Whatever

We are leaving for Minnesota tomorrow. I'm going to photograph a vow renewal ceremony and we are going to celebrate our son's birthday. I haven't posted in awhile, so I thought I would post this.

I was doing laundry, along with all the other things you do when you are gone for a week, and I stubbed my toe. I've stubbed my toes a lot, because they tend to be large, but this one made an odd noise and it looked like this.



This is what the other foot looks like, which bears a similar resemblance to the way the first one looked.



My poor feet are weird enough looking, they don't need this crap! Although I must say, my toenails are pretty.

Daddio

In June, 1985, my husband became a father. He liked being a dad and, even though he had no experience, he was actually quite good at it. And Curtis loved hanging out with his dad.



In 1988, hubby got to find out what it was like being a daddy to a little girl. He liked that, too.



He worked hard to provide for his family, and I felt blessed that I was able to be a stay-at-home mom. We did the usual family things, picnics, vacations, school functions, dance and karate, and the kids managed to grow up without too much trauma. I think. Now that they are grown, I'm happy to see how their relationships with their father have evolved. They love and respect him, and they truly like to spend time with him.

Hubby taught our son to fly an airplane. This was the day Curtis soloed. It's hard to say which one of them is more proud!



So today, I would like to say Happy Father's Day to a dad who is always up for a good game of golf, Mario Kart or Guitar Hero.



He's a guy who will go with you for a motorcycle ride, take a welding class with you, and teach you how to cut down a tree.



To all you great dads out there, Happy Father's Day!

Area 52

We have a small 'area' in front of our house which has been problematic. When we moved in, four years ago, there were some small trees and large bushes and a few flowers. I think the previous owner hired someone to keep weeds out, but to us it was just kind of messy looking. Jessica and I spent a very hot couple of days digging almost everything out and starting over. We got a nice bench, a load of wood chips, and some small trees and bushes. Which we purchased from Roger the Shrubber. It looked much nicer.

Slowly but surely, all but one of our plants died, the wood chips blew around, and we couldn't keep the weeds out. Neither hubby nor I are into the whole gardening scene. We want our yard to look nice, we just don't want to have to spend a lot of time doing it. So when we were out one day looking at open houses, which we do for sport on occasion, I saw something interesting at one of them. Other than the fact that it was an 'area,' it bore little resemblance to ours.

Ours

Theirs

I decided that was what we should do with our problem area. We researched putting down the plastic with the river rock on top, waffled back and forth, would it really keep the weeds out? How would we keep crap like leaves and such out of the rocks? It might end up looking just as cruddy blah, blah, blah.

We have a friend who has a multi-faceted business, one facet being all things concrete. What we decided to do is a kind of stained or stamped concrete, thereby putting the whole weed question to bed. He brought some guys about a week ago to dig everything out in preparation for the concrete. Here he is with hubby. They like hard work. They can sit in the shade and watch it all day long.



They have to go to the city to get some materials before they pour the concrete. In light of our recent weather, however, we have since changed our minds about the area. We've decided to keep it a swimming pool.