Changing a timer switch with Dad

"Hey, do you want to get electrocuted," I yelled up the stairs.

Slightly interested, Kid 3 came down the stairs. I knew how to lure in an 11 year old.

"Let's do some electrical work. You always get electrocuted when you do electrical work."

I had to swap out the timer for the whole house fan.  It hasn't worked all summer and since summer is almost over (I actually hope it sticks around for a while), I really needed to get it changed.  It would  be a simple job, pull out the old one, wire cap the new one in and BOOM, the whole house fan would be on a timer.

He had a slight look of chagrin. "Okay, we can do it together, and it's best to turn off the electricity when you do electrical work."

So, he and I went out to the garage, I turned off the furnace circuit and he verified it (team work!) was off and we got started.  He removed the old face plate and loosened the switch from the box. I showed him to check for any contacts before pulling out the switch, but he pulled it out.

I removed the old wire caps and showed him how to put on new ones.  He got the wires spliced together and then screwed everything back in again.

Now we have a working timer on the whole house fan and he knows a bit about electrical work.

And I didn't even make a shock sound as he touched some bare piece of metal.

Field trip to the Zoo

Yesterday, my wife and I chaperoned the second grade field trip to Woodland Park Zoo. We really lucked out, because the weather was great in Seattle.

The two of us were assigned two kids to chaperone, one of them being our own Kid 3.  Other groups had a higher kid to parent ratio, but I've gotten used to it. The teacher isn't slighting my ability to supervise kids by giving me a smaller group. I can keep 'em in line better than some!

Doesn't look too hard to keep in line, does he?

But back to the zoo.  It had been a while since I'd been to the Woodland Park Zoo (I think we still had kids in strollers) and I really enjoyed seeing the exhibits.

Kissing Komodo Dragons

 We went into the zoo and all identified what animals we wanted to see and then headed out to find them.  Kid 3 had the map and was pretty good at his map reading skills.  We hit the petting zoo (not open until 11 am - but a good linkup point while Scout paid for parking), the penguins, orangutans, meerkats, komodo dragons and more.

It was a fun field trip and I'm glad that I had the day off to go to the zoo with Kid3 and Scout, and the rest of the second grade.