gone fishin'

On Sunday we had the pleasure of a short visit by my brother and his family. They just moved from Hawaii to an undisclosed location in the continental US, and in the matter of a week bought their first house and a minivan. Talk about getting a bunch of grown-up moments done at once! They drove 16 hours in their new vehicle and stopped at our house en route to both sets of moms and dad's houses. I'm so glad we are somewhat on their route!

I was SO excited to have them over - it's not often we get to hang out just us kids the two of us and our spouses and children and pets without mom and dad (no offense mom and dad - it was just nice to hang out on our turf)!

It was totally not planned - I swear - but my brother offered to help Mark put some of the finishing touches on the swingset. Without my even offering a beer as payment, mind you. He's so military like that. They put up some handle bars and accessories, and dug up the tree stump. Rest in peace little tree, rest in peace.

And I think this goes without saying that I have the cutest possible niece and nephew.


Growing up, you couldn't have paid me to talk nicely about my brother. But I sure do love him (and his awesome family) now!

God Bless the Neighbors the Beer and the Rainbow Play System

What started out as a simple Friday night out at McDonalds,

and playing for free on a bunch of fancy swingsets,

later turned our backyard into a huge party, starting with a sea of wood.

Thankfully, we are blessed with 5 sets of great neighbors. Also thankfully, beer works on men as a dangling carrot does on rabbits.


Similarly, a slightly constructed playset works on children much like that dangling carrot!
I will stop to tell you that once the playset reached this point my stomach sank. You see it in the picture above? It was literally taking up the entire yard. The entire yard! Okay, fine... It only took up close to the entire yard (I'd like to say that I never ever ever exaggerate, but that would be an exaggeration).

So after asking the men repeatedly what my options were and hearing that I had a whopping no options, we decided to chop down our baby tree. This was, as you saw in an earlier post, slightly difficult for me and extremely difficult for Elisabeth. In any case, here are some pictures of the tree-chopping incident that are sure to put a smile on anyone's face:

I'm no expert here, but I think there may have been some kind of display of testosterone going on during the battle with the tree which at the moment, appears to be winning.

Ahh, yes. An axe! I've heard that helps when chopping a tree down. At this point I stopped taking pictures of the tree incident. You're welcome. But you'll be happy to know that the tree did in fact succumb to the men and the axe.

Day 2 started with a bit of very sweet father-daughter bonding, which Elisabeth loved.

Look carefully at the picture above. How much work do you think is actually being done? This picture was taken shortly after I brought out the cooler of beer for my beloved neighbors and husband. They quickly sprung to "action" when they saw the camera aimed at them. It was too funny to not share with you. Hope they don't mind.

Check it out! We're so close to being done! The kids had a blast testing everything out as soon as they could. Even the neighborhood ghost got in on some swing action.

Finishing touches for the day, before the rain started (which by the way, has not let up since! I think we have been able to play on the swingset twice.)

Once the rain started, we all came inside and enjoyed a celebratory bratwurst dinner. We were also rewarded with a very entertaining fashion show! Here is one of the samples, which will be in stores next season. Giggle giggle.

The finished product, minus a few details that we hope to take care of next weekend. As long as Mother Nature cooperates. Maybe I should have titled this post "April showers bring May play towers" (Hey - I tried.)

We are truly blessed to have so many great neighbors. It's nice that what could be considered a daunting task was actually fun!

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day, we chopped down a tree:

To say the least, our sweet sensitive Elisabeth was upset about it. I had my moments too, but it had to be done.

The good news is that this company is planting 5 trees for every 1 tree they harvest.

And boy-oh-boy does their harvested wood look good in our backyard!

I will post pictures of the swingset being put together in a bit. It was a complete neighborhood event, and was so much fun! Aside from the tree being cut down of course.