Brad's Shop

Here are a few pictures of Brad's shop. It is an investment that has turned out to be really nice! And since I took these pictures a few hours ago, he has gotten the shelving lined up and things are already getting organized, labeled, and put in to place. He isn't finished with construction yet, but he has the big part of it complete. For full story details on our used freezer purchase turned shop, stop by and we'll fill you in on the details.

To the right of the breaker box we will put a freezer and refrigerator.
Brad wants to put a sink in as well.

Brad caught on camera labeling.

I got this stereo for my 16th birthday. We haven't used it at all since we moved in to the new house, but it has a new home now. It will be Brad's listening station.

This is to show how un-level our yard is. In a picture below you can see where the front of the shop is ground level. This is why a foundation was not optional, unfortunately.

Because this was once a freezer, they had a few of these thermometers where someone could easily check, from the outside, the inside temp of the freezer.

Just an outside view.

And I didn't take a picture off the shop all closed up. I will try to stick one of those on here later.

Ball Game and Up-Do

The building, shop, has had the garage door installed. Brad ran the electric and the phone to the building but it isn't functioning yet. Below are a couple of pictures.

Clay playing "ball game". Although his skill needs a bit of work, he gets the general idea. Brad is also helping him above. He didn't really want any instruction.

Last night Clay was combing my hair and took out my ponytail. He said he wanted one so I put his on top of his head. I have had many tell me he could pass for a girl with all of his curls. I guess this is the closest we will come to seeing what that may look like. And, just for the record, this didn't stay in his hair more than about 2 minutes. Just long enough for him to run to the mirror and look at it and then for me to take a picture. He was ready to take it out.

Brief Update

Brad and his dad worked to weld and frame up the area for the door to the shop.

The door will be installed this week.

Below Brad is adding the wood that the man can install the door to.

There will be a small pass through door to the left.

There is a small covered porch area on the front of the shop.

It is large enough to park a vechicle under.

The shop will have a phone, electric, and a sink.

Whenever Clay gets "dirt in my shoe" he has to stop and take his

shoe off and get the dirt out, even if it means sitting in dirt to make it happen.

Clay posing as "Hollywood". And he put those glasses on himself.

Me and my mother at a Mother Daughter Brunch for Mother's Day.

Summer Fun Begins! Yippie!

The first day of summer break began, for Tracy and Clay, on May 27th which was a Friday. That Saturday evening we had many of the young adult families from church to our home for a traditional cookout and a great time. Church followed on Sunday and then Tracy, Clay, and Rita (Meme), hit the road on Monday, Memorial Day, for Mayo, FL to visit beloved family. We got to spend three nights at Grandmother and Papa's house. Clara and Ellen visited most of the time and we got to see other family members as well. This is our favorite area of Florida, of course. Then we headed home on Thursday. We arrived home by lunch and in time for Clay to nap in his bed while I packed and washed for us to head out to the beach the next day.

Friday morning Brad, Clay, and myself loaded up in Brad's new truck purchase and went to Fernandina Beach. We stayed two nights and arrived home in time to make it to church Sunday night. Clay enjoyed the beach and the pool and naturally wants to go back to the beach. His favorite part was driving his big truck through holes that we dug for him at the beach. Note to self: pack a regular yard shovel to take to the beach to dig big holes. This will avoid digging with a 6" plastic shovel.

The pictures are uploaded out of order. (If I don't post often enough I forget to upload backwards.) The picture above was of a gorgeous yacht that was docked at Fernandina. Clay enjoyed looking at the boats and we marveled at money we will never obtain. The yacht was getting a fuel fill-up. He was nearly at 700 gallons and still pumping. His bill was over $2900 not counting the 7% tax he had to add on top of it. So, we smiled, dreamed for about 2 seconds, and kept on walking. The Lord has blessed in more ways than money ever can. :)

The other pictures are beach pictures. All of the pictures from our Fernandina trip were taken on Brad's phone, even the one of Clay swinging. Isn't that amazing? The rest were taken on a traditional digital camera when we were in Mayo.

And, baby #2 is doing great. I am more than half way through the pregnancy
and we are looking forward to his arrival. I am already sorting through
Clay's baby clothes for baby #2 and am prepping the nursery to have an
infant in it again. Maybe I can post some pictures once everything is in place. Hopefully I can get that accomplished before we go back to school in the fall.

Clay sees a boat above.

Pictures from our Mayo trip begin below.

The Three Musketeers in the pool above. Clay, nearly 2 and a half, Ellen, 5 and a half, Clara, three next month.

Clay's biggest "cheese" ever is below. And I think Clara may have been trying to fix his hair??

Ellen who is way too big for the little car.

Enjoying homemade ice-cream (above and below) made just for Papa. It is his favorite. We won't tell how many servings he had of the vanilla ice cream.

Clay thinks the car belongs in the pool above and somehow he is
pushing the 5 year old below. I am not sure how that happened
but they were having fun. And on the concrete they could really go.

Clara getting her hair fixed by two experts. I think this was actually a first for Clay.

Grandmother, Silas Fletcher, and Clay. Silas isn't biological family, but we claim him anyway because we love his mama so much. His daddy is alright too.

The End! More postings to come later.

Catchin' Up

I thought I would post a few pictures of Brad's latest project, his shop, and then I realized I haven't posted a thing since Christmas! So, this posting will do a very brief review of the past couple of months. Above is Clay before he got his haircut which you can see in the picture below. It is hard to believe that he turned two in January. He is healthy, energetic, and learning new things everyday. We are blessed to have a healthy little boy. Also, he is excited about his little brother arriving sometime in mid-October. He even already has his Big Brother shirt to wear at the hospital.

Clay is playing below around a wash tub with shorter hair. We haven't gotten him a pool yet so this has to make do. He doesn't care. And yes, he had a pool, but it ended up in the trash.

I didn't realize that you can't really see Brad working from the bucket. But, he is way up there. His dad came out today and helped him complete more work on his shop. The frame is up and most of the walls. Today they put part of the roof on. Thankfully, Bro. Rickey in our church owns a bucket truck and was kind enough to let Brad borrow it to help them finish up the building.

And yes! We did sell our little house. It was gone before March which allowed us to put in the shop. It is hard to tell from the pictures but because of the extreme slope of our property, we had no other choice than to pour a foundation for the building. We are proud of how it is turning out and know that it is a blessing from the Lord because we ended up getting an excellent price on the building itself.

This is the first year that Clay has been able to enjoy the fun of hunting for Easter eggs. We hunted indoors and out. We enjoyed making the memories this year at Easter. And, we had a really great Easter Sunday church service as well would made it even more special.

Clay below with his choo choo trains and track.

Here are some pre-foundation pictures.

Below, during our spring break, Ellen and Clara came to stay two nights with
Granddaddy and Meme. Clay loves playing with his cousins.

Below Clay helping his daddy pack. He was actually hiding in the suitcase.
At one point, clean underwear was on his head.

Below are pictures of the birthday party. And even though it was a
bit cold, we were able to go on a short hay ride which was lots of fun.

Thanks for reading our blog. I hope you enjoyed it.