It's a sad day at the Davis house

After over a month of fighting health problems our 17yr old cat Maddie is no longer with us. As all our cats before her she was a big part of our lives and she will be missed.

4 Cats! What were we thinking?

Chris the human cat tree. Our two new little ones have made themselves right at home and Hal and Maddie are fine with it. We are just one big happy family now. Ya, I know, how many more cats do we need to be considered crazy old people?

We have new members of our family

I had spent the past 4 weeks taking our 17yr cat Maddie to the vet for daily fluid injections. Each day I would see these 2 kittens that they had in the waiting area. One day I finally asked and they said that they were found at a construction site. The vet nursed them back to health and they were trying to find them a good home. They prefererd that they went together. We have been wanting to get a small cat for Hal to play with and keep him company but have been worried about how our old cat will handle it.

Meet Dorie and Mason our 3month old kittens. Mason is the charcol black one and Dorie is the Grey one. Mason is very outgoing and loves to be held and petted. Dorie likes attention but is a little afraid of everything that moves.

We are still not sure what have got ourselves into and are just remembering what having a kitten is like around the house. Hal is a little mad about the whole thing and doesn't think these 2 kids are much fun but he is starting to warm up to them. Maddie doesn't really care about them and in fact thinks kitten foods is quite tastey.

We are going to be in the paper

You can view the article on OregonLive.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/ccweekly/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_south_news/117348634378840.xml&coll=7

It is in the Clackamas County Weekly section of the Oregonian that comes out on Thursdays. It should be in Next Thursdays paper 3/22.

Jeff's helicopter fun

I took the picture but Chris wrote the following...

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Helicopter #2 (white and green)

The UPS driver pulls up to the house in between rain showers…..

10:15 UPS arrives with box
10:16 Jeff rips open box to find the second helicopter he got for his birthday
10:20 Jeff is finished putting it together and he and Hal head outside to test
10:25 helicopter meets gravity – gravity wins
10:26 Jeff starts the salvage mission
10:45 Jeff spends 10 minutes looking for super glue

Flash back about a week ago…….

10:15 Jeff opens the box of the first helicopter (yellow) he got for his birthday
10:16 Jeff is finished putting it together and he and Hal……Long pause as several days go by with lots of rain…..

A few days later
10:20 Jeff and Hall head out for a test run
10:25 helicopter meets rose bush – rose bush wins
10:26 Jeff starts the salvage mission
10:45 Jeff is on the internet ordering spare parts

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In my defense the first helicopter only broke a small plastic bar that helps hold one side of the canopy on. It did make it a bit unbalanced but it still flew. The replacement part was $2 and it shipped right away.

I got the 2nd helicopter because it is a 4 channel instead of a 2 channel and has more control of flight. It was also a HUGE deal...$250 retail and I got it for $85. I broke one of the runners where it attaches to the leg which I just superglued back together.

Lessons learned....

4 channel is better than 2 channel for trying to fly.

Don't practice on the driveway it is too hard of a surface and there are too many rose bushes. Practice indoors in a smooth floor in a smaller space so you don't go wandering too much. Oh, and practice practice practice...it takes time to learn how to fly these darn things.

Davis Graveyard on the Web

Chris did some searching and found these interesting links


http://www.hauntproject.com/projdetail.asp?category=Animatronic%20Props

http://www.mouseinfo.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-80497.html

http://www.kristenandstevewong.com/What's%20going%20on%20in%20WA.htm

http://www.eastpdxnews.com/index.php?mod=article_detail&id_art=210&PHPSESSID=0ceddb7001136cd13533b09ea7c258c4&date=2006-10-21

Souvenir from HauntX

I bought these from a guy selling stuff out of leather at a booth at HauntX. They were custom made for me and I just got them in the mail today. I choose the design and the type of leather. It will look good with the grave digger costume.

HauntX

We just returned from our weekend at HauntX the haunters convention in L.A. at the LAX Hilton. We had a great time and met some friends from previous trips and also made a whole bunch of new friends too. We learned some new stuff, bought some stuff, and drank some stuff. It was a big party and we enjoyed ourselves.

We won an award!

We just got back from HauntX the Haunters Convention in L.A. at the LAX Hilton. They gave out the video awards on Sunday night. We were the runner up for the Yard Haunt category. Out of hundreds of video entries our was considered the 2nd best yard haunt. We are VERY excited.

The Davis Graveyard DVD

We just fnished putting together our DVD. We put all of our video and photos on one DVD with menus and cover art. Here are the YouTube versions of the most of the videos on the DVD.

Promoting Halloween


Photo Gallery


Building a Cathedral


Graveyard Video

Happy New Year!

Well it is 2007 and we just bought our tickets to HauntX. It is the weekend of Feb 17th. http://hauntx.com/HauntXAwards/hauntxaward.htm Can't wait to see who wins the Best Yard Haunt of the year award. Fingers crossed. We sent in our video last Saturday to both HauntX awards and to the Haunters Choice awards www.haunterschoiceawards.com

You can purchase the 2 DVD sets from these locations when they are ready.

http://www.hauntvids.com/2006.htm

http://www.halloweenpropmaster.com/2006_dvd_set.htm

Christmas surprise

When we got home from Salem Christmas day we found this on our doorstep.

There was a little bag of extra candles for inside him. Chris lit him up right away.

Thank you Nick and Marci!

Christmas at our house

Another Christmas has come and gone. We had Chris' family over to our house in the morning. We hung around for a few hours and then drove down to my Dads to spend the evening. We got back home around 11pm. We took the next day off and just hung around the house. It was a fun day with lots of presents and surprises.

Our Christmas Card

This year we decided to do something related to Halloween for our holiday card this year since this was our big year for Halloween.

We decided to make another tombstone with the Scrooge epitaph. We put it in the yard next to a Grim Reaper to set the scene from A Christmas Carol where Scrooge sees his tombstone as shown to him from the Ghost of Christmas future who looks like death.

It took a few days to make the tombstone, cold, rainy weather is not the perfect conditions for drying paint. I then set it up outside with rebar stakes and then hauled out a reaper to set beside him. I used some cobwebs and got some branches and leaves from the yard and made the tombstone look forgotten.

I took a BUNCH of pictures of it. Chris suggested using fog so I got the fog machine out and blasted it with fog and to a BUNCH more pictures. Chris then did her magic in Photoshop, I suggested the phrase "Bah Humbug! Halloween is over." and we had our card.

A good day for Hal

We have a bird feeder right outside our office window. I often keep the window shade open to let some light in the office and to have something to look out into when working.

Hal LOVES this vantage point to see all the wild life. He can sit in the window and see all the creatures he wishes he could catch.

Our Edinburgh Flat

The flat we rented was located at Number 7 St. Marys Street and it was flat #7 on the 4th floor with no elevator.

St. Mary's Street Crosses the High Street or Royal Mile about midway down. The flat was located just around the corner, just above the World's End pub (one of our favorite hang outs.)

For what it lacked in vertical location, the owner Janet made up for in appearance. The place was very nice with a comfortable living room, a comfy bed, a kitchen with everything we needed and a big bathroom. We felt very much at home and Janet's little touches really made a difference.

So even though the climb up the steap stairs got old fast we really enjoyed our stay and would recomend it for your stay in Edinburgh.

Royal Botanic Gardens

The day after we got back from Skye we decided to go to the the Royal Botanic Gardens. We had been there before right before they shut, so this time we went back for a longer visit. We caught a cab on the High Street in the morning and get out there just after they opened.

We of course had to buy squirrel food because the squirrels are all starving. (Well, that is what Chris believes! ) We saw a lot of interesting trees and plants and got to visit the new Queen Mother Memorial. One of our favorite sites is the huge hedge that runs down the center of the gardens.

We had lunch in the cafe then stopped at the gift shop and then caught a cab back to our flat.

Rosslyn Chapel

On our last day in Edinburgh we decided to take the bus out to visit Rosslyn Chapel made famous these days by the DaVinci Code.

The castle was built by the Clan Sinclair who were thought to have ties to the Templars hence the whole Grail connection. The entire structure has been covered in a protective scafold that allows visitors a better look at the exterior carvings.

The chapel is very old and tiny. The amount of stone carving is extrodinary, which is why it has links to the Free Masons.

The chapel was quite amazing and we were glad we took the time to visit it.

Edinburgh Castle (again)

We found a semi-sunny day to visit Edinburgh Castle again. It is a beautiful castle at the top of the city.

We explored the familier areas and took time to walk through the new soldier museum.

St. Margaret's chapel, the oldest building in the castle complex, was closed for a wedding while we were there.

We had lunch in the Red Coat cafe and watched the firing of the one o'clock gun.