Schlage comes through

 The lock from our garage to our house magically stopped shutting when you pushed the door closed. The only way to close the door was to manually turn the door knob while closing the door.

After taking the lock apart and doing some online research, Doug determined that the issue was a faulty tubular latch. 

I emailed the folks at Schlage and they sent me a new barrel latch within a week. Nice! Figured that type of service was a worth a blog post.

Replacing the tubular latch fixed the door closing problem!

Kids Christmas Break

During Christmas break, Sara took the kids to Whitetail for a ski-a-thon. The gang skied 11 days in some pretty good (a some pretty bad) conditions. For the first few days they hung out with Carter and Caleb as well as some of the other kids from the neighborhood.

Ski pack heads out

RJ was pretty excited about skiing over jumps formed at the edges of the runs. Jib-junction was a run that included some sanctioned jumps. 

After Christmas, Abby got to use her new ski equipment.

Manmade snow at Whitetail

The snow machines were active this week. With a high temp of 55 degrees, the workers were gone so we got to play.

RJ and Carter did a two-man bobsled run!

Julia and Caleb made snowballs and enjoyed sledding

Breaking the Rules

 Every once in a while a person must rebel. While in an office building with 2-3 other people, I felt the need to express myself.

In addition to walking the wrong way and entering through the wrong door ... I went down the up staircase.

Head Scratchers

I have two favorite Covid-19 office additions.

1. Foot grabber on bottom of the bathroom door. I like this one because they went through the expense of installing it so people didn't have to touch the door handle. However, unless you are a ninja, you cannot open the door by pulling with your foot ... because you have to push the handle down to unlatch the door.
2. On the 2 sets of double doors at the front entrance (picture 1 above), there are 2 doors assigned to walk in and 2 doors to walk out. I like this because right next to this entrance there is a double door (that everybody entering from the parking lot uses - which is everybody) without such restrictions.

Christmas Preparations 2020

Christmas prep got started a bit early this year. The kids were super excited about trains, two trees (sigh!), and lots of decorations.

RJ's favorite drum had been missing a drumstick for 6-7 years, but Sara stumbled upon it! With two drumsticks and a lanyard, the kids made enough noise to be a full marching band.

For the history of the drum, see: http://dougsara.blogspot.com/2012/12/merry-christmas.html.

Julia imitates RJ's 1 year old pose

Julia Plays Piano

 While RJ is playing hockey, Julia has been practicing piano. Steady progress is starting to show!

Julia plays Camptown Races

Golfing at Whitetail

With off-season rates in effect, the family decided to try 9-holes at the Whitetail golf course. This was Sara and Julia's first time on an actual course. 

On a gorgeous November day, we showed up late so we wouldn't get in the way of any real-golfers. From the very beginning it was clear we were NOT golf pros. After loading our clubs into our carts, we took off towards hole #1. Unfortunately we headed in the wrong direction and ended up closer to hole #3. Then using the map, Doug figured out we were at the end of hole #1, so we drove back to the beginning. 

After the first tee-off, the course marshal drove up to us and gave us some pointers on how to make things a little more enjoyable. He was very polite and nice as he suggested some ideas on how we could finish the course before midnight.

RJ putts while Julia tends the flag

After 3 hours of golfing, we managed to get in 7 holes. This included the following highlights:

• We found a nearly new pink Calloway golf ball for Julia
• RJ found a used glow in the dark ball
• Sara hit one or two in the air
• Doug played an excellent 8th hole as 'speed golf'

After all was said and done, RJ looked pretty good as a golfer and declared it was the best possible way we could have spent the day!

Update: November 21, 2020

RJ and Doug got another round of 9 holes plus 40 minutes on the practice green. RJ's main complaint was that we didn't play 18 holes. Thank goodness for winter rates. 

RJ chips onto the practice green after we played 9 holes