Opening the House for 2013 Season!

Every year during April school vacation, we begin our pilgrimage to Martha's Vineyard to open our little gingerbread.  It has become a tradition to invite our three grandchildren, Ryan, Gabby and Grace,

to join us with Liz coming over mid-week.  This year, when we arrived we were met with no water, it had not been turned on yet.  Barry made a quick call and within an hour the plumber arrived and got our water running.  Whew!  We celebrated in style....dinner at Sharky's.  Ryan and Gabby even tried guacamole.

The week flew by quickly.  Despite Wendy working a couple of days, we were able to get the house clean, make beds, vacuum, and wash all surfaces.  The sticks and leaves around the house were raked and bagged.  The kids had a fantastic time scooting around the Tabernacle, playing games and reading.  Of course, there were visits to Ryan Amusements, Flying Horses, Back Door Dounuts and Ben and Bill's ice cream.   We will always remember Ryan's jokes, playing Uno and being silly.

We were able to do alittle work on the house.  Barry installed a section of angle iron under the house and straighten up one section of house.  Wendy sanded and primed a section under the roof (eves) and section of one of the dog houses.  Not sure you can tell from the picture.  Sometime in the future, we will paint these sections their final colors.

After 1 week together!

An April vacation tradition is to celebrate Liz's birthday at Sharky's (yes we went there twice this week)  It was tons of fun.  We even shared a chocolate chip cookie pie covered with whipped cream and chocolate.

Our new season begins.  We are looking forward to a wonderful summer filled with loads of laughs.

Painting in Our Basement

We have been working on our Gingerbread house this winter from the basement of our Marion house.  Five bundles of cedar shingles were delivered to our off-island home.  In the basement, we primed each shingle on all sides.  That was followed by two coats of the C2 Shaker paint, again on all sides.  Allowing them to dry completely between coats before finally packing them up in boxes for travel to the Vineyard.  They are destined to be nailed to the sides of the house.  Hopefully, it will save time and they will last a long time on the island home.  Now we only need to prime and paint another 15 bundles!  Ugh.....

A New Season Begins

Spring is in the air and thoughts of returning to our little gingerbread consume us!  Despite being away for the winter, we have been working on this year's home improvements.  How you might ask?

One project that started back in the Fall was to hire Mike Mitchell to repair the shingles on the rear of the house.  We have no idea when the chimney on the back of the house was taken down, but it has looked like this for at least 20 years, long strip of tar paper running up the back of the house.  First Mike had to remove the tar paper, exposing numerous surprises underneath including some resident bugs.  After repairing, he wove fire-retardant shingles in the blank area to complete the shingles on the back.  The new shingles were not square, so Mike had to cut each shingle to fit.

This spring, we will power wash the entire back of the house and then stain it the C2 Shaker (tan) color.  The screen door will be painted our wonderful Tamale (red) with the Halifax (blue) trim.  We will need to repaint the trim around the second floor window the Halifax color to match.  Currently, it is the Shaker color.  Add a new porch light, it will look like a new house from behind!