The Tortoise Habitat is Finished!!

Rachel didn't have school today due to  end of term yesterday.  By the way, she got straight A's!!!   Woohoo!!   Anyway, she spent her day off finishing the tortoise habitat.  Below is a picture.  Can you find Henry?

Ready to Plant a Garden!!

As we were enjoying beautiful warm weather in FEBRUARY, I decided it was a good time to get started preparing for a garden.  My boxes had been badly neglected over the past year or so.  Rachel did manage to grow some tomatoes and sunflowers but the boxes had since become full of weeds and grass.  So, I got to work with help from the kids and we started digging out all the weeds and grass.  The grass was ridiculously stubborn and took a lot of work.  We worked on it a lot over a few weeks time.

At some point I decided that I needed to get the grass away from the boxes so it would stop growing up through my garden boxes.  So, I spent a week or two removing the grass from all around the boxes and decided some stepping stones would be really nice.  Before I put in the stones though, I decided the boxes needed to be painted.  I guess you can see that my simple project of getting the boxes ready to plant turned into a much bigger project.  Hahahaha.

We got the boxes painted (at least the sides you can see from the house).  I was just using some paint I had in the garage so I ran out before all the sides were painted.  That project will be continued later.   But then I decided to put a plastic barrier between the grass and where the stones would be so we had to do that before putting down the stones.

 Once we got all that put in, we laid put the stepping stones down and David got white rocks to fill in around the stepping stones.

I also decided to add an area to house Rachel's tortoise, so she has been digging out a whole other section of grass.

Anyway, I got the compost all in the garden boxes and started planting some of the cool-weather spring crops.  I planted a bunch of spinach and was very pleased with my neat little squares of spinach seeds.

Then the dog happened!

For some reason, Ace felt it necessary to run all over the garden boxes (which he never does) and dig everything up.  Needless to say, I was not a very happy gardener.

So back to Home Depot to figure out some way to make a fence.  Rachel and I figured out how to build a fence for her tortoise home and incorporate that into a fence around the whole garden to keep the DOG out.  We worked on it all day yesterday and got it almost done.  At least the garden is now secure and we just need to finish fencing for the tortoise.  I also need to finish a few things with the fence but Home Depot was out of the parts.

So there you have it.  My small "get the boxes ready to plant" project turned into a "build a whole fenced off garden and tortoise shelter" project.  Tune in next week for my next small project... replace the sprinklers in the front shrub areas with a drip system.  That couldn't take too long could it?  :-)

I Actually FINISHED a Project!!!

I have a tendency to start lots of projects and many times I start another one before I ever finish the one I'm working on.  Therefore, I have many half-finished things in my craft/sewing room.  But this week I finally finished one.  This is a quilt made out of all the old T-shirts that Rebecca didn't want to throw away but no longer fit her.  They all have special meaning and a few are autographed by famous people (so we really couldn't get rid of those).  It turned out much better than I expected and I am excited to do a few more with Adam's shirts and Rachel's shirts.  Some day I hope to do one with all my shirts from Hard Rocks around the world.  See, I always have 5 projects in my mind before I finish the ones already in progress.  Hahahaha.

All the Stars Align.... Almost

You know when there is a big storm that drops like a foot of snow in the mountains and then the next day it is clear and beautiful.... the perfect ski day?  Well, that was TODAY!!!!

But, it's a Wednesday so the kids have school.  But wait, it's a new term and none of the kids have a test today nor any assignments due.  They can play hooky without too much trouble!!

Oh, but the laundry is stacked high and mom really needs to get doing that.  But wait, the washer is broken!!  Woohoo!!  We get to go skiing in the middle of the week... which means no lines!!!

The only star that didn't align was David's.  He still had to go to work today and we LOVE him for it.  He makes it all possible and we hope he can go with us next time.

It was a beautiful day, perfect snow, and hardly any people.  God was smiling down upon us today and blessed us with the perfect ski day.

Notice that there is nobody on the lift.  :-)

Rebecca, Adam, Rachel

Finishing February with SNOW

So it did finally snow just a little bit the last few days of February.  We decided to head up to Park City to see if the snow was any good and we had a great day.  There isn't a lot of snow but it wasn't slushy or icy and it snowed while we were there so we got a little bit of fresh powder.  We are trying to look on the positive side but still praying for a big dump of snow... SOON!!

 Mom and Rebecca getting warm in the car after skiing.

 Rachel and Adam stayed on the slopes a little longer to enjoy the new snow.

Also, last Friday Rebecca, Adam and I went to the play "Peter Pan" at Rebecca's school, Draper Park Middle School.  They did a really good job and it was fun to watch, especially since I knew some of the kids that were in it.