Google Terrain Mapping

Google just keeps getting better with age. I guess they just rolled out their new terrain view for google maps. Man is it a lot of fun.

Hat Tip: Google Maps Terrain View

Killian in the Mei Tai

It is has been way too long since I posted a picture of Killian, so I thought I would dig one up. This picture was taken a week or so ago while the boys were eating some watermelon in the backyard. Killian is hanging out in the Mei Tai while Leslie was trying to keep Elliot from swallowing too many watermelon seeds. Because you know, if you swallow too many seeds then watermelons will start growing out of your ears, right?

easter update

Easter Greetings! I Just thought I would quickly throw up an Easter picture or two. The first picture was taken a few weeks ago at the yearly Easter event that the company I work for puts on. We should have gotten Killian in the picture, but I think he was asleep in the Mei Tai and it just slipped my mind. If any of the grandparent want a copy you can get them here.

The last picture is of Elliot in the backyard hunting for eggs. It has to be said that if it were not for Leslie we would never have a hunt of our own because I am just too lazy to organize the thing. And because of that fact, Leslie filled the eggs with organic animal crackers and organic jelly beans. Don't get me wrong, normally organic is the way to go, but after Leslie tasted a few of the beans she would not eat anymore. Thankfully yesterday we went to the Easter egg hunt that the little Methodist church down the road put on, so Easter was saved and the boys were able to get some half decent candy. Did I just make it sound like Easter was about the candy? I sure hope not......

random picture

While moving all of Leslie's pictures from her camera to the computer, I decided to take a look at the 400+ images she took since I last emptied her camera. I have to say that this image makes me wonder what takes place during the day while I'm at work.

I say.. I say.. that's a horse in our yard

The subdivision we live in is backed up to some pasture land. I guess a fence broke somewhere and this horse has been grazing in our front yard for the last week. It has been kind of fun and reminiscent of my childhood. It is kind of nice to walk out of my front door and have a yard full of hoof prints, but not have the responsibility of taking care of a horse. Well, the fun had to come to an end, so I went over and talked to one of the horse's owners to let him know that they must have a fence down somewhere. I think I heard them out there repairing the fence last night. Too bad.

It's a boy

We have a baby!!!!! It's a boy. No name yet. 9.9lbs! TOB: 7:26pm. The homebirth could not have been better. She was in labor less than 4 hours. More news to come.
Correction:
Sorry I thought about it last night, but in my hurry to type out a post I said 9.9lbs. I meant to say 9lb 9oz.

Oh yeah, we are having a homebirth

Homeschooling, a stay-at-home wife, recycling batteries, co-sleeping, attachment parenting, organic milk, and now a homebirth. Dang! How did I become such a radical crunchy con? I guess I really need to blame that on Leslie because she is the mastermind behind 90% of our radical ways.
I started having a feeling that Leslie was going to opt for a homebirth shortly after Elliot was born. The straw that broke the camel's back was the last night nurse we had at Erlanger East. Just for the record, night nurses are the worst. Being that they are fresh out of school, coupled with the fact that they are bored at 3 a.m., can make for a really bad situation.
What would cause someone to prod and poke a healthy newborn every hour and a half is beyond me. I guess the difference is that of philosophy. Some view birth as a medical procedure in which babies are teetering on the edge of life and death, and others don't. We see birth as a natural process, and we believe the love of life is so ingrained in humanity that even the most fragile amongst us will fight for it.
Right, so our last night nurse, on top of poking and prodding in excess, would not let Leslie and Elliot sleep in the same bed. She started freaking out thinking Leslie was going to suffocate her newborn. If you know Leslie you know that she has very strong feelings about the need of a newborn to feel the warmth and touch of its mother, so with these principles in place, Leslie stood her ground. It basically boiled down to Leslie telling the night nurse that Elliot would be sleeping with her, and what did she have to do to get the nurse to leave the room. The night nurse ended up coming back with a handwritten release that stated that she had warned Leslie and that Leslie refused to listen and that neither she nor the hospital would be responsible for the harm done. Being that Leslie was tired from 12 hours of natural labor and that she just wanted to get some sleep, she decided to just sign the form.
We have been visiting our new midwife for several months now. Her name is Debi Church. She lives in Athens, Tennessee, and is supposed to be one of the best homebirth midwives in the area. I think she has attended something like 700 plus homebirths. Leslie has two friends who have used her, and they both loved their experiences.
I have been meaning to post this picture since last Tuesday. We went to the midwife's house\office last week and as the midwife was finishing up with the fetoscope, Leslie made some remark about not using ultrasounds. Debi whipped around and grabbed a marker and before we knew it, Leslie had her ultrasound picture. I decided to take a picture for the grandparents, friends, family, and lurkers who stop by the blog. Enjoy.

tent

I have a lot of things I want to blog about, but I am just too busy right now. Here is a picture I thought was funny. I have been thinking about camping here lately and decided to set up the tent to see what condition it was in. John David and Elliot loved it being set up in their room. Though their mommy did not like it so much... mostly because of the smell.

The picture is fuzzy because I took it through the screen.

update

I have been just way too busy to blog. I think about it everyday, but I am just finding that everything else is taking precedence. So much has happened over the last month or so that I hardly know where to start.

One in the oven:
The biggest news is that Leslie is expecting. She is due in early January. We are getting excited and nervous about the whole prospect of there being five people under one roof. Leslie is reading Good Nights: The Happy Parents' Guide to the Family Bed (and a Peaceful Night's Sleep!) . We have loved having a family bed, but when Elliot came along we realized that 4 was the max number for our king size bed. We are now in the process of figuring out what our next step should be.

FoxDenLane.com:
Our little home based business adventure has been picking up over the last several months, and the two of us have been busy working on growing the site. We have a long way to go, but we are thankful the Lord has given us the growth that we have seen so far. As you probably know the hardest part of building a successful site is getting other sites to link to you, and to date that has been one of our biggest challenges. Well, if you have a website or a blog we would be so very grateful if you could give us a link. Or better yet, if you want to write a blog post about our site and bury the post way back where only search engines will find it we would be more than appreciative.

Other side projects:
On of the items that have kept me busy has been some work I did for one of the companies that we are distributors for. It was quite a fun project using google maps. I wrote a whole engine so that when the company adds a new distributor it should in most cases add that distributor to the map. You can check it out here.

Family activities:
Here lately we have been riding bikes quite a bit. Twice over the Fourth of July weekend we went up to the occoee and rode our bikes. The boys really like being pulled around, and Leslie and I are enjoying it as exercise and as a great family outing. I wish I had some of the pictures of the boys on the bike ride with me, but these of them swimming at the Ocoee will have to do.

Work:
Work has been very busy lately, and will be for the next year or so. The project I am working on is probably the largest project I will ever work on. It is not that the project itself is overly exciting, but the new technologies we are working with are fun. I wish I could go into more detail, but if I told you more I would be legally obligated to kill you.

I just remembered that I wanted to blog about some of the house projects we have going on, but I really need to get going. I hope everyone is doing well.

10 year anniversary

When I was young I can remember driving around with my dad in our old blue and white van and him telling me that I needed to start praying for my wife. I can remember him telling me that I had probably already met her. I can also remember during 2nd grade recess running up to a cute little girl by the name of Leslie Losch, and with no words being exchanged she accepted a ring from my outstretched hand.

We did not speak again for another 15 plus years. Though, when we did get back in touch we knew that God was involved, and that something special had happened on that playground years earlier.

To the love of my life who has given me the most meaningful and pleasurable decade of my life.

our little groundhog

Well, our little groundhog turns the big 3 years old today. I can hardly believe it. Where has the time gone! We are glad to report that he saw his shadow this morning. Okay, he got up just after 7 this morning so there was no light for us to do the shadow test, but a close friend of his saw his shadow, which will do. Yes the Gidcumb household is happy about the prolonged winter.

John David had a little party this past weekend with a few friends. He had a great time playing and eating some of the delicious cupcakes that Leslie made. As you can see from the picture he most enjoyed the homemade chocolate icing -- he ate it right off the top.

Tonight is the real celebration, so I will post some pictures if I get any.

living an eternally insignificant life:

I guess this picture was taken back in late October. I realized this morning that I had not given this friendly fellow his 15 minutes of fame. You know, the life of a turtle can be sad, lonely, and bathed in the realization that his life is one of no real eternal significance. With all that in mind I thought I would oblige him.

Feel free to say anything you want to him. I will try and relay the messages if and when he reappears next summer.

homebrew

The Christmas homebrew is a brewen.

halloween wrap up

We had a great time last night. It was the first Halloween for Elliot, John David, and I. I am struck by what a great community building activity Halloween is. I can hardly believe it. I was able to meet people last night that I would never have been able to. I am surprised by just how many kids live in River Chase. I really thought that there were only three or so families with kids in our neighborhood, but in reality there must be a dozen or more. I have more pictures than I can put in one post, so I am adding a page to the places section of my site. Feel free to go check out the pictures here.

super boy just like Kipper

We have decided to celebrate Halloween this year. Ahhg, it sounds odd to say celebrate, being that I'm not sure what we are celebrating. Okay let me rephrase, we are doing Halloween this year. As you can probably tell, I'm not totally at peace with it, but to be quite honest I'm not totally at peace with much of anything I do. I can make a huge list of things that were considered outright sins when I was growing up. Whether it was missing church, not doing my devotions, drinking beer, playing cards, women wearing shorts vs. culottes, men having long hair, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or buying a Procter and Gamble product all of the above have been “Sins” in my life at one time or the other. I guess I am getting to the point where if it is not clearly a sin and instead has the possibly of just some cultural interpretation then I am going to research it and if I can't find a definitive answer then I am just going to jump right in. What I've learned in my walk with Christ is that He has a way of sitting on my chest when I have entered into sin knowingly or unknowingly, so I'm not going to try to make things sins which aren't. I guess a lot of my thoughts stem from my legalistic upbringing. Somehow I have to learn to live in the freedom that Christ death has given me as a believer.

FYI. The above diatribe was not the point of my post. What I intended to post about was John David's Halloween costume. Elliot is going to be a lamb but John David is going to be Supermanboy. John David watches this great little British cartoon called Kipper. In one of the cartoons Kipper becomes Super Dog and flies around doing the things that Super Dogs do. John David loves the cartoon so we told him while we were picking out the costume at K-Mart the other day that he was going to be super boy just like Kipper. He got excited about it and because he knows nothing of Superman he thinks he is going to be Super Boy just like Kipper. So yesterday Leslie decided to give him the opportunity to play in the cape, and after she got the costume on him he just stood there. So after a little while Leslie asked him what he was doing. His response was "I'm trying to fly." She told him to run around and that the cape would fly, but after doing it he was not very impressed.

The kid normally has a very good imagination so we are hoping he will be able to enjoy the cape even though he can't fly. Stay tuned, I will be sure to get some pictures up after Halloween. Maybe I will get him to try and fly again.

went for a walk

Last night Leslie and I took the boys for a walk around the neighborhood. The weather has been nice the last several days. I think it has been getting down to the low 50's at night, so by the time I get home the weather is perfect for a walk.

I have been looking for the leaves to start turning, but no luck so far. I'm starting to think that this fall is not going to be as nice as I would like. The weather has been crazy and it is supposed to be in the mid to upper 80's here in ole' Chattanooga by the end of the week. You would think that by October 18th the weather would have turned. I'm still holding out hope for a good winter. I want to be able to bring the boys sledding. I think they would have a blast.

It has been over a year since I've posted a picture of myself, so I though this one would fill that void in everyone's life. :-) The picture is from our walk last night. I think this is the first picture I have posted of the three of us.

Got to go...

is this normal :-)

I was thinking about Michael's post about almost losing all of his pictures and decided to burn all mine to DVD just in case. While in the process of trying to burn all those images I came across this image. I'm not quite sure how I missed this one the first time around!

Note to self:

If ever in the future Leslie locks the screen door while I'm working in the backyard so that our two and a half year can't get out, and I find myself locked out of the house. Remember that it would be better for me just to sit down and try to have a conversation with him through the screen then for me to bother asking him to go and get mommy to unlock the door. I need to remember that even though he leaves to go get her, he will never come back.

got my scanner hooked up

Well, I am finally getting around to hooking up my scanner after more than 7 months of living here on fox den lane. I was looking for a picture to test with and found this one of Leslie sitting behind me on the bed. I think she was in second or third grade. Enjoy.

playing catchup

It has been 17 days since my last post. I think I've just set a new gid record, hopefully not to be broken again. Being that it has been so long let me do some catching up with this post.

We went to North Caroline for the mini family reunion. Here is a page with some pictures of the highlights.

Once we got back John David and I got really sick. I think he ran a temperature of 102 or better for about 4 days. John David and I had some good bonding time as we snuggled up together sick in bed. I took a picture of him right before we went to bed one evening. He just looked pitiful. Here is a picture to prove it. Poor kid!

Last weekend the River Chase subdivision had a garage sale and we decided to sell a few things. At midnight on Friday while Leslie and I were setting out the things we did have to sell, we broke out into laughter when we realized that our garage sale was so pitiful that it looked like we had already had the garage sale and all that was left was the junk. It was very funny. Though, it might have been that it was midnight and we were delirious. Either way, I think we made about 40 bucks. It was totally not worth the effort especially with taxes being due. I think I spent about 3 nights in the garage trying to clean it up, which was not a total waste of time considering it needed to be done.

After the garage sale we went on one of our embarrassingly under funded, under planned, so lame that it was fun family dates. Here are some highlight pictures: Leslie and I , John David, and Elliot. That reminds me; did I ever put up any pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner at Shoney's? Our trip to Shoney's for thanksgiving dinner is probably the preeminent example of “it was so lame it was fun” family times. Someone remind me to post those pictures if I haven't already.

Well, because of the lame mini date the night before Leslie and I decided to grill some hamburgers on the back porch since the weather was nice. We had such a nice evening that we decided to eat out there again on Monday night. We were both feeling very thankful to the Lord for a home with a screened in porch that we could have a relaxing meal on. Picture Here

Oh yea, on Monday of last week Jason and I met his brother (one of the ministers at First Centenarian) for lunch at the University Deli. We had a good time. We even ventured into a little bit of discussion about theology, which was interesting. Here is a picture of Jason and his brother.

On the way back from lunch I happen to spot a treed opossum in the middle of downtown Chattanooga it was a very nasty creature, but worth the picture. That reminds me, when I was a kid I had a baby opossum as a pet for a few months. It used to wrap its tail around my finger and hang out. I remember being really sad about it when it died, but I don't guess I will ramble on about that.

winter fun

Chattanooga finally got some winter weather today. Though, it is not the feet of snow I would have hoped for, but I will take what I can get. I guess the ice got pretty think in places and knocked a tree down on a power line because we lost power for about 3 hours today. We made good use of the time by all jumping in bed for a nice 3 hour nap. I ran out and snapped a few pictures this morning, very slippery but fun!

Oh yea, I screwed up and forgot to turn the date stamp off before taking the pictures. I hate pictures with date stamps! Oh well, someone remind me to turn it off.

As always you can click the pictures to get a better view.

update

Leslie is still with child. Her due date was on Friday the 3rd, and like with John David the due date has come and gone. She is doing very well. Leslie, Konrad and I spent the weekend at work on the house. Everything is finally coming together. I figure if I had another 40 or so hours to work on the house I could have everything we wanted done, done before the baby came.

Well, below is what is left on the list. It does not sound like there is much left and there isn?t, but there is a lot of trim in that foyer, which has to be painted in oil.

• Finish painting our bathroom cabinet doors
• The kitchen cabinet doors(90% done)
• The guest bath cabinets and doors
• Paint the den
• Paint the living room
• Paint the foyer(50% done)
• Wallpaper the dinning room(out of scope for phase I)
• Paint the newly installed Freedom French doors between the living room and den(66% done)
• Paint the master bath(33% done)
• Put down a 100 or more feet of shoe molding
• Paint the porch rails that dad put up(out of scope for phase I)
• Clean the gutters(out of scope for phase I)
• Rake all the leaves in the yard(0% done)
• Mow the yard(0% done)

On Saturday night we called it quits around 8 o?clock and decided to rent a movie. We ended up getting The Terminal<>. It was pretty good. There were a few scenes that were funny. The last half hour of the movie just about lost me in boredom, but the rest was pretty good. Leslie thought the movie was too unbelievable for her to really get into. I think Konrad liked it, though I forgot to ask.

To the right is a picture of John David eating his O?s for breakfast.

it just makes me sick II

When I got home yesterday their were reporters from all the major stations and a bunch of people standing around the police tape. I had to be let in to get to my house. There must have been 10 to 15 police cars a big crime lab truck. The police ended up interviewing all the neighbors. They had me walk to a car in front of the house and give a report of what I had heard the night before on tape. I only heard one shot, so again it did not strike me as way out of the ordinary.
I did not sleep well last night at all. I kept having weird dreams about the whole thing ( 1  ,  2 ). Then I would wake up in a deep sadness for the two surviving kids. I would pray for them and then fall back asleep.
As a Presbyterian, I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on the sovereignty of God, but I have to admit that this whole mess just makes me think thoughts that I would not want to readily admit to. It is just hard to make sense of it all, and I guess it is not my job to do so.

it just makes me sick I

Breaking news from channel 3
I am just so mad. I can hardly explain my anger and sadness! I am mad at myself. I heard the shot last night around 11:00. The shot I heard sounded really close, and in retrospect I should have called the police. I guess I grew up in the country and hearing a gunshot now and then seems pretty normal. It is something you always notice but you figure they are shooting an opossum or something. I guess with me now living in a neighborhood I should have realized it was not what I dismissed as being.
From what Leslie just told me on the phone is that it was evidently a son who did it. At least that is what one of our neighbors said. Leslie said that the house is crawling with police and that the news cameras are all set up.
It just makes me sick.

a little update

Well the last coat of polyurethane is down on the ole wood floors. They are looking very nice. Mike still has a few little trim places to take care of, but we can get to painting the den and the living room now. Being that we are within 8 days of Leslie?s official due date and that there is so much work to do on the house that we will not get it done in time, Leslie and I have decided not to celebrate thanksgiving with a meal this year. I might smoke a turkey but it?s not looking good.

I have to admit that I am getting kind of nervous. What I would like to get done before the baby comes is:

• Finish painting our bathroom cabinet doors
• The kitchen cabinet doors
• The guest bath cabinets and doors
• Paint the den
• Paint the living room
• Paint the foyer
• Wallpaper the dinning room
• Paint the newly installed Freedom French doors between the living room and den
• Paint the master bath
• Put down a 100 or more feet of shoe molding
• Paint the porch rails that dad put up
• Clean the gutters
• Rake all the leaves in the yard
• Mow the yard

We also need to buy a bed. I think Leslie and John David are going to look for one on Black Friday. Yea I know, it?s not all going to get done before the baby comes but we are going to take a stab at it. I have the next four days off of work so I should be able to check a few things off our list. Plus Leslie?s mom, brother, and stepfather are coming in this weekend, so we are going to put them to work.

I took these two pictures last night as we were running around on the new floors. He had been penned up in the playpen for several hours by the time we let him out, so when we did he was pretty darn excited to be out and chasing me around. You can click the images to see a bigger picture.

the last word on 214 Signal View

Well, we were out of 214 Signal View as of Sunday at 2:00. It was quite sad to walk out of that house for the last time. The house was empty and so unlike the place that had been home for the last seven years. I wish I could pull all the memories from those walls and stuff them into a little box so that from time to time I could pull that box out and rummage through it. Good times and bad, so much happened at that little home. Late nights studying for college exams, romantic dinners, weekends watching movies, months spent remodeling, creating a new life, watching that new life grow, his first steps, his first words, there are just so many memories I could put in that box.

After Leslie and I walked out of the house for the last time and locked the door, we took a slow final walk through the backyard. I did not have time to get all the leaves up this year, so the dry crunch of the leaves under our feet added to the dreamlike feeling of knowing that this was the last time we would walk through the backyard. The whole experience is really far more than I can put into words.

I am glad we sold the house and have moved onto a bigger place, but I will always think back on that home fondly. There was a love hate relationship with our little home. The amount of work we did to that place made it really feel like our own. We hope the new owners are enjoying it.

Here are a few picutures from the last 24 hours at 214 Signal View.

thank you

The house is coming right along though, we still have a ton to get done. We have to be out of our old house by Sunday at 6:00pm so things need to start falling together soon. We got some help from three people in our church small group on Saturday afternoon. It is just amazing how much work you can get done when you have six extra hands hard at work. Leslie and I are very grateful! Thank you Eric, Naomi, and Dee!

I have pictures, but I think I will wait until later to post them. I think I will put together a little before and after page when we get finished.

Jerry, Jason and I crammed in my truck headed to 2 SQUARES A DAY to meet Aaron and Troy for lunch today. It seemed funny to have Jason crammed in the back, so I decided to snap a quick picture.

house update

The work on the new house is coming along. Leslie and I have really set our standard a lot lower than we would have thought going into this project. The upstairs and the kitchen should be done by this weekend. The carpet guy is coming either tonight or Friday to rip up the carpet. We hope to get the molding painted between the time he rips up the carpet and the time he put down the new stuff on Monday. On Monday we have to start moving stuff in. Basically the downstairs is going to be a construction zone for a while. I am not excited about living in a construction zone again!

Leslie is very pregnant, but is doing well otherwise. Yesterday she was working on John David?s room. She is trying to do a whole Rothenburg theme in his room. I have to be honest. I don?t quite get her vision yet, but I think I will when it is done. She is painting a wall with turrets around the room. Don?t get the wrong idea, I think is a good idea, but I just can?t get a picture in my head of how it will look when it is done. The floors are basically down. Mike has a few boards left to put down. The picture to the right is of the floors.

a bit discouraged

Leslie and I are a bit discouraged. We spent the weekend working at the new house, and we did not get nearly as much done as we had planned. We painted 3 closets, two rooms, finished ripping down wallpaper, and I floated some sheetrock. We still have so much to do that we have to reconsider what has to get done before we can move in.

The hardwood guy (Mike Mayfield) showed up on Saturday to start on the floors. They look good so far. I forgot to tell Mike that we had ordered special floor grates to cover the ac vents, so he cut the opening on one of the grates to fit the existing grate. He is not sure he will be able to fit the new one in the hole. Though, he said he would try.

Here is one picture of the remodeling work being done. This room is the dinning room. The ladder is in front of the door to the kitchen.

We are going to take Tuesday night off so we can watch the election returns. We are tired. I hope we can make it until then to take a well earned break.

try again?

Tonight I plan on doing what I was supposed to get done last night?.

bad timing

Well some where along the line our team started an on call procedure, so for the next week it is all me. I have to carry around a cell phone waiting for a call that I hope never comes. Talk about bad timing. If I get a call that interrupts my nighttime remodeling I am not going to be happy.

Last night we ripped down wallpaper in the master bath and the guest bathroom. The guys started ripping up the floor downstairs. I am soo bummed that my new digital camera has not come in yet. I want to get some pictures of the demolition. Tonight we plan on pulling wallpaper in the dinning room, half bath downstairs, and the foyer. I need to get to it?. Later?.

the new house

Well, we closed on our new house yesterday. The closing on our old house and the new house took over 3 hours. Toward the end of the three hour period, John David had had enough of being stuck in that small conference room. We kept giving him cold water to keep him occupied. The natural result of three hours of cold water was a big wet spot on Leslie?s knee. I think she was able to get out of the room with John David without anyone knowing what had happened. Though, if anyone in the room was half way observant they would have noticed that John David came back only wearing his overalls.

We were able to meet a few of our new neighbors last night. Paul and Jaime live in the house to our right. We were in a rush so we only got to meet Jaime. The neighbors across the street are John and Kim. They have two girls ages 3 and (4 or 5) months. We did not meet John only Kim and the two girls. For those of you who read this and know Carldine, she lives less then half a mile from our new house.

The pictures to the right are from the MLS listing. They are not that great but will give you an idea of what the house looks like.

good by Signal View.... Well almost

Today at 2:00 we will be closing on our 214 Signal View house and will be buying the Fox Den Ln. house. I don't guess I have really bogged about us moving too much. I guess somewhere deep down I did not want to jinx the whole thing. I just had Leslie order me a digital camera on Saturday, so once it gets in I will post some pictures. If you read my blog regularly you will probably hear more about our move then you want to. Well, unless I am just too busy and you don?t hear from me for the next month. It could go either way.

We will be renting our current house until the 14th of November so we can finish remodeling the new house. We have a lot of painting and wall paper removal to do. We are also having a contractor make an opening between the den and living room as well as having hardwood installed down stairs. We are installing Brazilian Cherry. It looks very nice but we did have some environmental concerns. The wood looks to be farmed, so hopefully we are not supporting the clear cutting of the Amazon. If you think I might be having the Amazon cut down and you have some reputable links then please share.