A touch of irony.

Sooooo.... raise your hand if you need a long week to recover from your long weekend.  And now, if you're raising your hand, you can put it down because you look silly - we can't see you.  But if we could, we'd be all for commiserating.  We fully understand that the long Memorial Day weekend is a time to commemorate and remember, and we spent Monday morning doing just that while sitting at the side of the local parade route and watching young children maul each other over thrown pieces of candy, but the rest of the weekend we used to get started on the plans we have for our new yard.  We started this task at ten in the morning on Saturday, armed with a couple of shovels, and finished our work just before dinner on Monday after putting away the pick ax and sledge hammer that we'd added to our selection of handy tools.  If we've learned one thing this weekend it's that clay, especially bone dry clay, is not a digging friendly medium.  But even taking into account such breaks as the pizza party with Jon's family on Saturday, the BBQ ribs party with my family for Sunday dinner, the bonfire with the neighbors on Sunday night (have we mentioned how much we love our new neighborhood?), and the parade on Monday morning, we have a long list of accomplishments to tack on our refrigerator door before bed tonight.  We ripped out two to three feet of sod all the way around the house, and improved the grading where needed;  we extended our sump pump pipe by five feet, dug a trench, hauled in a trunk full of free rocks from a local farm, and installed a dry creek to disperse the flow of water; we removed a large area of sod from the SE corner of our backyard, added a property defining garden, then transplanted two bushes and one tree from our overcrowded front garden to populate it and hauled in ten 40lb bags of topsoil to mix into it; and we removed two rather large and rather dead bushes from by the front walk way.  It may not sound like much, but ask our muscles and I'm guessing they'll disagree.

And what about the above mentioned irony?  We spent hours upon aching hours chopping at the sod with such inefficient tools as shovels, trowels, and even the aforementioned pick ax.  Then the very last thing we did on Monday night was ask our neighbor if we could borrow his lawn mower again (since ours is still at the old house that we are still mowing), only to have him ask if we might also want to borrow his sod ripper.  Say what?  At least the parade was fun.

Garden pictures in the Yard Transformation album. 

Parade and other new pictures in the May 2008 album. 

Indoor Activities

Entering into the deep months of winter we knew we were going to have our work cut out for us:  wintering with an infant is one thing, but being stuck inside all winter with a toddler?  We wouldn't wish it on anyone.  Cortney is increasingly thankful that we had the foresight to sign up for an abundance of activities this season, and with dance class on Tuesdays, library class on Wednesdays, and music class on Thursdays, the monotony of the season has been greatly livened.  Still, with the mild January that we've had, rather than having snow for sledding, we have rain to keep us inside all the other four days of the week so we've had to be creative when it comes to activities in order to keep the whole household entertained.  Calvin does pretty well building with his blocks, playing his musical instruments, or "reading" the pictures in his books, but we find ourselves needing stimulation as well, and Calvin is our usual project.  So far this winter Calvin has learned how to hold his pencil correctly, how to set the table (we shared the fruits of that labor with you yesterday), and how to play high vs. low notes, white vs. black keys, and loud vs. (more importantly) soft on the piano.  And we have whiled away what would have otherwise been many a boring hour by drying the bathroom after water play time in hopes that this will bring back thoughts of warm days at the pool or beach.  It's not working, so instead we find ourselves hoping that April is a lot closer than it looks.

More pictures in the Jan 19-31 album. 

Back in the water again

The way the rain has been coming down these past few days we've all been feeling a bit like ducks, but Calvin and his dad took it a step further today and acted like fish.  We can't truthfully say that this was Calvin's first swimming class, but we also wouldn't go so far as to call him a seasoned veteran of the swimming community.  Last year at this time Calvin entered into and then graduated from the infant swim class at our community rec center, and today he proudly (or at least with interest) splashed into the toddler group.  The class, which is aptly named otters and pups, since it is a class with parent participation, is taught by the same energetic woman we enjoyed last year, and if you've seen any of Calvin's pictures you will not be surprised to hear that she remembered him immediately thanks to his rosy cheeks.  Of course last year those rosy cheeks graced a rather serious and brooding face, as Calvin spent most of time enjoying the pool from a state of deep contemplation.  For a brief moment we thought this year was going to be much the same, but it did not take long for him to find his comfort zone this year, and for the rest of class he was all giggles and grins.  Well, until he had to get out, that is, and then he was just cold.  We consider today's return to the pool a soggy success.

Water pictures are in the Jan 12-18 album. 

A friend by any other name...

Who said internet relationships weren't real?   Today we proved that guy wrong by blazing a new trail on the road of friendship, at least in our lives, that is.  A year ago Cortney joined an online forum of mothers who share a hobby in scrapbooking.  The original board was a relatively large one, but over time some individual friendships started to emerge and a few of the other women from the board started to chat via instant messenger.  Though they are, for the most part, spread across the continent, one other woman on the board lives only two hours away, and today we got up early, packed the car, and trekked over to her house.  Sure, anything could have happened:  the kids could have fought, the husbands could have clashed, and, perhaps worst of all, the two moms could have found that, as compatible as they were across internet, they just couldn't mesh in real life.  Fortunately for us, what happened instead is that the kids loved each other, the husbands exchanged stories, and the two moms picked up in person exactly where they had left off on YIM.  While there we shared bagels and coffee before heading over to the Frederik Meijer Gardens to enjoy the beautiful Christmas displays, especially the Polar Express train exhibit, and on returning to the house the kids (including the husbands) all played while the two moms went out shopping.  The day was a complete success, and we greatly look forward to future outings of all kinds.  So, to whomever it was that thought internet relationships couldn't last, we plan on proving you wrong, too.

An old fashioned Christmas

There is something unique about Christmas in that, of all the holidays, it seems to inspire a sense of nostalgia.  One does not often hear of an old fashioned Easter or Halloween, and even an old fashioned Thanksgiving does not have the same ring to it as a good old fashioned Christmas.  Someone at sometime has probably studied and could explain this phenomenon, but understand it or not we fall prey to its wiles just the same.  It's no surprise, then, that the Holiday Nights festivities held on weekend nights throughout the season at Greenfield Village, are a very popular place to be.  Every year we have heard the ads on the radio just a bit too late to get tickets to this consistently sold-out event, so last December we added a reminder on this year's calendar, and quickly snatched up our spots well before Thanksgiving.  The only risk, of course, is that the night you have chosen will be a bad one, since the festivities are all outdoors, and tonight was most definitely frigid, but it was also dry and calm, and we were even treated to a few snowflakes to add to the overall effect.  It was absolutely magical to stroll the streets of turn of the century homes decked out in the trimmings of a Victorian Christmas.  There were carolers and mummers to add to our enjoyment, chestnuts roasting on open fires, old country stores, and even a visit from Santa Claus from atop an old house.  The evening was very much about the festivities, and we will have to be sure to make another visit to this wonderful park in the warm light of a summer day when we can better see the homes and shops, but we are so very glad that we finally got to join in this wonderful holiday gathering.  We hope to make it an annual trip, even.