Operation restoration-Subaru 1985 Brat

So I decided that with this new Iphone 5S that I just got that I would have a nice photo shoot out in the garage with one of my husband's toys. You probably know from other posts that my husband loves his Subarus and of course that's what he would choose for his project car.

He did some serious searching for this baby, she's a 1985 Subaru Brat, and she's miraculous!

I love the Brat, possibly for it's starring role in the show "My Name is Earl" or for the awesome seats in the back, it could also be because it's part car part truck and very strong for being such a tiny little thing.

Guido loves her too, he likes to sit up in the front  for now but when she's fully restored he'll be riding in the back.

My husband is slowly working on the Brat right now mainly because it's his busy time of the year for traveling and the weather is freezing. Once the weather warms up we'll be peeling away the plasti-dip and cleaning her up and working on restoring her back to her 1985 glory.

Yes I said we, I will help and learn some things like how to change a tire, brake pads, oil stuff like that but what I'm excited for is the painting and the exterior part...let's get real I am a girl and my main appreciation of cars is that they look pretty and they go fast, what more do you want.

She is in pieces right now, remember that when you look at these pictures.

Before something can be restored you typically have to strip it down to it's basic structure and work it back up from there.

This baby is from 1985, you can imagine the things that have been done to her in the past 29 years.

It's going to take a lot of work and elbow grease but it's going to be worth it.

It's cool that it's an old car, that is very rare in the area where we live.

I'm excited to get this plasti-dip stripped off and get started on the cleaning, since that's the biggest part I get to help with of course.

My husband does love teaching me things so I'll let him go through a few pieces of information, but I'm telling you there is only so much my brain can retain about cars.

The important thing I know is that this car is going to be gorgeous when she's fully restored, I've already had dreams about riding down a winding country road sitting in the back of the car with Guido next to me...while hubs is driving of course.

Stay tuned...

Pumpkins!

So I would imagine you know that Halloween started as a Spanish holiday, dia de los muertos, the day of the dead. We brought it to the United States and used it as a holiday to dress up in costumes, carve pumpkins, and eat tons of candy. Well this holiday does not exist in Italy, where my hubby is from, so he has never carved a pumpkin before. I decided it was high time he gave it a shot.

This would also be Guido's first encounter with pumpkin carving, he was not sure what was going on but he does now know that he loves chewing on little pieces of raw pumpkin. I would imagine it tastes a bit like his dried sweet potato treats, and that's why he was so interested.

Let the carving begin...

I used one of the stencils that come with the carving kits, I chose an easy one, it's been awhile since I carved and didn't want to spend all night working on this.

Here they are the finished products. Marco's first pumpkin is a beauty! He loved is so much he's decided that every year we will be carving pumpkins, next year he wants to make a whole army of them to display!

Wiggly Field Mason Metro Park

Friday after work we had our family date night at the dog park, the weather was perfect not too hot and certainly not chilly, I'm guessing it's this reason there were more dogs than normal. Dogs just kept coming through the gate, it was the busiest night so far.

I thought I would share some pictures of all the dogs playing at the park. If you live in the Mason, Ohio area you should really come check this park out. Wiggly Field is located in the Mason Metro Park, this is a new park that the city of Mason has been putting a lot of work into. There are still areas of the park under construction but there are plenty of areas open for use, including a lake with a 1.5 mile walking trail, cricket fields, soccer fields, and of course Wiggly Field.

We try to take Guido up to the park every Friday, we call it family date night, he loves it.

The dogs chase each other and wrestle, they are so entertaining to watch. Beware of your knees, when the dogs are running they don't notice what is in front of them and have been known to take people down. Guido is always completely exhausted after our trip, he comes home and plops on the sofa and doesn't want to move, its nice to tire him out

Some adventures around the cabin

More about our vacation...I know I mentioned the cabin we rented was nestled in 80 acres of wilderness, so here are a few pictures of our adventures on the surrounding property.

 The hubs and Guido ventured in to the stream, after seeing them tense up from the temperature I decided it was best to stay on dry land. The water was running very fast all week which means it was icy cold!

 Here's Guido on one of the trails on the property leading to where the canoes are tied up on calm open pools of water that you can use for fishing.

 I loved this tree, it was shaped like a wishbone! I had to pose, how could you not!

 This is one of the calm pools where you can untie the canoe and pull it in the water and set off paddling towards the river. The fishing was ok, the problem was all the fish were too small to keep :-( but it was still fun catching them, well more fun for my husband than me, haha.

 There were three canoes located on the property, one metal and the other two were a lighter weight material, possibly kevlar. The lighter canoes were the ones we chose to use, they were also a bit more comfortable than the metal one.

 The water was beautiful, it was rather inviting however these streams and pools are connected to rivers. Rivers tend to be homes to snakes and leaches and that is just what was living in there. I do not believe the snakes were poisonous however I don't care to take the chance. I enjoy a good lake swim but after seeing a few snakes pop their heads out and dart quickly across the water and seeing leaches stuck to the bottom of our canoe when we pulled it out of the water we decided it was best to not go for a swim. We did take a day trip to a near by town that had some beautiful sandy beaches, more on that later.

 The view of the cabin from up stream, the amount of water on this property was just incredible. The water and the forestry, the forest was so dense you could not see very far, luckily the trails on the property are marked fairly well, some of them do not get used much and the trails are a bit grown over with grass, shrubs, and such but the markers on the trees make it easy to get where you wanna go.

 The water was icy cold as I mentioned before but it was beautiful!

 Guido took a few swims in the water, I guess when you have a fur coat the cold water doesn't bother you so much.

 Some pictures of the flowers and greenery on the property...being surrounded by so much nature for a whole week was so relaxing. No technology to interrupt you when you are enjoying all this beauty, it was great to cut ourselves off from the fast paced world, no watches or clocks necessary, waking and sleeping whenever we pleased, eating meals when you are hungry not because it's breakfast or you have to take a lunch break. It was a great escape!

Don't worry there are more pictures and adventures to post soon!