Skip to main content

weekend camping… sort of.

shane has been bugging us about setting up the tent in the backyard since the first nice day of the spring. we finally ran out of excuses this weekend and spent saturday night sleeping outside. we even built a fire in our fire pit so it could feel more like real camping. we neglected to put it away today, which has wound us up with a bonus night in the tent. oh yay. well, the kids are excited about it. dave and i are less so, probably because we’re old fogies and are actually aware of the fact that it gets darn cold at night still. that and how our nifty air mattress has a leak and is somewhat less than cushiony by morning. oh well, the sacrifices we make.

it was, indeed, a beautiful weekend. dave got all productive this weekend and cleared out massive amounts of CRAP from our yard. there’s been this patch of CRAP (for lack of a better word to describe it) on the west side of the house, kind of going down the hill toward the road, since we moved in almost 2 years ago. we inherited it from, i assume, the previous residents, but i suppose it could have been there even longer than that. at any rate, it was all grown over with ivy and weeds, but we could tell that there was a bunch of old wood and other stuff under it. so dave finally decided that it was time to deal with it. i should have taken pictures of the CRAP that was in there because it was really odd to find on a hillside in our yard. there was one of those funky swings made out of a cut-apart tire along with it’s rope, and this other ENORMOUS rope that was wrapped around a piece of rotten wood. this rope was seriously about 3 inches thick. there was a lot of other wood and sticks in there, but most of it was falling apart. as luck would have it, our neighbors were making a trip to the dump today, so we threw that stuff in their truck and now it’s out of our hair (or yard). so now we have a vacant hillside to figure out what to do with. the kids still have a big pack of wildflower seeds that was in their easter basket, so i might have them plant those there.

what else? oh yeah, saturday afternoon brought my miraculous trip to costco. it was miraculous because i spend less than $100 and i didn’t think that was possible! i bought diapers, bread, frozen chicken strips, a jug of honey, batteries and 4 gallons of milk and spent $89.

well, i guess i had better go clean up my house so i can go freeze in my tent. woo hoo! it is SO coming down tomorrow.

Comments

  1. It is so fun for the kids to camp outside...I take my hat off to you and Dave for venturing out with them. Nice One!

    And...Costco shop for under $100..I still want to see that receipt ;D

    Lets hope the nice weather lasts and more happy family days can be spent out in that cozy comfy tent...LOL!
    Have a great week!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

finally!

here are layla’s curtains!  actually up on the window! i have to say i’m quite pleased with myself for actually getting this done.  but i have to give credit where credit is due… so thanks to my MIL for going to the fabric store w/ me and helping me with measurements and all that.  AND, thanks to debbie for letting me use her sewing machine and for ironing all the hems for me!  YAY!!!!

can someone please explain to me…

… how THIS qualifies as a dress: ???????? i mean, i realize that it’s probably a sure sign of getting older when you go shopping and statements like that go through your head, but really?  why would somebody wear that?  what’s with the band around the bottom?  i find the thickness of that band kind of comical, but most of them look like this: what the heck? it’s grotesquely reminiscent of 5th grade when the big thing was super long sweatshirts worn with stirrup pants.  because that sort of thing is just so flattering to someone’s body shape.  apparently the pear-with-chicken-legs image is all the rage this year.  who looks good in this?  skinny people? no.  fat people? no. who???  even the models in the pictures look ridiculous! this is what i encountered when i went shopping for a dress last night.  it’s funny to see how trends change.  i’m not claiming that everyone had the best taste when i was in high school… fortuna...

dear neighbors which shall remain nameless,

i am writing this informational letter on behalf of your children, your bank account, and your auto insurance company, all of which suspect an impending blow to their current, healthy state. it appears that you may not be aware of certain traffic laws which pertain to the proper seating and safety of your children while in your vehicle, so i will take this opportunity to share them with you.   Washington's New Child Restraint Law Effective June 1, 2007, children less than eight years old must be restrained in child restraint systems, unless the child is four feet nine inches or taller. A child who is eight years old or older, or four feet nine inches or taller, must be properly restrained either with the motor vehicle's safety belt or an appropriately fitting child restraint system. Children under thirteen years old must be transported in rear seats where it is practical to do so. The fine for improperly restrained children in motor vehicles is at least $112 per c...

what’s in my car?

it’s time to play an exciting round of… WHAT’S IN MY CAR????? (applause) yes, that’s right, this morning, I was incredibly irritated by all the crap that was in my car. SO irritated, in fact, that it was making me a little twitchy. (and I may have yelled at my kids once or twice for less than reasonable things.) it was so bad, in fact, that I decided to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. dun dun DUNNNNNN… and so, after dropping my 3rd (and final) kid off at the 3rd (and final) institute of learning (aka: preschool), I came home and cleaned out my car (instead of taking a nap and/or brewing another pot of coffee, which was what I really wanted to do). when I get bees in my bonnet like this, I’m really bad at remembering to take a “before” picture. although, in this case, it’s probably better that I didn’t. it was BAD. so, we’ll have to have the “after” pictures suffice. and, of course, I have to account for what was actually IN my car before this. keep in mind, this does not include the...

sourdough – installment 2!

well, i guess i did it right! today was day 4 since i made my starter. it had bubbled, grown, shrunk, and bubbled some more and was starting to smell more like wine than yeast. my experienced sourdough-making friend angie assured me that this meant that it had ‘soured’ and i could now use it. so i did. i decided to use my bread machine to do the mixing and kneading for me, but i wanted to bake it in the oven. i used the recipe for sourdough in my bread machine instruction book, and then used the baking instructions in a cookbook i have. at any rate, we have success!!! i was afraid they were a little too done, but actually, the bread and even the crust is still soft, even though it looks kind of dark. we dove right in and holy yumness! i think it could be a little more ‘sour’, so i’m going to leave my replenished starter out a day or two before i ‘put it to sleep’ in the fridge. but as it was, it was wonderful. i tried to take a picture of shane enjoying it, because his piece was big...