Memorial Day Weekend

What a difference a year makes.  Last year, it was HOT and HUMID and just not comfortable around here.  We went to the beach on Memorial Day because it was so awful at home and it was a good 30 degrees cooler there - it was awesome.   This year - the weather is perfect.  Sunny, not humid, and in the 60's and 70's.  I love this weather.

We had a great three day weekend mixed with fun, family, work and relaxing.  Lets start with Saturday!

My parents came over for the day for two reasons.  1) It was my mom's birthday and 2) My dad is helping us build a new front porch.  We were all very excited to have Papa and Nana coming over.  Here's a fun story - the boys and I got up on Saturday (I let Darryl sleep in some - he deserves it!) and Josh told me that he needed to take a shower because his hair was standing up and he couldn't have stand up hair for Nana's birthday HA  So yes, he took a shower, got himself dressed (even picked out his own clothes), brushed his teeth and washed his hands - then said, "Now I'm ready for Nana's birthday" HA!  (He loves his Nana very much!!!) While my dad and Darryl got to work on the deck (which started with like 3 hours at Menards to get everything they needed - YIKES!) my mom decided to weed my flower garden and trust me, I was not going to argue with her on that one :-)  She does good work!!  We also had a lot of fun with the boys who made us laugh hysterically many times throughout the day.

 The birthday girl reading on the swing :-) 

 That is a whole lot of wood for our porch - wow. 

 A before shot with the old deck ripped out.  We need to power wash our house - that is next on the list.

 Papa and one of his helpers.  Josh was in his element today - helping all day long.

 Nana busy wedding my flower bed.  She does awesome work :-)

 Papa's other little helper.  He also liked helping Nana weed the garden too . .. or at least he liked to look for bugs!

 Looking at the plans for the porch and doing a whole lot of thinking and planning :-)

We ended the day with cake and ice cream and presents for Nana's birthday before 4 (very tired) people headed home.  Yep, my parents took the boys home with them - they boys have been asking for a few weeks when they can stay at Papa and Nana's again so this worked out perfectly for us for them.

 SUPER excited about the birthday party that is about to happen.

 Josh had to stop our Happy Birthday Song because he wanted to sing it all by himself HA!

 My dad is going to love this photo - I burst out laughing after I took it :-)

My mom had some awesome faces while opening presents . .. this is just one of them :-) hehehe

Sunday - Darryl and I have been so looking forward to these two days without any work and, quite honestly, without the boys.  We love our boys TO PIECES but, wow, I need some silence every once in awhile.  Our Sunday consisted of . ..sleeping in until almost 10:00, doing nothing until at least Noon, eating leftovers for lunch, and then doing whatever we felt like for awhile HA!  One thing was on my list for the day - I wanted to go get some mulch, annuals, veggie plants and a few grocery items for the week.  That's it.  Anything else is a bonus.  We did eat out for dinner, planted those flowers, laid some mulch and then got a treat later that night (Frappes and Fries, YUM!)

This area by the garage is not completely done but we had a rainy Monday so I did not get back outside to finish it.  I hope to get it all weeded this week, lay down the mulch and maybe pick up a couple of plants to go under our tree (which you can't see in this photo).

Monday -We did nothing :-)  We slept in and did not much of anything until about noon.  Then got ready and went out to lunch at Applebees.  We came back home and, guess what?  We did not much of anything again - it was cool and rainy so doing outside work was not going to happen.  Instead I did some research for our curriculum for the fall and Darryl worked on his music.  After making a simple dinner of Mac and Cheese we headed out to get our favorite Fruit "Smoothie" at a local Ice Cream shop.  That was a great way to end the weekend.

Here's a photo of our deck in process:

Like I said, it was rainy so I just took this photo out the front door.  I can't wait until it is done so we can stand on it :-)

Back to normal life on Tuesday except my boys don't come home until Tuesday evening.  Now we start gearing up for our first camping trip of the year.  Lots of things to get done in the next two weeks :-)