more yard makeover

Pop's Smoker has found a new home in the corner of the yard

This is the "Before" picture. Notice the trash pile now has tree limbs. Chris and JJ took out a whole tree and lots of limbs this week.

We are hoping the "After" picture is soon to come. We really hoping the yard is ready before the Choate girls come for a visit in April!

Bye bye tree

More yard makeover today. One tree gone and lots of limbs off others

Birthday Week

Birthday week was Awesome. Sunday starting off my birthday week, Christian and I watched Cameron play baseball. Cameron usually plays ball in a far way land called Alpine Texas. But as luck would have it, he was playing in Austin.

This is Cameron getting a hit!

From cameron baseball

Here is Cameron catching.


They didn't win the game against Concordia, but we were able to watch Cameron get a hit and make a great play at the plate. Christian said "It was fun watching Cameron play baseball. That was crazy!"

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of birthday week was taken with Archer having a very high fever. It was the same virus Christian had the week before.

My friend Krystal, gave me this sweet present for my birthday.


At work we had cake!! very yummy Black and White Cake from Sweetish Hill.


The night of my birthday, all my boys took me to dinner. Here are two of them.


They also bought me some fun panjamas and Christian picked out these himself, can't you tell.


The Grand Finale for Birthday week has to be this present I received.



Just looks like an old smoker, what is there to get all excited about you say???

Well this is my Dad's smoker that he had when I was growing up. Yep, it is probably at least 25 years old. I am beyond excited that this is in my backyard. This smoker cooked many a brisket (my personal favorite brisket to this day) for family parties, swimming pool parties, graduation parties, wedding rehearsals.

Here is the story of how it got there. When we moved out of the house I grew up in, my brother took this smoker. He has had it in various locations since, but has used it well throughout the years.

Today he happened to stop by for another reason and we showed him some of our work in the backyard. We started talking to him about our plans and those plans included a smoker we hope to buy soon.
That is when he said
JJ- "How long to you plan to be in this house?"
Us - "forever".
JJ - "Well why don't you take Dad's smoker".
{I almost fell over.}
ME - "Seriously!?!?!"
JJ -"Sure, I really have been wanting to build something bigger for myself"
Me- "We'll take it"

Then we all started discussing how to get it over to our house. Calls were made and Cinda and Colin (both good friends) were free RIGHT NOW to help us move it! WOOOOO WHOOOOO!!!!

Then came the hard part....Moving it

\
It took all of us, but it got done. And now it is in its new home in our backyard....now for the fun part.

Yummy!

JJ stayed all day at our house and that was fun just hanging out. He and Chris had a aged beef VS grass fed beef steak taste off. The Aged Beef won, but the grass fed came in a close second. We also threw some ribs on the pit. They were tasty.

So to wrap up my birthday week...AWESOME!!!! The Cherry on top is having my Daddy's smoker in my backyard.

Bye bye deck

We are doing a little demo around here

Trash pile

The trash pile represents lots of demo and hard work.

Taking shape

The post deck backyard is taking shape.

Archer and batman

Archer calls everyone one of 3 names...they are either
ELMO (with much enthusiasm)
Ernie
Batman

We are working on Bert, Cookie (middle name Monster), and Spidey.

His nose crinkles when he says Spidey.

Back Home

After a great family vacation it was time to head home. We had so much fun just hanging out and playing with our boys...it really was wonderful to have the family time.


it was time to get home.

Wrap up

Our last days were spent just hanging out and playing in the snow. There was some eating out at our favorite restaurant in Pagosa...Tequila's.




Chris made a snow fort for Christian

From Colorado winter 2010

And time by the fire to warm up.

Side trip

We usually save one day to drive to Durango and see the Train Museum.


They are always open when we visit in the summer....well, we should have called ahead, they were closed. It wasn't too bad because the chocolate shop is always open.

Ski School

After 3 days at home, we all needed to get out of the house. The first day it stopped snowing we headed to Wolf Creek. Archer and I tagged along and Christian and Chris had plans to take ski lessons.

The ride up for a little nerveracking for us Texas drivers.

We aren't used to driving on a snow packed road. We took our time getting up the mountain. We had more than a few locals pass us, but that is ok.

Once we arrived the big boys headed off to ski school

Archer and I found our spot in the lodge.


From where I was sitting I could never see Christian ski. I had Archer so, he and I stayed put.

His instructor said he did good. He didn't perfect his stop, so he didn't take the second half of the lessons. He says he got stuck three times.

From where I was sitting I was able to see Chris taking his lessons. He didn't get a long lesson, but still got up on his skies


We aren't sure if it happened at the mountain or before we went up, but around this time Christian got sick. He ran a fever for several days after his ski lessons. We stayed inside a lot more after that.