Below is a photo of the Associate Pastor wearing a kilt for St Patrick's Day :)