The Latest *spring pics*

Dear Diary,

With all the vacation entries I’ve been lazy about giving day to day updates around here.  I’ll attempt to catch up…

• Reagan started soccer yesterday.  I had asked him earlier in the season about it and he didn’t have interest but once he figured out several of his buddies were together a couple of days after school he asked me to sign him up.  The coaches were nice about letting him join late.  I watched a bit yesterday.  It has to be one of the more frustrating things I’ve seen in awhile.  The ball was out more than in.  Several don’t understand not to pick the ball up. I could go on and on.  BUT, Reagan had a good time which is what really matters. And I’m glad he’s giving it a try.
• I leave this Sunday morning for NYC.  Much of my time will be consumed with the seminar for work but I’m looking forward to exploring on Sunday and then on a few of the evenings.  I’m trying to pack light but still enjoy what I’m bringing to wear.  It looks like the temps will be in the 60s… not too hot, not too cold.  I may do a circle line cruise there at some point just to get water views of the city.  After reading Paris, My Sweet I have a long list of bakeries to try which means I should try and workout each day while there, too.  I should either run in Battery park or use the hotel gym.  I’m staying in the Wall St. / Financial District area so I’m trying to plan a lot of what I’ll do in the lower area.  I’m looking forward to the time to myself and exploring without having anyone else to worry about.
• Reagan and I debated about whether or not to head to the shore Friday into Saturday evening but I think we’ve decided against it.  It would be a lot of driving for such a short trip and it isn’t going to be that warm.  Come two weeks from now I refuse to let anything interfere with my beach weekends going forward.  I’m anxious to get settled into the new place and get into our beach routine.  Just. two.more.weeks!
• I’ve been tackling the yardwork.  I did some approaching Easter.  This past weekend I was out almost all day, both days.  I was so sore…. I’m just not use to that type of activity after a long winter.  I continued to clean out beds, I reseeded the grass, I cleaned and restained/ sealed the deck, I finished cleaning inside the playhouse and set the rest of it up.  I sawed out a place to install Reagan’s new twisty slide.  I planted lots of flowers and our tomatoes for the season.  I started to paint the garage.  I need to continue with flower bed clean up and weeding is an ongoing chore.  And I’ve been doing a lot of watering everyday in order to get the grass started off right.
• Fortunately we’ve had gorgeous spring weather for all of this. LOVE!  It is a bit cooler going into the end of the week and there are rain chances but I’m good with all of that.  If it rains I can skip watering.
• While enjoying all the yardwork I’ve also been enjoying listening to books.  I’ve continued with Robin Jones Gunn’s travel books.  They’re a little cheesy but I’m not above that.  I’m officially over 50 books for the year so far!  Devouring lots of books makes me happy!
• I found a good dress sale on my lunch today!  I chose four that were marked down to $20 each.  Fun sale!
• I’m almost done with the Disneyland scrapbook.  That will leave just one more book from the trip to complete…. CA Adventure…. 6 down, 1 to go.  I hope to make more progress Friday evening and Saturday.
• Things at the office have been busy but good.  I have all just about set to leave for the few days of the seminar.  Before the week is out I should know what my pay increase is for the 2013- 2014 school year.   There is a chance that the Head of School won’t have the numbers for Administration and Staff by Friday but I’m hopeful he will get to it.
• We’ve been eating dinner on the deck since it has been nice out.  I adore this time of year!

I’ll wrap this up with a few recent pics…. mostly life out in the yard…

Do you remember last year when I put together a basket of things to transform Reagan’s playhouse into a pirate ship?  We set sail for the first time this week…

Raising his flags!

You can see one of the white sails to the left…

This next one shows Keith with his drill.  He redrilled one of the places where we mount the sail.  In the next one you can see where I cut out a section and attached Reagan’s twisty slide, too. It is just above Woody’s head…

Our scurvy sea dog.  He loves being included! 

Reagan is reading pirate books….

So this shows the two sails…  The bottom part is the playhouse area… You can see part of the new slide here, too…

Reagan picked out some snap dragons for one of his watermelon planters…

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I started to take a few pictures inside, too…

Arghh, Matey!

I was on gator duty….


Reagan insisted that Woody needed an eye patch….


Happy Dog!


Here’s a little nook I made for our feathered friends between the lilac bushes…

Keith on the deck…


Woody sitting watch over the new curly slide…


Unrolling a map…

Treasure!

His hook hand souvenir from Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyworld last year…

Digging for treasure in the sandbox.  That is his little garage to his side…


To the left here is the new CA Adventure map hangin in his playhouse…

Looking out his little window.  That is a picture of his cousins up above…

Lots of other park maps… we just added Sea World and San Diego Zoo.  Sesame Place, Dutch Wonderland and Magic Kingdom at Disneyworld are there, too…


He has a US Map…

And a world map…

This next picture is at an awkward angle but it shows his little welcome mat and throw rugs.  The dots up above are like a little day bed.  There are a couple throw pillows and a fleece blanket.  Tucked in those little cubbies are his sea shell collections…  Oh… to the right on the wood you can see the little gnome thermometer.  Below it is a little gnome bird bath…

You can sort of make out the three tomato cages where I’ve planted the tomato plants for this year…


This building behind the daffodills is what I have it in my mind that I’m going to paint.  It’s a huge project.  I don’t know what I’m thinking…

Forsythia and daffodils…
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That’s it from me for now.

Oh…. Reagan just had his spring piano recital this afternoon.  Good stuff!

Happy Thursday!
 

 
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