Patio....Check!

First of all - We have a new patio!! Seems like it took months for it to get done (well, it did) but it is finished!! We pretty much had to get our old one torn out since it was all cracked and draining into our basement. The new one is quite a bit bigger - nothing special, just a huge cement slab - looks great though. The kids were obsessed with watching the workers - they loved the jackhammers and diggers. They literally stood at this window for a week! We invited James and Kiernan over one day just to sit and watch them work. They loved it! True boys I guess. (although Ashlyn enjoyed it too)Now we just need to do all the work around the edges. Shawn has several ideas going through his head. But for now, we are working on the new deck that will sit directly to the left of the slab. Shawn is building it with (hopefully) the help of my dad, his dad and anyone else willing to help - or anyone that owes us a favor...hmmmm....I'll start up a list on that one. He is filling the post holes (whatever that means) this weekend, then we have to wait a week for the cement to sit. Then we are going canoeing and then the deck will be erected. Can't wait to see it get started!

The next pic is of lunch over here last week. My good friend Callie is in town and we had a little get together. That's 9 kids you see there eating lunch. The kids had a blast. What a fun day!! We sure do miss you Cal!!


Monday night we headed out to Waverly for Ohio Days which is a big parade and carnival that we have gone to for the past several years. The kids were so pumped - Austin could not wait to get candy in the streets. I have lots more pics, but some computer malfunctions so you'll have to wait for the rest. Happy Happy kids this week!!


That's it for now - we've had a busy week with Cal in town. We went to the Farmstead yesterday and had lunch at Kim's, went and picked blueberries this morning at a blueberry patch - so fun!! And tomorrow we have much more playing to do. The fun just never ends. Please pray for no rain as Shawn has a deadline for getting this deck built before we have some out of town guests coming from St. Louis in early August. We promised them they wouldn't have to work while they were here which means the deck has to be finished...yikes....
Hope you are having the time of your life!
ST