Homework, Part 1

Since we don't have nearly enough stuff keeping us busy lately, we've decided to do some major work on our yard this summer. This is our third summer living in our house, and it's definitely way past time for us to put our mark on the yard.

We decided to do one of the biggest jobs first; taking out a couple of trees and trimming branches on a couple of others. There is a huge honey locust right behind our house that was fine, and healthy, but that also has tiny leaves that build up in our gutters, clogging them and causing water to pour over the gutters and into our basement on more than one occasion. You know, not one of our favorite occurrences.

I guess I should have said, there WAS a huge honey locust right behind our house, because it's no longer there. They were there and done by noon today when Aaron stopped home for lunch. The difference is amazing, no?



We also had some branches trimmed on the tree that's just off to the right in the photo, and a diseased oak taken out in front so that the blight in that tree didn't spread to the two other oaks we have in our yard, and one branch that was brushing our house taken off the maple on the side of our house.

We'll miss out on some shade, but I like a house that feels light and airy, and I think we'll definitely have even more of that feeling now.

Still on our list of yard to-dos (and I doubt we'll get them all done this summer, but that won't be for lack of trying):

(Here's an old picture of the front of our house for reference:

)

• Tear out all of the overgrown bushes in the front yard (and the decorative tree that is even more overgrown and blocks our porch).
• Trim down the lilac bush so we can see out our front window.
• Add window boxes along our porch railing, filled with red geraniums
• Add back in some new bushes, grasses, and colorful flowers in front
• Paint the front door
• Put house numbers above the garage
• Replace the lights
• Replace the mailbox
• Clean up the porch, and add a couple of chairs where an old pile of wood, left by the previous owners, currently sits

Memories

Right next to my parent's house, where I grew up, is a large park. During the summers especially, I spent a lot of time playing in the park, on each and every piece of play equipment that was there. One of the best things in the park is a giant metal slide.

My mom emailed my brother, sister, and I early last month to let us know that they had started to take out the old, metal, apparently dangerous (although we all survived childhood just fine), equipment, and the slide wasn't long for the world. Right before we got there on Easter weekend, they had taken out the swings! Seriously, right before Easter, on a spring break weekend, they took all of the swings out of a park.

We decided that Gabbie had to try out the slide just once before it was gone. It's pretty tall and intimidating, and she had never even gone near it before (there's some newer, plastic play equipment that she uses). I tagged along, with the camera to capture a few images for posterity.



She had a great time! Sophie even tried it once or twice from a third of the way up.

A quick slide story:

When we were little, and feeling pretty daring, we three kids would each take a piece of wax paper with us to the park. We then would proceed to go down the slide, sitting on the wax paper. And when I say, "go down the slide," I really mean, "fly down the slide with increasing speed each time." Waxing up the slide was so much fun! For us, at least. Now I kind of feel sorry for the next, unsuspecting kids who would likely fly off the end of the slide when they thought they'd just slip down at it's usual, leisurely pace (it was typically covered with sap from the tree right above, so it sometimes took a little effort to get down).

It's Baby Day!

That title may be a teensy bit misleading, but rest assured, I am NOT PREGNANT, nor have we made any decisions about whether I will ever be pregnant again.

However, the baby in question will be related to me, and today we find out, hopefully, about the baby's health and sex, as it's Big Ultrasound day for my brother and sister-in-law. I now understand how my sister felt when I was pregnant. I am so excited I can hardly stand it. Technically, I am already an aunt, as Aaron's brother has two girls, but this is different. My baby brother is going to have a baby!

And so, it's April

The other day Gabbie and I were doing a kid's yoga routine, and we were doing child's pose. Sophie had been playing on the other side of the room, but chose that moment to come over and sit on my head. I couldn't stop laughing for about ten minutes after that.

Then, this past weekend, I was explaining something to Gabbie, and when I was done, she responded, "Okay. Gotcha." It was just so grown up, and it caught me off guard, and I was off to chuckling once again.

The story continues on as it has, work is crazy, and I'm now convinced that the slow period following the craziness that I used to get has disappeared forever. I took on this role, not quite realizing the scope and the national recognition and that I now had to be much more careful, serious, and political. I don't mind it so much, but I'm also not quite sure how I got here. I went into my Masters program because it was kinda sorta related to what I liked in undergrad, and then I got an internship at my company, and now, nearly 9 years later, I have a career. Not a job, but an honest-to-God career. It feels pretty amazing to be here, but I wouldn't mind slowing down sometime.

Most days, though, I leave the work at the office, and shed that skin through a chat with my mom (hands free, of course) on the drive from work to school, and arrive, refreshed and simultaneously exhausted, with a smile on my face to greet my girls. The last three hours at work are spent missing them like crazy, and I can't hide the glee when they run up and hug my legs. They are, of course, the reason that I put up with the work craziness, so I can give them the best life possible.

Yesterday Sophie had to stay home for some gross, illness related issues, of which I'll spare you the details. I gave Gabbie the choice of whether or not to go to school, and she chose to stay home with us. We ate breakfast, played, ran errands, ate lunch, played, napped, planted some wheat grass for Easter decorating, ran another errand, and played some more. It was the kind of day where I could pretend that I was nobody other than a mom to these sweet girls, and it was rejuvinating and fantastic, and something that I desperately want to do more often.