Christmas # 2

Well, before February is almost over I figured I better do my last post about Christmas. In January we went to Nampa, ID to celebrate Christmas with the Burnett family. We had a wonderful time with the whole family.


This is Cooper's new favorite thing to do when we visit Grammy and Grampy Burnett.
I have a feeling he's going to be a musician some day.


Just in case you didn't know what song he's playing and singing, it's Twinkle Twinkle.


What a cute little Charlie Brown tree.


I'm very excited to try recipes in my new book.


Cooper loved helping Grammy open her lotion.


What a fun tent and tunnel Grampy picked out for Cooper. It's great physical therapy too.


Grammy loved playing in it too. Cooper thought this was funny.


The tent was fun in so many different ways.


Grammy was nice enough to give Cooper a haircut while we were there. Thankfully Cooper sat still for most of it thanks to daddy's great help.


Grandparents are so much fun!


The Burnett Family

Christmas 2010

My parents came for 10 days to celebrate Christmas. We were able to do so many fun thing.


We went to the Hill AFB Aerospace Museum. Cooper loved pretending to fly a jet. He mostly loved pushing all the buttons.


Mom and I made chocolate covered pretzels.


We went to the Treehouse museum and had a tea party.


And fed the babies.


And loved playing with the drums!


Grammy Rachel brought some fun wooden masks for us to color.


Playing guitars with Poppy was fun. e-i-e-i-o!


We went to eat at the Prairie Schooner. I can't believe we've lived her 7 years and never been there. Cooper loved eating under a covered wagon. I wished it blocked out his screaming a little more.


Paul and I went on a date to see the Nutcracker in SL. So much fun.


When my brother Craig and sister-in- law Olga came to visit we went to see the Ogden Christmas village. Cooper loved the big ball best.


For Christmas Eve we made sushi. Cooper even got to help.


Even though I didn't eat any it was still fun to watch them make it.
Paul wouldn't mind if this became a yearly tradition.


Left overs are the best. Cooper even ate some sushi.


Santa brought so many presents to our house! As I was putting Cooper to bed on Christmas Eve, Cooper said, "Santa Claus rock you." I think he understood when I told him Santa was busy delivering toys because then he said, "Santa Claus Cooper toys".


Christmas morning was fun opening presents. Cooper seemed more excited about daddy's oil pan than his own toys.


The oil pan makes a great place to sit and watch the train.


What a fun monster truck.


Cooper kept calling his backhoe a trash truck because it made the same noises.


Trying out his new bath toys in the tub. Boats make great cups for drinking water.


What a wonderful Christmas!

Cooper Singing

Cooper has been enjoying playing in the bathroom lately. He loves to hide behind the shower curtain and play peek-a-boo. His newest discovery is sitting on the side of the tub and pretending the back of the toilet is a piano. Here are some funny videos of Cooper singing.

Note: If you are viewing this on Facebook click on "view original post" and it will take you to my blog so you can see the videos.

The Great Engine Pull of 2010

Kelly and I purchased the 1998 Subaru Forester last November. I really liked the body style and the condition of the car was good. I have always heard good things about Subarus, so I figured that a Subaru purchase would be a no-brainer because of their perceived reliability and all wheel drive. I also based this on the Nissan Pickup I was replacing. It had 228,000 miles when I sold it and it was still running well. Unfortunately the pickup was not compatible with our family. The Forester had 134,000 miles on it, which is pretty high mileage, but the price was right. I knew going into it, that buying a high-mileage vehicle has its inherent risks and that there would undoubtedly be some repairs. In general the vehicle is in pretty good shape, considering it is 12 years old.

After I purchased the car, I started really reading up on Subarus. Not to knock Subaru or anything, but once they reach about 100,000 miles, it seems like a relatively high proportion of vehicles blow head gaskets and the oil seals start leaking. Pretty crazy. Do a Google search for Subaru Head Gasket Failure and you get 68,000 hits. Thankfully, there is a lot of information out there to help people make better-informed decisions about purchasing cars. Had I done the proper amount of research beforehand, I may have made a different decision about this car. Oh well. We have the car, so we may as well make the best of it.

I should have known what I would be up against when I discussed the vehicle history with the previous owner. He had mentioned that in 2008 the Forester had overheated and his mechanic tracked the problem down to blown head gaskets. I didn't think too much of it, considering the fact that he had solved the problem. Little did I know what I was getting into. It turns out that, when a Subaru overheats, it warps the oil seals, which then leak. After driving the vehicle for a month and a half, I noticed that we had lost over a quart of oil and it smoked when we stopped. So in February of 2010, I started watching it and it was pretty consistent. I was becoming concerned mostly about long term reliability, so in October, I decided to take it to the mechanic and see what he thought. His diagnosis was that the rear main seal was probably leaking, and that there is a "chamber plate" that sometimes leaks. The total cost: $100 for parts, $600 for labor. Ouch!!! I took it home and started thinking about it. I decided that, at some point, I need to bite the bullet and figure this stuff out on my own. So in November, I began doing my homework. I was reading online Subaru forums almost every night before bed, taking notes and learning. I talked the project over with one of my co-workers, and he agreed to assist me, because he has a heated garage, some engine experience and all of the tools. So our plan was to do it during the Christmas holiday.

I have spent the last 2 weeks mentally preparing myself for this project, because to replace the rear main seal and the oil separator cover, the engine must be removed. Seriously. I found this great youtube video, which was very helpful and somewhat entertaining. I watched it, probably 20 times.



I also found some shop manuals with step by step instructions.

Armed with these tools, I felt like this was a tractable project. So we began:


Here I am removing the power steering pump.


Here is the car with most of the stuff removed from the engine compartment.


A closeup of the engine compartment with the radiator gone, power steering pump and AC compressor pushed off to the side and a bunch of hoses pulled off. Luckily we had just enough room to disconnect the engine and the transmission, so we did not need to remove the intake manifold.


Oh yeah. We needed to disconnect the exhaust too. This was somewhat problematic because the bolts were rusted. I sprayed PB Blaster on them a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't help. It took a little time, but we got them.

There was also one nut, that was REALLY difficult to get to. The nut is one of 4 mount points between the transmission and engine. It was located on the driver side. It probably took 45 minutes to remove that one nut. After that, we were good to go.


My coworker, Scott lifting the engine. I read that this step can be difficult, but the engine separated really easily. I also sprayed the seam between the engine and transmission with PB Blaster a couple of times last week. Maybe it helped.


We needed to ratchet up the front of the engine to get the proper tilt.


Out it came. This is the back of the engine with the flex plate still attached. I removed the 8 bolts and it opened access to the rear main seal and the oil separator plate.


Me with the front of the engine. This is a 4 cam engine, which is actually kind of an oddball for Subarus. They built this engine from 1996-1998. Everything from 1999-2010 was a 2 cam engine. I think the 2011 went back to the 4 cam design, which is supposedly more efficient. This version of the engine is known as the EJ25D and Subaru had all sorts of problems with this version: blown head gaskets, leaky seals, you name it. My engine has now had most of the seals and gaskets replaced.


The engine compartment without the engine. You can see the oil residue on the cross member. This is why I was pretty sure the leak was coming from the rear of the engine. The big round thing in the middle of the photo is the torque converter for the automatic transmission. I was really concerned about possibly inadvertently pulling this out. If it comes out, a bunch of things go wrong. Luckily it stayed in.


This is the back of the engine with the flexplate removed. Unfortunately, I got excited and forgot to take a photo of the oil separator cover before I took it off. I had already removed it when I took this photo. It is the chamber located to the right of the crank shaft(which is the round thing in the middle of the photo that spins). One of the screws holding the oil separator cover was loose and there was barely any sealant left. Plus there was clear indication of leaking out of the rear main seal, which is the ring around the crank shaft in the center of the photo.


This is a photo from one of the websites that had a lot of information on this subject. You can see the black oil separator cover, which is plastic. I don't think anybody knows what the real purpose of this plate is other than leaking. I replaced the plastic cover with a metal one. I also forgot to take a picture of the new plate and rear main seal...that is so unlike me!


Here is my engine with clean mating surfaces. I opted not to put too much time into shining it up.


...and in it goes. Putting the engine back in was actually really fast. It took about 2 hours. I let it sit overnight to allow the sealant around the oil separator cover to cure. I drove it home the next morning. The car smelled during the first hour or so. This got me really nervous, but I haven't seen any indication of a leak as of yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Well this was quite an undertaking. The entire project took 11 hours from beginning to end. That's not too bad considering the mechanic told me he would charge 10 hours labor. I learned a lot about engines and cars with this project, and believe it or not, it was actually fun. I hope I never need to do this again on my engine though. It's funny, I have been running out to the car every few hours to make sure that there is no oil leaking because, "THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!!!"

Cooper's Stool

Cooper has really developed the desire to climb on anything. Although, this is likely the natural progression of development for children, it has been a challenging transition for us. We were not ready for his climbing phase. We would look away and before we knew it, we would see him hanging from a chair in the kitchen, or leaning over an end table to reach a lamp...or crawling on the coffee table. He has been walking around with his blue plastic chair, but as he has grown, that chair has become woefully unsafe. Cooper has fallen many times on it, including one face plant into the carpet. The writing was on the wall, something needed to be done.


Needles to say, we were in a bind, because we had let Cooper stand on his chair in the past, so the precedent had been set. But now that he is getting older, it was unsafe. He doesn't understand the concept of safety yet, so we really needed to offer him a safe alternative.


One of Kelly's friends showed us the Learning Tower. Unlike many children's products, I actually thought this was a cool idea. This would enable Cooper to safely climb, and be involved while we are in the kitchen or at a table. This was particularly attractive considering the fact that Cooper likes to be held in the morning when we are making breakfast, and he is getting heavy. But at what a price??? The minimum I saw was $180 online. Not that Cooper is not worth it, but holy moley! That is expensive. So I started thinking about constructing my own learning tower.

I did some sketching and made some measurements and came up with this.

It took two evenings to build and at a great price point...<$50, plus the experience of building something. Cooper's stool as we like to call it. This has been an amazing addition to our furnishings. Cooper loves to stand in it. He frequently eats dinner in it! He has used it in unexpected ways too. It is kind of like a little jungle gym for him, which isn't safe. This has really helped Cooper improve his climbing skills, and it has allowed us to offer him a safe method of climbing.
He likes to assist with cooking duties. He likes to help me make coffee.


And of course, his view of Sesame Street has been greatly enhanced.



Here we moved his stool to the window so we could watch the approach of the "Great Blizzard of 2010." The blizzard was a dud by the way, but that's another story.

We hope he gets many months of entertainment out of this.

~posted by Paul

Parade and Decorating the Christmas Tree

Since we stayed in UT for Thanksgiving this year, we were finally able to see the lights parade. Cooper had a blast! He rode on daddy's shoulders the entire time, poor daddy. Man, was it cold outside!






Cooper's favorite thing about the parade was the Jupiter express train.

After the parade we watched the fire works and waited for the lights to
be turned on.


Cooper's favorite was the big ball. Before the lights were turned on he kept saying "big ball, lights on". He was so excited!



Since we stayed home for Thanksgiving, this year we decided to put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving.

Cooper loved to help daddy put the tree together.


Putting the finishing touches on the tree. Now for the lights.


Cooper was a "big" help putting up the lights.


He did a good job making sure all the little lights were twinkling.


My little photographer taking a picture of the tree.


Now for the ornaments. Cooper was very careful while hanging all the ornaments. So far, none are broken.


Trying to put Randolph in the tree. Cooper had a great time decorating the tree.


MERRY CHRISTMAS!