Our New Park

A new neigborhood is being built behind ours. While we're sad about many of the changes being made (trees being cut down, not as much wildlife visiting our neighborhood, etc.) and confused about some of the changes (quarter million dollar McMansions on postage stamp sized lots in our working-class town), there is one change we're happy about. The developers who are building the new houses set aside a lot and built a small park. We liked to play at it last summer after it was done, and now that it's warm enough and not as muddy as it has been, we can finally go back again. When we go on our evening walk, we go through our neighborhood, past the park, up the hill to turn around in the cul de sac, and then we can stop at the park to play. Then, we usually walk over to say hi to the cows if they're near the fence, then back home!

Here are some recent park pictures:


















Em and our neighbor Shelby rode their bikes over to the park while Evie rode in the stroller and Lucky and I walked!

I took some videos of Evie on her favorite park toys, the bouncy rocking horse and the slide.
Evie on the rocking horse:


Evie on the slide. If you listen, at the end she says "I go FAST!"

A Day at the Zoo

We recently spent a wonderful Saturday at our zoo. We got a membership this year, so I think we will be going a lot!

DIY Home Repair - not for sissies!

So, someone in this family got the bright idea that we should do a little home renovation work. You know, just slap a little paint into the bathroom, maybe replace the medicine cabinet. Easy stuff, right? (okay, okay, it was my bright idea)

We took everything off of the walls. That was the easy part! Then, we had to scrape, and scrape, and scrape off the old ugly wallpaper. Do the next owners of your house a favor. Please, for the love of everything good and wonderful in this world, please don't put up any wallpaper (unless you're a sociopath. Then, go ahead and paper up everything!) I'm already dreading peeling off the paper in the kitchen and basement. wah!

Underneath the old medicine cabinet, we found a big hole in the wall and evidence of the rainbow of colors that our bathroom has been painted over the years.



If you look closely, you can see white, yellow, green, blue, and the pink that it was when we bought our house. That wasn't the biggest surprise, though. Underneath the wallpaper, we found brown paint and a Scooby Doo wallpaper border!






Why on earth would you have a Scooby Doo theme in the main bathroom of your house? I just don't understand it.

It's finally all done (except for the trim). I picked out a lovely yellow called Lemon Cream, and Rich painted it for me. After it was dry, we hung up a new lightbar, new medicine cabinet, and new toilet topper. Now I just need to get a new towel bar for by the sink, and a new shower curtain!

Some Pictures of my girls

Em loves to wear this orange shirt. Whenever she does, Evie runs to her room to find her favorite orange shirt. (Hello Kitty, of course!) Then she proudly announces "I orange like Emma!"