Sales Leadership Conference 2013

Eric and I returned Monday from our trip to Fort Lauderdale.  His company honored him with an award at the Sales Leadership Conference for his outstanding performance last year.  We headed down a little early to enjoy some scuba diving... hopefully pictures to come.  One of the people in our group has an underwater camera and took lots of pictures.

 We were very blessed to have my mom and Eric's mom take turns watching the kids so we could enjoy the extended weekend.

 Even though I toted my camera all that way, these are the only photos I took.  They had a professional photographer at the event so I decided to put my camera away and let the professional handle it.  Hopefully I'll have those photos to share soon as well.

On our second morning there, I opened the curtains to see two water spouts churning just off shore!  I thought it was so awesome that I woke up Eric to see too.  I tried to zoom in so you could see the white splash it made as it hit the water... sorry, this is the best I could do.

While diving we saw lemon sharks, spotted stingrays, lion fish, urchins, lobsters and tons of other critters.  It was good to get back to the ocean.

Patio Project

 We have needed to do this project for a looooong time, and now the time has come!

 Getting bigger!

 Logan and Amanda were great helpers with driving the lawnmower, vacuuming up rocks, and testing the level on the stones.

 Then they started their own project... dismantling the old fire pit.

 After completing our patio, we fired up our new fire pit and cooked ourselves dinner.

 I see many enjoyable nights on our patio in our future.

Breakfast in Bed

This morning Logan brought me breakfast in bed in honor of Mother's Day.  He made it all himself!

And the poor kid has his Daddy's fake smile!  HAAAA!  Thank you, sweet little boy!

Projects and More Projects

It never seems to fail.  Every spring Eric and I go CRAZY with the home projects.  This past weekend we put up a shed where the old play house use to stand.  Here is the photo from the catalog...

 It's not big, but it will store our lawnmower and accessories and other gardening supplies.   Here is the start of our project... the foundation.
 One wall up....

 Ready for the next one...

 Now all four walls are up.

 Time to start on the roof.

 Done for the day.  PHEW!

 The next day I shingled the roof.  What a project that was.  I must say, I'm glad I don't have to do that for a living.

 HOT, TIRED, AND DONE!

 Then Tuesday we had a landscape professional come out to excavate for our next project... a patio.

 We couldn't get grass to grow here because of all the foot traffic so I'm done fighting it.

 We will soon have a large patio, fire ring, chairs and a table in this area and hopefully less mud being tracked through my house.

But for right now... here is my patio.  Waiting for our next big project to begin.
 And speaking of mud... we asked to save the dirt...

 ... now the kids have a new playground to enjoy.

 Oh, the simple joys of childhood.

I think I'm going to go take a nap.

Stink Bomb

Logan has developed a new way to deliver a stink bomb... via a fan pointed right at my face.

Thanks

GIANT BALL `O FUN

Amanda and Logan received this awesome toy for Christmas and the weather was perfect these past two days to give it a roll.  

AND ROLL THEY DID!

 They tried rolling themselves inside like a hamster, but the thick grass make it tough work.  They then started "helping" each other by rolling the ball with their sibling inside.

 It's a good thing that it's nice and kushy inside the ball because there were multiple landings on the head. Thankfully there were no injuries, but like I always say, "If it's not dangerous, it's not fun."

Logan developed this game where he poked his feet out of the bottom of the ball, started running, then purposely fell over and rolled end over end until coming to a stop... video to come soon.

This summer we will have to tote this monster to the lake to give it a whorl in the water.  I think it would be a huge hit.

Goodbye Old Friend

The winds of change are blowing in Monkey house.  Today we said goodbye to an old friend... our playhouse.  This has brought us so much joy over the years.  Tea parties, hunting games, dangerous stunts, and so much more.  But this bargain play set that Eric and I created from two giant wooden boxes was starting to rot.  It was unsafe for our monkeys to play on anymore.

I was actually surprised that the kids were not upset about it.  They took it all in stride and helped with the demolition.

Check out Amanda wearing a cute little dress while helping to rip apart her former play house.

 These kids were ANIMALS with the hammers.  If any of you need some walls taken down, just give these two a call.  

The End