What a Cutie!

Two weeks from today we'll be on an airplane, flying to the British Virgin Islands for a week long sailing vacation. The whole family is going, and while we've done trips like this before, it's the first time that we've ever brought a baby! Luckily, our family has lots of experience sailing with little kids, as Jennifer was just a few weeks old during her first of many sailing weekends, so we're not too nervous about the situation. But to be safe, we went ahead and ordered a child's safety harness and tether that Joseph will wear on board the sailboat. It will essentially keep him tied to the boat at all times, and the line will be short enough that if he were to escape and explore, he wouldn't ever have enough line to fall in the water.

The harness showed up a few days ago, and I wanted to start practicing putting it on him and letting him get used to it. It's a little hard to see in these pictures, because it's safety orange and he had on his orange shirt, but you can tell by his expression that he actually loved wearing it! It was a little tricky getting it adjusted way down for him, but he had so much fun being picked up by the back and "flown" around the living room like an airplane.

 Of course, once I pulled out the camera and got down on his level, he just wanted to climb all over me and try to take the camera.

We'll keep practicing so there aren't any tears on the boat, but so far, so good!

In other news, as I alluded in the last post, I've been spending a lot of time the last couple of weeks working in the yard. Here's a before shot of the front of the house this time last year:

After some tree triming last August, seeding the front yard last fall, new front door, new planters and expanded flower beds, here's how it looks:

I decided that the huge old shrub on the side of the house needed to be integrated into the front bed, and brought the hosta from the back yard that managed to survive the new air conditioner being placed on top of it to the front. I liked how it was going, and added a few other new hostas under the shrub as well. A wider edged bed and rows of impatiens, and this side of the yard is done! The other side didn't get anything new, other than some annual flowers. I also finally got around to spray painting the gas meter a tan color that closely matches the stone, so it doesn't stand out nearly as much as it did when it was grey. It looks so much better!

We're planning on having the house painted this year, since we haven't done it in the almost 4 years we've been here.There are a variety of shades of yellow paint and unpainted shingles from all the remodeling work so it's time to freshen up the outside to match how great the inside is looking. We finally picked a paint color for the new door - it's called Gale Force, by Sherwin Williams. It's a really deep blue, and from the street it almost looks black. I need to add another coat of paint on it this weekend, then it'll be finished, hooray!

 I've also spent time trying to clean up the back yard. We had to remove a few trees that were in the way of the electrical line to the house for our service upgrade (if KCPL would ever come and finish their portion... over 2 months later!). Also, the slow, hard work on removing the old stone firepit needed a kick in the pants to be finished. Here's how the yard looked last summer...

And here's a close-up of that same portion of the back yard as it looks today! Notice the really big evergreen tree on the fence line is gone, as is the fire pit. I spent all day yesterday digging out the rest of the stones, some of which have been thrown out, but most are hiding around the back fence line. The whole bottom of the pit was filled with concrete, and it turns out that some of the stones were set in the concrete, which made them really, really hard to remove. One section was so big, that all I could do was roll it out of the way and into the grass... hence the rocks sitting to the side of the new garden. Hopefully Joe will move it out of the yard tonight.

I opted to fill the space with a butterfly garden, instead of just planting grass seed. The flower bed is now full of butterfly attracting perennial plants that should provide lots of color this summer. I'm also going to finish planting my herbs in that garden where they'll get plenty of sun. I have a few more day lilies to plant this weekend, and then I'm calling it quits for at least a while. I think. :)