Memorial Day Weekend

Kids in the Sand, a photo by nicciwashere on Flickr.

Memorial Day, for my fam, was a day all about hanging out by the newly filled above ground pool (which ended up being uneven), watching the pups run around, since we just got the gate in (also uneven!), eating delicious grilled and baked ribs (BBQ and teriyaki everywhere), and swimmin'! Some genius also gave the kids squirt guns, and there was the inevitable result.

Here you see Mya, Dylan, and Nate (my great niece and nephews!) and my niece Brittani coming over to chat with her kids, or confiscate a squirt gun, or something like that.

Later in the day, Dylan built a most excellent mountain of sand with a tunnel through the bottom, but Paco (one of the pups) decided he would play the part of a demolition crew. He walked over and crushed it with the swipe of a paw... with the inevitable result.

Our fence is complete, after a few issues with the construction. Tracy, my sister's fiance, came over to redo the posts that the first crew botched. George & I took over slatting, and we finished the fence in record time, with just a little sunburn to show for it. The painting has yet to be completed (it's a delicious espresso bean brown by Behr), but it looks pretty good aside.

Mom planted some wisteria bushes, which are just lovely. They'll take a while to grow to their full glory, but there's nothing like sitting under the fall of those beautiful purple flowers in the summer. I can't wait!

The icky orange (back of the house) paint will be replaced with a colorful mural as soon as I finish a design, between work for a glorious summer writing workshop, and my own novel's progression. Just the step of putting up this privacy fence seems to have opened up a whole world of possibilities for our home. I think we're all intent on making it a much more beautiful place to live.

The kids sure seem to be enjoying it!


Oh, wait. It looks like the adults were enjoying it too. Ribface.
Some of our guests were messier than others, but all enthusiastically showed their ribface pride, even Dylan's friend!