The Ultimate Guy Magnet

This is the Excavator we needed to rent this week. (The yellow one)

By the end of the weekend, we had to:

1. Dig our drain field

2. Pull 15+ stumps out of the ground

3. Dispose of 15+ stumps

4. Flatten out remaining soil and ground

5. Move tree trunks to central location for future bonfires

We had some good friends come help with this enormous project. Steve, Chris, David and our new neighbor Jeff.

We're just hoping we can get everything accomplished before we have to return it to United Rentals on Monday morning.

One of the blessings from this whole experience happened when our neighbor, Jeff came over to offer his help. (he is the one that handled cutting down all of our trees) It was a huge blessing because he pulled up almost every stump in a quarter of the time that it would have taken us to do it. That was important because we were being charged by how many hours the excavator was "on".

Chris also knew how to operate the machine, between the two of them, they did a lot of the excavating in a timely fashion.
The roots of these stumps were amazing! Humongous! They left a lot of holes in the ground.

By the end of the weekend, Mike had become very comfortable in maneuvering the excavator.Decker was in heaven watching this tractor at our house. As soon as we arrived at home after it had been dropped off, he saw it and started making his tractor noises.

Then once all the stumps were pulled up, Dave came by saying he could dispose of the stumps for us. Here is the dumptruck with the container.

Dave used the excavator to move the stumps from the yard into the container.
And Steve, along with Mike were the masterminds behind the piping. Even though Steve was not feeling well during this weekend, he was there to offer support to Mike and getting this job done on time and on schedule.
A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to everyone who helped in tearing and cleaning up our yard. What a miraculous weekend and getting this huge project completed! Now it's time to reseed and make the yard a fun safe place to play. :)

Bonfires and Brambles

Living out in the country has it's advantages...especially if your husband is a PYRO...and especially since the previous owner left much to be burned.

We've had fun having bonfires in our pit in the backyard.

We've burned:

The strippers' dancefloor

The leftover pergo flooring from the kitchen that we didn't end up using in the laundry room.

Baseboards that we replaced

The old kitchen floor

The old Deck

Scattered pieces of wood scattered throughout the yard.

Tree limbs that are just lying everywhere.

Brambles--more on this later.

Ping pong table

Poker table

Doors with holes punched in them

Cabinets

...and the list probably goes on...but I can't think of anymore right now. It's been a lot, allowing us to spend many evenings sitting by the bonfire. ;)

We've got a little bench for Decker that is just his size.-- it came from the remnants of the old deck that has since been replaced, but had just been left to rot in the yard. ;)

Love the smell of dandylions...

Our yard hasn't been maintained in probably years. As I've walked around in the backyard, my clothes and my skin would be attacked by what I called "brambles". I don't know where I learned this term or if I made it up, but I've been getting a lot of questioning looks when I say there are "brambles" all over in the backyard. When I say it I'm referring to this pile of weeds that I pulled out of the ground. They are thorned weeds to blackberry bushes and they just sprawl all over the yard tripping you and hanging on to your skin and clothes if it can. So I spent an afternoon pulling up as much as I could and added it to our burn pile. What a great feeling to see that all go up in flames.

As of today, 5/13, I googled "brambles". And surprise surprise: Wikepedia has a most interesting definition:

"Brambles are thorny plants of the genus Rubus, in the rose family (Rosaceae). Bramble fruit is the fruit of any such plant, including the blackberry and raspberry.

Bramble bushes have a distinctive growth form. They send up long, arching canes...Many types of brambles bear edible fruit, and many have recurved thorns that dig into clothing and flesh when the victim tries to pull away from them. Some types also have hair-like thorns."

Well what do you know? I'm not as crazy as everyone thinks. ;)

Now that we've got a lot of the yard cleaned up and burned, we now have an even bigger woodpile to burn...

We had to have six trees cut down. Some were sick and some were leaning too far into the house. It was sad to see, these fall down. But, I have a feeling that this wood will last us a long time!

LONG LIVE THE BONFIRE!

Easter

Easter morning...Mike's in Montreal Canada working, but the Easter bunny still came...

Gatorade

shape box game

Chocolate and Marshmallow Bunnies

Bathtub Rubber fishies

Goldfish Crackers

Swedish Fish

Pull-Ups for the Potty trainee

Frosted Animal Crackers

Frosted Mini Wheats

Zach Brown Band

Decker is sportin his Pooh Bear backpack...so handsome. Hidden Easter Eggs at Grandma's filled with Mum Mums.
Trying to figure out which hole the plastic shape goes in....He was so frustrated when he couldn't do it at first...now he's a master...

What a fun day!

Grandma's Visit 3/23/10

Grandma Gamble came to visit for a week while I worked at Bellevue College and then we got to drive down to Vancouver WA for my sister-in-law, Amber's baby shower.

We visited Ferrel McWhittier's Farm Park again to see the animals.

This momma had 10 of these little cuties...

Still can't fit into Grandma's shoes...

or dad's boots... One of Decker's latest obsessions...ELMO...Mike's phone does all sorts of fun things... "Elmo had four ducks..."

On March 16th, Decker went potty on the big toilet for the first time. So I decided to start potty training Decker. We used his little frog toilet that he got for Christmas. While my mom was here, she really worked with him and getting him potty trained...but that's a whole 'nother post... will detail later... ;)

And why don't I have any pictures of Grandma Gamble to share? YIKES! I can't believe I didn't get any while she was here...