Egg Hunter

Time for the annual Hardin Field Easter Egg Hunt!  The weather was perfect, 60 and sunny.  I walked over with my favorite neighbor, Audrey.  Once we were there I saw two Easter Bunnies and tons of kids and candy.  It was a fun time, I wonder what I will do next Easter.

Audrey and Dexter - our favorite neighbor

Daddy and Dexter checking out the field - Dexter wasn't so sure about it.

After running away from the 3-5 year old group because there were too many, Dexter "hunted" in the 6-9 year old group.

The field one minute after the kids were unleashed.

Junior Major

I also got selected for promotion yesterday.  I might be a pilot though instead of an engineer. 

Maj (S)

 The Air Force officially announced the Captains that will be promoted to Major next calendar year and Dan is one of them!   Six people in Dan's division were selected for promotion.  Overall there were 2560 people selected for promotion and Dan is number 370, which will mean an early promotion for him.  And early means spring 2014 perhaps.  Today his division had a party for those selected including crazy large shoulder boards with the Major gold maple leaf symbol. Selectees also received a beverage of choice, an AFRL patch with their line number inscribed on it, an official Major's rank, all hung around the beverage with a braided rope made by Col Maethner and his wife.

Col. Maethner and Capt. Karrels

Jim Sewell, Capt. Anthony O'Dell, Capt. Katrina Schweiker, Capt. Chuck Rowell, Capt. Daniel Karrels, Capt. Joyce Mark, Capt. Jonathan Spaulding, Col. Bill Cooley, Col. Scott Maethner, Maj Torrey Wagner, Wes Tucker

Our new Major Select

What do you call a Major Select?  A Captain.

grades and neighbors

 Today I did the home inspection with my inspector, Bob Rust.  Nothing major was found.  Structure, waterproofing, electrical, plumbing was all good.  HVAC has a couple questions - mainly is it 2 AC units or 1 unit with 2 zones - he was unable to tell that today and we couldn't find were a 2nd thermostat would go so that is one of my questions for the builder this afternoon.  Also he didn't see a return on the basement level which means that level could be really cold. - Another question for the builder.  Outside of those HVAC issues he only found a few little things like nailer plates missing from some framing (when they drill a hole in framing to run pipes or cables they should put on a metal nailer plate to the wood so drywall guys dont puncture the pipes/cables). 

Instead of showing you some of the 257 inside photos I took today, I thought I would just so you the outside so you can see the grading so far.  The front of the house is about one foot above the ground but it slopes to close to five feet in the backyard.

East side of house

West side of house

Front of house

My little side road, 6 houses only on this road.

Also today I met my first neighbors.  They live in the house immediately to my west.  They, Dennis and Kathy, have been moved in for about a month now.  They are grandparents to a couple kids Dexter's age and are close to retirement.  Dennis is retired Air Force and is now a government contractor.    I am so happy that our little side street will be totally completed in July.  The 2 houses across from us are in the foundation stages, so they are 4-6 weeks behind us.

I will update again after the inspection with the builder this afternoon.

house update

The living room.  The red boxes will be speakers later

one of the many windows - this one is off the living room

The unfinished basement

ceiling trusses

Dining Room

Our fancy kitchen island

Roof closeup photo

Front of the house

Dexter's Bedroom

Back of the house

So the house is coming along nicely.  Today I met with the low voltage wiring company, Trinity, to go over the placement for all the cable outlets, central vac outlets, surround sound and the security system.  I was going to meet with my home inspector as well but when he arrived the electricians were still working and he wanted to come back monday morning so he could see their work and the fire-stopping that was going to happen next.  So monday morning I will be back at the house to have my personal inspection at 9am and the builder inspection at 3pm.     The only concern I have with the house is the back porch (which is one of my favorite features).  The porch is at least 4 feet off the ground right now, perhaps with more dirt and grass it will help but right now I am not sure how to get off the porch.  Will there be steps?  Will their be railings so kids and dogs dont fall off?  That is my main question for the builder on Monday.

During my time at the house today I measured all the windows so Kathy and I can begin working on all the curtains.  Saturday we are hitting the fabric stores to look for materials and ideas.  That is all for today!  Another update will be coming on Tuesday when I return to Albuquerque.

Speech eval and paint

Yesterday Mommy and Daddy met with my Speech teacher, Mrs. Sharon.  I will read to you the results of the meeting:

"Dexter is able to produce the following sounds in words: /p/ 100%, /m/ 100%, /b/ 72%, /n/ 100%, /t/ 100%, /d/ 72%, /k/ 87%, /s/ 35%, /f/ 100%, /sh/ 65%, /l/ 60%, /w/ 87% and /s/ blends 41%.  During classroom conversation he was able to use intelligible speech 80% of the time."  Then she compared my pre-test to my post-test following the 16 weeks of speech therapy. 
"Test #1 HAPP-3:  A test where you show pictures of words and I tell you the word.  The first time I made 110 pronunciation errors, the second time I only made 60.
Test #2 Intelligibility: The first time I was only understood 30% of the time, now 80% of the time.
Test #3 Avg sentence length: First time 1.5 words, now 3.9 words.
Recommendation:  Dexter has made good gains in his speech sound development.  A big change that positively impacted his intelligibility was correctly using stressed and unstressed vowel sounds.  He continues to use the following processes: consonant cluster reduction and liquid simplification."

Today I stayed home with mommy and we went to the city library (can't go to the base library any more - thanks budget cuts)  We just happened to be there when they were having story time for 3-5 year olds.  They read books about bubbles and then we had an art project where we painted on bubble wrap. 

superhero art

Mom turned some photos into coloring book pages for me today.  This one is me (Captain America), Cole (Robin) and Luke (Batman)

artist

In case you thought I was all analytical with puzzle and magna-tile building, I thought I would show off artistic side with my art work I have done this weekend.  My art focuses on pirate boats and my new Virginia house. Paper or boxes are my medium.

Side note - after being potty trained with zero accidents for months I seemed to have regressed this week and have had at least one accident every day.  Not sure whats going on there.

4+ puzzle

I am not 4+ (like the box says), but today I finally tried to do my dinosaur 60 piece puzzle.  Mom helped me with the boarder but then I did all of the middle by myself!  It was my most challenging puzzle yet and I loved it!

Agillator?

What exactly is an agillator?

I have read this book several dozen times over the last few days (it is currently Dexter's favorite) and I just noticed on the key page on the book where they finally show the alligator under the porch instead of the dozen of other Florida native animals they spelled alligator wrong! 

Virginia Home update!

Holy cow!  Our house is moving along so fast!  It will be done in 77 days.    I will be in Virgina on the 21st for 5 days to do home inspections and check the progress.  Our estimated close date is May 31st.

We are all so excited!

In case you can't get a good feel for the new house from just the pictures, here is Dexter's vision for our home:

just checking in

Playing at pbskids.org  - I love all the Curious George games

It has been a few days since my last update so thought I would say hi.  This was my final week of speech therapy class.  I was able to ride the bus both days, last week was some bus fluke I guess.  We don't have any new words or books, it was a review week and evaluations.  On the 21st mommy and daddy have a parent teacher conference to talk about my progress and what I can continue to do at home.  No much going on in Albuquerque, perhaps we will have an exciting weekend.

Building and Sh

Here is my latest dinosaur castle

This week at speech class we read the book "The Rainbow Fish" and we practiced words that start and end with Sh.  Shut, Short, Show, Shot, Shrimp, Shy, Shop, Shadow and Shag rug. Brush, Cash, Dish, Fish, Leash, Push, Rash, Splash and Squash.

Next week is my final week at speech class.  Hopefully I can ride the bus for my final two classes, they canceled the bus last Thursday and mommy had to take me to class.  Not sure if it was a one time thing or a result of the sequester cutting back on special ed funding.

Slabs

They backfilled around the outside of the foundation

Poured garage floor

Poured basement floor

The foundation is done and next week they will start framing!