Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Plane Project
No new pictures of Guy this week so I thought I'd share these with you. Somewhere back when we set up this Blog we mentioned a few of our other interests besides raising Guy. It's lucky we did or I might have almost forgotten what we used to do with ourselves before he came along. One of my long term schemes is to get airborne in a machine of my own making. The year before Guy was born I came across a partly finished aircraft project that was looking for a new home and builder to finish it off. To cut a long story short, I had time to finish off a few household landscaping projects, like a large deck, four flights of steps, a raised vege garden, retaining wall, windbreak, three gates, garden seat, and construct a shed extension for storing the aircraft, and then Guy was born. After that not a lot got done on the plane. 
However, this month things have started to happen. The aircraft had been partially completed by the previous owner, he'd built the fuselage, tail and horizontal stabiliser, which had been stored in the rafters of our single car garage. (Yes the car, motorcycle, two mountainbikes, two work benches and chest freezer still fit, but you do have to think before waving your arms around, and cat swinging is right out of the question). The task facing me now is to 'just' build the wing. Its 28 feet from tip to tip, hence the temporary the extension to the garage, (if the council ask it's for growing tomatoes OK!)
Anyway, work has commenced, and in a month of Wednesday nights I have completed the first tricky job of constructing an accurate work surface along the wall of the garage, consisting of wooden frames which hold the wing components in the correct shape while I rivet them together. That's the collection of wooden triangles in the photo, the green thing is part of the aluminuim wing beam.
While this painstaking and not very exciting work was going on, there was a rare afternoon when the wind ceased howling over our house and I took the oppurtunity to assemble all the major components in our driveway, and wash them while I was washing the car. The stated reason for this exercise was to wash off the cobwebs and dust that had accumulated while in storage, but it was more than just a bit motivational. As you can see from some angles it is quite recognisably an aircraft. For further motivation I have attached two photos of completed Pazmany Pl-2 aircraft. I particulalrt like the racy orange colour scheme. A long way from here but all journeys start with a small step, Guy proves that to us every day.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Percy & Rob
Guy is a great fan of Thomas the Tank Engine and friends, he likes to play with his train set as soon as he gets up and we have to drag him away protesting at the end of the day. He has especially ben enjoying the bridge, pushing them up one side and rolling them down, all the while saying "push- push, Heell, Per-cy, Dee-sil, Aar-nie and whilils (hill, diesel, annie and wheels)"
So when Granny knitted him a new jersey with Percy his favorite engine, it was a big hit, he refers to it as his "Per-cy Shert" which is close enough for 19 months.
This weekend in the middle of a winter storm Uncle Rob and his amazingly brave friend Chong walked out of the Tararuas after a cosy few nights above the snow line and a particularly good one huddled under an uprooted tree. They arrived just before Guy went to bed, in time to join him in a quick game of, that's right, Thomas and friends. I couldn't take the red-eye out of this next photo, but I think you can see how much fun Guy and Rob had together.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Guys First Haircut
Last weekend Guy had his first haircut. Katrina was a bit sad, as it was a tangible sign that he was no longer a new baby 'as delivered, unmodifed'. But as the first photo of Guy playing with the bead game in the library shows, he was begining to look like a baby mad scientist or maybe a tiny scarecrow. I caught his hair in the ties of his bib a few times so it really had to go. Even so I was quite taken aback by how much older he looked with his hair cut. It is darker underneath, a light brown rather than dark blond, and a little bit wavy. Guy was very good at the hairdressers, and was quite happy to have his hair cut although I don't think he sits still enough yet for us to attempt it.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Winter Play Time
Granny took Guy down to our local playground, although it was cold, his new hat from Aunty Valerie kept his little gnome head toasty warm. He hugely enjoyed being pushed on the swing, (the babies kind that he couldn't fall out of!)
Stories and Dinner with Granny
Guy's Granny came to stay last weekend whicj was fun for Granny and Guy and bit of a break for Jack and Katrina. Guy doesn't believe in weekend lie ins so he was up early for breakfast with Granny. Breakfast is Guys' favorurite meal, he wakes up with a big appetitie and has been known to enjoy a second breakfast (hobbit style) While Granny was here she got some lovely lambs brains from the butcher and fried them up covered in crunchy flour. Guy was quite pleased with these, like very soft chicken nuggets. He was especially pleased with how they thread onto a fork. He is a regular little carnivore and often eats lamb chops, the small pieces cut off the bone and then the bone to gnaw on, grrrrrr!
He also had some lovely stories with Granny, here they are reading the big collection of Thomas stories. Thomas and Percy are still some of his favorite things to read, play and talk about.
