Mother's Day and Beyond...

Ashley needed a patio table and her dad being the handy guy that he is made her one. It is so beautiful.

Mother's Day we ate dinner at Ashley's and later in the afternoon we went on a bike ride in town. As we were riding around Bryan spied a pile of wood (someone's old deck) and stopped to ask the guy if he could have it. Ashley and I just sat off to the side and laughed at the whole scrounger scene.

After our ride was over Bryan went home, got the pickup came back in and loaded up all that wood. We ordered pizza with Ashley at her house and Mr. I Can't Sit Still Long got up and proceeded to remove her huge valance boxes from her living room wall. We just watched and took pictures of his head in the box. We are so nice...

That done, we headed home. Monday morning we got up and proceeded to create two large raised planting beds for Ashley out of the wood Bryan reclaimed. We even used the screws that were in the boards. Total cost to the raised beds...$30.00 for dirt. His scrounging always is worthwhile. The table, by the way, is made for some lumber scrounged out of an old shed. Amazing what people will throw away. And what he can make out of it.

load of reclaimed lumber

removing the screws so we could reuse them.

taking the scraps down to the firepit to use for kindling.

Much needed break at Sonic and I introduced Bryan to the Lemonberry Slush...yum. We had a few minutes to kill before we could go pick up our riding mower...2 years in the shop and it works! Ashley asked us to come back to roast hotdogs and christen the new table so we headed back to her house after getting the mower. Bobbi, Travis, Jayme and Rikki all come over to join us. 

We came home at about 9:30 and crashed. Funny side note...we went to get the mower off the trailer and as Bryan was driving it back to the shop he turned on the lights and it blew a fuse and died right in the middle of the driveway...it is funny now...it wasn't then.

These posts are backwards because as I was looking for pictures for another post I realized I hadn't blogged about Sunday and Monday. Now you understand how I walked downstairs this morning with a load of laundry and went to throw it in the dishwasher...

Normally he plants trees...

We had some winter kill on a couple little maple trees so Bryan dug them up and pulled them out. We replaced them with Bradford Pears.

When one cleaning project leads to another..

Yesterday I decided to paint the front door which lead to painting the laundry room door. Tomorrow I need to paint the white trim around it.

Then I ripped down the window treatments in the family room (13 years was long enough, too long actually.) and put up shelves over the windows. Much better!

Today I woke up and decided to move a table off the deck. In doing that I realized it needed a few places fixed so I cut some boards and fixed it. It is actually an old table that I built to put a sink in for a fountain. Used it for a few years and the pump went out. Now it will be a dry sink for kids to play with down by my sandbox that we are going to build under the deck stairs. I'm pretty excited about having a sandbox.

 After doing that I decided to remove the chicken wire that I put on the deck to keep Oliver from falling off when he was a little smaller and unsure of the deck. So I removed that and thought I'd power wash the deck but in the process of going to get the power washer I went on the front porch and realized it always looks like a haunted house (full of spider webs) so I power washed it instead.

Shades of Martha Stewart...

 As I was finishing and washing the sidewalk I thought I should tackle the garage floor. Let me just say I could have planted a small garden in there. So 5 tanks of gas and 4 hours later it was done.

I also put RoundUp on a patch of musk thistles that were taking over the area where I want to put a flower garden. Sorry, all you non-chemical people, ignore that last sentence. 

It's amazing what I will do to avoid cleaning the fridge...

Time is flying by...

Last week, Jay and Rachel and the kids came on Wednesday night. Ok, well actually it was 2:40 Thursday morning. They stayed here on Thursday then left on Friday morning. Everyone came out to eat here with them. It was so good to see them. I only took one picture. Bad...

Then on Sunday it was the Lincoln Marathon. Bobbi ran the 1/2. It was cold and getting colder.

I think she did awesome!!

The sun came out in the evening and the day warmed up quite nicely!

I only had to work on Monday this week. Today I push mowed another portion of the lawn. It certainly takes a lot longer with a push mower. Missing my riding mower. But the push mower is much better exercise! Bryan is currently building a patio table for Ashley. I told her I have table envy. It is very cool. I will have to post a picture when I have one. I can't believe it it almost mid-May already! Maybe it's because we have had a very cold, wet spring so far. 

If I don't write something before Sunday, I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day. I know how grateful I am for my mom and also for my mother-in-law. I am truly blessed.

Our week -

The weather this past week was wonderful spring sunshine perfect. Boden didn't appreciate sitting in the rocker in the sun like I did.
I mowed the lawn for the first time this season. Always a good feeling.
Bryan preached the last of the Romans series. 24 weeks and 23 chain links each with the weekly theme painted on them.
Sunday evening we had a little dinner for Jayme's 22nd birthday.

First fire

Friday was sunny, breezy and actually a bit chilly but we were determined to cook down at the fire pit. I made beef stew and dump cake and we took hotdogs, chips and coffee down as well. Ashley, Bobbi, her friend, Travis, Jayme and her boyfriend, Rikki, Chan and Brenda, Bryan and I. It was fun to finally be down there just hanging out. My pictures are not too great. Everyone kept turning away.

Things I did...

I made Lego Man cookies for Hudson's 6th birthday, I volunteered at the Hope Venture 5K run at Pioneers Park, I went to the Mother Of All Garage Sales at the Event Center and went to the grocery store.
Bobbi ran in the run. She is amazing. Maybe I should be more like her!
Ashley and Jayme went to the garage sales with me. It was great people watching opportunities.