More crazy

We worked on our landscaping all day Saturday and then gave John Sunday off. It only seemed fair as it was Father's Day.

We've been working at it ever since a little bit at a time.

During that time, a few thighs have become clear.

1. We filled our original area and didn't seem to make a dent in the huge pile of rock.

2. There is a huge pile of rock in the driveway, which means John can't park his car in the driveway now.

3. The rock needs to go somewhere as it is killing the grass and annoying to play musical chairs with the cars to go anywhere.

4. Rocks are heavy.

5. Kids are helpful for the first 15 minutes of a project and then extremely detrimental to project completion.

6. The rocks are a different color when they are dry. I probably wouldn't have picked this color if they had been dry. Thankfully, I like the look, even if it wasn't what I originally had in mind.

7. Rocks are heavy to move.

8. We need more projects to use up these rocks. We now have covered the initial area, extended the landscaping to the front porch on the right side of the house, installed tree rings and plotted out another retaining wall section on the side of the garage. The pile of rocks on our driveway is still giant.

9. Perhaps I AM the better estimator despite my inaccuracies?

I love crazy, round 1

This happened the day before Father's Day. For some time now, we have been talking about replacing the mulch in front of our house with some rock. The challenge has been finding a time when both John and I are home AND the landscaping place is open (not to worry, I did go and look at the home improvement store. I tried to like the rock available there without success.)


On Saturday, we didn't have plans and the rock place was open. We poked around and found a few options that would work. It was a gorgeous day- it was only 80 degrees with a great breeze.

We went inside to price out a few options and were surprised by the estimates. It was going to cost less than we expected! That never happens! As we were finishing up, the sales clerk asked if we wanted rock delivered today. She told us they were having a slow day and had room for another delivery in the early afternoon.

I looked at John, fully anticipating an emphatic "no!" From him.

Instead, John said, "weeeeeelllll, it is a nice day to work outside..."

To which I promptly told them where to deliver a giant pile of rock before he could change his mind.

Luckily (or not, depending on your point of view), John likes to be very accurate, even when he is estimating. Suddenly, he was no longer satisfied with my rough estimate of how big our area to fill was. I had estimated the area to be about 12 feet by 12 feet (these were biggish numbers I picked out on the spot because they sounded good. Not because I measured or anything). According to the landscaping experts, I would need 2.5-3 tons of stone.

John preferred to go home, measure and recalculate on his own how much stone was needed.

This was a good thing, because I was WAY off in my estimation. WAY OFF. This isn't surprising because I am not a great estimator. According to John's calculations, we would need 4-4.5 tons of stones to get the job done.

I called it in and we were set for a delivery time of 2pm. It was now 11:30 and we had done nothing to prepare.

We hadn't moved the mulch.
We hadn't trimmed the landscaping or checked the condition of the landscaping fabric. We didn't have lunch made for the 3 kids who would surely be hungry any minute now.

Which is when John looked at me and said, "I love crazy."

I replied as I always do, "you knew that going in and you married me anyway!"

And then we got down to work.

Everyone helped scoop and move mulch from all the landscaping in the front yard. Halfway through, we enjoyed a lovely picnic in the front yard. At 2pm, our rocks were delivered and we worked until 6pm.

And we weren't done. Not even close!

Gemma sings

Here is Gemma singing here favorite "frozen" song, 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman?' It is tricky to catch her at this. Usually she belts it out, but when she sees the camera, she quits. She would much rather look at herself!

Ha ha tonka state park

On our way out of town ( well, it wasn't on the way. It was the wrong direction, but we were leaving town), we stopped by Ha Ha Tonka state park in southern Missouri. This one has been on my list since shortly after we moved to Missouri, but I just haven't been able to make it happen until now.

Among other near things, this park has a partial castle that was built here in the 1900's. Shortly after it was built, it sadly burnt down, but the remains are still amazing with some gorgeous views. We are our picnic lunch and did 2 short hikes before hitting the road. The kids were big troopers as it was super hot outside and everyone was feeling pretty tired from all their fun!

William's pizza kitchen

William cooks it up and Mama and Gemma eat it up! (Father's Day)

The way home

We came back on Friday and everyone fell asleep on the way home! It cracks me up that their heads are all facing the same direction.

Tantara: the room

This was exciting!

We were far off of the main complex, but we had a full kitchen! And 2 screened in porches with ceiling fans! A separate bedroom and 2 bathrooms! The luxury!*

Downside: there was a big flight of stairs with a tile floor below, which wasn't my favorite part. We pushed the glass coffee table up against this part so no one would go tumbling down in the middle of the night.

* we just reserved a smaller suite and then were upgraded when they didn't have any more smaller rooms available. This was nice, nicer than expected!