Independence Day

We spent our Independence Day afternoon with our friends the Kinne’s. We had a really good time and the kids had tons of fun playing together. Jason grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, we visited, watched the kids tackle each other on the lawn, and later went out to the front yard to watch all the neighbors light their money on fire (shoot off fireworks)! :o)


Gazillions of bubbles!


Dinner time!


…really they had tons of fun!


Dump truck races.


Jayden, Jason, Marica, Isabel, Me, and Gino.


Getting ready for the show.


Being crazy!


Isabel didn’t mind all the loud noises from the fireworks.
She was fascinated by them and kept calling them “stars”.


One neighbor at the west end of the street had to have spent thousands of dollars on their fireworks display. They were out there continually lighting them off with no end in sight!


Thanks for the show!


Happy Independence Day!

Fence Posts

Today we worked on getting the posts in the ground with the cement. My job was to make sure the posts were square and level; while Gino mixed and poured the cement.

Cutting the posts down.

Post placement on the north side of house. Minus the 2 where the holes need to be re-dug.

Back yard looking north.

Gino rented a cement mixer to get the job done quicker. Very nice.

We started with these five posts along our neighbors yard and our garage.
Then we worked along the back corner over to the street and then back around to the front of the house. This first day we got 13 posts cemented into the ground. Way to go!

Post hole marking and digging

So the next project work day, Gino went out and measured out where 23 fence posts were going to be located along the property line. After that; the following day he rented a post hole auger to drill the holes. Which worked out rather well since he ended up only having to dig 4 by hand because the auger hit BIG rocks.

Ok so this is a little odd one…Gino was marking the ground with this marking paint and was showing me how to use it to paint some stakes that he needed. Well, he paints this word on the ground and neither one of us says the word. So we go about our business; Gino measuring for the stakes and I marking the stakes with paint. Well, Isabel is out walking around playing in the dirt and what not. When she walks over to this word painted on the ground and reads it! “Hi” she says. I was blown away! Smart kid.

This is a view of the back of our property. Our posts will be located were the orange stakes are.

Today Gino rented a post hole auger to drill his holes for the posts.

Each hole was between 20 and 24 inches deep depending on how big the rocks were.

Dirt moving

Our next project that we tackled was moving 12 cubic yards of top soil from one side of the house to the other. We took about 5 days to move it with our little wheelbarrow. Gino did most of the moving and I tried to help when I wasn’t keeping Isabel entertained.

Some of the top soil we had moved over before Gino had started the paver pathway however that had gotten very compacted from the truck with the many loads of gravel/sand and paver’s. Nevertheless, we broke it up and moved the soil over by the pathway and then began moving the remainder of the top soil from the other side of the house.

Clearing more of the larger rocks before bringing in loads of the top soil.

Taking those larger rock loads over to the empty lots.

Our little helper.

This is where the top soil was located on the other side of the house.

All the top soil is moved! Hurray!
The morning these photos were taken, we had a summer thunderstorm (hence the small lake of water) with thunder and lightning during the night. Which was very cool because we don’t get lightning all that much.
By the way, the tarp is covering leftover sand from the paver pathway project; which Gino will use to complete the pathway around the house to the patio.

Now it’s time for the fence…

Well It Was Bound To Happen

I was cutting up some round steak for dinner in the kitchen and Isabel was running around the house just being silly. When all of a sudden; I hear the familiar sound (I have been known to fall down the stairs – thankfully I haven’t done it in a few years) of something falling down the stairs.

Isabel fell down the stairs.

I do a quick 1 second hand wash and run down the hall but before I even make it that far she’s already screaming. I scoop her up and all the while run my hands over her little body to make sure nothing is broken or soaked with blood. My worst fear is blood and the second is somethings broken. Luckily, she is o.k. and mama’s o.k. too.

The remainder of the evening she wouldn’t step foot by the stairs. She did however climb them to go to bed, with the assistance of mom, of course. It was bound to happen!

Almost a record!

Well, we almost hit record temperatures today; we got up to 92 degrees!

Which is rather hot for us, Gino and I were commenting on how did we ever live in Southern Utah where the temps in the summer always go above 100. We wouldn’t make it now, that’s for sure. Anything above 85 degrees is to hot anymore.

So with the temperature climbing we headed outside to do some yard work and get a little cool in the process.

Isabel’s first time in the sprinkler and she gets down and scoots.

Trying to catch water droplets.

Playing in the sprinkler is so much fun and a great way to keep cool!


Woohoo!


Peek-a-boo!


Looking for bugs and frogs is an amusing thing to do while we let the sun dry our clothes.