Something Old, Something New...~or~ Sprucing Up a Boring View

We recently replaced our fence with a bigger and better fence.  And while I like the new fence, the view out the window by my cooktop is a little... well... uninteresting.  Not that old view of the neighbor's laundry room was better, but it didn't feel quite as claustrophobic.  So, I've been looking for ways to spruce things up a little.

Also, since it's spring, I've been trying to clean out cabinets, closets and drawers.  I've always been a bit of a keeper, but since the kids have come along...well...you just can't keep it all.  No matter how cute it is or how cute the kiddos were when they wore it.

 

Rainboots, for example.  The kiddos were oh so cute stomping around in the puddles with these things.  And what about my old yellow rainboots?  The ones I just had to have.  The ones Duke eventually gave in to and bought for me.  The ones that made me infamous in the old neighborhood.  How is a sentimentalist like me supposed to part with these things?  Tell me!

Well, some things just have to go...or do they?

Hmmm....  What if...

I can reuse them?  Look how cute!

Something old.  Something new.  Something reused.  A much better view.  (And of course the best part is I get to keep my old yellow boots!)

A Red...er...Green-Letter Adventure ~or~ Watching Grass Grow

Yikes!  I'm so behind on my posting.  This summer is just racing by.  We've been lazy and crazy all at the same time.  I guess it's pretty much the same as last summer.  Actually, there are a few carry-overs from last summer:  swimming lessons, 'summer camp' at Infinite Bounds, dates with friends, and of course, our summer adventures.  Last summer, the kids and I tried to squeeze in an adventure every week.  We're keeping up with the tradition this year.  We've had some fantastic adventures so far -- some more adventurous than others, but always fun.

It's been horribly hot so far this summer -- hovering around the 103 degree mark most afternoons.  The mornings, however are pretty tolerable so we try to get up and out early.  We were a little pressed for time last week, so we kept our adventure close to home.  

One of my goals this summer was to get Delila more comfortable on her bike.  She's been begging to ride by herself to the playground, but I've had no confidence that she could do this on her own.  There's a pretty big hill (for these parts) that she'd have to negotiate before reaching the slides and swings.  Now, it's not that Lila doesn't have the strength.  Oh no!  She's got some strong legs.  I know this because when she's on the Afterburner behind me, she literally pushes me up the hills.  But for some reason, when Lila rides her precious little purple Tony Hawk bike around the neighborhood, she refuses to peddle up even the slightest of slopes.  Making the 1/2 mile trek to the playground...up and down a significant hill...well, I've not been willing to go there.  I made an exception last Monday.  And guess what!

She made it!!  All on her own!

But there was no time to bask in the glory of Lila's maiden voyage.  We had work to do.  We had to collect some pebbles.  Two bags of pebbles to be exact.  Jake was a bit concerned that we were stealing, but I assured him they would eventually be returned to their home under the twisty slide.  We were only going to need them for a little while.  With that moral dilemma cleared up, he and his sister got to shoveling.

After we'd procured all the pebbles we needed, we loaded them up into my backpack and took turns rehydrating from the camelback hydration system -- also located in my backpack. Sipping from the Camelbak is most definitely one of the highlights of every adventure.  However, riding a bike under a blazing sun with 5 lbs. of water and 20 lbs. of rocks on my back...well, let's just say that was not a highlight of this particular adventure.  At least it wasn't for me.  I was happy to get those pebbles off my back when I got home.

Once off my back, the pebbles were loaded into two shallow containers.

Then we made some mud.  OK, Jake made some mud.

And had a little dirty fun in the process.

Then we loaded letter-shaped cookie cutters with the mud and some grass seed and sunk them into the pebbles.  Voila!  Our name gardens were complete.  Well, almost.  Now we just had to wait for them to sprout.

And boy-oh-boy did they ever sprout!  I always thought that expression about "watching the grass" grow implied that it was a rather slow and boring process.  Not in our experience.  Seriously, this stuff grew about 1 1/5" a day!

It wasn't long before a trim was in order.

That's a little better.