Sprinkler System

Doug and I finally decided it was time to install a sprinkler system in our yard. We have hose-watered the past 3 years and were ready for a change. We both knew it would be a lot of work, but we didn't realize how much work it would really take. 

 We dug our stop-and-waste hole by hand and that took us 8 hours. it was 4.5 feet deep and 4.5 feet wide. Basically we should be in the book/movie holes. What's a little depressing is that once we got down to our main water line we realized it needed to be replaced. When the guy came to replace it he had to dig a hole just like ours, but with his mini-excavator it only took him about 15 minutes. 

 We also tore up our back yard and next week we will be putting sod. We are so excited for this part to be done so we can really enjoy our backyard. 

 We had our trenches hired out and I am so glad we did because there are a ton of rocks where we live. Beckham hated the trenches because it was impossible for him to get over. 

 My nemesis was our driveway that we had to dig under to place pipe. Doug and I worked on digging under it for over two hours, then decided to just pay our trencher to dig under it. Well he did, but he didn't make the hole big enough, so the next day when we went to lay the pipe it wouldn't go. So I wasted another two hours working on. It was very frustrating. 

 My amazing brother-in-law Steve who was the master-mind behind it all. We are so thankful for everyone's help. We are so lucky to have our family in the area willing to help us. I can't imagine trying to do everything with just Doug and I. 

Blickenstaffs

We went to the Riverwoods this week and had a great time. Beckham loved the new splash pad. We stopped in at Blickenstaffs after to look around and get a treat. We were all entertained for quite some time. Tons of fun toys to look at and play with. Beckham loved the candy wall and kept trying to steal candy out of it. It was a nice, relaxing evening.

Most Productive Day Ever!!!

So today was a great day. This whole week I have been plagued by a stomach bug, but today I felt 100% again. So I ran with it! Here is a list of all that Beckham and I accomplished today:

*Mowed and watered the lawn
*We got our car fixed and had a nice old man shuttle us to and from our house
*While waiting for the car to get fixed we tackled the house and did some deep cleaning. And I'm talking DEEP cleaning. It felt great.
*We ran a lot of errands, including a stop at the party store Zurchers. Which is now probably Beckham's favorite store ever! There is a ton of fun stuff in there.
*Made a delicious chicken taco dinner. Doug grilled the chicken on the BBQ and it was so good. Plus it meant our house wasn't 100 degrees from cooking it on the stove.
*AND last, but definitely not least.... I made a quilt! Oh yeah, no big deal, just whipped it up at quilt night. I have an awesome mother-in-law who got me motivated to make a baby quilt for my friend Sarah that is having a little girl. She let me use her cute extra fabric and we had a great time whipping it up. I am amazed at how fast it went and it turned out super cute. All props go to my mother-on-law Brenda! She is the best!
*Now lets just add blogging to that list too!

 He really enjoyed trying on all the different hats, even the girly ones. 

Hope you are all enjoying the summer as much as we are. Doug just finished his summer pathophysiology class and I'm excited to see him a little more. And other great news is that next Saturday we are putting a sprinkler system in, so that should be exciting.

Orlando

To celebrate Doug becoming an RN we went on a fabulous trip to Orlando Florida. It was Doug's first time and he loved it. We used Shane's (my brother in law) buddy passes to fly there and that was an adventure...Shane flew with us to help us get there quicker and he stayed and played at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. 

They had the most delicious butter beer you could imagine. After a hot day in lines and rides we stopped by the three broom sticks to sit and sip down the fantastic drink.

This is a crapy picture of a great story. They have a wand shop(Ollivanders) and they choose one person out of the crowd to come and pick out a wand just for them. After the first time we went in Doug and Shane were determined to be picked. So we got in line again with hopes that they could be the special person. I really could care less, but they were sure excited. We even made a bet that if one of did get picked then the other two had to buy them the wand that was picked for them. Well the trick was acting REALLY excited to be in the shop and that is just what I did. I played it up really well and guess who got picked? Yep, I sure did. Those two boys couldn't believe it. 

 The dueling brothers

Doug met a celebrity bird from Pirates of the Caribbean. 

 On Sunday after church and nice long nap we toured around a couple of the disney hotels. They were awesome and some day we will stay at them when we are billionaires :) We walked around a nice pier and roasted marshmallows on the beach. It was fabulous acting like we were staying at the hotel and getting all the perks.

These little worker birds were all over the disney pier and beach. Doug and I were talking about how nice the area was and not dirty at all. The birds were picking up little pieces of trash and flying off with them. I looked at these two and said, "Doug! That is amazing! These little birds work for Disney. They have little name tags! I am sure they are trained to clean up the area." I sure didn't think he would believe me, but he looked over quickly in amazement, searching for their name tags. Priceless! 

 Doug got picked to be in a few things around Universal Studios. First, he was in a stunt show type thing where they filmed you doing little skits and then put the clips into a bigger disaster clip. He was a scientist with rocks falling on him. The next thing that he got to do was be on fear factor.

 I sadly didn't get any pictures of him all suited up, but this was the set where they did their challenges. He had to try out 90 minutes before the show and he was one of 6 choosen. They took him in the back and suited him up in a spandex suit and harness. The first challenge was to hang high in the sky and the first two to fall were out. Sadly Doug was the second one to fall. He blames the blasted hot and humid Florida weather causing extra sweaty hands. It was so fun to see him in it. Defiantly one of my highlights from the trip.

 This poor girl had her brother spin a wheel and it said what creature was going to be put in the box. Doug really wanted me to do this part, but luckily I didn't have photo ID on me, so I was spared. One of the options on the wheel was a snake, so I'm extremely thankful I didn't have my ID.

 We spent a day at the fabulous Clearwater beach on the gulf of Mexico. Doug was slightly disappointed at the small waves coming in, but I loved it. We both got bad sunburns, but it was worth it.

 We loved animal kingdom park. They had a great safari ride and an awesome gorilla area with over 15 gorillas. They even had a little baby gorilla that was adorable.

 Do you see the man on the motorized scooter next to Doug? These scooter are EVERYWHERE in the parks. Next time we are totally renting them!

 And yes, those awesome sketches you see were drawn by Doug and myself. They had an animation tutorial and we were quite pleased with how ours turned out.

 Ecot had tons of characters made out of plants and the details were unreal. We saw a couple get engaged at Epcot and that was pretty exciting. I also saw two snakes there, which really put a damper on the Japan area.

We missed this little guy so much while we were gone. Our wonderful parents watched him while we were gone and I'm sure he was in heaven getting spoiled. We sure loved seeing him again after 8 days.

 We are back from our trip and had a great time. We sure did miss Beckham terribly though. We have amazing parents that watched him and spoiled him to death. I'm sure he's going through withdrawals being back at our house. I'll post some fun trip pictures a little later.  

 I love this picture because Beckham looks so disgusted/mad at me for dressing him for church. Speaking of church, only 3 more months until he is in nursery...which is crazy to believe. 

 I don't know if anyone else has husbands that LOVE to ride in the electric carts at stores, but Doug sure does and it embarrasses me beyond belief. In fact, the first fight I ever remembering us having was at Target while doing our wedding registry. He insisted on riding in the electric cart and kept backing up so it would beep really loud and I was so irritated. But I have now learned to just accept it I suppose.  Beckham sure enjoyed some Macey's ice cream while riding in the basket though. 

Our little man has learned how to open the oven door and I know find all sorts of things inside. I have to constantly remember to check inside before turning it on now. And don't judge my dirty oven...who ever likes cleaning an oven, especially when you are the only one that sees inside of it.

Warning...not for the weak ones!

Doug is finishing up a good part of his nursing degree this April. So this now means that all the little things he was taught in school he will have to actually do... on real people... not on dummies. This can be a little frightening because real people are scary to practice your newly found skills on. To help Doug and some of his fellow classmates we had an IV party at our house last week. 

 Doug has slowly been collecting IV's from work that are expired(who cares about expiration dates anyway, I mean it's only going inside your vein) and also collecting other supplies that the hospital couldn't use, but we sure could. 

 We gathered in our kitchen and started wrapping tourniquets and poking around. And I mean POKING around. It pained me to see how long some of the people would keep searching for a vein on their very patient fellow nursing student. I even let Doug try a poke on me and he got it perfectly. 

 Everyone had a good time and I am proud to say that everyone left our house with at least 1 successful IV start. There are some good nurses headed out into the medical world come April, lets just hope if you need an IV started you get one of Doug's friends that is a little more skilled after our get together. :)