Yard Progress

So we’re still working in the yard… we’re replacing all the bark in the flower beds with rock and here’s what we’ve done so far…. It is actually full of rocks but they’re a bit wet because I watered them to get the weed killer to soak in.

This is the back border along the fence in the back yard. We’re going to grass between the rocks and the patio that you can’t see here.

Almost the entire back yard.

We got this flower bed started and finished today. I dug out one of the plants and gave it to the neighbor who traded me 2 small trees to plant in the back yard in our corners to try to clean it up a little in this flower bed in front. It took an act of God to stop us from working in the yard but we dumped the last load of rock in the flower bed and within a minute it was pouring down rain. Guess we’re done for the day… Next we get to plant the 2 small trees/shrubs in back then spread all this dirt below to seed and grow grass. Hopefully we can get it spread, rolled, seeded, fertilized and watered this week!

Rock Pickin

Our friend Jerry offered to come over tonight to pick some more rocks with me. Bo lucked out yet again with rock picking duty, yesterday just as we started, the key to the tractor broke in half so he spent most of our rock picking time meeting up with my dad to get a spare key and go have more made, today he was home sick and told to rest from the doctor so we didn’t let him help. We got 3 loads complete tonight and made a lot of progress… here is last nights picture and tonight when we finished.

last night…
tonight… we almost completely filled the left side in… this was mid 3rd round… i’m not sure if i broke it or just badly bruised it but it swelled up pretty good and started turning black right away. I smashed it on the sharp corner of the tail gate under a heavy rock. it’s swollen even more now and hurts and i can’t bend it at all at the first knuckle but i don’t feel broken’ness inside so i’m not sure, i’ll throw some ice on it, take some tylenol and see how it looks tomorrow.

And just because she’s the cutest thing alive.. here’s the baby bows napping :)

Yard Work

Bo and I specifically chose the smallest lot to put our house on for a reason, we both hate yard work and don’t want to have to do a lot to maintain a decent yard. The front yard was installed when they built the house but we didn’t want to spend the money to get a back yard at the time. We’ve since received a notice that we need to install the yard since the rules say you have 6 months to do it from moving in and we’ve been here 9 months now. So this is what we started with. Extremely rocky hard dirt with about 2′ tall weeds. Ugh. This was Thursday afternoon…

Thursday afternoon…

We borrowed a weed whacker from a friend and Bo whacked the weeds and I followed him with a rake cleaning up the mess. We were out until 10pm Thursday night weed whacking and raking until it was too dark to see and we got eaten alive by the mosquitos. We got more than 1/2 of the yard done though which felt good! The we had a friend (thanks Jer!) with a weed whacker come over and help us finish up Friday morning and in about 1-2 hours we had it finished and ready for the rock rake.

This is the back yard after weed whacking & raking. We have an empty lot next to us that hasn’t sold yet so we were able to rake the piles into the empty lot next door into their 2 foot tall weeds.

Dad arrived Saturday morning (thanks dad!!) with the John Deere & rock rake and gave Bo the low down on how he works… He told him that the rules are that he (dad) watches ONLY the house when he is driving the machine and if Bo gets run over it was his own fault cuz Bo needed to keep himself out of the way of the machine.
We spent about 3 hours rock raking and raking by hand to get the yard ready for topsoil next week.

Dad was on the tractor, Bo was using the only rake we own….
And I just took pictures of myself so I could be included too! Ha.
Dad let Bo on the tractor, Bo explained it to me this way: “He told me ‘here’s how you go forward, here’s how you go backward, now get off.'” Hahahaha.
Apparently dad give me a bit more of an in depth lesson on how to run it because I got to drive it around dumping stuff.

I told dad I want to buy pea gravel instead of bark for a border along the fence. I don’t like bark and I don’t want to use it, I would rather have rock. He told me I was crazy, that we have hundreds of dollars worth of rocks right here that we were taking out of the yard so we decided to use these ones for free! BUT, we hand picked almost every single rock which has taken a LOOOOONG time and a lot of effort. Jerry came back over with his truck today and helped us pick rocks and use his truck to transport them. We drove around the neighborhood stealing rocks from neighbors yards who didn’t want them. We’re not done yet but we made a ton of progress this weekend, we’ve got most of the rocks, the ground is ready for topsoil and we bought the seed and fertilizer to plant grass. More work next weekend! This is how it looked this afternoon when we finished up. We just need to hand pick a few more truckloads of rocks.

Camping June 09

We went to potholes state park last weekend and had a BLAST with some friends. Here are just a few of the many pictures from the weekend…

Some of the camping crew.. Chuck, his daughters Lera & Dasha, his cousin Mark & his kids Ashton & Dylan & Jerry Jr.
& Cindy in this one
Chuck… it’s how he rolls.
Bo & Anna on the boat
Dylan, Ashton & Jerry Jr before….
& then after they fell off….
Bo & Jerry Jr
Dasha, Lera & Chucks sister in law Laura
so cute are we! (and so white is Bo)
whitey & cutie
holding on for dear life
and off I go!
Bo & Jerry .. they think they’re cool
having a blast!
still hanging on
Chuck and Mark heating each other up (think about that… in the water)
Chuck & Mark
loving cousins (or koo-zanne as chuck said)
this is how chuck rolls
chuck & bo
whitey
Bo is actually STIL ATTACHED!! He held on!
whitey & me
Someone taught them how to fart through straws, I was NOT impressed….
Until I tried it myself… oh my gosh it was the FUNNIEST thing I’ve EVER done.. I laughed the hard core, been a chain smoker 7 packs per day for 60 years breathless hysterical laughs that physically hurts me to do but i couldn’t stop
I nearly keeled over and died I laughed so hard and it hurt so bad
me & anna ridin the waves
Mark showing off wake boarding.. then he tried to teach Bo how to do it
After the long process of getting Bo in the water (it was getting cold, the sun was almost down) and using the dawn to get his feet in the board he was ready to give it a try
It was a valliant effort.. a few times.. he was SO CLOSE… but never could make it all the way up
and Chuck rollin again the way only he does.

We had such a blast, we were tired and sore and dirty and loved every minute of it and can’t wait to go again!

Bowser TV

My friend let me borrow her dvd she bought for her cat: “The Cat Sitter” and bowser loved it! We found out she’s not much of a fan of fish, butterflies or birds but she LOVES mice and hampsters, she tried to get in/on the tv to get to them.







Now her and I are sitting on the couch watching King of Queens together. She’s actually watching. This was after her matrix bit tonight trying to get through the closed venetian blinds which was also quite entertaining. She makes us laugh every day!

Mothers Day/Birthday

Moms birthday was today, sadly for her, it’s like a kid who’s birthday is on Christmas because Mothers Day and her Birthday always get celebrated together in 1 day since they’re so close together. We had the whole family over last night to celebrate both occasions and what did we do? Rock band of course….

Dad wasn’t really that into rock band… mom picked it right up though!
she sang! it may not have been on key or in the right time but she sure sang!
As did my sister. I feel bad for my dad and my brother in law :) Good thing bo LOVES my singing hahahahaha
Dad & Joe having NOTHING to do with it…
And where was Chloe for all the rockband fun? Guitar? Drums? Singing? NOPE… she said hi to me when she got here, found bowser and that was the last we saw of her ALL night.
I think Bowser gets enough activity in 1 night with Chloe for an entire quarter of the year. She runs around dragging the curly ribbon screaming and giggling as bowser chases her around the house.
Up and down the stairs
over and over and over again. Until we introduced her to the laser light
It wasn’t all fun and games for everyone else, we had birthday cake & ice cream..
and mom got presents too!
Happy Birthday and Mothers Day Mom! We love you!

Aunt Lori’s Wedding

Bo’s aunt Lori got married on 5/9/09 at “The Stump” bar in Arlington. It only took us 2 hours to drive up there and just over 1 to get home. We had a great time visiting with Bo’s family and witnessing the wedding, here are pictures from the evening!

The 2 groomsmen & maid of honor on their way up the aisle.
Wedding party waiting for the bride
Father of the bride walking her up the aisle
Starting off with prayer
Lighting the unity candle
Reading the vows they wrote
“You may kiss the bride”
being pronounced husband and wife
Headed back out for their first dancefirst dance
dance with dad cutting the cake that Bo’s mom decorated on her own!

nobody got cake in the face/nose, they were very nice
the bride and her mom mom & her girls
bo and his mom
shirley (the mother by law), her parents and aunt lori
I took a picture of us in the mirror… so cute are we
bo enthusiastically dancing with his mom
grandpa tommy and grandma pearl

The KoBears Rock Tour

Rock Band is becoming a regular occurrence at our house. We had our friends Blake and Laura over a few weeks ago to rock out. Actually, Laura was there to scrapbook but we didn’t get too much done of course.

The hosts: Me, Bo & our BowserNO WAY!!!! I missed THAT many!?!?!?!
Bo gets pretty passionate about his RockBand….
The band (minus Blake)
so cute is Laura
The original KoBears
Again…. passion… (notice the red face and intense look)
“You want me to sing WHAT!?!?!?”
Blake doesn’t look too sure about what he is singing.
Now I don’t look too sure about what I’m playing.
Oops… missed 1 – 2 – 3 – 47 – 48 – 49….
Need I say it again? Passion.. Intensity….