Randy's Birthday

We went with Nick's family to Texas Roadhouse for dinner to celebrate Randy's birthday. We had a bit of a wait to be seated, and after our salads, we ended up waiting more than an hour for our entree, but that was well worth it when the manager took care of our entire bill! We didn't have to pay a thing! Yay! The food was really good, but getting it for free made it just that much better! Then we went back to the Call's to have Strawberry Shortcake for dessert. Mmm...one of my favorites!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RANDY!!!

35+ hours!

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 9am when the kids started fighting (I put out the fighting and went back to bed)...but didn't officially get up until 11am. I went to work that night at 9pm. I worked from 9pm-630am..then had a work meeting at 630 so stayed for an hour for that. I ended up being at work for 10 1/2 hours. After coming home and showering, I packed up the kids and we went to my parents house to see my sister Emily who had flown in the day before with her two girls-Bridget and Avery-for our family reunion this weekend. I stayed and visited there until about 6pm. I had planned on meeting Nick at his parents house so he could follow me home to make sure I stayed awake, but when I got in my car a friend of mine called and we talked the whole time while I drove home. Nick got home and we got the kids to bed. I finally crawled in to bed at 10pm and fell asleep soon thereafter! I was out like a light, Nick says...I didn't move the entire night! I was shocked that I was able to stay awake that long, but I was glad I could stay awake so I could see Emily.

Preston's friends

Some new people moved in next door about a week ago. They have 2 boys--Bentley and Lincoln. Bentley is almost 4 and Lincoln appears to be about 18 months. Preston just loves playing with them and it seems that they love playing with him too!

However...

Preston is in this hitting phase that is driving me nuts! Preston was at the boys' house on their trampoline. I looked out the window at them just in time to see Preston hit Bentley. His mom saw (and heard-cause Bentley was crying), went right over to Preston, scooped him up, told him he had to go home, and closed the gate on Preston.

He came home crying...told me that he hit Bentley but told me he didn't know why. I told him that when he hits he HAS to say sorry but because he hit Bentley and did not say sorry he can't play with those boys anymore today.

He was SO sad...

"I'll go say sorry to Bentley, please can I go play, I'll say sorry!"

Nope!

He had to stay home the rest of the day. Poor kid...but poor Bentley...he's new in town, has a friend over to play and that friend hits him! Sheesh! I'd send that kid home too!
I sincerely hope that Preston stops doing that soon so he can go back and play again...

Our Yard...Part 3

Randy, the hydroseed guy came right on time today. I was expecting a HUGE contraption that he would have to drive around our property. I had planned on asking him to go around to the alley in back and spray from there, but there was no need! He just backed the little trailer thing up to our curb and pulled out the long hose!

(see how dead our grass is in front? That's what we got a $100 fine from the HOA for! Grrr...)

He brought his daughter along to help out...

Here it comes....It didn't come out nearly as green and I expected, but still looked good...and I LOVED the smell! (yes, I am strange!)

He really took his time spraying it on (even though it took only about 15 min to do the whole thing) and told me that he really caked it on--spraying about 5700 sq feet of seed even though we only needed about 3800 sq feet. He had a lot of extra seed so he was happy to unload some extra on our yard! I am happy about it too...means if I water it right, and fertilize it right we'll have some really thick and luscious and dark green grass in no time! :-)

The kids were disappointed that they couldn't be out there to watch...They loved watching Randy work through the back door window though.

And watching me talk to Randy in front after he was done spraying...I made him go over the watering/fertilizing schedule 3 times so I made sure I got it right! (He wrote it all down for me.)

Side yard--End result

Rear yard--end result

Now I just have to water every 2 hours for 4-6 min each time for the next 2+ weeks! We have a family reunion coming up next week...looks like I'll be spending more time at home than I expected....hmmm...
(Hey, Em...want to come hang out at my house?)

The yard...Part 2

Part 2 of 3 of our yard project...

Once we decided to just buckle down and get our yard done, things just sort of fell in to place for us. We decided to hydroseed--since it would be about 1/3 of the cost of Sod and it would mean NO labor for nick, me, or our family and friends. One place I called had great prices, but they said they only do farms, not residential. They gave me the number of another place and I called and left them a message. When they called me back they said my call was good timing--a park in Saratoga Springs ordered 8200 sq feet more than they needed and so he had all this extra he needed to get rid of. He gave me a "good" deal--selling it to me for $50 less than their normal price! But, we only need about 3800 sq feet and he is going to give us 4500 sq feet. he said he'll put it on extra thick! Yay... we talked to him about preparing our soil for the hydroseed. he gave me the name and phone number of a kid who could "till" the dirt.

This kid made his own contraption...it's a Metal mesh type piece that has a 2x4 board attached to it. Then he hammered in tons of really long nails and screws to it so they poked out the bottom. He attached the whole thing to his 4-wheeler (they call it a Quad), put weights on it to push it down and around and around he went in our yard--for almost 2 hours! It took out all the weeds and loosened up about an inch or so of our rock hard dirt! It was really inventive!



His mom helped by watering the dirt--made it looser and made it so there was less dust flying around!



The kids would run out and grab the big rocks. Then I let Ashleigh and her friend Halie pick rocks that were bigger than 2" for a pay job. They made $0.05 per rock. Halie made $2.10 and Ash made $2.

The end result! Looks pretty good!



While they were working I came inside to get out of the heat and sat in my desk chair. Apparently I was a little dusty...my butt print was left on the chair! Lol....

Hydroseed guy is coming today....that will be part 3 of 3. :-)

Our Yard...part 1

This is part 1 of 3....

We, once again, have a new HOA and this company is really cracking down on people not following policies, etc. The grass on our front lawn died--not our fault, we fertilized it, watered it, etc but it still died and we were gived a $100 fine for it and told we have until Aug 16 to get it green again or we'd get another fine! We were also told that we have until September 1 to get our rear yard in or we'd get a fine of $50/DAY until it's in! It's BULL #&*! if you ask me!

Nick and I decided that it's better to put the money in to getting everything done now, rather than have to spend that money on fines AND a yard later! So we buckled down, I made a lot of calls, we went shopping for parts and then started the fun task of figuring out what is wrong with our sprinkler system, where its leaking at, how many heads we needed to replace, and how to hook it all up to the automatic system so Nick doesn't ever have to get in the boxes in the ground again to turn it on and off.

We asked Nick's dad to come and help him out so he'd know exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. Thank goodness for him...he has helped SO much!!! And we couldn't be more grateful!

Working on the back sprinklers...

These sprinklers were top priority to get part 2 and part 3 of our yard project completed! They worked on it on Monday and Tuesday and got it all done! (Now we just need to hook it up to the auto-box in our garage)



This one was broken--looked more like Mt. vesuvius rather than a sprinkler! But the boys got it fixed! :)

Here they are planning how to fix the front sprinklers now too...the pipes were cracked or broken or something...they are working on them again tonight.

Preston loves to be outside...he loved spending time with daddy and grandpa. Look how rosey his cheeks are....it was pretty hot out!