Summer Project

Having a house means having a yard. Our front yard was installed for us before we moved in, but we had to install the backyard. Due to all the rain we had in May, the weeds were a little crazy.

  

  

 These pictures were taken after we had already pulled some of them up.

June 23, we had a landscaping company come and install our backyard. We want to extend the patio some, and also have a little bit of garden area, so only half the yard is grass, one of the side yards is graveled for Finn, the other side will just be wood chips or something similar with a walkway to the front, and the rest will be the extended patio and the flower beds/garden area.

It was a lot of fun to see them installing the backyard. They installed it in 2 days, so Michael stayed home the first day (Thursday) with them. They trenched, laid pipe for the sprinklers, extended the downspouts from the back of the house to the front yard, combined them with the ones in the front and installed 2 percolators, framed Finn's gravel area and filled it, and had the topsoil delivered. Friday, both Michael and I stayed home. They installed the sprinkler heads, laid down and raked out the topsoil for the sod and the garden that will be up against the house, laid the sod (That was fun to watch. They would drop the roll of sod down, line it up where it needed to go, and kick it to unroll it), installed 2 drip systems for the gardens, placed the weed fabric for the bark side of the house, installed a chuck and key (a way to blow out the system) so we can winterize our sprinklers in the fall, and also did some work in the front yard for us. Once we get the rest of the patio poured, they'll come back and finish the corner garden and the accompanying drip system. We haven't been able to enjoy our backyard yet because we want the sod to get a good root system, but it will be nice when it is totally completed and we can enjoy our wonderfully (although somewhat small) backyard!

Finn's yard

 

 

Chuck system and the garden in front of the stairs

And now we wait... The grass will be too soggy to walk on for a while. :( And the concrete and the corner garden still need to be completed. We'll get to enjoy it soon enough though!

Our Little Chewer

Finn LOVES to chew. In the past 8 months, she has chewed through/destroyed multiple things, including (but not limited to) shoes, socks (one of each of ours), 4 rope bones, her ball, and multiple squeaky toys. Here are some pictures of her and things she has chewed, most of which we have given her, but some that we have not.

 Enjoying a milk jug.

Her poor rope bone. It used to be 5 knots long (the pile of yarn is the other 2 knots)

Now it's only 3 (and at the time I'm writing this, it isn't even that long anymore)

After shredding 2 of the knots

 She chewed her ball in half

Finn got ahold of one of Michael's socks one day, and this is what she did.

We also gave her a graham cracker box the other day, and recorded what she did with it (you don't need to have the sound on, unless you want it).

and another one:

Bear Lake & the 4th

This 4th of July weekend, some friends invited us up to their family's (new) cabin. We went up Friday and came home Monday evening in time for fireworks with our families. We had a very nice and relaxing time up there. The lake was incredibly high (only about 10 feet of rocks between the roadway and the lake), and FREEZING cold, but once our legs became numb, we enjoyed the time in the lake. :)

Picture of the Cabin

View of the Lake from the Cabin

Dinner on the Deck

 Kari and Morgan, the lovely people we went with!

On the way up

Those trees are halfway under water, if that gives you an idea of how high it was

My handsome husband

We came back down in time for Fireworks with our families. We picked Finn up from our uncle's house (thanks for watching her!) and went to Murray Park with the Decker family. Finn did really really well, as long as she could see what/where the source of the sound was. Kari and Morgan also watched the Murray fireworks, but they watched from their brother's backyard. (Sorry for the blurry pictures. One of the disadvantages of a camera phone)

Beautiful Sunset

Here is a picture of the beautiful sunset from last night, taken from the top of the ferris wheel at Lagoon (Thanks Dad S, for taking us).