our good friend prince charles

our good friend Prince Charles came to philly so we decided to head down to Independence Hall to take a gander. Glen stuck his hand through the crowd and shook his hand. When our good friend the Prince looks right at the camera thats when hes shaking glens hand. Too late,...he already washed it.

Shutterfly, pt 2

I meant to also inform you that we get 1 free 11x14 from Shutterfly, but I don't know where we would put such a large picture. If anyone wants it, you can have it--first come first serve.

Shutterfly

LOTS of new pictures added to www.carolandsuch.shutterfly.com (japanese).

I'm mandolining and a jiggering

Hi ya'll,
I just wanted to post a couple of pics of my project. My work is going slowly but surely. I usually just try and do a couple of steps each weekend. I think that this week I actually may try and do a couple steps on the weeknights. I am gettting close to the body assembly and that is exciting. The first picture is of the back. It is solid maple wood and has a single brace that is sanded to a slight curve on the bottom of the brace and scaloped on the top ends so as to give the back a slight roundness without too much stiffness. You still want it to vibrate well when the strings are strummed. The second picture is of the sides. They also are solid maple and are bent and glued to a neck block and a tail block. There is some spruce purfing that is glued to the edges of the sides and will facilitate attachment of the top and the back. As you can see there is currently a piece of cardboard inside the assembly to help ensure that the proper shape is maintained until the top and back are glued. The side assembly is the part that I think I could have done better on so far. I think it will still be great but it wasn't perfectly straight when I glued the sides to the neck and tail blocks so it does not lay completely flat. I think when the top and back are glued on it will true out. The next two pictures are of the top of the mandolin which is made out of spruce and has four top braces which are also also sanded to a curve on the bottom to make the top convex and scalloped on the top of the braces to allow more vibration. Spruce is a very common material for the tops of accoustic instruments because it has such excellent tone qualities. Most quality instruments these days have some kind of a solid spruce top. Adirondack spruce seems to be the move coveted type while Sitka spruce is a bit more easy to come by and is thus more affordable. My mandolin as you can guess has a lovely Sitka spruce top. It is important when buying instruments that you know that the top or soundboard is solid spruce. No laminate allowed. Lots of cheeper instruments will be made out of laminated spruce but they will just say "spruce top". Also, as you can see from the pictures the top and back have just been rough cut with a hand saw as my shop is somewhat limited at the moment. After glueing them to the sides I will plane them to match the curve of the sides. I am having so much fun with this project and will be sure to post more pictures of the progress.

love you all tons.
Jonathan

Snow Day

Hello, hello.

Here in Roanoke, we are apparently in desperate need of a snow day. We haven't had a single accumulation this school year. Until today when we amassed an accumulation of 1/4 inch of teeny little ice balls that resemble snow. Needless to say, church was cancelled today. And the church across the street from where we live was also cancelled. Everyone at work would give their right arm to have a snow day. They're desperate. And at Small Smiles as well. That's right. If there is indeed a snow day for me tomorrow, Jon also gets a snow day. We'll be a little disappointed if there isn't a snow day, but we're not getting our hopes up.

We absolutely LOVE our new kitchen table that we got from Sam's Club a few weeks ago. It is assembled and in use. I've attached a picture below. We still have two chairs that are unassembled and their box is taking up residence in our downstairs bathroom. We'll put them together when we are in need of eight (as opposed to six) chairs for dinner. Maybe when Katie and Glen come to visit. Hint, hint.

The big excitement this week was Rex's birthday celebration on Tuesday night. Rex wanted cheese pizza for dinner and that suited all of us. He had his own special birthday cake, chocolate with chocolate frosting. He especially liked the chocolate frosting with the multicolored sprinkles on top. After opening a few presents, we had a dance party. He is quite the dancer. Anytime music comes on, he (almost subconsciously) starts waving his arms around. Rex is such a wonderful, happy baby boy and has a very happy life. We are so grateful to know him. I've attached some pictures below. There are more at our Shutterfly site. It's jonandalexlubeck.shutterfly.com and the password is roanoke.

Love,
Alex (and Jon, whose mandolin is currently under construction)

Apparently, the pictures posted first. Will remember that for next time.

Hard workers

Your sweater is beautiful, Mom! You are amazing.

Carol is mostly better now and I am completely better. Dave is getting closer. On Saturday we tackled our food storage closet. We bought can racks that help you rotate your canned goods. You put them in the top and they come out the bottom so the first one in is the first one out. They are called FIFO racks. You can get them online at the FIFO website. We also got some enormous lazy susans for stuff like baking soda that is hard to store so you can find it easily and not waste space. We are so organized we want to call Martha Stewart and boast.

love you!
Laurie

Thanks, Peter and Chrissy!

I finished the green sweater!!! Yippee!! How do you like it?
It even fits! I love it! Thanks for the great yarn. That was fun and will continue to be so!

I spent most of last week sewing window treatments for Heather Batelic. Her aunt, the designer was in town and I worked under her supervision. It was sometimes frustrating. She designed as we went, but I am learning some good things. Those two are super shoppers. I never have been. But maybe it will teach me to shop continuously- that is how you find PERFECT things. I don't know. Maybe I will try it and then decide that less than perfect- with much less shopping is more my style.

I will continue to sew all this week. But today Grant is home from school and we are going out shopping. Just maybe we will locate a Wii. That would be thrilling.

Love you all so much! Mom

We are all project-ing!

I love seeing what you guys are all working on! Katie and Glen- your pictures were so fun. I actually looked the pictures over before I read the post and when I saw the blond girl in the pink shirt I thought, "That looks like Katie. How can that be? These look like fine art copied off the internet." Very impressive.

As for our projects: David slaved away to get that family picture done on Saturday and I've started the cross stitch that I got for Christmas. I love it- it is very simple so hopefully I'll be able to whip it out (well, as fast as a mommy with a young child can whip out anything . . .) I hope to head over to Gardner Village to learn how to mount my needle punch and frame it. My other project this week was simplifying my life via cleaning out closets. I weeded out my clothing, threw out all expired medicine, and cleaned out the food storage closet. It feels so good to have roomier closets. Carol's project has been snotting up Sara's braids to an extent beyond belief. I am astonished at how crunchy those things are. I thought they were gross BEFORE we went to NY. And apparently she will continue to contribute to the solidity of her doll's dreadlocks because she is still runny- nosed. Poor cutie.

Love you all lots!

amedeo amedeo

dave....that picture looks AMAZING! we were both completely impressed. way to go.

yesterday we went to the Barnes Foundation that is right by our house. we loooved it. its a regal old building filled to the brim with renoirs, picassos, cezannes, van goghs, and more. it got us into a painting mood so we decided to paint each others portraits a la Amedeo Modigliani. The first two pictures are the real things. The next two are our attempts.

otherwise this week glen has been relaxing before school starts, and i'm back to my cute kids. i brought Old McDonald had an Apartment Building to school and read it to them. they all really liked it. glen is picking up a few guitar chords so that he can play with me while i play the mandolin. we're working on "wind in the barley" or something along those lines. we'll share when we get good enough.

muchas smoochas. hope everyone has recovered by now. love you!

We look good!

And here is the result....


I'm not going to say I think it's perfect, but when it's all shrunken down like this, it isn't so bad. When I get my Adobe Web Bundle super pack, I'll be able to do even better. For a high res. copy, go to shutterfly.

Laurie, Carol and I are all sniffly, but no tummy aches yet. I'm hoping we escape--we've been home for almost a full week, so pretty soon I'll feel confident we did... assuming we still did at that point ;) But we are very sniffly. Laurie and I keep being amazed at how much... er... stuff our noses have been making--we have very industrius noses! And that's all I'll say about that. We are also very tired, so I think I'll sign off and head to bed now. Hope everyone feels all the way better soon!

Christmas Epidemic

Oh, I am sad that the bug has hit your house, Jon and Alex! Nevertheless, it was so fun to read your post. I could just hear your cheery voice in the typing. I miss ALL of my dear hearts!

I think you are doomed, Alex. That bug seems to have hit us all but Dave and Laurie. And I am guessing it will hit there, too. Dad is still suffering now and then. He feels good and gets busy and then it hits again. I still have the respiratory half, but I have my energy back. Grant has been sick all week. Not drastically sick - I let him stay home 2 days, but he went back today to get books and make up work. He will call for a ride home if he feels too bad to stay.

Today is the day I shampoo the family room rug. I will try to get our old machine going and if I can't, I will go rent one. We still have a big stain from Grant's sickness, but all around it, where the gang diligently tried to clean up, the carpet is nice and white. I forgot that it was originally that color. oops. Time to get to work.

I bought myself a present yesterday. A 16 foot telescoping dusting pole! Yippee! No more cobwebs on the ceiling! That was so much fun! Oooo.

I love you all so much! Get better everyone! Love, Mom

Project Central!

Hello everyone! We are here at Project Central and wanted to give you an update. Jon is loving his mandolin project. He says that it might be the best Christmas present ever, besides a skateboard. He is very patiently working with his limited supply of tools.

I finished my needle punch kit that I started in New York. Well, almost finished. I am waiting for a few more strands of thread that I had to order and then I'll be able to finish it up.

Some other exciting project news-we bought our first piece of real wood furniture on Monday! I got a nightstand from an unfinished wood store here in Roanoke. So we also projected on the night stand. A couple of clear coats of polyurethane and voila! A new nightstand for me. One might be forthcoming for Jon-he was eying mine earlier.

We hope you are all doing well getting back into the routine of daily life now that vacation time is over. Jon actually has the stomach flu and stayed home from work today. So far, I am okay. I am trying to keep my distance but it's hard to do having such a cute husband!

We love you all,
Alex (and Jon)