Scattered Thoughts . . .

One night this past weekend, we had a marathon game night with the grandkids while watching a few movies. I'm not really one for board games (I typically avoid them like the plague) but I do enjoy playing Uno and that is what we started with on Saturday. First, Gee had to teach the kids how to play Uno... and, they did better than expected. Shuffling is out of the question, even dealing is out of the question, but they did so well in learning that the following morning Lukey and Kenzie played Uno alone and were actually remembering most of the rules on their own. They did very well! After we tired of about a million four-card-hands of Uno (four cards were far easier for them to handle than seven and the hands went fairly quickly), they switched gears and moved to the classic game of Trouble.  Apparently, they had played Trouble before but definitely needed a quick refresher from Gee. Truth be told, they remembered about as many of the rules as I did! I definitely needed a

Here is a quick video from this past weekend of Lukey running my New York Central passenger train... well, really, only half of the train.  He seems to be liking this newly upgraded locomotive as much as I do! I have other video clips of Lukey running that Alaska GP-38 diesel locomotive that is sitting alongside the tracks in this video above. It is funny... while he was running the big Hudson steam locomotive, he ran it at realistic speeds... while he was running the Alaska GP-38 diesel, he ran it at a lightning speed like it was a bullet train!   Shortly afterward, he turned the diesel over to Kenzie's control...  I'm not sure I have any video of that though...

As I wrote in a previous blog entry, the grandkids spent the weekend at our house. Lukey was content with running trains and watching some Florida Gator and Dayton Flyer basketball. Kenzie enjoyed some Florida Gator gymnastics, baking with Gee, playing with her doll collection and even running one of Uncle Adam's diesel locomotives.   First, some photos of Kenzie making some rice crispy treats with Gee... As always, there was quite a bit of time playing a server at a pizza place...  this particular day, she was making and serving pizzas for Jimmz Pizza... "Niiiice locomotive..."

It is always fun playing with trains with Lukey and, as much as I enjoy playing with trains myself, it is perhaps even more fun watching Lukey play with trains! On this particular day this past weekend, I was able to shoot some photos as well as some video of Lukey as he played. The grandkids were at our house through the weekend again so that allowed me to get some nice photos of them in action (some photos of Kenzie will be added in another blog entry). Lukey will be back this weekend to run some trains again. This weekend, however, we'll be running Lukey's HO scale trains and giving some of my narrow gauge trains a run (these narrow gauge trains can run on Lukey's HO scale layout).   This past weekend, Lukey and I played with my newly upgraded O scale Hudson steam locomotive. The track was sprawled out across the living room, around the coffee table and then under the coffee table.  He seemed impressed with all the upgrades which made playing a lot more interesting

I'm still trying to get the master bathroom put back together but other things keep getting in the way. My health has been an issue (surprise, surprise) so that delayed things a bit... The weather has been an issue on many days causing delays... snow and rain have kept all my tools under cover in the shed... We had the grandchildren staying with us all weekend... And, then we had a surprise electrical problem which demanded instant attention because we lost power to the furnace and we are currently in the middle of winter! I was in the bathroom, getting the room prepared to start working on the new flooring (new, but temporary, until we can completely renovate this bathroom).  The furnace had just kicked on and about 30 seconds later the room went dark and the furnace shut down. "Uh-oh..." I immediately looked toward the hallway to see if the entire house lost power...  no, the hallway was still illuminated. I went to the circuit breaker panel to see if a brea