Snow Day!

We just got about 13 inches of snow over the weekend.  Lots of plowing and shoveling!  It sure does make for a beautiful landscape!  Before we know it we will all be complaining about how hot it is but for now I am enjoying looking out the window and seeing the snow!

Jacob, who is 13, used the tractor to move the snow while hubby plowed with the truck.

Memorial Day

Yesterday we talked with the kids about what Memorial Day is and why we should honor those who lost their lives to give us the freedom we have.

My inlaws came over for dinner.  We grilled hotdogs & hamburgers and had a wonderful time sitting out on the deck.

The table center piece I sprayed only a few hours before it was time to eat. I had some old dried eucalyptus and thought it would look neat spray painted and used on the table.  I used white primer spray paint since I ran out of white spray paint, red and blue.

HERE is the post on how I made the table.

Deck Table

Thursday and Friday I worked on making a table for our deck.  I'm so happy it's done.  It's so much nicer than using the old plastic table we had.   We don't use the deck too often to eat dinner on just because it's hot in the full sun with no shade.  Now all we need to get is a tilting umbrella....one of these days! :)

I started with some 4x4 posts to make 4 legs.  The table top is 2x8 pine boards.  I bought 5 that were 8 foot long.  I only lightly sanded them I didn't plane them down or join the edges this time like I did with my dining room table.  I also didn't glue & pocket screw them together.  This time I just used 3 pieces of scrap wood to screw them all together.

Before putting the table together I stained all the parts with Minwax dark walnut stain then put on 2 coats of Helmsman exterior poly.

The aprons were 2x4s that I ripped down to about 3" and then planed them down so they weren't as rough.  I used pocket screws on them.  The short ends are 27" and the long ends were 87 1/2 inches.  I held the 4x4s in about an inch from the edge of the table top then held the aprons in 2 inches from the edge.  I pocket screwed the apron to the table top then pocket screwed the apron ends to the legs.

Here's the table on the deck.

Our Mother's Day Weekend

We enjoyed a beautiful weekend.  Saturday was our 17th wedding anniversary and Sunday was Mother's Day.

There always seems to be a track meet on our anniversary and hubby volunteer coaches the throwing team.  He did it for the middle school when our oldest went there and now he coaches the high school throwers.  After the meet was over we went out to dinner and then saw the Neighbors movie. 

On Sunday we spent the day cleaning up the yard and then went to my inlaws house for dinner.

We took down the swing set, took apart the trampoline, graded some of the yard and took out a few large rocks that the lawn mower always hit.  I have no idea why we didn't do that sooner but glad it's done now.

 

Now we just need to level it out some more and plant some grass seeds.

Jacob & Nathan took turns driving the tractor to help clear away the swing set wood.

The bleeding hearts are looking so pretty!!

Exterior House Colors

We are trying to decide on stain colors for the outside of the house.  We have cedar siding that we put on and we clear coated.  The clear coat has long since started to wear off.

We are considering gray and green for the colors.
How the house looks now:

I'm not the greatest at editing photos but this gave us an idea on how it might look.

Here's what the garage side would look like:

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Beautiful Snow

It is so pretty outside with the snow we have been getting  yesterday and today!

Jan 1st in the morning:

Jan. 1st around 5pm:

Jan. 2nd around 11am:

Snowy Sunday

Thought I would share a few pictures from our snowy Sunday as I sit here recovering from my surgery.  The surgery went well and soon I will feel much better.

This is the top half of our driveway.  It's always so pretty when the trees are covered with snow.

Nathan, Jacob & Matthew

Nathan & Jacob

Dozer playing in the snow

Apples that are still on the apple tree by the house

Birds that were flying over the house today

Christmas Porch 2013

I finally plugged in all the lights last night.  I haven't been feeling well this past week and ended up in the ER with a gallbladder attack on Saturday night/ Sunday morning.  I spent 8 hours there.  I've been dealing with this for 2ish years now.  I normally have an attack about every 3 months or so but since July it's really picked up and then this past week I had 4 attacks.  I had 2 small not so bad ones during the week then I had one that was pretty darn bad around 3am Saturday morning then had moderate pain for the rest of the day then at about 9pm I started to hurt really bad and it wasn't going away so we headed to the er around 11pm.  I have a follow up with the gastro surgeon on Monday. So we'll see what they want to do. In the Er they talked about removing my gallbladder but the OR was booked so they sent me home and said it wasn't an emergency.  Now I'm dealing with the pain and a low grade fever.  I'm so done with this!!

On to the front porch!

The wreath was green with gold leaves on it when I bought it a few years back.  I have since spray painted it silver, put some red glitter on some areas of it, added the decorations, ribbons & lights.

This is what it looked like before I changed it:

 Source

Here are the snowflake lights hanging in the front yard:

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