Random happenings

Here are just a few random photos from early September.  

Graham and Charlie are still so into these building workshops at the local hardware store:

Maybe Daddy should have participated too. He looks kind of bored. Haha!

It's a little pencil holder!  Cute!

The boys' hair is so long now I can really braid it:

I'm guessing we can probably donate it by December.  But it will be cold then to have a buzzed hair cut?!

I finally decided to change out the drapes in the living room:

These sheer drapes are finally seeing the light of day again after being in a box for 5 years!  We had bought these when we lived in Abu Dhabi:

The only issue with sheer drapes is the sun comes in a lot during the day and now we're debating that perhaps we need like half-shutters, or I think they call them cafe shutters - where the shutters only cover the bottom half of the window.  We could probably also do honeycomb blinds that go from bottom to up, but I don't like all those strings attached.  So in the meantime, this is how it's going to be.  And the boys will just have to be careful when the are wandering around the house in their underwear. LOL!

We've been getting so much rain and  omg, look at these mushrooms in the front yard!

So many mushrooms!!!  It's too bad we can't eat them... or can we?!

Graham is loving our old coffee machine where he can make hot chocolate with those single pods:

And be careful what you wish for!  We were walking near Bobby's office when we went to visit him for lunch a couple of months ago.  I noticed these pair of shoes at the window display and commented on how cute they were and of course about how I never owned a pair of Doc Marts.  And so, here they are... he bought them for me!

OMG, we found Tim Tams at the local grocery store!  It wasn't the one near our house but another one that's near the golf course.  Yum....

I bought some bulbs for the garden.  I went with tulips instead of daffodils this time as I had daffodils in Broken Arrow/Tulsa when we lived there. I'm so excited to see them bloom in the Spring!  

These are really pretty too - I've never seen/heard of them before:

I just planted some yesterday and they are not bulb-like at all. It's almost like a dehydrated, big raisin! Or turd... LOL!  Very strange.  And it only needs to be in the ground an inch compared to 3" for the bulbs.  I hope I planted everything properly. The ground has gotten hard!  I suppose only time will tell, but Spring is still so far away!!

Garden update

Always busy in the garden doing something!  I'm so glad we have this big truck as I don't have to worry too much about what I put in the trunk. It can definitely carry a good load:

Here are some flowers in our garden.  Love the colors!

Eventually I'll figure out the names of every one of them:

I'm guessing this one is already past it's prime.  Maybe I'll be able to see it bloom in full next year:

These are lovely! They are almost like hydrangeas but now.  I've seen them grow like trees here though. I'm not sure how big I want the plant to be as these are right by the very front of the house:

Daisies are always pretty:

I've forgotten what these are called now.  Night something... but discovered they are poisonous.  I was waiting for it to grow a bit so I could figure out what they were. These little fruit turn from green to almost black.  Needless to say, they are out of the ground ASAP!

So far, our hibiscus is still doing quite well: I've put a border around it and also mulched it with straw:

Bought the straw online. Didn't realize there's so much of it!  I'll eventually use it for the raised bed:

Here the raised bed! It's a bit larger than I expected too for the spot that I'm looking at.  And supposedly the HOA does not allow the galvanized raised bed. I'm going to pretend I didn't read that.  I guess I will try and hide the bed with some pavers... eventually :-P

I'm going to put the bed right near the fire pit/outdoor area, next to the hibiscus. We'll see how that goes!

Found out we have horse radish in the front yard.  Who knew the leaves looked like that. Almost like a weed that I was going to pull it out:

The front area is finally done and I can also put the hose here.  Haven't really used the hose much other than spraying the kids down after the lake.  It's been raining so much:

Well, almost done with this spot, I just have to put a nice rock border along the side so the mulch doesn't get to this hardscaped area:

These trees are pretty cool but so messy!  Finally found the clippers to clean it up a bit:

So much trimming and yet it still looks messy!

We did find an "owl" in here.  Never saw it for the first 2 months of living here because the leaves were overhanging so much.  Ha ha!

Just touching the surface with this yard - there's so much to clean up still and organize!  Sort of like the inside of the house. HA!!

Leaky window (Aug 28)

Oh no, it's raining and we have a leak in the garage!  

Looks like it's coming from behind this wall:

... which actually means there's probably a leaky window!

The inspection report did mention that the caulking needed to be replaced.  So, looks like I will need to get to this sooner than later!

And I guess it's suppose to look worse before it looks better.  I was too lazy to sand it down so it was just a matter of chipping away the old paint for now:

I took a sample chip of paint to the store to get a color match.  I think it's a bit darker than what the original color is, but thankfully it's just a small window on the side of the house:

I'd say the newly painted and newly caulked window (left side) looks pretty good!  We've been getting a lot of rain lately - at least once a week or so.  And knock on wood, so far so good! Onward to the next project!! 

Busy boys (Aug)

We've been keeping the boys busy, or I guess at other times, they have been keeping themselves busy too.  We try to play some golf over the weekend:

Although, Graham especially would probably like to be in the Kids' Club in the clubhouse instead.  Ha ha!

I love how Graham and Charlie is able to just explore the lake by themselves.  And they love to fish too, especially Charlie!

I'm also glad our neighbor is able to lend us their kayaks:

And off he goes... you can barely see Graham.  He's just a speck in this fairly large lake:

Glad Daddy is around to pull the boys and their kayaks off the lake :-)

Our neighbor is letting us borrow their beach area so it will be a lot easier next time to get back to shore!

And... we're back to fishing:

Charlie keeps getting his line/hook stuck in the vegetation.  Eventually he is going to learn! 

Fast forward a month or so, Charlie is finally catching a few more fish. The boys finally bought some bait that the fish in this lake love.  Now, every time they get home, they are almost immediately out the door and off to the lake!

And I love how Graham started using his cup holder on his bike as a fishing rod holder.  Too funny!!

We couldn't have picked a better spot for our new home :-)  

Back to school (Aug 22)

It's finally back to school!  Graham and Charlie are actually excited to start in their new school.  And also excited about getting on the school bus!  Yup, the district offers the school bus for pick-up and drop-off.  This is going to be nice - for me :-D

Charlie still loves the color blue, if you couldn't tell:

Graham still has his binder from his previous 6th Grade, which almost looks like a briefcase.  Too cute:

Here's the bus!  Actually this was the bus coming home: 

The bus going to school on Day 1 never showed up!  So I had to actually drive Charlie to school that day.  Too funny!

On Day 2, Graham was already walking himself to the bus stop:

So far so good... no one has missed a bus (yet!).  And so while boys are at school, I can finally get to some of the chores - like getting my red hot "baby" for an oil change:

There's no time to go wandering around stores looking for whatever I need for the house.  Ya, don't think I need another chandelier though - I've already taken 3 down!

There's obviously still more unpacking.  And how about this - even after leaving Abu Dhabi over 6 years ago, there's still remnants of our lives from there.  It's a moving box made in the UAE!

Finally able to get to some garden work as well.  I decided to clear up this area a bit so I can get to the spigot:

Slowly but surely... so much work!

And look, the tomatoes are growing!

I've already picked about 5 tomatoes from this plant.  Yummy!  I'm hoping to get my raised bed set up before it starts to get too cold!  Hoping to get some carrots, snap peas, potatoes, and ginger in the ground :-)