Tim “The Toolman” Taylor Taught Me To Add More Power

Levi here, writing a post to thank Art for donating his old subwoofer and giving me something to do for a weekend or two.
Art told me to take his old sub from our parents house to use at my home, but when I hooked it up no lights came on and no sound came out. I pulled out the amp and saw that some components were fried but after I replaced them it still didn’t work. The fuse would blow immediately after I plugged it in. That’s when I discovered that the voice coil on the driver was melted and I decided to rebuild the whole thing.
Avery is in all of the pictures because she wants to help me any time that I take on a project around the house. Here is the sub enclosure before the changes with a 10” driver that is mostly foam and a 120W amp.

Avery helped me enlarge the opening for the driver to fit in this beast that I have had sitting around for a few years. After each cut with the jigsaw, Avery would pull her fingers out of her ears and ask if I was done yet. She had to be right next to me every step of the way; holding the screws for me or holding the glued pieces in place as they dried. A little side by side comparison of the surface area and magnets on the two drivers.

I picked up a nice little power switching 300W amp from parts-express pretty cheap. I also scavenged some gnarly wire from an old sub box that was labeled 12 GA but looked a lot closer to 10 GA. Most of the work on this project went into converting the square opening on the back of the enclosure into a rectangle of different dimensions and framing in the amp on the inside of the box while working around the internal bracing. The great thing about working with MDF is that you just glue all of it together; no fasteners required.

All finished, looking and sounding good. The new driver is so large that the old screen won’t fit on the front anymore, but I like to see its face lurking in the corner. It gives a good rumble during the movies. To test it out I put in my copy of Step Into Liquid and went to the last scene where the guys are tow in surfing at the Cortes Bank. It isn’t the greatest bass soundtrack but it is really cool to have the deep bass match the awesome visuals of the monster waves crashing down.
Thanks to Art for donating his old sub enclosure, Avery and I enjoyed reworking it.

Kiddos

Avery 2 ½

Just some things that Avery has said or done the past few months that I think are entertaining.
After waking up one morning, after having woke up in the middle of the night a couple of times, I asked Avery what the heck was going on last night? Her reply, “Mom don’t ask me any questions.”(With serious attitude) So what do I do... I ask her again what was going on? She said, “Mom I don’t want any questions!” What??? Where did she get that from? I don’t think Levi or I have ever said that. After that morning she has been saying it all the time when I ask her something!

Levi doesn’t like it but I think it is funny. After I have asked Levi something that started with his name Avery will mimic me and call him Levi and ask him the same thing. Levi then says my name is dad to you!

I think this is cute. I will randomly walk into the room and Avery will have her arm around Mason while they are watching cartoons or she will be holding his hand.

I guess our house is pretty boring because every time we leave the house and we are on our way home from our excursion,  Avery always says she doesn’t want to go home. She knows directions too. Every turn we make she will point the opposite way of home and say lets go this way. As we get closer to home she comes up with other places that we need to go.

Avery thinks all dresses and shirts with ties are called nursery clothes. Every time Levi comes home from work Avery says, “Dad, you are in your nursery clothes.” She LOVES nursery!

Avery just started saying, "Hi everybody" and she says it exactly like Dr. Nick Riviera on The Simpsons. It is hilarious!

Mason 8 months

Mason is starting to scoot around on his belly and do the army crawl. He can get anywhere that he wants to be. He especially loves to get under the tv and play with the xbox controllers.

He could watch Avery for hours! He will sit anywhere for a long time as long as he can see what she is doing.

Mason is totally a mamas boy and I love it. Others might not enjoy it as much as me but I could cuddle him all day long. He gives the best cuddles and kisses ever.

Mason loves when I clap to him and he will start clapping. He also likes to through his hands up over his head like  he is signaling a touchdown and then he keeps his hands in the air waiting for us to mimic him. Then he does it over and over again.

Mason eats and eats and eats. He would eat all day long if I let him. He will eat any baby food plus we have recently started giving him other things and nothing has ever came back out. Maybe a few odd looks, like what is this? But then he gobbles it down.

Mason has the best giggles in the world! I could tickle him all day long just to hear that sweet laugh of his. He is about the happiest baby around!

 

My favorite time of day is when its bed time. Levi puts mason to bed most nights so he can have a few cuddles too. Levi will get him all wrapped up in his blankets and he will bring him around for his good night kisses from Avery and I and every time I give him his kiss he gets the most precious smile on his face and lets out the cutest little giggle. It makes my heart happy!

And I just LOVE their BLUE BLUE eyes!

Hatch Nativity

At the annual Hatch Christmas party all the Great Grand kids do the nativity! Levi’s Grandma hand made all of the costumes and she makes new ones each year as they grow and new little ones come along. Avery and Mason were both Wisemen this year! They were both super cute! I thought it was hilarious when Baby Jesus started to cry Avery was so concerned as you can tell in the 4th picture!

This little gal is always on the move and really hard to take a picture of.

Santa

Here is our experience with Santa so far

Mason was fine until he took one look at Santa and then…..

This happened

Gingerbread Village

We attempted to make Gingerbread houses with Avery but it mostly turned into eating all the candy and licking all the frosting. Out of the five houses to make up the village I think only two maybe three of the cottages actually got decorated all the way. But we had fun and Avery was pretty excited about it.

Look at that tongue, she is hoping to get a shot of frosting!

*:*:*:*:*Temple Lights*:*:*:*:*

We took a trip over to the temple to see the lights! They were beautiful as expected! We went in the visitors center and listened to the five min program they had going on around the statue of Christ. Avery was pretty dang excited about that statue. She kept saying that she wanted to go see it up close. Apparently the front row wasn’t close enough. When it was time to go home Avery didn’t want to leave. We had to carry her to the car!

I love that they are looking at each other in this picture!

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mason is 6 months

Mason is AMAZING!! I can’t even tell you what a good baby he is. Every where I go someone always asks,”Is he always this content?” My answer, “Yeah pretty much” He does have his moments but then again who doesn’t! I LOVE this little BIG guy! I could just snuggle him all day long, which I pretty much do! He definitely is a mama’s boy and I love it. Mason is already six months old. Where has the time gone? He got his two bottom teeth when he was four months and he just got his third bottom tooth.He has been eating oatmeal and rice cereal, which he loves. He can down a whole bowl in minutes. He started rolling over when he was five months old. Now he is starting to sit up on his own. Mason smiles all the time at anyone that talks to him. He has the BIGGEST and CUTEST dimples in the world. I love to tickle Mason and make him laugh and laugh and laugh! Levi is pretty good at getting Mason to roar and talk back to him. I love to see them playing together. Avery loves to play with Mason and to help him get a toy to play with. She also takes note as to when his bink is missing and she needs to find it for him or when she needs to put a blanket on him. She is mommy’s little helper(a little too much). She sure loves Mason along with the rest of us. Mason watches Avery do everything. He does get a little upset when he can’t see her but he can hear her. He has to know what is going on. Avery sure can get the best smiles out of Mason! We LOVE him!