Rachel's Bat Mitzvah

Rachel's Bat Mitzvah was on June 28^th. We couldn't be more proud of the way she ran the service.

Here is a brief video recap of the service.



We want thank everyone from near and far that was able to attend. We are honored that you were all able to join us and help us to celebrate. You all made this an event that we will remember for a long time. Here are some of some of those that helped us celebrate.

Thanks to Dad and Lloyd for the additional images.

WormNix

Rachel had to make an advertisement for a class project.
She made up a Heart Worm medicine called "WormNix".
Here's what she came up with.



BTW, Rachel wrote the script and starred in the ad with her co-star Jenko. I was just the cameraman and technical support.

May Day

Thursday May 1, 2008

This is Rachel's "OK, I'm smiling already, we're going to be late for school!!" look.



Please note all the white stuff on the ground behind her. We woke up to about 2 inches of snow on the First of May.

BTW, I mowed the lawn on May 3^rd!

Trans Dimensional Beings

Rachel doesn't like bugs. Occasionally we'll come across one of those little house moths. They're not very fast. You can follow them around as they fly and get them between your hands... wait for the right moment and... CLAP!!!

And you open your hands and there's no moth. Look down and it's not on the floor. Look around the room... It's not flying around, having made a narrow escape. Where did it go?

Moths are trans dimensional beings. The force of the clap and the fear of impending doom sends the moth to a safer dimension.

We'll discuss where that might be later...

Ice Dams

Ice dams are not a creation of winter beavers. That would be a much nicer situation.

We had some water dripping into our kitchen a few weeks ago. I thought that the cats had spilled something over night. They hadn't. No beavers either.

Ice dams form when the temperature roof over the attic is raised by warm air leaking into the attic. This melts the snow that is in contact with this part of the roof. This water flows down to the eves and/or gutters. The water freezes here as the eves aren't warmed by the attic. This forms the ice dam and as more water flows down it leaks into the roof and in our case inside the walls.

Most of the water has frozen there, but this is the first time there was enough to leak into the house. We have apparently had this issue for as long as we've lived here. It is only happening on the back of our house. This part of the house faces east and doesn't get much sun this time of year.

We will have to wait until the spring before we can do anything to prevent this form happening again. There are 2 things we can do.

1. Insulate and ventilate the attic. Keeping the warm air from getting to the attic will prevent the snow from melting. Increasing the attic ventilation will also help to keep the temperature of the roof the same as the outside air an preventing the snow from melting.
   
   
2. Melt the ice dam when it forms. You can buy heating cable that is designed to be strung on the shingles on the eves. This also prevents the ice dams from forming. I've seen this on some of our neighbours roofs, but didn't know what it was.

We will probably try option #2 first as it seem to be the most economical and least invasive.

Happy Birthday David!!!

Dear David,

Happy January 31^st Birthday David.



Love,
Peter, Judy and Rachel

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Dear Dad,

Happy January 23^rd Birthday Dad.



Love - Peter, Judy and Rachel

A Bit of Snow

We had a bit of snow today. They have been promising/predicting a big snow for quite a while and they finally got it right.

The shot on the left shows our driveway after I finally got outside and started to clear the snow. Fortunately the snow was dry which made clearing it fairly easy. The image on the left shows how much snow we got today. Keep in mind that yesterday our driveway was completely clear. The tape shows 14 inches which seems to match up with what the meteorologists say we got. However, one of my neighbours says he measured 20 inches on the top of one of his cars. They say we're getting more by the end of the week. I'll let you know if it gets here.

Happy Birthday Judy - Happy Birthday to You!!!

Dear Judy,

A VERY Happy January 11^th Birthday to you!!!

Happy Birthday David Frank!!!

A VERY Happy January 4^th Birthday to Uncle David Frank!!!