some work and some play

For anyone who reads on a regular basis, you know that we have been gone a lot this summer.
Sadly, our yards were looking a little ragged. We decided that today would be a good day for some much needed yard work. Our goal......get rid of the weeds, clean up the garbage (old bikes, lawn mowers, odds and ends too big for the garbage can) and tear down our old rickety deck.
Shae was assigned the front flower bed. I don't know how many times we have re-done this area . Every time we do, we get a ground cover that is supposed to keep weeds out. By the picture, I think you can tell that didn't work.

The weeds have been real crazy this year. They probably wouldn't have been so bad but our lawnmower and weed eater both died. After trying to get them to work, Gary broke down and decided to buy new ones. (our lawnmower has been on its last leg for a while now)


Here is the deck before we started. At one time it had railings on the stairs but it has slowly been falling apart. To walk on it was very scary! It felt a little wobbly and unstable. It was time to go!
Eli had fun with the sledge hammer. He tore off both of the staircases and helped Gary pull the rest down. You would have thought the kid was in heaven. He loved "demo!"
Here is our first load to the dump. I think we have enough stuff that it will take another load. We planned on loading up again today but Garrison ran over a nail at the dump and hurried home before the tire went completely flat. We would have changed the tire but we were already using the spare and are in need of new tires (which is a whole other story) Hopefully this week we will be able to finish the job.

**Other things we did today. Gary and I took Amelia and her friend, Liz to the Rec Center. The water was cool and it was nice to go play and have fun after such a hot day.

My High School friend, Stephanie called to see if we wanted to go to dinner. Heck Ya! It's always fun to go out and catch up on the latest. We went to La Cabana (one of my favorite places) We ate and then sat and visited. I think we were there for about 2 hours, then we came to our house and visited some more. Thanks for calling, Steph!!!