Tammy

Actually, we've been more sick than anything else.  Last week was a doozy!  Both kids got a virus that caused a rash, from what I can tell it was roseola.  Alicia also had strep throat.  I got acute pharyngitis and Mike got strep throat.  We were all miserable!

 

Luckily, we were well in time for Easter, although Alicia still has quite the cough.  This Easter our church brought in Cheri Peters for the whole weekend.  She spoke for vespers on Friday, church service on Sabbath, vespers Saturday and the Prayer, Praise and Pancakes breakfast on Easter Sunday.  It was wonderful!  I could just listen to her all day long.

 

Easter afternoon we went to my mom's house for dinner.  Yum!  She and Dan put out quite the spread, with all of us bringing a little something.  They BBQ'd some lamb with a really good berry sangria sauce.  So yummy!!  I brought a macaroni salad, there was fruit salad, potato salad, chips, pickles, olives, cookies, asparagus...oh so much food!  In addition to all of those goodies, I made a cake the kids requested.  My dad bought me a bunch of cake pans for my birthday and one of them is a really cute bunny.  So we had a bunny cake for Easter!  Absolutely adorable.

 

In other news, our fence is up and it is huge.  The neighbors decided that they wanted it to be 8 feet tall.  It feels a little like a slap in the face (are we really such bad neighbors?), but I told the kids that at least when they are getting in and out of the pool this year the neighbors won't be able to see them.  We had to have all of the jasmine pulled for the fence to go in and it looks so much roomier back there now!  I worked in the yard for a couple of hours today.  Mike got me a couple of mini rosebushes for Easter so I planted those and then raked the flower bed.  I pulled lots of weeds from the yard.  I'm getting it all ready for the insurance inspection!  Once the insurance finished their inspection, I will be putting up the pool and then planting a lawn.  I've also decided I'm going to put some wall planters on the giant fence and rig up a couple of retractable clotheslines.  I'm actually excited about my yard!

 

Now I just need to borrow a truck and finish getting rid of the excess stuff.

Yesterday I tried and tried to do a strikethrough and could not remember get it to work for the life of me.  I'm testing it now.

 

Imagine that.  I had to switch to HTML view and not just type the code in the regular view.  The things I learn late at night after Windows Live messes with the blogs.  Good to know.

I have made a vow, though, not to leave teenagers unattended in the house.  I want to sleep so badly, but Anayla and her boyfriend Holst are making a birthday card for his dad.  Of course, it's not just any birthday card, it has pop-ups and graphics, which is fitting since his dad is an engineer.  Still, I am really, really tired.  I think Mike will be home any minute and I'll be able to go to bed while he eats dinner and settles in for the evening.  I know that poor man is tired, too, he's been gone since 5:30 this morning.  He works another double tomorrow, but luckily he won't be leaving until 1:30 in the afternoon so he'll be able to get a little bit of sleep.

 

I'm not even checking this for errors.  Sleep nearly overcometh me.

We have made so much progress in the back yard!  Well, technically not we as in Mike and myself.  Here's the update:

 

I finally talked to Michelle, who lives behind us and it turns out she's actually pretty nice.  There was a misunderstanding on my part, I thought that she was the woman I talked to years ago about the fence back when the house was still owned by my very ill in-laws, but it turns out she's only been married to Johnny for 5 years so it wasn't her after all.  Thank goodness!  She is very nice.

 

She also decided to use the fence builder I contacted.  Whew!!

 

Last weekend Johnny, in an effort to save a bit of money on the whole cost of the fence, ripped the fence out himself - with his gloved hands!  Considering it was all fallen over and falling apart, I guess that wasn't a huge job, but hey, he did it!  I started the next day on removing the vines.  I got about a 3 foot stretch out and went in the house whining to Mike.  We decided to hire someone so we went with Michelle's recommendation and hired their yard guy (he does most of the yards in the neighborhood) to remove the vines and take them to the dumps.  Thank goodness we did that!  The poor man was out there with a chainsaw, hacking away at the stupid wisteria!

 

At any rate, all the vines are gone, my rose bushes are visible once more (Michelle was surprised because she didn't know they existed, lol) and we have a start date for the fence, which is a good thing because Michelle and I could currently just walk through our back yards to each other's houses and hang out and talk about skin care.  She's an esthetician, by the way.

 

Friday the fence builders come and start on dividing us once more.  Once they are done I will get started on leveling a nice area for the pool so I can work on putting it up.  Hopefully it hasn't sprung any leaks since being piled up in the corner since last summer.  The next step will be a lawn and then I'll be living large, baby!

 

As for the front yard, the yard guy, Randy, seems to think that if I just turn around the valve I can get water to the other side of the driveway.  It's worth a shot so I'll probably go down this weekend and buy a couple of small pieces of PVC parts and get it done.  I can't wait!!  Maybe I'll see how much it would cost to have sod delivered and I won't have to seed a yard in the front...

I got the estimate on the fence today.  It was for $1920.  That's a lot of dough!  We should only pay half of it, but it's nice to know that I got a price from a reputable company.  Not that I don't trust the woman behind me, but....I really don't.  It's hard for me to trust someone when she's just pulling out friends of friends for estimates.  Now I need to call her and have a little talk.  We can either go with a decent company, like the one that gave me the estimate, or - and this is kind of what I want - she can pay for materials and my mom's boyfriend Dan and I will do all the work.  That is much cheaper for everyone all around, considering he can get the supplies for around $500.

 

Anyhow...instead of working in the yard this morning, which I should have done, Alicia, Reece and I planted pretty things in hanging planters.  We spent way too much money on the flowers.  I need to find somewhere cheaper.  OSH was misleading with their signage.  Oh well.  They turned out so pretty! Here are some pictures: