Random parts of the week

Joe (excitedly) rides with Dad on an errand

One of the beautiful mornings this week

 On the morning of this sunrise, I refrained from waking the rest of the house to watch it.  And, surprisingly, they were all glad to hear that.     I'm glad I was up for it! :)

   Now you might notice the odd part of this basketball game.  Creative...and exciting...in a whole new way! 

 We had to cut off a dead branch from the tree by the patio.  At lunch each day we have watched a bird head into a hollowed branch. So, when the tree came down, the nest was disrupted.  One baby bird (seen pictured here) was rescued into a bucket where the boys quickly gave it worms and bird seed to feed on.  (It later died.)

   Interestingly enough, Josh noticed that the birds quickly relocated their nest very close to where the tree branch fell by moving the nest into a crevice in the rocks where we have landscaped. 

   In other bird news, Jake and I got to see some baby sparrows in their nest in the barn.  We didn't touch them, but the momma still didn't trust us b/c she relocated them by the next day.  (Maybe it was the flashlight Jake was shining at them trying to see them in the dark corner!)

 The garden plants got planted.  However, the seeds did not....which was a bummer. But with all the rain we got, maybe they would rot!  Anxious for fresh garden food though...

 In between all the other excitement, Josh has been working on the final phase of the deck.

And, of course, the boys have had soccer and swimming.  Today was the last game...each participant received a medal. Jake scored 1.5 goals today (his second goal hit the dirt divot and stayed out of the goal...3rd time it's happened for him this season ;().  But the boys played well and have enjoyed the time on the soccer field.
 

  On Friday, during swim practice, Josh took the high schoolers out to play soccer.  It was raining...and after all the rain we have had, there was standing water (some places 2 -4 inches) on the field.  You can imagine the sight of swimmers...out of the water...still splashing each other and laying down--yes--laying down in the water.
   During the last 10 minutes that Josh let the high schoolers play, I finally let the boys out of the car so we could play with them in the chilly rain.  It was well worth the 4 sets of wet shoes and clothes that came home.  Fun times!!!!

   And we had a beautiful (thick) rainbow after the rain, too!

Bees

  I went to put some trash on the burn pile and noticed a swarm of bees on one of the logs.  We called Jack and he came over to get them.  He also checked to see if there was another swarm (by banging on a pan near the area they may be...so they will swarm in that area).  Sure enough...a few minutes later he went back to check and found the swarm pictured below.  So, I took pictures as Jack dropped them (literally with a quick shake of the branch) into the container. 

The swarm

Gently getting the branch

The shake...the swarm drops into the container

   So, the boys have been interested in the bees, but are afraid to get too close.  Jack took care of that...

  They are now ready (and excited) to go with Jack when he gets a call for the next swarm.

Prepping for grass

   The early part of this week was spent outside trying to prep the yard for grass seed.  After it finally got warmer last week, we had sprayed the grass/weeds in certain areas in order for them to die so we could disc and grade the back more easily.  
   Needless to say, after it was graded, the yard already looked much better without the weed patches, spotting tall growth, bare patches, rock piles, burn piles, etc. Fresh brown dirt was all that we saw.
  

Joe watches Daddy having fun on the tractor

 I took these "panoramic" shots Thursday morning. We were hoping to plant grass seed on Thursday, but a big thunderstorm (unexpected) during the night dumped nearly and inch of rain.  So, seeding was not an option. 

 

 

Unfortunately, Friday found us covered with another inch of rain.  So, it looks like it will be Tuesday before we can possible re-disc it...and Wednesday will be the seeding day!  (Hopefully...if the weather forecast does what it says it is supposed to!)

Transformation of the piles

 With spring in the air, the ground has begun to dry out...and the weeds have started growing.
So, what do we do?
Well, normal households start mowing.
At our house, we hold off on the mowing as long as we can while we move the rocks and rock slabs (again) to a new spot...so we can spray the grass and weeds in order to grade the backyard.
Normal, right? 
After we moved the rock piles...again...we moved them to their final resting place and we designed what you see below.

you might be able to spot the bench and the fire pit

you can see the start of the deck area with the posts

The brick pile near the tree on the right is all the brick pulled back up from the path around the garage that was breaking.  We replaced it with stepping stone rocks and surrounded it with decorative rock that has been pulled up from the back yard. (There was decorative rock under the pool deck...and that got graded out into the yard.  So, I have walked the yard filling 5 gal buckets to retrieve those rocks and reuse them.)

We got to roast marshmallows the other night (which Joe asked several times if we would be able to do that again sometime).  And we've enjoyed having our table on the front porch this week.  Eating outside again...it's the best!!!!

Joe...

   Joe has been taking swim lessons the last two weeks.  We hoped he could master enough to be able to swim on the team this summer.
   While he isn't quite ready to swim on the team, he did improve a lot.  Enjoy watching a little peek of his efforts.

   Here are a couple videos of Joe playing soccer. The video we took a couple weeks ago was too long to upload...but this allows you to see his aggressive play as his little legs work!
   This first video shows him at goalie at the end of the game.  It was his first time to get to play goalie. And the team we were playing against had a good player that just kept scoring (as you'll see).  But Joe wasn't afraid to go toward him to stop the ball.

Joe says, "Finally!"

 The boys and I headed to TN for a trip to the bumper cars. Joe is finally tall enough and was super excited to receive his "bumper cars" hat from Grandpa...and RIDE!

At the playground after a long bike ride

Joe rode the roller coaster by himself

Jake tries out the "glass playing" after we watched the group from Poland perform several songs this way.

And, of course, we spent a good chunk of time at the squirt guns...!

in action