More Landscaping

Well, this weekend overshadows the busy week we have had. The past week was busy at work, went quickly with trainings and such. Jordan finished up her summer art classes and brought home a bunch of neat creations which we will distribute among the grandparents and great grandparents within the next couple of weeks. She was also 'hired' as the official face painter for Kyme's company picnic coming up in a week. We will take pictures and post that next weekend.
So, onto the real progress. We laid the stone for the patio and firepit this weekend. It took all day Saturday with some tweaking on Sunday before we could finally put the filler in and call it beautiful.
This is a 'before' picture:

Here is a picture of it while in progress on a HOT Saturday.

This is the patio laid without the filler

and the finished product:

Now the firepit is done (well, it will take the rest of the summer to shore up any loose rocks and fill but for the most part, it's done). It is great to have one project pretty much finished. Now we will move on to the front yard and work on organizing the rock in the very front and placing the ground cover down. Then we'll hope for plants and maybe buy a couple each month until the fall. Yes, we'll post pictures of that progress as well. :) Sunday afternoon we decided to go on a family date so went out to eat and caught a late afternoon showing of The Dark Knight. It was pretty good and a nice mellow ending to our weekend. Hope you all are doing very well, we love and miss you!

Rock, Maggie and a Couple of Hard weeks

The past two weeks have been an eternity it seems. We have been very busy as well as surrounded by some trials and tragedies.

Last weekend we made a trip to Flattop butte to gather red sandstone for our landscaping projects.

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We found out that we have some great friends that are willing to get up at the crack of dawn with us, drive out to the desert with us and spend hours loading rock into trucks only to unload it once back at the house. Yes, those are good friends and we are blessed to have them in our lives.
Saturday evening we attended the play 'Into the Woods' at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. It was a great performance, a musical and we enjoyed seeing it with Jordan.
On Sunday we headed to the local hardware store to get some things for the work we are doing with the firepit in the backyard. We ended up coming home with much more and have welcomed into our hearts and home Maggie, a small calico kitten.

She is a delight to have in our family. Ceecee and she play like they were the same size and she holds her own with Oscar. Aika wants to mother her and cleans her at times. Mags has turned out to fit right in and is the most well behaved kitten I've known. We hope you all get to meet her sometime soon.

Monday night we had a sprinkler person out to the house to estimate work that needed to be done to replace the main valves from the city water supply to our house. They dug a huge 6' deep hole in the front yard to make the repairs.

It was something that needed to be done but after spending a large sum of money to get it fixed, we still have a leak somewhere in the system! We will work on finding it this week.
Two times in the past week and a half we have had bird rescue in our lives. Most of you know that our whole family does volunteer work at the Ruth Melichar Bird Center in Boise where birds are rehabilitated. The first time was a rescue I had to do during the day downtown of three juvenile kestral hawks.

The second was when Oscar got ahold of a fledgling robin who had fallen from the pine tree and into the back yard. We interrupted and promptly took the little guy to the bird center for some much needed help and parenting until he is old enough to be on his own.

At work, my boss assigned me with the task to create a scrapbook of quotes from attorneys about a fallen US soldier who was killed in Iraq last April; He was an affiliate of the attorneys at the State Bar. As honored as I am to have created this memento for his widow, it was a depressing and daunting task. The book has turned out very nice and I hope that her and her children will cherish it.
Also at work, a friend in my department found that their long battle with cancer has turned out a great triumph. They received the final test results after a second surgery and countless chemo treatments stating that they are cancer free!! I'm so relieved and happy for this wonderful, loving person and hope nothing but cheer and great life to them.
Friday a close friend of ours had a very hard, life changing event and I have experienced something very similar in my past. It was a difficult time and again, brought our spirits down very much. We visited her and her husband today and they are doing very well, we will continue to keep them in our minds and hearts.
Saturday we worked hard in the front yard and again went to Shakespeare in the evening. I had written down the wrong date however for the play and they were gracious enough to change our tickets to Saturday night. The play was 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller and although not one we wanted to see this season, we were grateful, the performance was magnificent.
Sunday morning we headed to the rock quarry again to get more for our yard and some for our friends who were helping us and fell in love with the stuff. So up at dawn and to the desert again for more manual labor. After returning from the quarry we cleaned up and visited another friend's house to celebrate their son's first birthday. It was a weekend full of hard work but we can begin to see the results. Attending the birthday of a 1yr old is a good way as well to gain some perspective and know that life is great and precious and does go on.
This week we look forward to working hard on our yard, spending time with our family and enjoying the time we have here. Thank you to all our good friends for all their wonderful work and support this week.

Fourth of July and Jordan's Birthday

This week was very busy for us both at work and at home. Tuesday evening we spent some time in the garden weeding but the rest of the week we were running errands and wrapping presents and figuring out what the weekend would hold. Friday came around and we had fun at the Fourth of July parade downtown.


Mom and Jeremiah came into town in the evening and we met them out in Nampa, then headed over to our friend's, James and Joanne for a BBQ and fireworks. We had a great time well into the night there.


Saturday Jordan went to a movie with Pappy, (Kyme's Dad, Paul) and Mom and Jeremiah went visiting while I baked a birthday cake and got everything else lined up for the party the following day. In the evening we had a mellow dinner and enjoyed the cooler weather.
Sunday was Jordan's 13th birthday party. It was a big surprise party in the park and many of her friends made it. We found a beautiful shady spot near the river with enough tables and grass. The party was great fun and included a water balloon fight as well!

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Jordan's birthday cake:


Presents


Waterballoon fight!



Now it's evening and after cooling off and saying goodbye to Mom and Jeremiah as they start homeward, we will be putting together a rat cage here in a few minutes! We do hope that everyone had a great Fourth of July weekend. We love and miss you all!