Our second full day at the lake. Ann Grover, Mary Pat’s cousin who lives in Cumming, joined us for a full day of water activities. The kids (and kc) had great fun jumping from the boat as seen in the videos at the bottom.

Videos of jumps and dives from the boat

John Michael, Kristen, Cameron & Keri

Keagan

kc

We are enjoying another vacation here at Lake Lanier, north of Atlanta, with family and extended family. Mary Pat again has made this available for us all. Kevin and “the cousins” are here, Angela, Kevin’s best friend, and Ann Grover, Mary Pat’s cousin who lives nearby in Cumming.

We are having a great time eating, swimming, tubing, jet-skiing and repairing the house and water craft!

Videos at bottom.

Kristen & Cameron

Kaley & Keri

Keegan goes flying

Keegan does a barrel roll

The crew finished-up today. Great work in short time.

It not only is structurally solid, but it is now useful space and it looks great.

We have some planting of seeds and bushes to do, but now we can have a large crowd watching RC races!

Today was the big day of the pour. John Michael was very excited and kc and I were, also.

I asked the crew if they knew Nicole Green and they said, “No habla Ingles.”

We are very happy with the progress and are excited to see it next week, when it is all cleaned-up and ready for use.

The retaining walls have all been replaced or new ones built, although with the ongoing work it is difficult to see how well they will look and work.

They have begun demolition of the cracked sidewalk and have built the forms for the new steps and will bring in gravel today. I believe they will pour the concrete on the sixth.

We are very happy with the work so far.

These guys work hard! One must also appreciate that all the gravel and every new keystone has to be carried by wheelbarrow from the front of the house, along the side and down to the back of the house, then poured down a chute before being placed. Existing walls must be dismantled, moved up behind the house and stacked before being moved back to re-install. The dirt behind each wall must be shoveled out and up, then shoveled back down behind the new wall.

After the middle wall was removed (the one that fell), we found a channel where water had run behind it and undermined the base. It was at least 30″ deep, and 3 inches in diameter.

The previous lowest wall was much closer to the deck. Note the presence of the peach tree at right.

There is a foundation of gravel, two levels of keystone (with vertical pins tying them together) and now mesh that runs from the pins back into the dirt behind the wall. One can see the mesh covered with dirt. This uses the weight of the dirt behind the wall to keep it from tipping downhill.

At the end of the day. The wall is five feet high with two levels of retaining mesh and the keystones are pinned together and filled with gravel. Keystone caps are partially installed. Drain pipes are installed beneath the dirt, leading to French drains. The gravel foundation for the middle wall has been partially spread.

They removed the peach tree which was a nice tree, but it was supposed to be an apple tree and it was too hard to pick fruit from it. It was also a future threat to fall and ruin all this work (and, perhaps, the deck).

The first two weeks of April brought the third highest rainfall to San Diego, about 1/3 of our average annual rain. Because it occurred over two weeks, the ground never had a chance to dry.

We found that one retaining wall behind the house and beneath the deck had collapsed and the concrete sidewalk behind the house had sagged away from the house and cracked even more.

Tomorrow the landscape company that cleared the canyon of junk plants and built the terraces that now hold the RC tracks will come to rebuild the walls and sidewalk.

Today was a great day that started last night, at least! John Michael was more excited about Christmas this year than we remember from the past, and he was pretty excited in the past. After preparing cookies, Horizon milk and a letter for Santa, he went upstairs but was so excited he was unable to fall asleep until quite late, for him. Of course, he compensated for that by waking at 3:45 AM, even though he had been warned by kc that there would be no presents opening until 7:00AM! Oh, well, we lasted until about 6:30 before tearing in.

Mary Pat joined in via FaceTime. We wish she, Kevin and “the cousins”, and everyone else could have been together.

kc had received an early present of a Total Gym, which she is using to rebuild her body. John Michael had received an early present of a Traxxas Slash RC car in order to play with it while Billy and Katie were here at Thanksgiving. I, also, got a PowerBeats Pro headset early, just because I wanted it!

Santa brought John Michael the Ford Raptor body he wanted for his Slash. He also received a super-cool M&M dispenser with green and red M&M’s from Francie. I’m not optimistic they will last to the end of the day. His grandma bought him a Lego Ferrari F-40 kit. He got a set of hot wheels cars from his mom’s masseuse, Marco. From me, he got a sealed transmission cover (Billy will understand the need for that) and a set of springs of different rates for this Slash.

kc was super-stoked that John Michael bought her a Traxxas Rascal RC car (and battery) for Christmas!

We all got a big Rand-McNally road atlas for our future road trips. If we can stay out of hospitals we can even find Oklahoma!

We do miss you all, but are comforted by knowing that there is a little boy in Tennessee who is smiling right now!

Today, John Michael’s class participated in the Warren-Walker Holiday Tea. This is a step towards middle school for his class. They, along with the 5th grade, travelled to the middle school and comprised the chorus. The band is comprised of grades 6 through 8.

Since Mary Pat is in town, she was able to watch the show. We were impressed.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We were lucky to have Billy and Katie visit us over Thanksgiving this year. John Michael was particularly happy his cousin was here to participate in some of his favorite (for now) things: Traxxis RC car, K1 Speed karting, and racing on a console (that Billy gave him). Katie and Billy were able to visit Discount Hobby Warehouse numerous times to buy repair parts for the Traxxas! One time there we stopped at the nearby Ferrari dealer where John Michael was shopping, either for a Superfast or a 488 Pista. The salesman there gave him a book that is not yet out for sale. Customer for life.

Two of kc’s students, Ben (from China) and Roderick (Benin) joined us for Thanksgiving Day and we enjoyed turkey, ham, sweet potatoes and more desserts than I can remember.

There was bad weather on Thanksgiving Day and Friday, but we were able to get out to some nice spots in San Diego. On Saturday, we had breakfast at one of my riding friend’s restaurant in La Jolla, The Cottage – wow, great food, ambiance, service.

It’s always great to spend time with Billy, but it was particularly nice to get to know Katie, a lovely person.