Home Improvements

We have had several projects going on at once in our backyard.  Last week consisted of them planting our trees and putting in our new patio which fortunately wrapped up on Friday.  We were a little concerned that it wasn't going to be finished since the brick pavers didn't arrive until late Thursday morning.  They assured us, however, that they would have two teams working on it on Friday and it would be done.  Well, on Friday I got home from yard sales at about 1 pm to find no vehicles of any kind parked out front.  That was rather alarming.  I went inside and looked out the back and it appeared that very little was done and although there were about three or four guys there (which was only one team, not the two they had said) they were just lounging around (perhaps on a well deserved lunch break but considering that there seemed to be a lot still to do, we weren't happy with this).  I sent Duncan an urgent text.  He was already on his way home anyway and called Andy, the guys in charge, to leave a message.  We had never mentioned that they couldn't work on Saturday and then the community doesn't allow work to be done on Sundays so we wanted to make it clear that we expected it to be done that day.  Duncan left a very stern message and Andy called him back about 15 minutes later and within a few minutes, the second team miraculously appeared.  And it did all get done much to our delight.  Eventually we want to put in a pergola, fire pit, and obviously some tables and chairs but for now, it looks pretty empty!  But we are very pleased with the outcome.  


Friday morning our new play set arrived which meant that Duncan's free time has disappeared for the foreseeable future.  It took months to decide which one to get but then he finally picked one (Calleigh insisted on one with monkey bars) and it turned out that the best price by several hundred dollars was at Sam's Club.  Even with the $45 membership fee, it was still worth it so now we have a membership there for the next year.  I'll have to go at least once just to compare them to Costco.  It was free shipping so that was an added bonus.  We had ordered it a few weeks ago and the day it ended up scheduled to arrive was on Friday.  Now, this play set has thousands of pieces and we weren't sure how many boxes it would be so we figured someone should be here when it arrived to tell them where to put it (in this case, the garage).  When I found out it was coming on a Friday, this sent me into panic mode.  They were going to give us a one hour heads up on its arrival but I was so worried that they would call at like 10:30 am which meant I was going to have to take a break from yard sales to come home...a major pain if I happened to be like 30 minutes away. On Thursday night when I saw there were a ton of good yard sales (not really common for July), I was REALLY worried.  We got an especially early start, right after 8:00, and just as I was driving out the back gate, the front gate called to say there was a delivery.  Major relief!  It turned out to only be four boxes which took about five minutes to unload and we were back on our way.

Duncan did a little bit of prep on Friday and then the real work started Sunday morning bright and early.  Allen was kind enough to come over early afternoon to help and then came back again in the evening and they worked until dark.  The stinker was that Duncan left for Kansas City on Monday afternoon so he couldn't do any more work on it until he got home today...obviously he would have been at work during the day but there are still several hours of daylight after getting home.  I would say he's like 75% of the way done at this point.  The kids are just really excited about it while meanwhile, I'm already stressing about how I'm going to keep Brady from climbing up the rock wall or from falling down the ladder steps that will be out of my line of sight.  Oh goodie.   Hopefully he'll be contented to spend most of his time in the sandbox in the bottom part.

That table on the right is full of all the nuts and bolts.  Millions of them it seems.

Brady and Maddy working on things on Sunday night.

What a cutie!

Helping Daddy this afternoon.

Looking for his missing ball.

He actually did help Daddy by handing him the appropriate boards.

Going back to yard sales...I was astounded at the number of good yard sales this week and even last week too.  This is usually what happens in October, not in the heat of July.  Now that we are starting homeschool in the not too distant future, there are a whole new array of items I'm looking for.  And I struck it big. Most of the time I go to sales in Apopka/Maitland/Altamonte and on occasion over in Winter Park/Casselberry. Usually there isn't much in Ocoee itself.  I had found a bunch in these towns and had them programmed into my GPS.  At the last second, I found a really good sounding one but it was in Winter Garden, the opposite direction of all the rest.  Did I really want to go at least 30 minutes out of my way?  It said that there were a lot of school stuff at the sale and in the end, I went for it.  Boy, was I glad I did!  It was a jackpot.  I got probably 100 easy reader books for $2, a US and world map for $.50 each (big ones that are laminated), and a ton of other books and odds and ends all for $18.  The lady tutored out of her home and she wasn't even retiring...just decided she had too much stuff and wanted to get rid of some of it. I have to say, it was a major high!  Kind of like when you get awesome coupon deals.  I found a few other things at other sales so it was an altogether an awesome day.  I'm sure if I had bought all that stuff new it would be hundreds of dollars but only $20 in this case.  

Big stacks of reader books.

My haul.

Going back...last Thursday was the girls semi-annual dentist visit.  All went very well.  No cavities so I was very happy.  I'm hoping they take after their parents in this category who didn't get any (and even then, just one) until adulthood.  Of course, now that I say that maybe I want to take it back.  I had braces for three years and that was the pits!  Duncan, meanwhile, has had perfectly straight teeth all his life so now, not only do they all look like him, but hopefully they'll get his perfect teeth too.

Playing with the iPad in the waiting room.

Sabbath afternoon we headed to Aunt Wanda's house to have lunch with her and my cousin Heather who is in town from California.  It was lovely not to have to cook and plus, Aunt Wanda always makes great food so it was wonderful all around.  What wasn't wonderful was Aubree's fear of little dogs which is still ongoing.  It's quite tedious, really.  Hard to believe this kid grew up with two little dogs up until last year.  You go through this quandary as to whether you keep the dog away, like in a separate room, or do you just make her face her fears?  It turned out we did a little of both.  Other than that, it was very nice to see Heather who we hadn't seen in a long time and she had bought the kids some Play Doh stuff and a couple of other things so they were thrilled.  One funny thing was that Aunt Wanda makes this jello dish called "Seven-Up Salad" that the girls just love.  It has whipped cream and marshmellows on it too so it's almost like a dessert although we do eat it with the meal.  Duncan had told Calleigh that she had to eat her other food first and then she could have some of it.  A few minutes later while Aubree was eating her food and asked to have the jello and I said "No, you have to eat some of this other food first."  You should have seen Calleigh.  Her ears perked right up and she looked at me with this smile and said "Wait a second.  Did you just say SOME?"  It was so funny.



Monday morning I had a dermatology appointment.  I have had a mole on the bottom of my foot for at least four or five years.  I've had it looked at before and there was no concern over it but I've noticed that it's gotten bigger.  My regular dermatologist is in Oviedo, a good 40-minute drive, so I attempted to find a doctor closer.  The key being "attempted."  Some weren't taking new patients and some were but it was going to be a few months.  When I expressed my disappointment that it was a shame that someone would have a questionable mole and have to wait several months (to be clear, though, I don't fault a place for being too busy to see me) to have it looked at it, they said they could get me in at the end of the month but they could ONLY look at the mole.  They could not do a once over on the rest of me (a two-minute process).  That just cracked me up.  Sounded like a waste of time to have to go two times so in the end, I bit the bullet and just went back to my old doctor.  I'm pretty used to the trip over to that area now anyway.  The doctor looked at the mole and she still wasn't concerned as it is very uniform looking and all that but said to just keep my eye on it.  The rest of me was fine too so happy times.

So for the last probably three weeks and then some, I've been working on trying to find someone to teach Aubree swimming lessons.  Calleigh did private lessons when she was four, to great success, so I really wanted that for Aubree too.  Calleigh's teacher, Zoey, was terrific but of course, that was at Ron and Elaine's pool so once again, here I was trying to find someone closer.  I had gotten a few contacts on some possible teachers and about two weeks ago I had called one of them with my request for her to come to our community pool here.  I wanted lessons for both girls and then also the Isidro kids were going to get in on it so I figured it would be worth someone's time come out here.  Well, the girl hadn't called me back after like five days (after sounding all positive about it after our first conversation) so I called her back and had to leave a message.  Then I sent a text messaging since the "younger" generation is so into that.  She finally texted me back and we started to work out the details.  But then it would take her several days to text me and only after I would prompt her.  It because SO tedious but finally, it seemed like we had it worked out and lessons would start Tuesday (yesterday).  When I texted on Monday afternoon to confirm it all and gave her my address, she texted back that it was too far to come and she couldn't do it.  I was so annoyed.  What a waste of two weeks.  I know that I had told her at the beginning that we were in Ocoee.  As I've said to a few people, this is Exhibit A of why texting can really stink.  A second phone conversation would have resolved all of this in five minutes flat.

So back to the drawing board.  I decided to just text Zoey (my usually mode of communication with her in years past) to see if she could do it and I didn't care if we had to drive back to Casselberry for it.  It would only be like six lessons.  She texted me back in about 60 seconds saying she was out of town for the summer and couldn't but gave me the name of a friend.  I called that friend, Gail, shortly thereafter, she said she could and we could start the next morning.  See how simple it all can be?  Geesh.  Not only that, but she's only charging me $16 a lesson as compared to $25 and since both girls are doing lessons, I think it's worth the drive.

We did the first lesson then yesterday at 9:30 and poor little Aubs was just shaking like a leaf when she was done.  Even though the water temp was in the low 80's, the sun wasn't really out so she got cold in the water. Gail seems very nice and I thought the lesson seemed to go well, the few times I peaked outside to look.  But then when we were in the car afterwards, she said she didn't want to go back to her lesson and that I should be the one to teach her to swim.  I thought "Oh boy, here we go again."  She is so different from her sister.  The same thing happened last year after one lesson and I wrote it off as her being three.  Shortly after her complaint, she did start talking excitedly about how she had floated on her back all by herself so I figured all was not lost.  After a few tears this morning, I assured her I would stay out on the patio and watch her this time and that appeased her.  Each time she would do something today, she would look over at me and I would give her a big, excited face and that kept her going.  She did really great. She's already swimming a little ways by herself so I'm feeling confident that at the end of the six lessons, if not before, she'll be off on her own like Calleigh was.  Calleigh, as expected, was super ecstatic about doing swimming lessons and afterwards Gail was like "Wow, she's a good swimmer.  I would barely get the words out of my mouth as to what I wanted her to do and she was already doing it."  She worked on her back stroke.



After leaving the lesson yesterday, we came back over here near home to meet with the second of two pediatricians that I wanted to meet.  The other one was a week or two ago and as you may recall, I wasn't impressed because it was just him.  This practice has four doctors, two male and two females which works out much nicer because I can just have them all in one place (I really want the girls to have a female doctor since this was a HUGE bone of contention for me when I was their age.  I remember crying when I had to pull down my underwear for a male doctor when I was little).  We met the one lady doctor and she was very nice so I'm glad that this decision is now made.  I guess we'll be back there in a little more than five weeks to bring in baby ???? for his first appointment.  As for the name, fortunately George was like 8,763 on my list so I don't have to worry about people thinking I'm copying the new prince for our baby name.  I can't decide if that name reminds me more of an old man or a monkey.

Last night I decided to take a trip down to IKEA to check out furniture for our classroom.  Since Duncan was not with us (in KC for work), I knew I wouldn't be able to buy anything because I didn't want to try and maneuver big boxes but at least I could look.  I never have to convince the girls to go to IKEA...they are always so excited when the announcement is made.  I dropped them happily off at the play area and Brady and I strolled around checking out all the desks/storage unit/bookshelves, etc.  Decisions, decisions.  I've found a few posting of classrooms on Pinterest that were almost completely furnished with IKEA stuff so I'm taking inspiration from them.  After our stroll, I picked up the girls and we had supper there since it's Kids Eat Free on Tuesday nights.  Dinner for four for $9 (including a dessert for me).  Nice!


I've decided that Calleigh is not going to be a doctor or a nurse.  Aubree suffered some minor injuries this week and I couldn't believe the hysteria coming from Calleigh.  First off, Aubree got her fingers stuck in the back door.  She wasn't even crying to hard but she came over to me to show them to me (which barely had a mark) but you should have seen and heard Calleigh.  I mean, she was hysterical.  She would not even came over near Aubree to look but fled to the other side of the room with tears pouring out of her eyes and said "Are her fingers still there?"  Like, she really thought they had come off in the door.  Then, today, while they were in quiet time, I heard Aubree crying upstairs.  Not unusual in the least since I typically expect Aubree to cry at least twice while they're in quiet time (often, over really stupid stuff).  But about a minute later, Calleigh comes down the stair, just wailing, "Something happened to Aubree's eye!!!"  She ran into my room and I could hear her bawling in there as I walked up the stairs.  I got to Aubree and sure enough, there was a tiny, red mark about her left eye where she said Calleigh had hit her accidentally.  She was fine.  I softly called Calleigh to come up the stairs (Brady was sleeping through all this..I have no idea how since he sleeps with his door wide open) and Calleigh was just beside herself..."I didn't mean to do anything.  Is her eyeball still there?"  It took me like three or four minutes to get her to finally calm down and come up the stairs and see for herself that Aubree was fine.  Mercy.

A few other pics in closing...

Our curriculum came in the mail and Calleigh was excited to look through it all.

Meanwhile, Aubree and Brady were excited just to play in the boxes it came in.

Friday night was supposed to be food trucks but it was rained out so we took the show to Tijuana Flats.  I hadn't eaten there in like ten years.

Sneaking into Daddy's bag to go to KC with him.