We Have to Move!!

I am so sad today! It's a yucky rainy day. Just kind of gives you the blues where you want to crawl back in bed for the day. James & I went to run an errand. We decided to go buy doughnuts to cheer us up. Risking our lives, we drove through a thunderstorm to get there. Finally we pull into the parking lot. "There's nobody here!" I said. Then I noticed all the windows were boarded up. The Krispy Kreme signs were down. On the door was a sign saying they had closed. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?! The closest ones to us now are about 40 minutes away. That just made my sad day extremely sadder. How can we live here when there's no Krispy Kreme?

Missouri Botanical Gardens

Last week I took the boys to the Missouri Botanical Gardens with my friend Doug. The boys & I had never been there before. They have lots of pretty plants. The kids really enjoyed the mazes & anything that featured water.
I love lillies. If I ever adopt a little girl, I'd name her Lily. Here's Dylan standing next to some pretty lillies.

Most of the kids standing in front of the Chihuly glass onions. At least that's what they look like to me.

Pretty peppers. We kept daring each other to eat one.

Trying out the macro setting on my camera.

Austin was staying cool in the shade. He was very tired after having stayed up all night at our church. Some of the junior high boys were having a lock-in.

I don't know what this building is, but I like it. Reminds me of an English cottage.

We were getting a lesson about this old tree. It has lightning rods & is grounded so that it won't get struck by lightning!

I dared Austin to touch the cactus.

Silly brothers

Landon, Doug's youngest, is too cute!!

If you look closely in the middle, you can see Doug with most of the kids down in the Japanese garden.

The boys were trying to touch a turtle. I'm trying to convince the boys that Swimmy should go live there. She'd have a huge pond to swim in & lots of family. But the boys asked, "What if those other turtles don't like Swimmy?" To which I replied, "Swimmy's friendly, of course they'd like her!" I don't think I've convinced them just yet.

The girls are resting in the shade while the boys continue to try & touch a turtle.

Mr. Chipmunk

Our only successful attempt at getting all the kids in one picture.

Dylan in the "pool" at Tower Grove Park. This is where we had our picnic. The kids had fun splashing in the water. It cracked me up that they had a lifeguard on duty. I know, I know. A child could drown in a couple of tablespoons of water, but seriously. Should we have lifeguards stationed at every wading pool/fountain around the country?

Landon, Clayton, & Aiden (with the gun). Aiden & the kid in the red shirt almost got into a fight. Then they were the best of friends. Boys are too funny.

Brenden loved the skates we had in our trunk. I had been meaning to take them to Goodwill for months. So glad we found someone who would enjoy them.
The adults were chillin in the shade while the boys played in the water. It was a fun day. Boy were we tired. Austin & Dylan slept the whole way home. If James would have been with me, I think I would have slept too. But since I had to drive, I don't think sleeping would have been a good idea.

Our New Pool

Our first project was to convert our single gate into a double gate. "This shouldn't be too hard." For the record, don't ever start off a project by saying those words. It's like you jinx yourself or something. Day One, took off the old gate & cut part of the fence to create the 2nd gate. Dug post hole & set post. Day two, attached both gates with hinges. Couldn't figure out why they wouldn't hang just right. Then we noticed the post was rotten. So rotten that I ripped it out with my bare hands! Then we had the great joy of digging out the concrete from the old post so we could set the new one. That block of concrete was huge, but James pulled it out of there. I still don't know how he did it! Amazing!

The installers came to level out the yard. They weren't there an hour with the Bobcat before they noticed we had "plastic soil". I've never even heard of a such a thing. But basically it's soil that when you step on it, it feels like you're walking on an air mattress. We waited for two days to see if it would dry out. Three days later they came back. We thought we had just a tiny spot left that could be dug out & replaced with fine gravel.

Well that tiny spot ended up being about 5feet deep & probably 3x6 feet! Needless to say, our installation cost twice as much as it was suppose to.
After the installation was complete, our hard work continued. We had to take the left over dirt & back fill around the pool. It looks like our pool is only 3 feet deep, but we back filled about two feet deep around most of the pool. Once we were done back filling, we still had about 1/3 of the dirt left. "Now what do we do with it?" Well, we couldn't worry about that. We had to hurry & dig a trench & lay conduit & electrical for the pool pump. OMG digging a trench is HARD work!

Then James, our friend Don & I worked on edging, laying river rock & stepping stones. That's when we decided we've done enough. It was time to call in the professionals.

Then it started to rain. It's a good thing we called a landscaper. He came on this day & saw that we had a huge drainage issue. Apparently our pool was placed right where the water usually drains. This created a river in our backyard.





So the landscapers came. They hauled away the left over dirt, buried our gutter drains & regrade the soil to drain into a catch basin. They buried a drainage system around the pool & to the back of the yard.





Then they laid beautiful sod! It's so pretty. It would have been nice to do the whole yard, but we were trying to save some money. So in the fall I'm going to fertilize & seed the old grass. Hopefully it will blend in well with the sod next spring. Buster loves the sod. I've been catching him rolling around in it. Crazy dog!

Here's our beautiful new double gate. Now we just need to stain the rest of the fence to match. Oh yes, and build a deck. That will come later. Time to enjoy the pool!