My First REAL Swim Lesson

So I've been in the pool lots of times. And I've taken a number of those "mommy and me" or a more acuarte description would be "daddy and me" swim lessons. But yesterday. That was my first REAL swim lesson. Three boys and a teacher. Mommy and daddy high and dry (nice).

Here is a picture of me. I had a ton of fun learning to float on my back, kick with straight legs, a dive under the water. I can't wait till next week - 7 more weeks to go!

How does your garden grow?

One of the best things about being a homeowner is finally having our own garden!  I have had a lot of fun planting the flowers.

For the front yard, where it is a bit shady, I planted impatients and hydrangeas.
This worked great for about two weeks, until one night we came home and found deer had completely eaten the hydrangeas.  Luckily they don't seem to like impatients!

 For the back yard, with more sun, I planted an eclectic mix of snapdragons, marigolds, salvia, and alyssum.  I am not really sure if these "go" together, but I think it looks pretty neat--I just put the tall ones in the back, small ones in the front.

Also the yard has some nice roses and mexican sage, which are blooming beautifully.

Gardening always reminds me of my mom.  She spent lots of time in the garden when I was growing up, and taught me how to plant and maintain flowers.  Sure wish she could come out and check out the garden!  I know she would be proud!


The grass in our front yard is coming along nicely--Ethan joins in on the mowing each weekend.  

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Next year, I think I am going to try a vegetable garden!   

East Coast Trip

I meant to post this a few weeks ago....but was waiting to get a few pics...and then got distracted.....we took this trip May 5-12.......
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What do most normal people do after a big move?  Settle in.  What do we do?  Go on vacation.  Yes, a rather poorly timed trip, but it had been planned before we even bought the house.  A good friend from medical school got married outside Philadelphia, and since it is so far to go, we took the whole week off.  Our trip wasn't very child friendly, so Jason's parents volunteered to babysit Ethan for the week, which was a great break for us!!

We actually started our vacation in LA, at a work conference I had to attend.  From there, we flew to Philadelphia.  We weren't sure what to do in Philadelphia for the 5 days before the wedding, so week took the bus to New York and hung out in Manhattan.

We had a blast in New York, keeping "west coast time"--staying out late and sleeping in.  We enjoyed two shows, "Rent" and "Anything Goes" and ate and ate and ate....the food is so good there!  We also walked a ton, to work off all the food!

Tourist highlights included riding the Staten Island ferry, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, and viewing the September 11 Memorial.  The memorial is really well done, and the new World Trade Center is quite impressive.  We also met up with some friends who live in the area.

   

We returned to Philly on Thursday night, and on Friday toured the historic sights of the city, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

Our friend's wedding was in the countryside outside the city, and was just beautiful  The weather was perfect, and we had a lot of fun catching up with old friends.


  
So now we are back, trying to pick up the pieces and get settled in.....it is going to take awhile!

The Work is Done! (At least for now)

A picture is worth a thousand words. After much help from the painters, floor refinishers, contractor and Jason's dad, Here are some before and after shots...

The family room - brick fireplace demolished and replaced with gas fireplace + TV above.

The playroom - new carpet, painted, ceiling stained

The bedroom - floors refinished, painted, new fan

The Staircase - stairs refinished and restored to original

The front yard - hedges obstructing bay windows cut, new grass (thanks bob), lots of overall trimming and cleaning

More to come soon!

We're In!

Since this weekend....things have been pretty crazy.  We still have painters and contractors here, and we are basically living out of boxes.  But it is great to be here and we are so excited about our new home! 

Check out our boxes: we've used them alot over the past four years!

More later.....

Another weekend project...

Have you ever used this stuff? It is AMAZING. We have pretty beat up kitchen cabinets in our new place, and in anticipation of our move next weekend, we wanted to clean them up.
Some internet searching led me to this. First we removed all the drawers and cabinet faces. I washed them all with Murphy's oil soap, and set them outside to dry. Then I polished each of them with Old English--what a huge difference!! It really makes scuff marks go away! Now, we still need NEW cabinets, but at least they are clean and shiny!
Check out the before and after pic:

Before: After:


In other news, the painter is amost done painting, the fireplace is coming along, and the floor guys are coming in to do the last coat on the floors on wednesday---all is on schedule for a saturday move-in....we hope!

Here's a fireplace pic from this morning:

The great grass experiment

When we bought our house, our front yard was a mess--grass hasn't grown there for what looks like years, and moss and weeds took over:

So we decided to dig it all up ourselves. This was a lot of work--more than I thought, and took almost 2 weekends! Here it is almost all torn up:

This weekend we planted some seed and covered it with dirt. We are watering everyday, and are hoping to have a new lawn.....pretty much EVERYONE is skeptical about it growing (except me).

We'll see......