These vagabond shoes they're longing to stray ...

Our journey last week took us on a brief trip up to NYC with my parents and Tina's Mom, Linda.  For the most part the weather cooperated other than one day when we had a lot of snow and rain.  Nonetheless, we had a great time going to Broadway shows, seeing some sites, and enjoying each others company.

We got into town on Wednesday morning and got to the TKTS booth (half-price tickets) in time to take in the matinee showing of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood".   This is a hysterically funny play based on the final novel of Charles Dickens which he never finished before he died.  The musical production we saw lets the audience choose the ending of the story in deciding who actually killed Edwin Drood.  We were fortunate to get to see it since it quit showing the following Sunday.   It's hard to figure why it wouldn't be going for a longer run.

Then it was back to TKTS to buy the evening tickets where we took in a Disney production called "Newsies".  The story is based on the NYC Newsboys Strike of 1899 and  won 8 Tony's including Best Musical, Best Choreography, and Best Original Score.  Particularly watching some of the high energy dance sequences, it was obvious why it has become so popular and successful.

The Evening Showing of Newsies

Unfortunately, Linda lost her bright pink beautiful ear muffs the next day and we all spent hours collectively crying over such a tragic loss.

Thursday took us down to the 9/11 memorial.  The museum portion is still under construction but they do have to 2 large fountains which were built on the original foundations of the North and South WTC towers.  It's a stunning reminder of just what all our country lost on that day.  All around the edges of the fountains are the names of all who died that day at the WTC, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania.

The North Tower Fountain

Although the official museum has yet to be opened they do have an offsite museum telling the stories of some of the people who perished on that awful day.  Unfortunately we were running tight on time and the lines were long to get in, so visiting that will wait until next year.  Regardless, the outside of the building had beautiful artwork of it's own.

 That evening took us to see the musical "Nice Work If You Can Get It".  The production starred Mathew Broderick and Kelli O'Hara who teamed together with the rest of the cast to put on what I think we all agreed was probably our most favorite play of the trip.  As you can tell from the picture (sorry for it's blurriness) the temperature was starting to drop significantly as we headed into our cold weather day.

On a Cold Street Outside of Nice Work If You Can Get It

Friday brought on the snow, but it wasn't cold enough to keep us inside or let the snow stick much. The temperature for most of the day was mid-30's, and we've certainly experienced a lot worse than that back in our days of visiting NYC in January.  We took a walk down to Rockefeller Center and watched the crews trying to prep the ice skating rink for opening up later on that afternoon and evening.  We also visited St. Patrick Cathedral which is in the midst of a $123M restoration project.  Tina and her Mom bundled up under a single umbrella since the 2nd unbrella Tina brought broke, and this was only the 2nd time she'd ever used it.

Two Hotties on a Cold Winter Day

Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink

Friday evening took us uptown to Carnegie Hall and a concert by the NY Pops.  It was also the Carnegie and NY Pops debut for Megan Hilty who's a Broadway singer as well as a star on the musical-drama TV series called Smash.  It was obvious in no time that she deserved this appearance at Carnegie.  She traded time with a fellow Broadway singer Ryan Silverman (Phantom of the Opera amongst others) doing songs from Sinatra, the Rat Pack, Ella Fitzgerald, and on and on.

Outside of Carnegie

The New York City Pops Getting Prepared

By Saturday the temperature reached an extraordinarily pleasant 56 degree's and Tina, her Mom and I enjoyed a late morning stroll through Central Park.  Being this warm in March, the weather brought out thousands of runners (i.e. crazy people) as well as dogs, kids, and walkers (i.e. sane people).  

Tina and Her Mom

A Beautiful Sighting at Central Park

Looking Back at the Manhattan Skyline

I See Crazy People

The Two Love Birds on a Beautiful Day at Central Park

Saturday afternoon we split up and Tina and I went to see Rock of Ages (not recommended for our parents :) ) while Mom, Dad and Linda went to see the Fantasticks.  Unfortunately, they didn't like their production much, but Tina and I absolutely loved ROA.  (Again, apologies for the blurry pic.)

The Matinee Performance of Rock of Ages

Finally, we wrapped up the visit with a fantastic dinner with all of us and our niece Eva, her SO Corey, and my Mom and Dad's great-niece Heather and her husband Steve.  They took us to a small Mediterranean restaurant we had enjoyed last year and had as equally enjoyable time this year.

Hale Hale the Gangs All Here

Then Sunday brought the flight back home, getting up at 4:30 AM to catch a 5:15 van ride to the airport and then wait for 3 hours for our flight.  Given that was probably the worst part of the trip, I think we did pretty well.

More updates on the house coming soon.  Until then ...

Goodbye!!!

We're Steel Here!

So we're still making progress ... slow as it might seem at times.  The steel beams finally got delivered and installed on Monday, March 3, 2013.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt this is part of the house that will last well beyond Tina and myself.  All of this because we didn't want any posts in the middle of the porch area.

Today, Tuesday, the contractor was out to set up the scaffolding and started getting the braces ready for the balcony and eventually the new extended roof.

 Hold your breathe.  Next week we might actually have a new roof line to show everybody.

Until then ...

Truss Me ... We're Making Progress

So as promised, we started making forward progress again with the trusses being installed on the back workshop.  At my contractors suggestion, we extended the trusses up to give us a full 6 foot tall by 8 foot wide walk through area down the middle of the roof line.  No more crawling through an attic space to store things any more.  :)  I also had him put space for attic access stairs at both end of the garage.  Here was the state of the progress after Monday.

The Trusses Are Up

By Wednesday the roof was completely up and dried in.  It's actually starting to look like a real building now.

Our Dried In Workshop

Looking inside you can get a feeling for the amount of storage space we're going to have up in the attic.

Inside the Workshop

 The steel columns for the back of the house are supposed to be delivered by Friday and should be installed early next week.  Progress is being made.  Truss me!  :)

Meanwhile, Tina and I did another change of pace tonight on our daily walks and did it through the cemetery where Tina's Dad is buried.  We had to clear our the flag and night light for a couple of weeks since the cemetery management was cleaning up the area and officially the flag and light shouldn't be there.  Now that they're done, they were returned to place and once more I'll be able to see the light on the hill on my drive into work on the morning. 

Tina and Her Dad

Until next time ...

Visiting the Viera Wetlands

Out west of us is a place the locals refer to as the Viera Wetlands. Officially it's called the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands.  It's a county run wildlife refuge which utilizes recovered wastewater to maintain a magnificent wetlands wildlife area.  This time of year our frigid northern brethren are nice enough to send there birds down south so that the wetlands become a bird watching paradise.  Getting bored with our walks up and down Rockledge Dr. (we know ... it's a really tough life), Tina and I've taken to visiting the wetlands for some of our daily walks.

The Most Beautiful Specimen at the Entrance

The park is on 200 acre's with a main lake in the middle surrounded by 4 "cells" of marshy swamps.  Each of the cells and the lake are surrounded by roads on berms which provides easy access for those people wanting to drive as opposed to walk.

Looking Out Over the Main Lake

The park has been open to the public since 2000 and hence is a well established eco-system.  The number and variety of birds at this time of year is simply amazing.

But beyond the birds, there's also a large amount of fish and of course an occasional turtle or 2.

But for those not so inclined to bird watch, one of the fan favorites of the park is the infamous Florida gator.  This is mating season for the gators and they spend there afternoon's sunning along the banks of the lake.  It's absolutely amazing that in a 1/2 mile stretch of the lake Tina and I came across a total of 20 gators out enjoying the afternoon sun.  They range in size from 12 inches to about 7 feet.  We assume the management probably takes gators that get larger than that out of the park.

Unusual Sight of 2 Gators This Close

Meanwhile, progress is starting again on the house.  The trusses for the work shop were delivered Friday and will be put up on Monday.  By the middle of the week the entire roof should be up and dried in, waiting for the metal roofing material to arrive.  Meanwhile the steel beams have been ordered and may be this week also.

It's about BLOCK time!!! (:

Like sands through the hour glass, slowly sifting from top to bottom, steadily counting the seconds to minutes, and minutes to hours, so then these are the days of our construction project.

...

!!!

...

???

...

No NO NOOOOOOOO!  That's not at all accurate.  Let's try this all over again.

...

Like gravel in a friggin' hour glass, constantly getting stuck and clogging everything up, requiring hours and days of yelling and beating in order to try to get things flowing again, so then these are the days of our stupid construction project.

...

:)

...

Much better. Anyway, things have been held up trying to get through the whole permitting process and also get our power line buried from the back electrical pole into the house main.  Finally we got that done which allowed our general contractor to start moving ahead on the house modifications and starting on the new back work shop.  As usual, when things actually get moving, they tend to move pretty quick.  It's the long periods in-between that cause all the grief.

Within a day they had the footers dug for the new columns to support the beams which will be used for the new 2nd floor roof line, the new chimney for the grill on the outside kitchen, and the entire pad for the back work shop.  They concrete crew came in the next day and poured everything, leaving it looking like this.

Footers Next to the House

The footers on the far side are for the circular staircase going to the 2nd floor balcony and the roof column for that side.  The next one over is for the other roof column and the closest one is for the outside grill chimney.  The pads for the columns are 2 feet deep!!!  That's not so much to handle the weight of the columns as it is to support the uplift wind requirements of code.  

The next picture is a bit more obvious.

Pad for the Work Shop

This is actually bigger than I had originally anticipated, but bigger is better when it comes to work shops.  :)  To meet code, the elevation is also higher than I would have preferred, but with global warming at least my tools and play toys will be safer for a few more years.

Then, after 2 days to let the concrete settle, the cement block guys dropped off the block on Wednesday and the laid them all on Thursday.  As I said, it's amazing how fast things go when they finally start going.  Here's the back workshop with a double wide garage door on the near side and the far side of the front wall.

Our Big Ol' Work Shop Takes Form

Back Yard Looking to the Front

 They also started the grill chimney which will eventually go up to the height of the 2nd floor roof, but first it has to have a beam installed to tie it to the house.

New Chimney and a Beautiful Home Owner

Next week we ought to be getting the trusses for the work shop and they should be installed and the work shop dried in.  The week after that hopefully we get the steal columns in for the new 2nd floor roof.

Of course, there's still that gravel in the hour glass.  :)

Catching Up Again

Once again we've have fallen behind on posting (OK ... so maybe it's just me).  At Thanksgiving we had a big family get together at the house here, but I didn't get any decent pictures of the gathering.  I felt it was a bigger priority to get the deep fried turkey and smoked ham done right!  :)

In mid-December we made a visit over to Mom and Dad Drago's house and enjoyed spending the day at Lego Land.  It was our first time visiting the amusement park that replaced the famous Cyprus Gardens and it was quite impressive.  Most of the gardens have been restored which had to be a heck of a chore after sitting unattended for 3 years.  It was especially nice to see all the Christmas decorations and the numerous kids there visiting during there Christmas school break.

Dad and I at Lego Land

 At Christmas time we drove over to Kara and Chris's and dragged Mom and Dad Drago along with us.  We had a great Christmas dinner there and got to cook up some additional deep fried Turkey and Chickens later on that evening.  It was fun to watch Kalia enjoy the first Christmas where she really has some idea of what's going on.

Later on that week Kara and Chris drove over to our place after a visit to Chris's brother over in Orlando.  They stayed with us for the days leading up to New Years Eve.  During the visit Kalia became quite infatuated with our brass boy and girl statue out in the front garden.  She studied them for quite some time seemingly impressed with how quite and still they could stay sitting there reading a book.

You are Such a Pretty Girl!

After a good long while she finally got a bit frustrated with them staying on the same page for that long and decided they needed a bit of help to move on to the next page!  She didn't ever quite seem to be able to comprehend that the book wouldn't move on to the next page!  :)

Comeon!  Lets Move On to the Next Page!

 Later on that week Mom Hannan came up for a visit and we got a picture of 4 generations of the girls sitting around the statue.   Kalia was obviously more fascinated with the brass girl than any of her real life relatives.

Four Generations of Our Beautiful Women

At the same time Nephew John came down for a visit having spent a few days over at Mom and Dad Drago's and then coming over to our house.  On New Years Eve we had a nice, relatively quiet gathering with John, Kara and her family, and Jessica and her family.  It wasn't exactly quiet at midnight when somebody who will remain unnamed set off fireworks from the dock, but everybody seemed to have a good time nonetheless.

Nephew John and Tina

The Goofy Youngest Sisters

Believe it or not, we have started managing to make some more progress on the home improvement front ... but that will have to wait until another post.