20161227 - Builders

20161227 - Up in the am and in to work, nice and slow morning getting caught up. Headed home at noon and had lunch with LJ&G, D @ DGF7's. D&I ran and dropped his car off to get an oil change and find out what the sound on the front of his car it. Hung out with the fam, G&I built some LEGO stuff and then I watched him play some of his game on the Xbox, then watched J while plowing through an SOW. G went to his buddy Brady's for the night. J&I ran D to his weight lifting and then to the video store to return a movie and get some more. Home and LJ&I had some leftovers. Ran and got D, then we settled in to the basement to watch the movie we got, they were all pretty bad...

20151005 - Playing with Toys

20151005 - Up in the am and dropped D off at school on the way into work.  In to work for a typical busy day.  L called not feeling well so I made sure to leave at exactly 5.  I headed to pick D up at baseball and in my mind-numbing drive got off 270 on the wrong exit...  Problem corrected and I got to D.  I took D's buddy Drew home and L ran J to soccer.  Hung out for a bit, I printed off some invites and G rode his bike around the neighborhood delivering them to the neighbors.  We ate and then Iran D to Scouts.  Home and hung out for a bit, then ran to get J from soccer practice.  Home and hung out some more, G playing like a little boy, he doesn't do that often...got a call about selling stuff online for a guy, L got D from Scouts.  D changed and drove Doc and I downtown to put a 3-Day Notice on a tenant's door... We stopped at Bible Bangers on the way home.  Home late exhausted, straight to bed.

20140106 - Frozen Trip

20140106 - Up and in to work early.  Didn't help, still got home late...  Had some dinner and then put some air in the tires, it was -5 on the way home and the tires were losing air...  All down o the basement to watch the college champ game.  D bored from a day off school and too cold to go outside, played with the LEGO trains.

20111129 + LEGO winter

20111129 + worked all day, L&boys decorated tree, dinner, dark way too early, lego train put under tree and we built a Christmas scene with it.  Projector not working :-(  watched 'Change Up' w/L.

20111120 - Train Them?

20111120 - Up and all to church. Home ate leftovers for lunch. L&D out on errands, JG&I hung out, listened to the radio and built the train I got for my birthday. L&D home and then D&I out on a couple errands and brought home dinner. We played with the train a bit and then watched a movie. All boys to bed and I watched my new obsession 'The Walking Dead'.

20110422 + Adventure Day!

20110422 + Up early and to the hotel cafe for breakfast in shifts, DJ&I first, then G&I.  We got all packed up and called Aunt Martha and headed to her house that was only a couple blocks away.  We had a nice visit as the boys stalked her cats and then we kidnapped her and took her with us.  Our first stop was the 'Madonna of the Trail' and our fist geocache as well!

Then from there we took some winding roads and found the 'Prabhupada's Palace of Gold and City of God' where we took a nice tour and learned about their religion.  Martha was a good sport and i think learned a lot ;-)

Back on the twisty roads to Moundsville and the 'Marx Toy Musuem' the boys were in heaven, but wanted everything they saw.  We got the scoop on a local place to eat and had a great meal at 'Bob's Lunch', gravy covered fries is their specialty, YUM!

Back on the road and stopped at the 'Grave Creek Indian Mound' and museum, it was pretty cool and we found a geocache with cool stuff in it there.  The mound was directly across from the castle like old West Virgina State Penitentiary, they would NOT take the boys :-(


One more stop in WV for a geocache, we found it but it was soaking wet.  On the road and over the Ohio River to Bellaire where we found the 'Toy and Plastic Brick Museum' = LEGOs.  I mean I have never seen so many LEGOs in all my life.  We were all amazed at the awesome displays and things they had built.  This is a must see for anyone with kids that like LEGOs!!!



Back on the road and Martha directed us past the site of McColloch's Leap, which is a great story.  We got Martha home about 5pm and said goodbye, except for G who talked some much during the day wore himself out and was dead asleep.  We had a great day with Aunt Martha and hope we did not wear her out too much :-)


On the road heading home and made a stop at Buckeye Lake for a Pizza Cottage dinner and hot wings.  We got home, things put away and our 3 tired little fellas from a huge 24 hours adventure went right to bed.  This day was great and so much better than had I sat behind my desk...

100516 - Jack is 7!!!!

100516 - Up early and Jack opened his presents from us.  He got some time to play with some things before LD&J went to church.  G&I ran errands and got tortilla soup for Jack's lunch, as it is his favorite thing in the whole world, next to pickles...  We all met back at home and had lunch.  We then prepared for Jack's party.

For Jack's party he had a bunch of his friends come over. L had some nice LEGO games a pinata, a LEGO cake and some kickball. Everyone had a blast!

After Jack's friends party we had his family party where we had a nice dinner. When all the festivities were over we cleaned up and I help him build one of the many LEGO sets he got for his birthday. Everyone exhausted and to bed

091025 - Line Up

091025 - Up, LD&J to church, G& I hung out at home. L dropped the boys off and then ran a couple errands. I did some cleaning between Nerf gun battles & D made lunch for us boys. Then we started lining up complete 'guys': that means all body parts connected. It took us quite a while, but here are our 306 LEGO guys, 8 horses, 1 croc.

090802 - LEGO Store

090802 - Up and G and I cleaning up the shop in the garage. D&J home from their Cleveland Baseball expedition with Gma&paW mid afternoon. We hung out at home a bit and then headed to Easton to the new LEGO store. It was pretty cool, but WAY smaller than expected. We loved it and then went to see the 8 foot Yoda built earlier that weekend by a 'Master LEGO Builder'. I WANT THAT JOB! We went to a nice restaurant where the boys got nothing they liked and L&I had to eat too fast... Home for some football catch a little TV and baths and bed.

081209 - Lego time

081209 - Up and got a good start to the week. J went to school & the to a buddy's house. Everyone home for dinner. G&I dropped D off @ karate and then finished up our xmas shopping. When we got home we found L&J in the basement. They made this amazing Lego city! We all played w/ Logos for a bit, then off to bed. The bible bangers are heading over for a movie tonight.
081208 - Up dylan to church w/ Gma&paB. L&I stayed w/ J&G that wern't feeling well. Everyone home for lunch. GpaB had a concert and the boys didn't eat a bit of nice lunch GmaB made... (but they sure ate dinner!) J&G slept the whole way home so it was a nice quiet ride. When we got home D&J played outside in the snow, while I shoveled the drive, lights strung and fixed the headlight. After a well eaten dinner, L gave the boys haircuts and I did baths. We finished off the night watching Willy Wonka. Got the boys & L to bed & I watched the X-Files movie.

081109 - Acolyte & LEGO

081109 - Everyone up and in to church. Today was Dylan's first day as an acolyte. He went a bit too fast down the isle and hit lighter blew out, but he did better on the return trip and kept it lit the whole way. After church we ran home got a bite to eat and headed to Groveport to see the LEGO city they had made. It was really cool with lots of trains, big buildings and stuff everywhere. They had a table with LEGO pieces where Jack and Grant built stuff. Home and everyone playing with LEGOs.

081108 - Up in the morning to Mr. Smalley's funeral. When we were there we watched a video of him, the picture montage thing they do these days, and in the pictures was Pete and Helen standing at the Sun Pyramid in Mexico City, where I was just days before...

081107 - Fast day, flew home. Got home at midnight. Good to see the family again, even if they are all sleeping.

080928 - Philadelphia

080928 - Up and played w/ the boys while L ran in to church. She got home and we had some lunch. Then out in the backyard to throw the football and drive the gator for a bit. Then the whole fam took me to the airport to see me off. We said goodbye and Jack gave me a big monster hug that was hard to let go of. It seems that each trip gets harder and harder to go...
The flight in Columbus was delayed and I am now being rerouted to London to get to Amsterdam. This only adds 6 hours on to the flights. We finally boarded in CMH, only to be told there were delays in Philadelphia. We sat on the runway for 2 hours before we took off.
Finally made it to Philadelphia and got some food, euros and two blow up travel pillows (one for my boney butt, one for my neck). Walking around killing time before the London flight I stumbled upon this life size replica of the 'Liberty Bell' made of Legos! How cool. Well I'm on the plane now, have gentleman next to me, so it looks like this wiill be a tight flight to London...

Instruction

This qube is one of the instruction qubes, where they come up with new designs and make the instructions so everyone can put together the toys.

Ready to ship

After the boxes are filled and sealed they are loaded on to pallets to ship out. Here are hundreds of boxes of Star Wars Droids ready to go out to boys all over the world. They make 20,000 of these a day and can not keep up with demand...

Kits

After the many different lines make the kits, the various kits are combined into boxes to make a complete box set. These again are weighed to make sure all parts are in the box.

071106 - Heads

071106 - After I gave the demo we got a tour of the Lego factory. It was so cool!!!!! Here is a bowl full heads, that first came out of press, then had the faces applied. This bowl moves the pieces along by gently shaking them into a counter. The counter puts the exact number needed in a box that travels along an assembly line with hundreds of bowls like this full on the different parts to create a kit. The kits are then weighed to make sure they contain all the pieces.

They make Legos here!