Ed's Birthday - Put to Work - Dec 24th

After driving through several snow storms looking at wedding locations in Vermont, Boston and all around, we made it up to Norwell to celebrate Amy's father - Ed's - birthday and Christmas Eve. Ed chose a very noble activity for the family to do on his birthday before the Christmas celebrations were set to begin - Habitat for Humanity. So, bright and early on the 24th we headed to the Habitat House in Hingham. The crew was Anthony, Amy, Kevin (Amy's brother in law) and Amy's parents. The other members of the Martin family had varying degress of good excuses; from best to worst - Jen (pregnant), teddy and logan (3 and 2 years old and cant hold a hammer), Leanne (too early), Doug (had to work - sure!).



Our task for the day was to help block out the kitchen, bathrooms, closets and stairwell so that the people installing the cabinets, staircase handrail, towel holder, toilet paper holder, etc have something to drill or nail into. So, we needed hammers, nails, measuring tapes, levels, a saw, wood and our brains.

Kevin was very handy with the hammer and had the job for much of the kitchen and the small closet on the first floor.



Nancy was in charge of blocking the bathrooms with Anthony as well as the staircase. She had to work closely with Ed who was manning the heavy duty saw. Now- we dont want to call anyone out, but there was about a 50% rate of having to cut the wood a second time. That could either come from bad measuring or bad cutting. We'll never know!






Anthony looked quite at home with a tool belt, hammer, measuring tape and level - is his father in the construction business?



We were told to all wear nametags so the supervisor from Habitat could address us by our names. Naturally, Ed took the pen to write out the name tags for everyone. Anthony was given two name tags - one that read "Anthony" and another that read "Pool Boy". At least he knows where he stands in this family! I think its because of his dark complexion! And you NY fans, please ignore the Celtics hat that Anthony was wearing - his construction gear was lacking and this hat was all he could find!



Now what was Amy's job? When we first got to the house, we realized that Leanne needed the keys, so Amy volunteered to go back to the house in Norwell to give her the keys. Then upon her return, she realized we needed coffee for our coffee breaks so Amy volunteered to go get the coffee. Upon her return from that task, she rolled up her sleeves, picked up a hammer and started helping with the blocking in the kitchen with kevin. She did an admirable job. Shortly thereafter, it was time to get lunch and, yep, you guessed it, Amy got the crew their sandwiches. But she did look very cute....



All in all, helping build the house for habitat for humanity on Christmas Eve was a great experience. We got to pitch in a little bit to help a needy family with two kids. We signed our names and wrote a small message on the wood in the interior of the house (as is the custom) before leaving for the day. Luckily for this family, though, the Martin/Civale crew did not have a critical task like the roof, or the foundation!!