Month: May 2015

Yesterday baby Enzo turned 4 months old. It’s a bit hard to believe he has already been here that long, but he’s growing and maturing so fast that it all makes sense. He’s sleeping so much better at night now, and it doesn’t take much to coax a smile out of him. You can tell he already loves his sisters because he totally lights up whenever they approach and talk to him. I feel like he’s got the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen, mostly because he’s always so alert and interested in what is going on around him. He’s very sensitive to sounds and startles easily, which is usually followed by a look of sheer surprise and confusion.

The girls are both doing great as well. The weather has been really nice lately, so they’ve been spending a ton of time outside playing in the yard, the sandbox, riding bikes/trikes, etc. As mentioned in a previous post, Ava is doing really well on her balance bike, so hopefully it won’t be long before she graduates to a pedal bike. Elise loves riding her tricycle, but is usually just as content to be pulled in the wagon. It’s not uncommon for me to come home from work and find them playing outside together. You can’t help but smile watching them running around having so much fun.

We had a nice holiday weekend recently, which included some painting in my office and the guest bathroom upstairs, as well as a fun trip to a car show in downtown Everett on Monday. Not only did we enjoy checking out the ~700 cars on display, but we ran into our neighbor Mike, who was showing his beautiful 1957 Chevy, as well as my co-worker Josh who was there with his family showing his 1966 Dodge Dart and his Uncle’s 1970 Pontiac 442. As a GTO fan, I was blown away by how many I saw at this show (at least 20 including an Orange GTO Judge) and couldn’t help but fall in love with a black on black 1964 GTO. We also enjoyed watching a band of old guys play great songs from the 60’s. I joked to Jessica that someday I would be one of those old guys rocking out on stage, and she replied by pointing out this old Granny showing off her moves near the stage and saying that would someday have to be her then. The girls absolutely loved the live music and couldn’t stop dancing and spinning around. They drew so much attention that even the guys in the band were enjoying them. Jessica and I couldn’t help but laugh. We also saw a Pacific Northwest version of Elvis, who had the perfect hair and glasses, but was dressed in a fleece jacket and blue jeans. Good times.

Tomorrow should be a fun day, as well as an interesting night. We’ve got Ava’s soccer class in the morning, then our nephew Kallan is coming over for a visit at noon. This will be his first time meeting Enzo, so that should be fun. Hopefully we’ll also be able to squeeze in some time to play guitar together. Later that evening Jessica will be heading downtown to work a shift at El Gaucho. Although she isn’t going back to work on any type of regular basis, she told them that she could be available from time to time for special events. This will be her first time working since Enzo was born, and I’m happy for her simply because it allows her to get out of the house and spend some time with adults without having to worry about any of the kids. My only concern is that Enzo has never taken a bottle from me, so feeding him may be an issue. Strangely enough this will be my first time home alone with all three kids for more than an hour or so. I’m sure everything will be totally fine, and if anything it’s long overdue, I just hope Enzo figures out this bottle thing sooner than later.

Sunday we’re heading to Costco with a different type of shopping list than usual. Jessica and I have decided to go on a diet together starting on Monday, so we need to load up on all the right groceries. I told a couple friends at work about our upcoming diet and the question I got from both of them was “Oh, which diet are you doing?” I didn’t really have an answer for them other than to say “a sensible one.” We’re not doing any type of fad diet; nothing with a name or anything like that. We’re simply cutting out junk food, starch, and liquid calories. We’ll mainly be eating lean proteins, lots of vegetables and nuts, plus some fruits. As for beverages, we’re limiting ourselves to water, coffee, and tea. That’s it. I realize it’s pretty boring, and it probably wouldn’t sell any books because there is nothing particularly extreme or exciting about it, but it’s sensible, and that’s what I like about it. I’m just glad we’re doing it together; I don’t think either of us would have the fortitude to go through with it if the other one wasn’t doing it, but together I have no concerns.

I think the biggest adjustment for us will be to make sure to always have appropriate snacks on hand, and to eat more frequently. I generally only eat lunch and dinner each day, and both meals tend to be large, with lots of starch. The goal is to eat smaller, healthier, more frequent meals and snacks throughout the day. Most likely I’ll spend time Sunday afternoon preparing as many appropriate snacks and meals as possible to help prepare us for the first week, which will undoubtedly be the toughest phase of the diet. After two weeks we’re going to evaluate everything and decide what to do next, so for now all we have to think about is the first two weeks of June. Most likely we will continue on the same course beyond those two weeks, but I’m not even thinking about that for now.

Not much else going on for us these days, hence the short(er) post this week. Not even many new pictures to share, but here’s a couple 🙂

Earlier this week my Mom went home after spending a nice long weekend with us. She arrived last Friday after completing Card Player Cruises’ annual trip to Alaska, and stayed with us until Tuesday. This was an especially exciting trip for her, and for us, because it was her first time meeting baby Enzo in person. I vividly remember her meeting Ava for the first time at our little house in Pacific Beach , as well as her first time holding Elise at our house in Bellevue. There was no way I was going to miss this first encounter with Enzo, so I decided to work from home that day, which was a first for me since joining Microsoft in early March.

As usual, Nana arrived with lots of presents in tow for the kids. Some of the highlights included light-up Easter Bunny glasses, new clothes, and best of all, two brand new pink ‘Daisy Rock’ acoustic guitars for the girls. She found these guitars on a Las Vegas auction website and purchased them from a music store that was going out of business for pennies on the dollar. In all honesty I couldn’t believe how nice they were. I was expecting something that was more of a toy, but these are actually really nice guitars. They are scaled down in size in order to be easier for a child to play, and in this case they’ve got the whole Daisy Rock little girl theme going on. For now we’ve only taken one out of the box and are keeping the other one wrapped up. Neither of the girls are old enough to take on an instrument quite yet, but I love the idea of keeping this guitar on display and easily accessible for them. It is there for them to play with, so hopefully inspiration will strike sooner than later.

One of my favorite things to do for my Mom while she is in town is cook for her. I know she doesn’t take the time to cook nice meals for herself (unless she’s having family over for dinner) so it’s important to me that she always eats well while visiting us. After finishing up working from home on Friday, Ava and I went to Costco to load up on groceries and supplies, then later that evening I served three grilled filet mignon, grilled vegetables, and a tomato burrata salad. It was a nice way to start off her visit.

The following morning we got ready for soccer, and of course Nana came along to watch Ava play. Unfortunately, however, the class was cancelled because Ava’s coach was sick. We didn’t know this because we didn’t check the website before class (we never do) so we were pretty surprised when we arrived at an empty field. There were several other kids and parents there who also didn’t get the memo, so several of us made our way over to the adjacent playground to let the kids have some fun before heading back home.

Upon arriving back at our house I got back to work in the kitchen. I wanted to make my Mom a nice belated Mother’s Day brunch, so she, Jessica, and I enjoyed another version of Eggs Benedict. This time I did a crab prosciutto Benedict with homemade hollandaise and hash browns. Pretty similar to what I had made for Jessica the previous weekend, but this dish had crab instead of smoked salmon. After brunch we all got ready for a nice day out and about. We knew we’d be staying home on Sunday, so it made sense to get the kids out for a bit of an adventure on Saturday, plus it was nice to finally be spending a weekend doing something other than yardwork.

We all went down to the Ballard Locks to watch the ships come in and see the water levels change. Nana told the girls stories of doing the same thing on huge ships going through the Panama Canal. We walked all around the gardens, smelled the flowers, and enjoyed ourselves with no real agenda at hand. After that we drove just a bit up the road to Golden Gardens and let the girls play on the playground for a while. Before leaving we took them down to the beach to let them play in the sand and look at the water. By the time we got home everyone was exhausted, which was exactly what we were going for, so the rest of the evening was spent relaxing at home. Since I still had leftover crab and prosciutto from brunch, I used it to make a nice pasta for dinner.

Sunday we stayed home because we had plans with Dana, Brad and Anna. The three of them came over at 2:00 for a nice visit, as well as an early dinner. We watched some basketball and played soccer in the backyard. It’s so nice having a usable backyard now, and Bella seems to have adjusted nicely to her kennel, so it’s all good. After playing outside with the kids, I got to work making dinner for everybody. While at Costco with Ava, I picked up a nice wild Alaskan King Salmon, so we had that for dinner on Sunday. I tried a new preparation where I seasoned it with salt, pepper, chili powder, and brown sugar, then seared it skin-side down in my cast iron skillet. I deglazed the pan with lemon juice, then added a fair amount of garlic butter before placing the entire skillet in the oven and letting it bake for another 10-12 minutes. I was really happy with how it turned out, but the ultimate compliment came from Anna, who said she normally doesn’t like salmon but thought this was delicious.

Monday was Nana’s last day in town, so Jessica and I decided to take advantage by going out that evening for sushi. Going out to dinner just amongst ourselves is a pretty rare treat these days, and of course Nana was more than happy to stay home with her grandbabies. We had a really nice meal, and even made a point to stop by a popular neighborhood bar for a quick after-dinner drink. I was sad to see my Mom go home on Tuesday, mainly because her trip went by so quickly, but I’m so glad she was here. I love watching her play with the kids and wish we got a chance to do it more often. It sounds like she will be coming back up in July for Elise’s birthday party, so that’s definitely something to look forward to.

It’s been pretty busy around here for the past several weeks. We’ve had back-to-back-to-back visitors, so now it’s time for some downtime. We don’t really have any plans until July, but we need to enjoy it because July is going to be a crazy month. Rick and Chris are coming out for the 4th of July, then right after they leave Amy and Tom will be arriving to help us do new flooring in our house. As soon as we finish all the housework we’re going to do a (late) 2nd birthday party for Elise and hopefully have lots of people over. I’m not really looking forward to the flooring project because I know how much work it’s going to be, but I also know I’m going to learn a lot and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

In other family news, the kids are all doing so well. Enzo is sleeping for longer and longer stretches throughout the night. In fact, just last night he slept from 10:00 pm to 6:45 am, which is easily the best night he has ever had. He’s growing so fast and continues to show more and more personality each day. Elise’s vocabulary continues to amaze us; her ability to put together sentences is most impressive, and we probably have Ava to thank for that. There is no doubt that Ava wasn’t communicating this well at that age, but that’s probably because Ava didn’t have an older sibling to learn from the way Elise does. Although Ava still has a hard time sharing her toys with Elise, it’s obvious how much she loves her little sister. What’s equally as obvious is how much Elise looks up to Ava. She copies most of Ava’s actions (which is a double-edged sword) and does her absolute best to keep up with her when playing outside with the neighborhood kids.

As for Ava, it looks like June will be her last month going to daycare on Mondays. Considering all the family we’ll have in town, it doesn’t really make sense keeping her there in July, then come September she (should) be ready for preschool. I say ‘should’ because we absolutely have to get this potty training thing figured out with her. If we don’t she won’t be able to start preschool on time. Honestly I never expected it to be this much of an ordeal, but we’re just not there yet. During Nana’s visit she went about 20 hours between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon without the need of a diaper, and we really thought we had turned the corner, but after Nana left we’ve had another regression. It’s the classic ‘two steps forward, one step back’ scenario. The weird part about it is that Ava knows exactly when she has to go potty, and when she has gone potty. Her new standard is to come and ask you to change her diaper as soon as she goes (either number 1 or number 2), so we’re really trying to get her to tell us before she goes so that we can go sit on the potty. Jessica and I both talk to her constantly about it, and she always says she understands, but as the saying goes – “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…” or in this case pee. I know we’ll get there soon enough, but I also know how stubborn she can be, so hopefully she will decide for herself that she doesn’t want to wear diapers any longer.

Beyond that everything is great. Ava has become good friends with a little girl named Avery who lives two doors down from us. They go outside and ride bikes in our cul-de-sac almost everyday. Ava is still on her balance bike (a bike without pedals) but she’s doing so well with it that we’re thinking of getting her a real bike this summer. I love watching her cruise up and down the street on that thing, so hopefully the transition to a pedal bike will be a natural one for her. I also love the idea of getting Elise on the balance bike later this summer, but I’m reluctant that this point because Elise struggles with balance more than Ava ever did. I mean that in the kindest way possible, and her lack of gracefulness has certainly become one of her most endearing qualities, but lets just say it’s not uncommon for Elise to fall down… a lot. She’s constantly fall off chairs, running into doors/walls, tripping over things, etc. The other day she tried crawling into Enzo’s vibrating chair, which was on top of the ottoman, and the next thing I know she has tumbled backwards head over heels right into the sliding glass door. She turned out to be fine but it provided a scare for her, as well as for us. I have to hand it to her though, she’s a tough cookie just like her sister, and no matter how many times she falls she always gets back up and keeps on going.

This is my first holiday weekend since joining Microsoft, so we’re all looking forward to having some nice relaxing downtime together. Today (Saturday) will be our work day, so I’m hoping to get a lot done around the house, then hopefully the rest of the weekend will be pretty laid back. I think we’re going to check out a car show in downtown Everett on Monday morning (our first since leaving California), then that evening we’ll be joining our neighbors for a barbeque. Here are some recent photos taken during our visit with Nana.

Elise in her Easter Bunny glasses

The little Hawkeye

Enzo showing off that smile

Ava checking out her new guitar

Ava taking a selfie with her new glasses on

Having fun at Golden Gardens

Nana holding baby Enzo for the first time

Before I get to the nice weekend we have been enjoying, I want to send my love to my Uncle Jim. When I called my Aunt Brenda this morning to wish her a happy Mother’s Day I got the news that Jim was hospitalized last night due to some type of stomach virus. She didn’t know much about what was wrong, which made it even worse, and was obviously and understandably upset. I was very concerned after our call, but my concerns were mostly alleviated after I spoke to Jim shortly thereafter. He said he was on antibiotics and feeling much better, so that was a relief to hear. Looks like he will be in the hospital one more night, then heading home tomorrow. I just hope he’s continuing to feel better. We love you.

Now onto the fun stuff. It seems like every weekend for the past month or so has been taken out of the movie ‘Groundhog’s Day.’ Each one seems to be filled with common elements consisting of: soccer practice for Ava, time spent with family or friends, and lots of yardwork. This weekend was no different.

We started off Saturday morning by taking Ava to soccer; this week was particularly interesting because the kids played their first scrimmage. Watching it was hilarious. Basically what they did was separate the kids into two teams and gather the teams on opposite ends of the field in front of their respective goals. One team was given the ball, and as soon as the whistle was blown both teams charged towards each other screaming at the top of their lungs. It resembled a Viking battle more than a soccer game, but it was quite entertaining. As expected, every kid on the field is going for the ball, meaning there is no spacing or passing of any kind, but they all seemed to have fun. Our homework for the week is to sit down and watch a real soccer game; obviously I’ll be happy to oblige.

After getting home from soccer I got to work on my new project in the back yard. The goal was to build a path from our patio to the dog kennel. I was hoping to do all the digging on Saturday, then take care of laying/leveling the paver stones and filling in the empty spaces with mulch today. It’s a pretty decent sized area (15’ by 4.5’) so I knew I’d have my hands full considering I wouldn’t have the help of Rick or Joel this weekend, but I was confident that I could get it all done. As I hoped, I got all of the digging done on Saturday afternoon, and once again our yard waste bin is completely filled to the brim with grass and dirt. This was definitely the hardest part of the project.

By the time I finished digging out my path I had barely enough time to shower, change clothes, and head down to Seattle for our friend Laurel’s going-away party. It was a bit surreal for me because the building Laurel is moving out of is the same one I used to live in when Jessica and I first met about eight years ago. Jessica has been there many times to visit Laurel over the past couple years, but I haven’t set foot in that building since moving out, so seeing my kids running around there was a trip.

One of the best parts of that building is the beautiful rooftop deck, which features 360 degree views of downtown Seattle and the Puget Sound. We ended up spending a few hours up there eating, drinking, and catching up with friends. It was the hottest day of the year so far; it even reached 80 degrees at one point. We all had a great time, but saying goodbye was understandably difficult. I was actually really impressed with how well Jessica and Laurel kept their composure. I know Laurel regularly reads this blog, so hopefully she will always be in the loop with what is going on with us. I hope they have a safe and (relatively) uneventful cross country drive on their way to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Since today is Mother’s Day, there is one thing you know for certain will be going on in our house: we’ll be eating well. Based on all of our years in the restaurant business, Jessica and I both have an aversion towards eating out on really busy days like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. Consequently we always make a point to have a nice meal at home and avoid the crowds. Over the past few years I’ve made a tradition out of making some form of Eggs Benedict for Jessica on Mother’s Day; partly because we both love it, and partly because there are practically endless possibilities on what ingredients you can use. This year’s dish featured candied smoked Alaskan Sockeye salmon, fried prosciutto, sourdough English muffins, homemade hollandaise, and crispy hash browns.

After brunch we got out our phones and started calling all the Mom’s in our lives to give them our love and wish them a wonderful day. We spoke to Aunt Brenda, Amy, my Mom (who is currently on a work trip in Alaska), Sherry (Jessica’s Grandma), and Dana. We also left voicemails for my cousin Kristy and my Aunt Norma. It was nice catching up with everyone, and I’m so glad we were able to make plans to get together with Dana and family next Sunday. The only tough part was that I was very concerned about Uncle Jim (I hadn’t spoke to him yet at that point). After all the calls I was noticeably upset, so I interrupted Elise from watching Mickey Mouse to give her a big hug and kiss. She looked me in the eye, and with the sweetest little voice she said “I love you Daddy.” She knew.

At this point it was time to get back to work in the backyard, so I made my first of two trips to Lowe’s to get supplies for the project. I ended up spending the majority of the day working on the path but I’m so happy with how it turned out. Jessica was instrumental in helping me organize the stones into a logical pathway, so the rest of the work revolved around stabilizing each stone with paver sand, then filling in the entire area with pine bark mulch and sweeping the stones clean. I purchased way too much mulch at Lowe’s but as it turned out I had exactly the right amount to fill in the south side of our house along the fence, so it all worked out perfect.

The rest of our evening will be spent watching shows and having a nice dinner. The menu tonight consists of pan-seared wild Alaskan Cod finished with garlic butter, sauteed vegetables, and roasted new potatoes. Since it’s Mother’s Day we may even have to save a little room for dessert. To all the Mom’s in our lives – we love you and hope you all had the wonderful day you deserve. I’m especially excited because my Mom will be arriving for a visit on Friday. I can’t wait for her to meet Enzo and get lots of quality time in with all the kids. Hopefully Jessica and I will be able to sneak away for a nice sushi dinner as well. Maybe next weekend we’ll have to do another special (post) Mother’s Day brunch. Here’s a bunch of recent photos.

Our finished path

No caption necessary

Laurel and Enzo

The little Tiger Lilly checking herself out

Classic Ava

Our little bugs

Elise throwing a fit

Love that smile

Enjoying the view downtown

Mommy and her girls

Well, I’m exhausted. Let’s start with that. There hasn’t been much downtime this weekend, but I’m so proud of everything Joel and I got done in our backyard. More on that in a bit. First I’ll start by saying that Joel and Melanie got to town on Thursday; Jessica picked them up at the airport and got them to my car, which they’ve been using while they are in town. We all went out to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant that night and were able to celebrate Jessica and Joel’s birthdays, which were both very recent.

Although we didn’t end up seeing them on Friday, we’ve spent practically the entire weekend together and gotten a lot done while having a good bit of fun in the process. We started off Saturday morning by taking Ava to soccer class. This was an important class for her because it was the first time that she was on her own and didn’t have me right there participating with her. I was a bit nervous watching from the sidelines, and as her parent my natural reaction anytime she did something wrong was to go out there and help her, but I resisted the urge and watched from afar with Elise and Joel. Melanie, Jessica and Enzo stayed even farther back for similar reasons.

As it turned out she did great and had a lot of fun. She did a good job listening to her coaches and stayed engaged practically the entire time. There was only one time where she got frustrated and just sat down in the middle of the field to scowl for a minute, but she ended up getting back up on her own and participated throughout the remainder of class. Once again I was impressed with how well she did, particularly with how she handles the ball. She runs as fast as she can and hardly ever loses control of her dribbling. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I hope she sticks with soccer because she definitely has a lot of natural talent for it, but ultimately I just want her to have fun and enjoy herself.

After soccer we all headed back to the house and Joel and I got started on assessing the work to be done. If you’ve been reading these posts then you know that I’ve spent the last several weekends in a row working on creating a dog kennel on the north side of our house for Bella. Last weekend I finished off digging out all the grass, and with Rick’s help we were able to line the entire fence with paver stones to keep her from being able to dig her way out.

Since the digging and stone work was done, the only remaining work was to lay down landscaping cloth, stake the cloth down, then fill it all in. The question was, what am I going to fill it in with? I’ve considered gravel, mulch (both natural and rubber), and synthetic turf. There was about 300 square feet to fill in so I had to be considerate of costs, as well as what would be better for the dog. I ended up settling on large garden bark nuggets. I liked the large nuggets because it was less likely to get stuck in Bella’s hair, it smelled good, and it was reasonably priced. It ended up taking 35 large bags to fill the area, but I’m really happy with the final result (see photo below).

With the dog kennel complete we were ready to get started on the next backyard project, which was to extend our back patio. It didn’t make sense to do anything else in the yard until the kennel was done because as long as Bella had access to the backyard there would be no way to keep it clean and usable. After talking it over with Joel and heading to Lowe’s to look at their selection of paver stones, we had a plan. The idea was to purchase a bunch of these 20”x20”x2” concrete paver stones and use them to line the patio, meaning we would extend our back patio by 20” on each side. In order to do this we would need to dig out the grass all around the patio then meticulously place each stone and check it for stability as well as verify that it is level. As usual, it ended up being a lot more work than I ever expected, mainly because you have to be so precise with how much dirt and sand you place under to stones, but I couldn’t be happier with the final result.

We weren’t able to finish this project on Saturday because we had dinner plans, so we did as much as we could, then called it a day at 5:00 to give everyone time to clean up and get ready for dinner. We ended up meeting Joel and Melanie at a restaurant called Cantinetta in Bellevue. My good friend Michael Don Rico manages there on Saturday (he works at their sister restaurants the rest of the week) so we figured it would be fun to go see him, as well as try something new.

As expected it was an excellent dinner (and all around evening), with the exception of the crazy lady at the bar who decided to listen in on our conversation. She completely misconstrued something I said and ended up getting really mad at me. I don’t know what she thought I said, but it upset her and she became most unpleasant. I was tempted to talk back at her but decided to take the high road and suggested to our group that we leave the bar and have a seat at our dinner table. Luckily that was the last we saw of the crazy lady, but it made for interesting conversation amongst ourselves throughout the evening.

After dinner Michael joined the four of us for a drink at a new restaurant next door called 99 Park. Quentin Stewart, their executive chef, is an old friend of ours who used to work with Jessica at Branzino. We haven’t seen him in several years, but there he was right when we walked in. The look on his face when he saw Jessica was priceless. He immediately set us up for desert at the bar and we all spent the next couple hours catching up. It was a great way to end such a fabulous evening. I always love hanging out with Joel and Melanie and wish we got the opportunity to do that sort of thing more often.

We got back to work on the backyard Sunday morning at 11:00 and picked up right where we left off. Joel and I finished off the paver stones, with the exception of the two outermost corner pieces, which would need to be cut down to size in order to fit correctly. Luckily my next door neighbor Troy had a stone chisel that I was able to borrow, and it worked like a charm. I still need to get some paver sand to fill in the cracks between the stones, but it’s not urgent. Again, I couldn’t be happier with the finished product, and appreciate the help from Joel so much. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken me to do this project on my own, plus I wouldn’t have really known what I was doing, so having his guidance was invaluable.

After finishing up on the backyard we did a few more projects around the house. I did some cleaning and reorganizing in the garage while Joel helped Jessica measure our floor space so we’d know how much flooring to purchase for our big project in July. We were also paid a visit by Laurel. Unfortunately this will probably be the last time Laurel comes to this house because she’s only about a week away from moving cross-country to Raleigh, North Carolina. We’ll be attending her going away party next Saturday at Athena, the apartment building in Queen Anne that I was living in when Jessica and I first met.

The rest of this evening should be pretty relaxing. I’m looking forward to making a nice halibut dinner with mushroom risotto and vegetables for everyone, and Joel and I are looking forward to watching the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight. Amazingly both of us were able to completely avoid social media, news, radio, etc. and neither of us knows how the fight turns out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a letdown but I’m still looking forward to checking it out.

It’s worth noting that all of our yardwork this weekend was aided by the most beautiful weather imaginable. I haven’t seen a cloud yet, and apparently tomorrow, which is their final full day in town, is supposed to be just as nice. Last week was incredibly busy for me at work, so hopefully this week we will be back to normal. Here are a few photos of our weekend accomplishments.

The minivan all loaded up with bark for the dog kennel

The finished product – Bella’s new outdoor home

As you can see it didn’t take long before Ava was coloring the paver stones with chalk