The Playhouse is DONE!

Many years ago, Kristen had a boyfriend who bought her a canvas swing. Most people hang these from a metal stand built for the purpose, but he - wanting to impress her I guess - asked my permission to build what we later came to call the "swing house." I had no idea of the monstrosity he had in mind until it was well under way. Then, before the swing house could be properly finished, the relationship ended. For years, the swing house sat half finished. I stored things in it for winter and it became kind of a catch-all for junk.

Eventually, I decided that it either had to come down, or remade into something else. Since the grandkids were on the scene by then, and not knowing quite what I was getting into, I decided to have it remade into a playhouse. Many dollars and man-hours later (BIG shoutout to Paul the handyman, Sterling, and to Steph and Mickel for their help in painting), the playhouse is officially finished.

New Patio

I had come to realize that I wasn't getting as much enjoyment as I should from my backyard (well, technically it's mostly my side yard). The patio that was there was small, and the very small amount of lawn had not been installed correctly and was lumpy and ugly. One of the lilac bushes had died, and the other made the yard feel even smaller because of it's placement. So I decided to get a much larger patio done, and xeriascape the rest of the backyard. The xeriscaping is yet to be done, but the new patio looks great!


New patio, sans landscaping and the rock wall in the back right corner still needs to be done (you can see the form for it in this picture).

Grammie's Great Babysitting Adventure

Steph and Mickel went to a medical conference in New Orleans, so I took a few days off to stay with my favorite munchkins. After seeing Mom and Dad off at the airport, our adventure was ready to begin!

The next day we went to Lagoon and spent a few hours in Kiddieland. The kids went on a few rides before Kaiya discovered the "Moonraker" and then all selection was over. She loved that ride! And Teague seemed pretty content to go along with her. We would have stayed later but Teagie spilled water all over his pants and it was getting dark and cold, so that was the end of Lagoon day.


Moonraker actually went pretty fast for a kiddie ride, but neither of them seemed fazed by it.

Our busy little bee!

On Sunday night Kaiya came down with a bad case of the stomach flu. Luckily, it was the fast-moving variety, so by Tuesday she felt well enough to go to the Discovery Museum (or Children's Museum, as I still call it). This is such a fantastic place for little ones, with all kinds of imagination-driven activities. Kaiya especially loves the store, and Teagie - of course! - the water feature. Kaiya most definitely did NOT want to leave!

Unfortunately, by Tuesday evening, both Teague and I also came down with the oh-so-icky stomach flu, and that was pretty much the end of the fun part of the whole thing. I was pretty glad to be relieved of duty on Wednesday. You really do forget how much work young children can be. I'm sorry to say that a few days after their return home, Steph and Mickel also fell victim to the flu.

Soccer

For the past three weeks or so, Kaiya has been on a soccer team. So Grammie has been going every Tuesday evening and Saturday morning to her games. She does a great job as goalie, and runs and kicks the ball really good ...

... but sometimes loses track of the fact that there's a game going on ...

Teagie and Mom are always there to cheer her on! Sometimes Daddy is able to make it, and Grandma Linda and Grandpa Mel.

Here's a picture Teagie took of his mom ... it turned out pretty well!

Here's the team picture. Unfortunately, Kaiya refused to get in the picture.

My Little Piece of Heaven

Last weekend I took a drive down to my cabin lot, just east of Mount Pleasant in Sanpete County. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get up to it, since there had been a storm a few days before, with snow in the higher elevations. And there was still a skiff of snow on my property, but the roads were dry (and it was an absolutely beautiful day for a drive).

I'm sorry to say that I haven't been up there for a couple of years, since there's a limited season in getting up to it (May through October, pretty much), and summer is the busy season for me at work. If all goes according to plan, I'll build a small cabin in the spring of 2012.


Glad I got the opportunity to see the fall leaves!

Something was new at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon since I drove it last ... HUGE wind turbines! It is a perfect place to harness the wind.