And You Were Worried About Squirrels

This is for all of you who battle to keep squirrels from getting into your birdfeeders. (thanks to my mother-in-law for sending this to me)








Suddenly squirrels don't seem so bad, right?

Fourteen Years

Fourteen years ago today, I married my beloved. He was 20 and I was 21.

Here we are 14 years later. We are both older and wiser. We left our families and created our own family together. This man is my soulmate. The love of my life, and the best friend I could ever have. My biggest wish is that we will live long, healthy lives so we can grow old together, watching our children create their own families.

I love this man with all my heart. Whenever I look at him I'm reminded that I'm the luckiest girl in the world, to get to be his wife.

First Dig

Well the pool project has officially begun. First thing we had to do was convince our next door neighbor (where the Pakistani neighbors used to live) to trim back the tree between the side of our houses so that the bobcats could get past. (sidenote: these neighbors are much nicer generally than the Pakistani neighbors. Though instead of owning a rooster, they have a large dog that likes to bark. Likes to bark at anything it hears or sees move. Like birds, squirrels, ants, fairies.) These neighbors let the persimmons tree that the Pakistani neighbors planted on the property line continue to grow until it touched our house and we physically could not even walk down the side of our house.

First time we tried to ask our neighbor to trim the tree for the pool project, we were very nice and said we were concerned his tree would be damaged. He responded by saying no worries, it's ok if they damage the tree a little, as long as they don't cut the tree. Uh, ok. That's not exactly what we were going for.

About a week later we decided to be more direct by sending him a facebook message saying, "The tree needs to be trimmed back to the property line by next Thursday so the bobcat can get through, thank you so much." He got the hint that time, and did a beautiful job of not only trimming that tree back, but all of the other trees back to the property line.

Our neighbor's mother made a point to come over and tell us that they lost a LOT of Persimmons thanks to us.

Yeah well, technically they weren't their Persimmons if they were on our property, right? That's what I thought.

So the pool people showed up and began their work at 7am, which I'm pretty sure is illegal and ungodly. They took out our side gate, which was attached to two mini cinder block walls, like this one.

But apparently the little cinder block wall on the right of the gate did not provide enough space for the bobcat to get through, so naturally they took chisels and hammer and proceeded to knock that wall down. RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR WINDOW AT 7AM.

Here is where the other wall was, "after".

Then the digging began, which was very exciting to watch.

At the end of the day, the workmen found a very lovely place to park the bobcats, in our front yard. I'm not too optimistic about the state of our grass right there.

After they were done for the day, we went to see the progress after the first day of digging. (they tell us they will dig two more days) These two pics were supposed to be about the pool, but the ended up being about our kitty Emmett.

On the upside, we now have plenty of mud to create these...

Just add mud! Stop on by. We'll have plenty of mud cakes and mud cones for everyone!

*** Don't forget that when I changed my blog name, I lost my entire blogroll. I don't remember everyone who was on it. If you'd like to be on it again, or be on it for the first time, please email me!***

Only 10 More Weeks!

They chalked out the lines for our future pool and will break ground tomorrow. Here's the chalk lines (with descriptions).

To help you visualize it better, here is the picture they provided us of the final product. They will be doing the landscaping as well. (including low voltage landscape lighting)

Official completion date is Nov. 15, though I'm told it would have been much quicker & much cheaper to have the pool made without the rock formation/slide. But we're banking on the idea that the rock slide will raise the fun exponentially. And I'm pretty sure it will be worth it in the end.

My Kung Fu Pandas

Haven has been in Homeschool Karate (Tae Kwan Do) for the past year and has moved up several belts. It is only one day a week but he has gotten so much out of it, mainly a respect for martial arts and a desire to continue at a more intense level.

The kids have become obsessed with Jackie Chan... or maybe they've become interested and I'm the one who is obsessed. And yes I do follow him on Twitter. We've been working our way through several of his movies, including one of our favorites, Drunken Master. (which we did not screen before watching with the kids and we enjoyed despite flinching at the foul language and name calling) Other than that, it shows a young Jackie Chan doing drunken Kung Fu moves, which is AWESOME.

It was also time to sign up Seamus for some sort of sport. Given his energy, I felt he needed something more than one day a week, so I didn't think the Homeschool Karate would be a good fit. When I asked Seamus if he wanted to take Kung Fu, he said he wanted to be taught "Drunken Master". I love that boy! I shopped around for a Kung Fu academy that was nice to the kids (and didn't require that I sign a waver allowing them to spank my child... not making that up) and I found this place. It's not the closest Kung Fu academy to our house, but I think it's the best fit for our kids.

Marlie also needed to be signed up for something. I was going to sign her up for a dance class, but the time of the class conflicted with Seamus' Kung Fu class and I figured she'd enjoy Kung Fu just as much. She does love Jackie Chan as much as the boys do.

So... Tuesday we came to the academy to "observe" the younger kids class for Seamus and Marlie, and the older kids' beginner class for Haven. Marshall and I were the only ones observing, because Master Steve invited the kids to participate in the classes. He was so good with the kids and they really responded to his teaching. Needless to say all three of them had such a fantastic time, they all asked to be signed up for classes. While Seamus and Marlie will have Kung Fu twice a week, Haven will have it three times a week.

Yesterday was their first official day of Kung Fu. Of course I made them line up together in their little uniforms so I could take their picture, like any good mom would do.

Thankfully Marshall brought his fancy camera along to capture the action.

I think they all did great on their first day. And if I'm not mistaken, I might just have some future Kung Fu (hopefully not drunken) Masters on my hands.

Four Years Ago In Ethiopia

After years of planning, paperwork, hoping and praying... 4 years ago today, Marshall and I took a 30 hour journey to Ethiopia to see our new baby daughter for the first time. While we usually celebrate August 28th, the day we arrived home with her and introduced her to her brothers, as Family Day, I can't help to think back to the time we both laid eyes on her and held her for the first time.

I can't wait to see what the future holds for my darling girl. I am so blessed to be her Mama.