I see you

Jamie chastised me the other day for not being a part of the blog. So I thought I'd post something kind of creepy. More for my own peace of mind, to know we aren't getting people in China and Russia trawling our blog for potential identity theft info, I started tracking all our visitors a few weeks ago. So here you are:


So far nobody from China and Russia though. Just some South Americans. We'll keep an eye on them.

Jamie seems to be keeping you up to date on my project, though nothing was done yesterday, or today, because my back is done. Not sure where it went, but I think a combo of trenching, and basketball did me in yesterday. Who knows how long I will be out of commission. We'll see if large amounts of OTC pain killers, anti-inflammatories, and a heating pad will do the trick.

couple more photos

Here are a few follow up pictures to the whole trenching day:

This was the scene about 20 minutes into the trenching project.  This machine didn't work too well.  After the chain came off twice, Scott took it back to the rental place and got another one.  The second one was much better.

Here is Scott loosening up the dirt in the 'mow strip'.  This is in there mostly for those of you that think he only works while riding the tractor.  Can you tell what time of day it is with the long shadow?

Stephen finally seems to be over his fear of the tractor.  He was really enjoying this ride.  He kept looking over at his dad with that excited look on his face.  So fun!

So there you go, just a couple pictures.  Maybe some day I'll put up a post about something other than the yard progress...  

hey! I can see our house from here!

So, this past Friday, my parent's-in-law got to take a little helicopter ride above our little valley.  Once, they finished, I got some nice aerial photos of our house.  So... I'm sharing them with you.  This is two fold, really.  I think it is neat that we now have aerial shots of our house and the area (even though Google maps still doesn't recognize our street as existing) and to show you the recent progress on our yard!  (Sorry if that makes you groan...  for those of you that aren't interested, I tricked you, I know!)  Scott and his dad were able to do some trenching on Friday.  Yes, Scott took the day off of work to play in the dirt.  Good thing he also has Monday off to recover!  So, below are pictures of our house from the sky and the neat lines that will hold pipe to water the grass once we get it.

Don't those trenches look great?

Lookin' good!  If you look real close, you can see the boxes that are holding our garden by the back deck (which will also be upgraded, but not until next summer, most likely)

Since these pictures were taken, Scott has installed the main pressurize water line and it works!  We tested it tonight.  It is so exciting - for us.  

Stephen has thoroughly enjoyed filling in the holes that Scott has worked so hard to put there.  He is filthy every night and loves getting that way.  We are making progress and love how close we are to having grass!

Piano time

Stephen and I hung out at my sister's house yesterday.  My dad is still in town, but he was golfing yesterday, so I didn't see him too much, but Beth and Kathy were there.  While we were at her house, the boys started to play the piano.  This picture was taken at about the last possible second that it could have been taken.  They had been playing, but as you might be able to see here, the cover to the keys is being closed.  Seconds after I got this picture, screaming happened.  I don't know if fingers were caught or what, but the fun was just about to end.  This is a cute picture anyway... don't you think?

More yard updates!

We had lots of help on Saturday and we are both very happy with all that got done!  Scott has been up in the canyon three times to get rocks and once we figured there was enough, we had my family up for a pancake brunch and got working!

Here is my dad, my brother-in-law and Scott (can you see him behind John?) wondering where to start.  Those are the rocks we have to work with.

There they are working some more.  Scott was on the tractor while dad and John worked on getting the rock in it.  Then Scott would take the rock over to the front of the house and dad and John would help him get it into place.  Here you can see that the wall is just beginning.

Meanwhile, I was chasing Stephen around and talking to my step-mom and two sisters.  One of which was chasing her 2 year old around and keeping an eye on her newborn.  Stephen did take a little nap in the afternoon, so I planted our tomatoes in our Earth Boxes.  I'm glad that is done!

Here is Stephen with his rock.  He found that last week when his dad brought one of the loads of rock home.  It fell off of one of the big rocks.  He has been carrying it around for a while now, and always seems to remember where he left it in the yard, which is pretty good since it is all rock and dirt!

Here is the finished product.  We have quite a bit of fill dirt in there now, so we just need some topsoil and a few plants and it will look great!  My mothers Day present of bulbs arrived today so we'll get those planted this week and decide what else we want in our raised planter.

We would never have been able to get any of this done without all the help we got on Saturday.  At about 2:00 or 3:00, my in-laws came to help, and then my family took off since the second shift had arrived.  I'm sure there are a lot of sore backs and sunburned necks and faces courtesy of all this work and we appreciate it!  Thanks everyone!

Date day

Yesterday Stephen and I went to the zoo with my sister and her two kids.  We had a good day.  I'm not sure if Stephen really saw all the animals very well, but he did notice some of them.  All animals are dogs to him anyway.  The orangutan, I think it was that ape, took an interest in Stephen and he just sank deeper and deeper in his stroller as the monkey stared at him from the other side of the glass.   His favorite part was the train, we rode it once and watched it go by quite a few times.  We rode the carousel, but that wasn't as fun as the train.  He really liked watching it go around while we were in line, but then when we were on it, he wasn't so sure, it was fun in the middle for about a minute, but not at the beginning or at the end.  Weird.  He was so tired at that point, way past nap time!

He slept all the way home and for another hour or so when we got home.  It gave me time to get ready for my second date of the day with Scott!  We so rarely go out just the two of us, I was pretty excited.  Even if we were going to see Star Trek.  We use to see a movie just about every weekend.  Before last night, I can't remember the last time we went to a theatre.  Scott was so excited to see this new Star Trek movie, and I have never seen hardly a scene of Star Trek, but it was alright.  I had a good time going out and eating popcorn!  I love popcorn.  Now, we are back to business on the yard work this weekend!

Our weekend

My dad and step-mother are in town, they got here on Friday.  They are staying with my sister, or at least they did this weekend.  So, we spent Saturday at my sister's house (much to Scott's chagrin, no yard work happened, but it rained, so it was ok - or at least it wouldn't have happened anyway...).  We let the kids play and we got ready for Sunday.  After all, Saturday is a special day.  It is the day we get ready for Sunday.  

Sunday was Sarah Ann's blessing day (my niece, if you didn't catch on to that).  So, we spent Sunday at my sister's too.  It was a great day.  We had lots of family there and it was great!  I love it when there is an excuse to all get together!  My sister did a great job getting food together, and we had more cookies than we could see over.  That is alright, we did a good job on getting them eaten.  The only one scare of the day was Stephen picking a fight with a crock put full of meatballs.  He lost, but not too badly.  Those meatballs were trouble from the start anyway.  (They weren't quite warm when it was time to eat, so everyone had cold meatballs.  Maybe that is what got Stephen all riled up about them, I don't know)  :)

Anyway - I now know how you make an entire house full of people stop and stare.  A loud crash,  a crying child, and then a frantic cold water hose down in the kitchen sink.  My Aunt is a nurse, she was right there with me and checking him out.  She saw the bruise before I did.  And that is all that there was.  No burns (that is good, because the burns on his fingers from him checking out a heat lamp earlier this week have not yet healed), just a bruise on his nose, and a little under his eye.  These pictures were taken this morning.  Once he calmed down, he was back to normal and playing around with all the other kids.  

I know I'm really in for a lot more adventures like this.  One curious boy and another one on the way.  I'm sure I'll know the quickest way to the emergency room here soon.  

All smiles this morning, but you can see the bruises.

 

Here is the happy boy again.  This is a good shot of the eye and of that new molar.  (If I had waited a few more minutes to take this pictures, you would see his new bump above that eyebrow...  sigh, adventures...)