Over a year-and-a-half ago, Claire read about Locks of Love in a book and decided to grow her hair long to help children who lose their hair to cancer treatments. Kelly decided to join in, too. Claire started with the disadvantage of already having short hair, so it took her longer to get enough hair. So while it may seem like she is following in her big sister’s footsteps (hairsteps?) Claire was really the leader on this project.

Of course, we’re just proud when our two girls decide to do anything good together. Both girls look as cute as can be in their short hair and both enjoyed going to a fancy salon to get their free haircuts, but pay attention Grant, Andrew, and Michael! The youngest can lead! (Fiona… maybe you can read this to Michael.)

Photos from January 2, 2007

When we bought Stonegate, we picked up several left overs including a BB gun and an unopened kit for halogen under cabinet lights. The BB gun cleaned up well and works great. But more than once I’ve started to install the lights in the kitchen and stopped. All of the wiring, transformers, dimmer, and connections were just too complicated to knock out quickly.

I pulled everything out over the holidays and decided to tackle it again. It turned out to be a full day job with all of the drilling and wiring, but Kathy is now quite tickled to have under cabinet lights in the kitchen.

A 3-setting dimmer came with the kit. A wire from the dimmer box runs to one of the cabinet hinges. Touching the hinge toggles from off / low / medium / high.

In practice, we now use the lights on low or medium and then often keep the overhead lighting off or lower than we would in the past, so I think we are saving energy, but the kitchen lighting certainly is a lot nicer.

A plus was that Kathy decided to move the under cabinet radio to the planning desk next to the refrigerator. Because it has a light, we now have under cabinet lighting all the way around, and the planning desk is nicer to use, since it is lighted.

(Bob: You would be proud of me on this one.)