Friday, August 16, 2013

Grading, drains, and garbage removal

We had some landscaping people come out to do some grading on our house.  Our basement flooded twice (bigtime) since we moved in, so we needed to get something done.  They brought in about 3 tons of dirt, moved the rocks back, ripped up weed barrier, put in new dirt, put down new weed barrier, and replaced the rocks.  They worked fast, did a good job, and charged a very fair price.  Before and after pics are below.  Oh, and they also replaced 2 drains and made sure that our gutters drained correctly.

Before




After







Thursday, August 15, 2013

1st Day of Preschool

 Jack had his preschool Open House on Monday.  He was excited to be back, and really excited that this year they opened up the dividing middle door and will be using both sides of the portable.  :)

 His classroom.
 Back-to-school shopping.  Of course it's still a bit warm for most of this, but probably not in another month or so.
 Our upstairs gallery wall, courtesy of Jon's dad when they were up here a couple of weeks ago.  Thanks!  I purchased and added the last frame, but still need to order some new pics though.
 First day of preschool on Wednesday!
 This is the longest he's carried his backpack so far!  :)
 Waiting for his classroom to open (notice that I'm holding the backpack now).  Everyone was trying to get a good picture of their kid before class started.
 The teachers (well, speech therapist, special ed assistant, and social worker - he doesn't actually *have* a teacher yet - hiring snag) told him to sit on the rug for circle time.  He ran to the next room and drew circles on the pristinely clean whiteboard.  I had to laugh, but we need to work on following directions!
 We hit up the farmers' market after preschool, and snagged this ginormous bag of kettle corn.  Jack's showing Daddy his skinned knee (war wound from day 1 of preschool).
 The actual produce that we got at the market.  The watermelon is delicious!  And those aren't green beans - they're black-eyed-peas that we have to shell.  I've never bought them before, and have no idea what to do with them, but they seemed fun!
 We made a strawberry cake to use up some strawberries.

 Jack learned why you don't crack eggs over your lap.
Yeah, that's yolk all over his shorts.  The cake still tasted pretty good with just 3 1/2 eggs though!  :)