Ben's Birthday Has Finally Arrived For You!!!

Our not-so-young but nevertheless illustrious "Man In the Know" Benjamin James Barnhart has turned 33 years of age. He celebrated his birthday by ordering Chinese take-out and watching a good movie with close friends (and next-door neighbors) Matt and Leah. 

In honor of this momentous occasion, we would like to reminisce and recount some fond memories of Ben's fruitful life. Post any and all memories to the comment board. Thank you, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

NOTE: Candles in the picture have been known to switch with other candles when nobody is viewing the blog. This explains any discrepancies that may be noticed when viewing the above photograph.

MISSING!

Twas the night after Christmas,
No mice, no not nary,

And a good night to play
Telephone Pictionary!

We phrased, and drew, and laughed
quite a bit,

Til Sherlock claimed some, leaving the
rest of us to just sit.

Twas a lovely evening on London St.,
With food, and drink, and game,

But then, alas, the hour grew late,
And the rest went home, just the same.

Straight to bed, the Mommy went,
For tired and weary was she,

"I'll tidy the rest of this in the morn,
before off to work I be."

Picking up, here and there,
Putting things away,

The drawings lay there in a pile,
And I thought I heard them say,

"One of us is missing!" So I counted
to see if true,

And sure enough, one was gone,
And it's got me wondering who?

Who confiscated a page of drawings,
And what might your plan be?

Methinks we ought to watch the Blog,
To see what we might again see!

Tile complete

After a long day, the tiling is finished. The finish coat on the ceiling got sanded also. I'm almost done skim coating the walls to get rid of the texture from the sponge painting.

So I was making a coffee cake...

...and as I was cracking an egg, I had a flashback. I remembered when I was pretty young (it seems like we were still living in Terre Haute but I can't remember for certain) and I was sitting at the kitchen table. Mom was cooking something that used eggs, and somehow we started talking about what eggs were. She explained that eggs were actually the way chickens had babies. She said that if a hen hatched an egg by sitting on it and keeping it warm, a little chick would develop from the egg. I think she kept talking about how the yolk was actually the part that fed the chick while it grew, but I didn't really hear that part. All I could think about was how many little yellow chicks I had unknowingly murdered, and how this terribly cruel practice was so widely accepted! These poor little chicks never got a chance to grow up and have wonderful chicken lives. I imagined all the hens, sitting in their nests with their heavy hearts, thinking of all their children they would never get to meet. Needless to say, I may have been overly sensitve to the situation. When mom realized I was upset, she quickly pointed out that she didn't believe the eggs we were eating were actually fertilized, so they wouldn't have turned into a chick whether we ate them or not. I have no idea if this was true (I should look that up) but it certainly went a long way in calming my guilt-ridden heart for all the eggs I'd eaten in my life.

I'm not sure what I thought was so fantastic about being a chicken, or if I realized that most chickens are eaten at some point anyway. Apparently I realize it now though, because I was able to crack all four eggs and whisk them without a bit of guilt.

Bathroom Status Update

Day 2: Tub successfully fitted into the bathroom and Hardiboard up! No major setbacks yet. Also no showers. Andy might be sleeping in the bathtub tonight.

The beginnings of a new bathroom

The tub and tile were removed tonight. Janell did a great job carrying that cast iron tub out on her back.

Snow, Shovels and Girls (and Peter, too)

Here are a few photos of our "early" snow on Friday, along with the girls enjoying the first "real" snow of the season. Please keep in mind that on Thursday, we could still see the greenish grass in our lawn, and as of today, we've about 2 feet (of snow, that is) on the ground. So these are just preliminary photos of the fun yet to come this winter!


And, here's the most recent photo of Peter, too. He just doesn't get to go out and play in the snow, yet.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Show us your snow! It's a winter wonderland in the UP and plenty more of the white stuff to come.

Honk if you love snow.

A Thanksgiving full of games

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday this year. I know my Thanksgiving was filled with abundant food and lots of laughter, thanks to the game that Janell shared with us. It's called telephone pictionary and it goes something like this:

1. Every player takes a piece of paper and writes a sentence at the top. Then every player passes the sheet to their left
2. The next person reads the sentence to themselves and draws a picture of the sentence below
3. Then every player folds over their piece of paper so only their drawing is visible and passes
4. The next receiving person examines the picture and writes a sentence describing it below the picture
5. Then every player folds over their piece of paper so only their sentence is visible and passes it to their left
6. Continue until you get your paper back

As you can imagine, hilarity ensued. Here are some of the funnier progressions:

Although it is too late for me.....

As the winter months are upon us and with that the season of Christmas and with that my right hand's nubs' bar-mitzvah, I would like to draw any and all interested parties' attention to this article I happened to stumble upon which defends my actions with a said snowblower on December the 22, 2008.







Click Here If You Are Super Interested In This Interesting Link

A Day in the Park

The girls spent an enjoyable afternoon playing at the park across the street from our house today. I'm glad we went after lunch, since after nap-time, the rain was pouring down! It may have been our last opportunity to spend there this year...and the girls were thrilled! So, here are a few photos of your favorite girls....(Peter was sleeping in his pack and didn't want to get out and play)...

ASPCA Notification

It has come to the attention of the ASPCA that Ozzie is no longer safe at 1865 Brighton Circle. An Animal Rescue Crew is on its way to safely retrieve and redistribute Ozzie to a home in which he will not be eaten.




UPDATE: It has come to the attention of the ASPCA that the pictured dog is not Ozzie. Well, of course not. The pictured dog was named Bubbles and was the prior canine occupant of 1865 Brighton Circle. The ASPCA is attempting to help Ozzie avoid the cruel and delicious treatment meted out to Bubbles. Poor, brave Bubbles.

Hancock Halloween

For Halloween, (or Hallaloonya, as Ella calls it) the girls dressed up as princesses (don't have any photos right now, I'll have to get some from Cameron & Olivia's grandma) and Peter wore his baseball outfit (quite fitting during the World Series). I dressed up as a very busy mom. Sorry to say, no photos of that. Steve dressed up as a honey extractor and my kitchen made itself up as a honey house. See photos below.

The kitchen disguised as a honey house. Please note, the cupboards and oven are non-functional in this photo (we got to order pizza for lunch).

Steve is uncapping one of the last frames of honey (many, many hours after the project began). The knife is heated so it easily slices through the beeswax (minding one's own, of course) and allows the honey to be extracted.

A close-up of the uncapping process. Note the honey oozing from the cells. (it's very tasty) This uncapped frame will then be placed in a radial extractor (the large cylindrical shiny object in the first photo) and spun at very high speeds (we have a motorized version) so that the honey will be spun out and then drain to the bottom, where it will flow through a honey gate into a large bucket. We obtained approximately 8 gallons of honey on Halloween. There shouldn't be s shortage at our house this winter!

The Trophy Wife

Perfect in every way

Happy Halloween!!!

I was a lumberjack this year for Halloween, and Cecilia (Matt and Leah's older daughter) was a fairy.


Did anyone else dress-up?

Another kitchen post

I know you've all been in withdrawal without recent photos from my house projects. So I'm drawing together a few recent photos of the kitchen. Hopefully, the next pictures I show will be after the floor and countertop are in place.

Somebody's Birthday!

Today we have a birthday girl,
dark hair, and big brown eyes;

Wonder what she looked like,
And what was her birth size?

Couldn't be a Barnhart,
Light hair was in their genes; (the boys, anyway!)

And blue eyes seem to dominate,
Some with a hint of green.

Me thinks we need a baby picture,
To celebrate her birth;

To show us what she looked like,
When she made her appearance on Earth.

So please complete this post, dear ones,
For this I cannot do;

And a very Happy Birthday, Rachel,
From all of us to you!

1st Snow of the Season Award!

And the award goes to Ben, in Minneapolis, who captured these photos on his way to work this morning! Clicking on the second picture actually shows the big flakes of snow! Though I'm told by a little 4 yr. old girl in the U.P. that they have snow up there too, so maybe Uncle Ben will share his honor with the other brave souls in the far north.

FBI warning for readers of barnhartcentral.blogspot.com

***FBI Warning #45JC: 10/3/2009***

On or about October 3, 2009, the humans known as Benjamin James Barnhart and David Lee Barnhart (ages 32 and 25, respectively) were abducted from the residence of Mr. Benjamin Barnhart (3636 40th Avenue S, Mpls, MN) by alien life forms of unknown derivation. The purposes of this abduction are unknown at this time.

FBI sources close to the entity known as the leader of the alien life forms, have informed us that the humans known as Mr. Barnhart and Mr. Barnhart have been replaced with well-crafted, automatonic replicant life forms very closely approximating Messrs. Barnhart. Cameras placed within the residence have captured these photographs of the replicant life forms engaged in "authentic imitative behaviour intended to deceive."

We have reason to believe that the replicant life forms are attempting to mask their nonhuman status by passing as humans—particularly, humans engaged in familial event reënactments like the celebration of holidays or birthdays. To that end they've adopted the curious practice of engaging in a birthday celebration. As can be seen from the photos, the eyesight of newborn replicants is not fully developed and they must rely on supplemental light sources in order to discern food objects from utensil objects.

Little is known of the replicant's intentions, though it is safe to assume that their schemes are nefarious and their intentions malevolent. Until we can verify that the actual Messrs. Barnhart have been returned to the planet Earth, we recommend caution on the part of anyone who would interact with these alien life forms. Please exercise extreme prejudice when engaging in any conversations or financial transactions of less than $0.73.

One final note: the president has directed our agency to honor October 3rd as the birth date of Janell McCann, the sister of the recently abducted Messrs. Barnhart. Happy birthday, Ms. McCann. We're doing our best to return your brothers to you.

Bee-utiful Day in the Park

With summer starting to wind down, Amber and I decided to capitalize on the nice weather in Chicago today and head down to one of the larger parks nearby, Humboldt Park.


We packed up a small picnic lunch and retired to the grassy knoll.



While Amber took a little nap in the sun, I had difficulty resisting taking tons of pictures of all the flowers.



The bees were also eager to log some final summertime hours. This one seemed especially concentrated on his work.

The Call of the Wild

I just returned from a six-day trip to the Boundary Waters (BWCAW, for those of you who love acronyms). And I think the pictures do a pretty good job of sharing the experience, so I'll just give a brief explanation for these shots.


Loading up the packs before we depart. That's Peter on the left, Liz in the background, and Sergio on the right.



It rained the first day.


But after that the weather was great.


We saw a snake...


...and an inquisitive owl...


...and a fish getting a suntan...


...and a ninja loon...


...and two bald eagles, who watched us while we were swimming.


We stood on rocks and pointed.


We walked through a part of the forest that burned a few years ago.


This is Long Island Lake, where we stayed for two days. Our campsite is on the point jutting into the lake from the left.


A nice sunset.


Same sunset, just a little while later.


We built fires from dryer lint and used flint and steel to light them.


And we roasted acorn squash on one of those fires.


We did a lot of standing around...


...and practiced looking tough and growing our beards.


We saw a lot of beautiful lakeshore...


...and a couple misty mornings on the lakes.


Oh, yeah, and we paddled our canoes a lot. Altogether we canoed and portaged (where you carry the canoe on your shoulders from one lake to the next) 30 miles in five and a half days. It was pretty idyllic and relaxing.