Our maybe 80 year old boiler was getting replaced this week. It seemed more exciting while shopping for one. You may ask, "Scottie, why did you buy the 84% efficient boiler." Well 95% efficient tend to last half as long and eventually I'd like this boiler to be our cold weather backup to some sort of heat pump. We'll see. They couldn't get our vintage boiler out with all the snow and ice. We'd have a strange lawn ornament for a couple of weeks. Before painting the attic floors, I had to finish skim coating and then painting our bedroom closet.   Theo saw me sewing a button and wanted to learn too. We worked on buttons then I gave him this grid to practice stitches. He even said, "This is almost better than TV." He even made a pillow for his baby.  Our living room is usually a Magnatile city of sorts.  More like Picasso Tile and knockoff Brios. I think we even have some generic Duplos.  For the first time in forever I made Sunday breakfast. My favor

  After waking up I asked the kids what they were going to do today. Meadow and Theo both agreed (I didn't even have to say anything!) the living room and their bedroom needed to be cleaned. Looks like my checklists have rubbed off on Meadow.  This is truly a miracle. Good job kiddos. It's going to be weird when the kids are older and we always have a clean living room.  They'll just have pigsties in their bedrooms. After the fish died we picked up a couple more for the kids. Meet Mario and Fishy.  I tried to talk Brooke into getting a cat, but she's right that we have all the fish stuff and no cat supplies anymore. Ah, well. So proud of these kids.  After 5 days of not having a gas stove we finally found someone that fixed it for us.  With all the boards back in place, I was just putting on the finishing touches before painting.  These tongue and groove pine floors were really meant to be subfloors, but sometimes, especially in upper floors, folks would never install p

  My birthday celebrating wasn't over yet. After eating out at Sushi Train we came back for chocolate peanut butter cake.  What, no pics? I spent the whole day baking this. I messed up a few times, but it looks pretty presentable.    I guess we were busy stuffing our faces.    Can you spot the hidden 38? It wasn't so hidden, but then I decided that I should crumble some peanut butter cups and put them around the numbers. It did not look better, but dang did it taste good.   Happy Birthday, killer bee!

Another year around the sun means another birthday cabin trip. I originally thought going to Canada would be fun. We also looked at a few Hipcamps in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I was worried a few weeks ago with the warm up that we'd have to find somewhere north to find snow. Then we had the huge snowstorm. Long story short, we found ourselves heading back to Tettegouche Camp.  I spent a whole day looking for the perfect rustic AirBNB or Hipcamp, but then Brooke brought up Tettegouche Camp. I always forget about the long hikes or wood fired stoves.  When we got to Duluth we decided to try out the new Duluth location of Grand Marais' Hungry Hippie Tacos. As usual our eyes are bigger than our stomachs.  We shared a chimichanga and nachos, but should've went with there signature fry bread tacos. Daniel was really excited for us to play games on the VR headset.  So, that's what they did the rest of the night.   Meadow and I shared a bed. I just couldn't get over how beaut