The Driveway, Grass and Aquarium!

Finally, the grass is in! Here are a few pictures of the grass, Noah enjoying the grass and my rose garden bed. I have lots more work to do with fixing up the beds and all, but that will come along just fine. Though the grass is in, after watering it for almost a week now, we have found a couple of dry spots and a couple of really really wet spots, like standing water. So, we'll be making a call, see if the guys can come and tweak it a bit. Otherwise Monte will be out there doing a job he loathes!

The driveway is in and looks fantastic. The walls are all stucco'd and need paint. Yes, we know we have three different colors of stucco. We are ok with that for now. We'll paint later. Our gate comes in about 10 days! It will be fantastic to let the kids go out and play while I throw a load in the dryer or start dinner and not fear that they'll run out to the front and into the street. For now, I just hang out with them.

Funny, as soon as we got the grass in, both kids got sick. Bummer, we stayed upstairs for the better part of the week. BUT, before they got sick, we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific on Monday. They really ejoyed seeing all of the fish. There is a small section outside where you can pet stingray and sharks, Noah didn't want to, but liked it when I did. There was a small enclouse with birds and Lily really liked that a lot.

Noah has been asking to see the oh, deer and Meerkats everyday since last week. His reaction the the grass was priceless too. He came downstairs from his nap, I told him to look outt he window. He refused to for like 30 minutes. Then I asked him again and he looked outside and said 'Oh, WOW, grass!' It was awesome. Lily of course had both hands banging against the door the second she woke up. This is not unusual, she does that every day no matter the weather or the state of the yard.

Hope you like the pictures. As my flower and tree beds progress, I'll get some more pictures up. And of course of my saving grace - the Gate!

Grass and Aquarium

Lily Vs. The Deer

This was at the petting kraal at the San Diego Wild Animal Park...

Lily had a "close encounter" with one of the deer:

Videos!

Time for a major video round-up of the kids!

First, it's Noah and Lily sitting together in the back yard:

Next, it's Noah and his friend Blake acting goofy:

And then it'a Noah rolling dough:

Next up is Lily walking:

Noah singing "Old MacDonald Had a farm:"

And finally, Lily and Noah getting really excited at seeing some meerkats:

Enjoy!

San Diego Wild Animal Park 5/19/09

We decided that we needed a break. Monte took a day off so we could go to the park before school let out and not on a weekend. The place is still pretty crowded even in the middle of the week. We had a wonderful time.

Lily totally notices all of the animals. The first animals we stopped to see were the meerkats and she could have just stayed there all day. She'd tap on the glass, point and say key-ee (kitty).

We then saw the baby cheetah in the nursery. Born February of this year. I now really regret not going more often. I even heard that they had a baby rhino in the nursery for about 5 weeks. Both babies had been abandoned by their mothers. It turns out if a cheetah cub is born as a single, the Mom's abandon the single cub. This Cheetah will become an ambassador animal for the Park. I don't know about the rhino, we missed all of the juicy details on it.

There was a giant snake in an enclosure near the nursery, Noah really dug the snake. Ewww. Us girls checked out the cheetah for a bit longer while the boys went to see the snake.

Next was the petting corral. Both Noah and Lily liked this a lot.

We then went to have some lunch. You will see a picture of a very large bird. Well, this bird jumped onto the table a mere 2 inches from my FACE and STOLE a chicken strip! I yelped. Noah and Lily didn't even notice. Lily was busily eating some cutie slices and Noah was looking at a juice box when it happened. S t u p i d bird.

We then took a walk down by the little water play area. The kids had a blast running around and getting wet. Lily practiced her escape artist abilities and Noah ran and ran, while Momma clicked away with her camera. Daddy was on Lily retrieval duty.

We got dried off, walked down by the lions and headed home.

Wonderful, wonderful day! Enjoy the pictures.

Oh, one picture of the kiddo's first experience with bath paint. Momma drew the faces! And of course, it isn't the Krol shot without the kids in the dirt!

WAP 5/19/09

The Driveway and the kids.

The driveway was poured last weekend, we'll be getting our brick band this weekend. Things with this set of contractors has run very smooth. These guys are great! 4 of the brothers do this kind of work, Carlos, he is our painter and stopped by to say good morning. He is painting a house down the street. He thought he'd help for a few minutes and got a shovel. So, 5 brothers. (They are a family of 12, 6 girls and 6 boys, OLE!)

As for our landscaper. Well, things are not going as well on that end. We are not really sure he'll ever get it right. He didn't come until today, worked for about 2 hours and said he'd be back tomorrow to install sprinklers. He left a mess in my yard and 2 valves with an active leak. So, nothing to show except for a puddle of water. Yup, I am totally human and make mistakes. This one just happened to be a biggie and is costing us a pretty penny.

My kids, well You can see that I left Noah alone for a minute while cleaning Lily up from lunch. And you can see that Lily thoroughly loves her dirt snacks.

Until later!

Susan

Driveway and kids

More yard updates.

Well, I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Even though there have been some glitches, the project is coming along well. There are still some battles to be fought but I will prevail. It will be as I imagined it. It will be more expensive than the initial 'cost' but it will happen. The driveway should be poured on Saturday and we should have grass next week.

All that is left is our front door stained, the house painted and our new gate installed. The paint and stain are going to wait a bit, as we are on a list for our busy friends who paint and stain. We do have hopes for salvaging the leaning patio cover too. Not sure who we are going to talk to about that.

All Noah talks about is getting his new grass so he can play with his water table. Both of these kids have been great during all of the madness that used to be their yard.

More yard progress.

Pictures from this week.

Just a few pictures from the last couple of days.

Early May photos