A Visit with Tina!

Branden is working some crazy overtime this month in order to pay for some upcoming landscaping (see previous post!), working some six and seven-day stretches. I have used this as an excuse to plan some visits I've been wanting to make. My dear friend Tina has lived in San Clemente - on the beach! - for the past four years and I had not gone to visit her in all that time. Now that we are only :) 4 hours away, I packed up the kids and spent a few days with my very generous host.

First of all, San Clemente is GORGEOUS! It's all on beautiful rolling hills. These pictures that I found don't do it justice. It's just breathtaking. Especially coming from Visalia! :)

The beach was phenomenal too. Warm water, great sand, perfect weather. Wow. We loved it!


And we also had a ton of fun hanging out with Tina and Soren (Hunter was out of town.) Tina and I haven't really hung out for years and it was cool to just be together again and talk until 1am about everything and nothing. Thanks for the fabulous trip Tina - come visit us soon please!

Let the Backyard Rennovation Begin!

I don't know if you can call it a rennovation if there was never anything done to it in the first place, so maybe its a makeover. Anyway, we invited my Dad and brother down the first weekend in August to help us jump start our project.

In the morning, before these pics were taken the weeds in our yard were as tall as the fence, creating a lovely home for dozens of hornets and these camouflage little fellas.

Yeah, we had three frogs living in our backyard for who knows how long! Anyway, Dad and Logan were superstars and helped rototill the whole backyard, install a beautiful new fan in the playroom,

build a new fence gate,

and build a privacy fence to hide our garbage cans.

Thanks Dad, Logan, and Branden!!!

P.S.I'm sure this is blasphemous for many out there, but... I think we will pay someone else from now on to do all our yard stuff. :)