New Landscape shots

Erin took all of these shots but the mountain, which I took a few weeks ago. In the one of the fence, you can see the planter boxes of flowers we're tyring to keep alive, plus the bushes we planted in front of the fence. I'm hoping they really take hold so we can trim them square and cover up where the grass is struggling to grow.

What we did today Part 2

The kids and I have been working for a few weeks now to lift the gravel that owners of our condo have put down in our gated area over the last 50 years out of the dirt. I thought for sure that if we could lift the gravel out, there would be more than enough to lay on top of some weed-blocker cloth and have a clean, mud-free gravel area.

After the kids clinics today, I got the last of the gravel lifted out of the north side of the condo.

Then I moved it to the ground area on the east side of the condo. As you can see, it doesn't quite cover the weed blocker cloth. Shoot. We're going to have to either get rid of the gravel and just have the cement stepping stones sit on the dirt itself or find a way to fork over big bucks for more gravel.

The next big project was to remove a big, bottomless ceramic pipe from just inside the gate. I estimate it's about an inch or inch and a half thick and made out of ceramic or terra cotta. It's probably 1.5 to 2 feet square and about two or three feet deep. We think it was put there to catch the rain from the gutter about 40 years ago.

The gutter now connects to a flexible pipe (which you can see in the picture) that takes the water to a french drain by the sidewalk. I was tired of the kids falling into the hole and throwing their chalk and rocks in it, so Emma, Josh, and I dug around it and I pulled it out with my bare hands (And using the shovel as pry-bar). We then filled the hole with some dirt left over from the rock-lifting project and kind of hand-turned the dirt around it, then raked it all smooth. No more hole!

Then the query was what to do with a ceramic/terra cotta pipe that big. We turned it into a planter.

Our neighbor suggested that it'd make a great fountain, and he's right. But I'd already cut and moved the sod and bought the garden soil, compost, and seeds to go around the bottom of it and the plants and potting soil to go inside it, so it stayed a flower pot. Besides, we already have the fountain that I made for a Video Production class assignment. (picture below). The dirt around it and seeds that are planted in the dirt around it are new today, though, as is the edging to keep the grass out:



You can also see the reseated sod that was cut away from the fountain and planters. It now covers a spot of lawn the boys and I accidentally killed. They dumped out the last of our ice melt and I tried to clean it up by washing it away with our hose. Whoopse.

So yeah, that was my busy day. Now it leaves two questions: Why Does my back hurt a little bit and what did you do with your day?

What We did today part 1

We started the day off by heading to Lowes for the kid Clinic. I found these pretty flowers to take pictures of on the way in:

Then it was time to get to work! We made Monster Trucks.

Levi worked really hard, then he said it was too hard to hammer the nails in, turned around, and threw up on the floor. Erin rushed him out to the van where they rested while I cleaned up the mess. Emma finished her car and I finished Levis.



After we took Erin and Levi home to rest, it was off to the kids activity at Dan's where we made Edible Cups of Dirt (crushed up oreos and chocolate Mousse with gummy worms and gummy frogs.

Josh was very happy to participate in this one. He didn't get to do the Lowe's clinic because he's still too little.

Where We've been

Over the last few weeks I've been working around 60 hours per week for a project at work as we get ready to launch our new software. In addition, I'm taking 10 credit hours this semester at school so I can graduate at the end of the summer. (Assuming, of course, that I can manage to get all my school projects and homework done with a work schedule like that.)

That's not to say we haven't had fun, though. We met our new neighbor, Kingston, Who was born in the last part of May:


The kids got to hold him and practiced being great older Siblings for When their Brother gets here in Late September or early October (Due date is Oct 6).





We also learned that the baby in October will be another boy and we decided to name him Lucas Andrew Nielson. We'll call him Luke as often as Lucas, though.

We got a chance to spend time with cousins as well. Here's JulieJo:


And Sammy:


And Will:


Erin Also got to eat the first (and so far, only) Strawberry to come off our plants: