Pretty Much Done!

Well, we're done...pretty much. We still need to put a clear/near clear stain on, and then put vertical boards underneath as a "skirt", but we won't do that until after this weekend. We've been working hard to get the patio area ready for the pea gravel. Tuesday, Lamar was off and we got two guys from our youth group to help haul and unload it all. It was well worth it! We are happy with the results of our "temporary" patio area. We decided that we are not going to change the porch. We just like it that much! Everything turned out a lot better than we had envisioned...which is always a nice way to end a project, don't you think?! Now, we have to come up with a plan (and moolah) to do a permanent extended patio area for next year! That'll be fun!

Graduation Day!

Saturday, June 6th was Brittany's graduation day at Scappoose High School. The weather cooperated nicely and before we knew it, she was walking across that stage.

And It Begins...

This week was Senior week at Scappoose High School. Brittany's finals were Tuesday. Wednesday was senior check out. Thursday was free. Today was full with a Senior breakfast served by the staff, commencement practice, senior awards assembly, lunch and getting her cap and gown. Tonight, we went to the Baccalaureate. It is always too bad that more seniors don't actually go. Who doesn't like a little encouragement?! Afterwards, they had a refreshment time in the cafeteria along with the poster boards that each Senior made of their life in brief. This is Brittany with her best friend, Amy. And of course, I'll be posting some pictures of tomorrow's big day...graduation day! Woohoo!

The back deck/porch is looking good. We basically need to get the post caps on, finish the bottom with some fence boards and then stain it. Hoping to get it done this week along with trimming the patio area out and filling it all in with pea gravel. So much to do, so little time...as always!

What Next?

We are in the middle of getting the new little deck up. Like I said before, we are going to just put down some pea gravel for this year for a patio area. But, while we were at the beach, we had to stop in Home Depot (one of my favorite dream stores) and I found a great patio idea book there...so I got that for a birthday present.
Mom came over later on in the evening and we were having fun getting lots of ideas. Love it!

A Quick Trip

Lamar and I woke up Sunday morning and decided since I didn't schedule myself to be on the worship team, that we would take the opportunity to run to the beach for the day. It was nice just to have a change of scenery since Lamar has been home all week with a kidney stone. Now, that's passed :-) and he is drug-free, so he can drive again. It was clear, but cool at Seaside...but that's OK! We still had a great day!

Decked Out

With summer almost here and summer weather already here, we had to make the decision to tear down our back deck off the family room before someone fell through the thing. The deck was built when the house was, so it is 31 years old. It was never a pretty deck. I never have liked it, but it was great to put a table on and eat under the shade of the big maple tree. It just wasn't safe any longer and we didn't want any accidents happening, for sure!

How come tearing something down or ripping something apart is always so satisfying!?
This was no exception, although I must admit that Lamar did most of the grunt work. I ended up loading up wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of old rotten cedar and adding it to our already huge burning pile.







Since, we have other expenses this year, we've decided to just get something small enough to get down to ground level. For this year, we'll just put down some pea gravel to clean things up underneath. Next year, we'll decide what kind of patio area off the deck we'll end up with.