Coffee, Twilight and Soccer

First of all.... Coffee.... coffee is much needed this morning after the day I had yesterday, which was a lot of fun, a lot of driving and a lot of running. :)

Ahh.... Twilight. My new favorite book series, the only book series I have enjoyed more than Harry Potter. In my mind I had moved for Forks, Washington and joined the world of fictional Vampires and Werewolves, completely forgetting that I had real life duties that needed to be performed in my house. I only seemed to come out of my reading induced stupor when Braden would do things like knock my coffee over onto the book (page 84 in book 1 will always be easy to find) or Kelsey would dangle a piece of paper in front of my face saying, "MOM, I need help with my homework." My eyes would unglaze just long enough for me to send her to find Scott for help with her math. Yep, for 6 days, I was a completely worthless lump that sat on the couch with a book, blanket and glass of wine. Oh and Edward Cullen...... Mmm.... the vampire we all wish our husband could be.

Yesterday, I took Scotts niece Taylor and we met Carrie to watch the much anticipated movie. Which.... could not quite compare to the book. It was good, yes, but there were some cheesy spots. It's difficult for the movie to capture all of the emotion that went into the book. But I did like it and when I got home, I told Scott, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to leave you for a 100+ year old Vampire who will forever be 17. His response.... an eye roll and "sure, you do that." Of course, I will be leaving him for the Edward of the book and not the Edward of the movie.... Sorry Robert Pattinson, I'm sure you are a great guy, but you don't compare to the picture of Edward I had in my head by the end of the books.

Now that I'm done mooning over the fictional Vampire, I'll fill you in on the rest of the day. Taylor and I had a great visit and I was glad to see her. We went to lunch at the Rock, which has THE BEST Beer Battered fries I've ever had and then I took her back to see Braden, Kelsey and Uncle Poopy (Scott). Oh and on our way to my house, we discovered some more Twilight addicts... standing on the side of the road were a couple teenage girls with a sign that said, "Honk if you love Twilight." Following that short visit, I drove her home, only to turn right back around and head to soccer - which thankfully Ben offered to drive to. The game was extremely long with sudden death over time and finally a shoot out, where we ultimately lost by one goal. I believe it was our first and only loss of the season.

Now that you are all caught up on my weekend, it's time for me to refill my cold coffee cup and find some productive work to do for the next 6.5 hours of my work day.

The Backyard

Remember I said, our lives are finally slowing down? Well, I decided since, at the moment, I have nothing of importance to add to my blog, I would give everyone some background at what we got done this summer. We had two big projects... why? Because I wanted to do the yard and Scott wanted to do the bathroom. So, the bathroom is done, but the yard is a work in progress.

Here is what we started with, with the exception of the trees we took out last summer....

After Jared finished destroying our yard, we put Braden to work...

He's a great pond digger and worm hunter.... he comes cheap too, gold fish crackers and apple juice

The goal was to finish the new patio, which I LOVE by the way. We've only had it since August and we've used it for several barbeques, games at the table and even fires for the small fire pit I bought.



The other projects we are working on but haven't completed are garden area (see the rock wall) and the dog run, which we've made great progress on, the bricks are down, the grass is in (but you can't see it from these pictures), the shed is up so they have some cover and the gravel is ready for them to do their business in. The only thing we are waiting on is for Scott to finish the rock wall and put the fence up. This was supposed to happen by the time the rain came, but the rain is here and the fence is not. Oh well, atleast the weeds are keeping the dogs from tracking most of the mud in the house.

Here I am....

Well, I've gone and done it, I've *gasp* started a blog! Carrie finally convinced me, so she better get hers going too! Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading other peoples and catching up on my friends and families lives, but I was pretty adamant that I wouldn't start one and now that I have, I'm still not convinced I'll share it with the rest of the world or even those closest to me. :)

Currently, it seems life is winding down... as in, I don't have every minute of every day planned out for the next month. Of course, in less than 2 weeks, the holidays will be here and I'm sure it will very quickly become a frenzy of activity between baking, visiting, shopping, wrapping and... well, you know the routine.

For now, Kelsey and I are both finishing up our soccer seasons - thank goodness! The rain seems to purposely wait until the weekend and then dump on us, so that our car constantly smells like a wet and sweaty soccer sock and there is constantly dried grass in the form of rings on the floor which has fallen off of a muddy cleat. Let me say, EWWW... I love the sport and I don't mind the rain, but pile 7 wet people (we carpool) into a car after a game and.... I'm glad the season is over. :)

Braden is in the midst of potty training - totally on his own. I tried a couple months ago and it was a total failure. He refused to go near the toilet and cried each time we attempted. But, last wednesday, he miraculously decided (ON HIS OWN) that he wanted to go potty in the toilet... and he did. Typical male, once it's HIS idea, it's okay. *insert eye roll here* So, overall, he's doing remarkably well with the exception of going #2... but we'll leave that topic for another day.