Another Week

 

This past week we had the opportunity to have my parents in town.  While they were in town we stayed VERY busy!  We took a day to go and see Grandma, my dad’s mom, in Grand Rapids.  After lunch and several pictures we headed to Silver Beach and spent a couple hours soaking up some sun, sand, and water!  Definitely a full day.  I don’t risk sand in my camera so I only have pictures of our time with Grandma, but I won’t need pictures to remember a day well spent at the beach!

 

 

 

A little playground time at the nursing home.Gives the kids an opportunity to stretch their legs after the long drive up.

Just before my parents arrived we discovered a produce auction!  We, of course, went, and purchased a bit of organic produce to keep us busy canning!!!!!!!  Applesauce, spaghetti sauce, and frozen pumpkin were the main accomplishments of the week….let’s just say I’m ready for a break from canning.

Some were a little more helpful than others:)

Unfortunately I forgot my camera yesterday when my mom took us to breakfast and to play “Putt-Putt” golf, as my father calls it.  We had a great time and of course the kids wanted to “stay there forever” but one game was enough for the adults.  London figured the game out quickly….hit the ball hard, wherever it lands pick it up and move it right next to the hole, tap it in and everyone cheers…good plan.  I think Harrison thought we were playing real golf as he attempted to hit it out of the course with each swing.  Lucky for us (and anyone else who might have wanted to golf that day) no one else was there.  Great day to golf with kids!

As always it was so nice to have my parents in for a visit.  My dad left for home this morning and my mom will follow tomorrow morning.  After that we will pack up to leave for our annual Labor Day weekend camping trip.  Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend…as I’m sure we will.

Finishing the Patio

The day finally came a few weekends back to finish the patio.  I am finally getting to a break in my schedule to post the finished product!  It was A LOT OF WORK…but well worth the effort.

Here my brother-in-law is compacting the crushed concrete before laying the sand.

Next was the sand and the leveling of it.

I did my share of “screeding” sand.

Seeing the actual patio blocks go down was encouraging.  Seemed like it took a long time to get to this point.

Laying the “soldier row”…added a nice touch.

A ride in the bucket of the tractor is always a bonus!

Back to work…sweeping the polymeric sand into the cracks of the block

The kids weren’t the only ones working:)

Wetting it down to harden the sand.  Ahhhhhh…..finished…almost.

We still have siding to finish, some stream and pond backfill to do along with a few flower beds and some deck work.  But that is all easy stuff compared to this project!  Glad to be done!

We’ve been enjoying the patio this week sitting out on it many a night with my parents in town:)

London

Happy 2nd birthday to my baby!  It’s hard to believe that she’s 2 already.  Actually, I can hardly remember her as a newborn!!!  My kids will often ask when they see a newborn…”Was London ever that small?”  Yes she sure was…once again I have pictures to prove it! 

We are so thankful for our sweet London.  She keeps us all smiling with her cute and funny ways.  She loves baby dolls and tea parties as well as worms and frogs! 

Thank you Lord for London.  May she grow to be a Christ follower seeking your will in her life.  Give us wisdom, patience, and strength to persistently train her up in the way she should go.  May she be surrounded with Godly influences in her life.  Thank you for the blessing that she is to us!  Amen.

Enjoy pictures of London’s first 2 years!

 

 

Happy birthday sweet girl!

Week-at-a-glance

Well, last week seemed to fly by…not really sure where it went, if it weren’t for pictures to verify that it actually happened!  Ever have weeks like those?  Seem to be having a summer like that.  As I cleaned the most recent pictures off of my camera I was reminded of a week in my life that is not to be forgotten.

 

The week began with baptisms on the beach in St. Joe Michigan at Silver Beach.  An encouraging time of worship in the water as our church body sings praises to the Almighty in a crowded beach with onlookers wondering what in the world is going on…it’s awesome!

During the week the girls decided to have a full tea “pawty” (as only London can say:)).  Full with fresh blueberry muffins, hot tea, cream, sugar, and even boys!  Their brothers that is:)  They were eager to join in their sisters’ game and sit down to a cup of hot tea and fresh treats!

This was London’s tea “pawty” that carried on through the entire day.  She just couldn’t get enough!

We are still working on the big backyard project as we finished the next step leading up to the big patio project this weekend.  We built two stone walls.  This was by far the easiest project to date.  Hopefully by Monday evening the patio will be completed.

We enjoyed a nice visit from Joe’s mom, known by the children as Mamaw, over the weekend.  Thankfully she brought her pickup truck which proved to be very helpful in hauling crushed concrete! 

Backyard Project Part I: A Job Well Done

 Over the past week or so we have been working on our backyard.  Our main goal is to replace the horrid overgrowth with 2 ponds, 2 waterfalls, a stream and a patio along with much needed deck repair and touchup.  Meanwhile the house is being sided and the garage door needs to be installed (pictures to follow when all is complete).  So as you can tell, the front and back of the house are undergoing a much needed renovation!

So, with all that said, we have completed the ponds, waterfalls, and stream!!!! Yeah!!!!  I want you to know this was  a HUGE project!  As one of my kids said, after being asked to commit an hour to the project and then working 2 full days, “You guys said one hour, not HOURS!”  Really though, every single person in our family had a job and they did it VERY WELL.

Backyard “before”…really this picture does not do justice to how awfully overgrown the backyard was.  Thankfully Sydney took this randomly one day as I forgot to take backyard “before” pictures.

Excavating the area.  Please disregard the house as it will hopefully be completely sided by fall.  Prior to the excavation there was a large tree completely covering the second window from the left (the office).  There was also a concrete walkway going from the deck to the second window from the left which USED to be a service door to the old garage.  This entire area had old shrubs, weeds, large flagstones, and plenty of poison ivy!

More excavating…

Busting up the concrete walkway…believe it or not, I actually took a few swings!

Lots of huge roots to dig out….very thankful for the tractor to pull on the heavy stuff and dig a lot of the patio area.

Digging out the lower pond…4 ft deep.

Still digging…

Below the two dining room windows used to be a flower bed.  Every child grabbed a shovel and dug that entire bed out so that we could line it and fill it with water as our “upper pond”.

We then used the dirt from that flower bed to build up the stream on the right to flow down into the lower pond.

Saturday morning, with the area all prepped, our intentions were to start early.  Rain put a stop to that.  Luckily the rain stopped by 10, but this meant water in our lower pond.  After pumping out the majority of the water we had to shop-vac out the rest in order to line the pond.

We used carpet pad to pad the pond and stream areas.

Lining the stream with carpet pad and sand.

Completed lower pond before the liner.

Lining the stream.

Upper pond and stream lined.

Lower pond lined and first of the rocks have been laid…that liner was EXTREMELY heavy!  It was all the 5 of us (Joe, me, and 3 kids) could do to get it into the pond.

 

As you can see everyone had a job…Jackson was laying stones in the stream, London was holding the liner in place:)

Laying stones in this pond was very tedious.  After hours of stacking only to see your masterpiece tumble down, we resorted to marine GOOP to glue the rocks together!

Yes, every single one of those rocks was laid by hand, stacked with precision.  My patience wore thin, so Joe took this task on with renewed energy, and a wiser building plan,  in order to complete the entire lower pond.  We laid approximately 8 tons of rocks and boulders total.

We added some color using various plants.  Any black liner you see will be covered by completion of the project, whether by siding, stone, or patio blocks.  Almost all of the stream stones were laid by Sydney and Holland.  If you weren’t laying stones you were filling 5 gallon buckets with them….a job even a 2 year old can do.

Had to throw this picture in there….wearing her brothers’ boots!

Project complete…turning on the water and watching it all come together!

Both falls work and sound beautiful!  Much tweaking to be done as we “tune” the waterfalls to get the desired effect (the yellow hose is NOT part of the finished project:)  Just used to fill the upper pond).

The completed lower pond, still filling.  The water is muddy because we didn’t rinse the stones before we laid them.  We will pump this water out and refill with clean water after we feel the rocks have been rinsed thoroughly.

Watch for more pictures as we intend to now begin our patio project and have it completed within the next 2 weeks!!!!

I am so proud of each of my kids.  This was a long and tedious job that truly without them could not have been done so quickly.  We brought out a CD player and listened to books on tape (The Secret Garden – twice, and Anne of Green Gables:)) which made the work more enjoyable.    They all stuck to their tasks and worked until the project was completed. 

Definitely a job well done!