Roblog

My two weeks off is over, and I had some wonderful vacations. We actually decided to take two separate vacations in consecutive weeks because the timing worked out that way and I have plenty of vacation time to spend - even after the vacations, I still have almost 4 weeks in my PTO bank!

What follows is a long account of my two trips.

If it wasn't already clear from my previous post, I have uploaded some select pictures from my Kelleys Island trip and my visit to West Grove.

I stumbled upon instructions on how to create a water sprinkler toy last week, and they made it sound easy enough for even me. I am not a "handy man" by any stretch of the imagination, so I was excited by the prosepct of making something myself.

So on Saturday, I took the girls to Home Depot to get the materials. It took me a long time because I am not familiar with any of the materials (OK - I know what PVC pipe is, but that's about it). It took me an especially long time to fing the "misters" that would provide the pleasant spray. I ultimately had to settle for nozzles that didn't say "misting" on the label, but they turned out to be a fairly good facsimile. The other shopping challenge I had was my purchase of a "hole punch" that would make the neat little holes that I could fit the nozzles into. Only after I destroyed the tool by whacking it with a hammer against the PVC pipe did I realize it was designed to make holes in a garden hose instead. I used a drill to make the holes.

Even despite my novice handyman status, this project was fairly easy and fun. I did have difficulty making the right size holes in the PVC pipe, since I was determined to fit the 5/32" nozzle ends into a 5/32" drill hole but the threading on the nozzles were wider and never bit into the pipe, no matter how hard I pressed and turned. Once I made the hole 3/16" wide, it worked fine. There is also one nozzle that doesn't spray. Since that's just 1 nozzle out of 10, I haven't diagnosed it yet. I'm sure there's just some obstruction in the nozzle that I can clear once I take it out and examine it.

So now I have this very homemade-looking water arch that looks identical to the one shown on the Instructables site. It's light and easy to setup (although it's a little bulky), and the girls like playing in it. Frankly, I enjoyed walking through it during my brief breaks from cutting the grass last evening. Refreshing!

Building it made me remember how much I enjoy water features. Before the girls were born, I had ideas to make a water fountain in the backyard. Flush with my recent minor success building water a feature, I'm thinking about that again. But even do-it-yourself fountains get a little pricey ($100 is probably as cheap as I could do it), so I doubt I'll start that until our bathroom remodeling is paid off.