A Love /Hate relationship!

Monday while we were down to Melinda's this is what took place at the Kiddie Kollege.

Every spring we are "Bombarded" with Cotton from the trees in the back yard, and every Fall we are "Bombarded" with leaves so many leaves that it is like the sands of the sea. You just get them all raked up only to go down the next day and fine that you have to start all over again. And in the Spring and Summer you have to pick up all the dead branches that have fallen out of the trees. Well I have put up with all that longer than i have wanted to......The only reason I have for so long is I love all the shade.

There is shade all day long.....every where. They did tell us that they were surprised that the trees were as healthy as they were, being as old as they were. they usually start to die after 25 years and the trees (we guess) are about 30 years old.

But on Monday this truck backed into the yard and the make over began.

He's pretty far up in the tree.

can you see the little man hanging in the tree?

that's a lot of wood and leaves!!!!

Dad told them that he would use ALL the mulch from the trees.....WELL....... this pile you see here is about half of the pile they left the FIRST DAY So dad told them to take all the mulch on the 2nd. day. Good thing there is still a good truck full still down there.

Ed Glade came by and said that he would take all the wood to use this winter in their fire place.

A years supply!

Well you can see what the yard looks like now. 5 trees less. Hopefully the other trees will be able to grow some now that they aren't smothered by the big trees.

we'll be able to see the new part of the park.

This tree really had to go because it was destroying the pipes and slide.

OUT with the old and IN with the new!

It seem that there is always new things to learn and some things to do that you haven't done before. when watching TV I would use 3 remotes one for the VCR, DVD player and the TV. Poor dad could never figure them all out. so now.....

we are down to one remote with 46 different buttons and DAD........

is still trying to figure out how to use it. But I must say he is doing better than he did in the beginning.

When we got home from our mission I was excited to use all my machines that I have down stairs. but soon became very frustrated with my serger because it wqas not running right. so....I took it in and had it fixed and I was off and running but as I started to repair costumes for K>K> my machine began again to die on me "Not now I have to many thing to sew, I don't nee this right now, what's wrong with this dumb machine!!!!!" well it died. It was at least 25 year old. And so I went shopping for a new serger. and this is what I bought. It is way larger than my old one and can do more things.

I can sew with 4 threads. 3 threads and even 2 threads. And can do a lot of things with this machine that I couldn't do with my old one.

And it is so nice to have a machine that is dependable. OH!!! did I say I love my new machine.

This is a FIRST for me. How long have I lived in the shadow of Lagoon and never had a season pass. When Galen got all the passes for the family I was excited to be able to go with the different families. But if I used a pass every time I went there may not be enough for every one . Melinda 's family have season passes and this way I can go with her and the kids when Mike can't go and I can help her out. And any way it is WAY EXCITING to know I can go any time I want to.

One of the first Projects

Summer time brings many opportunities both for work and play..... This is the best of times spending time with each other......we spend a lot of time together but most of the time we are working close by but not together. I love spending time with Galen. Liseanne and Jeff and the kids were there too. It was a fun Sunday afternoon.

All last school year these drawers drove me crazy....as you can see the files would not stay on the sides and would fall into the drawer and make a mess....So it was one of the first things to get fixed.

Here I'm taking the hardware off, and the drawer front off so we can router it. And that means if you take it off to fix them then you also have to put it ALL back on.

Liseanne brought her router to school..most of the time we were able to do it out side but this day it started to rain just a bit so we finished in the shed.

as you can see the files hang very nicely so no more messy drawers. Thanks Liseanne for all your help.

IKEA

When Ann asked if I wanted to go with her to IKEA I said sure.... not knowing what to expect. Ann said that she emptied the back of her car so we would have room for the things we would buy. I thought that was nice but really Ann we don't need all that room. As we drove up to the store I could hardly believe the size of the store. it was HUGE . Here we are just as we are about to experience IKEA. I'm there just on the other side of the camera.....So in we went.

I could not believe what we were seeing they have EVERYTHING This is the room that Liseanne fell in love with.

and wants to do her TV room like this. I can just see all her kids playing on the nice white couch.

This is a cute idea that we liked and loved the big map

as you can see lots of chairs and also this cute wall table that Melinda liked...it folds flat against the wall when not in uses

Here Liseanne is measuring the height of another table...sorry Liseanne I cut off your head.

This picture would look good in one of Liseanne's friends TV room so she had to take a picture to show her friend. But if you look close you can also see that there are tons of other pictures....just handing around.

all this shopping made us hungry so we stopped for a bite to eat ...yes right in the store.

yes we are still smiling as we're eating..... of course we've only been through half of the store. Oh yea it took us about 3 hours to shop the store that's not counting our eating time.

We had a lot of fun and we even got a little silly......

Ok.... we had way too much fun

us and our loot....And we're still smiling and planing our next trip.

As we dropped Liseanne off this is what she came home too...

A Good dad..... happy twins and the 3 youngest sleeping .

Saturday project

Earlier this Spring dad was so excited to use his Mantis that he plowed all the garden and even some of the flowers again, he didn't know they were flowers so they became weeds... anyway today we decided to do it together. We made a early trip to Stokers and got some flowers and some tomato, cucumber, pepper plants, and some flowers for out front.
So out came the Mantis again.... and dad went to work.... it's been several years since he's tilled the front and the dirt was really hard, but with a little persistence he got the dirt really nice to work with. Oh yes I forgot we bought some "Premium Manure" not like Liseanne's but it should work just as well. Then that was tilled into the ground as well.

Then came the planting. I have NO idea what the name of the flowers are or if they are annuals or perennials. I guess we'll see......

time to re-water them all.

The finished flower project.

Then it was onto the veges. 3 tomatoes, 4 yellow peppers 4 green peppers, and 2 lemon cucumbers.

The green up against the house is "Morning glory" so I wouldn't let dad till that part and he went and got "round up" to hopefully kill it.

the next part was to plant the ponies that Melinda gave me for Mother's Day

and water the plants she gave us a couple years ago. looks like hard work.

And last but not least water dad!!!!!!

another project

Getting ready for K.K. graduation is not a small undertaking, it seem that there is always costumes that need repair, washing, changing, and making new. An so the task begins. 12 shirts that needed top button removed and Velcro added to make it easier and faster for the teachers to make the costume change. Then add new elastic to Mr. snowman, 2 night gowns, change the Velcro on the bunny costume, and uncle Sam's vest, mend seams on the bunny costume, the ghost costume, make a new lamb hat, and hood. repair the butterfly wings, the Arabian hat, get a new Japanese prop to replace the one that a grand child destroyed. fix 2 Easter baskets and put together another one. Fix the Indian head band, the Snow man's head, get a new rope to pull the bus across the stage. Are you tired yet ??? add all the practices, buying the little gifts (coloring books) for all the 150 kids, and all the other things that have to get done at the end of school, and you soon know why we are always glad when it's all over. Plus..

we have always borrowed a costume for the Japanese boy from one of our teachers but She no longer works for us, so this year I had to make the boys costume. While looking for the material we found some material that would work but I just wasn't sold on it so Liseanne said lets keep looking so we went to Joann's and there She found this material which was perfect. Thanks Liseanne

I think it turned out rather cute.