Finally...another blog entry....

School is finally out and we survived another school year. The kids had their last day of school on June 8th and left last friday for a six week vacation to Tyler, Texas. The house is quiet (well a little more so) and once I do my annual purging of their rooms, the house should hopefully stay relatively cleaner for a few weeks. Our hope is that we can even get some of our projects done this summer. If you have been to our house recently, you probably noticed the test paint patches in the living room and I am hoping that I can actually proceed to painting the entire wall by the time Ashlynn and Alec return in late July.

Mike's parents came up this past weekend and we got a lot of work done in the yard. We used to have a poorly installed concrete patio with a cruddy fence behind our garage that the previous owners must have used as a dog kennel. Mike and John had the concrete busted up in a short time--attesting to the fact that the original pour was substandard. Our flower beds are now free of weeds for the time being and John pulled out the ghastly looking Junipers that had decayed in front of our house. This is only the beginning....

We have some fairly ambitious plans for the back yard which will consist of a new fenced in area that I'll refer to as a courtyard. This will require the installation of a retaining wall to level out the grade and further modifications that will require phasing that will likely take a few years to complete--but do you ever truly complete a landscaping project?

Kjersten is continuing to thrive and is rapidly learning new tricks. She is rolling over, grabbing everything in sight and provides us with almost constant entertainment. We started an Infant Massage class last week that runs for three sessions and so far she is enjoying it. I think I would too.

There's much that goes on in our lives, but we've both been bad about blogging it. Sometimes I worry about posting stuff that you're not necessarily sure that anyone would really care about or be interested in. On the other hand, it is our lives and sometimes I don't think I have ever been happier or been in more awe of the most simplistic aspects of life than I am right now.