Our BIG Long Weekend

This weekend was kinda big.  And when I say "kinda," I really mean "super duper mondo with a cherry on top."

On Saturday morning, The Hubbs took off to spend the day with Uncle D down by where they grew up.  Left to our own devices, I'd like to think The Princess and I did pretty well.

It was beautiful outside...perfect weather for airing out the camping stuff.

Always good to do a dry run at home before heading out to the state park
for the first time each year.  Glad we did, too, because we'd have been really
disappointed if we had gotten out there to find the splody batteries in our
air bed pump.  After a quick trip to Walmart, we were rockin' and rollin'.

I know a certain little girl who had an absolute blast running through the
sprinkler and spending the entire day outside.

Grumma and Grumpa brought Home Run Inn pizzas, so I threw them in the
oven and we ate outside.  Not exactly a possibility in the state park...
one more reason a dry run is necessary. :)

Piggy was in heaven.  She loves to be outside, but Bubbles wasn't so sure.

"Oh, yeah!  I have a tire swing!  I remember this thing, and I shall now
proceed to play with it until dark.  You go do grown-up things.
I'll be right here if you need me."

I kid you not; this lasted for hours.  I got tons of garden and yard work
done this weekend while she entertained herself.  Best of both worlds.

Bubbles decided camping was okay after all, though The Princess
lost her bed.

But that's cool.  Momma's bed was totally big enough
for three.

On Sunday, we made our first trip to the beach.  The water was chilly, but bearable, so we stayed for a good hour or so.  It didn't occur to me to bring the camera, but there will be lake pics from today...stay tuned.

After swimming, we all scarfed down some good ol' PB&J dinkies.  For those of you not in-the-know, dinkies are regular PB&J sandwiches sliced into four triangles.  Squares are just wrong.  They must be triangles, or they don't taste right.  Just trust me on this one.

The afternoon was spent toodling around the area and scoring some totally excellent new flip flops for my girl and me.  After hanging out as a family, we dropped The Princess and The Grumps' house for a slumber party.  The Hubbs and I then headed down to Bear's house for a game night.

After bags, frisbeer, and playing music in the yard,
we moved inside to play some King of Tokyo
and Ticket to Ride.

Boys are way more fun than girls, hands down.  I liked King of Tokyo, but
I was terrible at it.  I was always the first to die, but it was still fun.

Next up: BONUS Monday!  I love long weekends.  Love 'em.  Like, really, really hard.  And I needed this one pretty desperately.

This morning, I headed over to The Grumps'  house to pick up our girl and then broke camp and put everything away before the first rain showers came through the area.  I was also able to finish up some work in the yard, placing planters that didn't yet have homes and just kind of puttering around pulling weeds and such.

Right around noon, the clouds dissipated and the sun came out.  Guess where we spent the next hour or so?

Living so close to a lake is a godsend.  I love that we can hop on our bikes
or load up the car and be there in two minutes.

I also love the fact that our whole lake is private - you can't get on it or to it
unless you live in one of the surrounding subdivisions.  Our beach is
only accessible to keyholders, which means no blucky teenagers
stinkin' up the place and leaving trash behind.

When we got to the beach today, we were greeted by a family of
Canadian geese with seven so-ugly-they're-cute goslings.

Our girl loves the shallow area between the piers up by shore.  Lots of
good rocks to throw, and fliddling water is super fun.

So, there was lots of time spent hunting for rocks...

...and splashing...

...Oh, hi, Da!...

And then there was running...

...and jumping...

...and jumping...

...and jumping...

Totally stuck the landing on that one.

Can't forget the Baywatch Babe run: always necessary and super-fun.

All that running and jumping was kind of like
work.  Better chill by shore for a few.

See ya later, geese!

I love seeing her at the lake.  It's like magic; something about the water
calms her like nothing else.

Okay, I'll admit it: after going to the beach, I was tuckered out.  We had some dinkies, and my eyes started to slam shut.  I figured we only get holidays off every once in a while, so I took advantage of the special bonus day and had myself a fantastic nap.

When I woke up, The Hubbs had just come in.  He told me that he and The Princess had been on a hike, and asked if I was interested in joining them for ice cream and fries.  How could a gal resist?  Sounds like the perfect afternoon snack to me.

She loved her hot fudge sundae.

On the way home after ice cream, somebody got
the giggles.

She also decided it would be fun to fly,
just like the bulldogs like to do.

With clouds like this moving in through the area every few hours today,
we were actually really lucky.  The rain didn't really cramp our style at
all.  Pretty amazing for Memorial Day, which is pretty notoriously
a washout around here.

So, not only was our weekend long...it was also BIG.
Big work was accomplished.
Big fun was had.
Big love keeps growing.
Big smiles, big hugs, big memories.
Big, big, BIG.

Here's hopin' the weather cooperates in the next few weekends, because I think we may finally get The Hubbs out of his comfort zone and into the tent.  Wish us luck!

Family Time and State Park Fun

Never let it be said that the Hubbo family is idle on the weekends!  This past weekend kept with our trend of go-go-go while still somehow managing to seem relaxing.  It was the first weekend since The Princess's birthday that we did not go swimming at the pool, and I'm proud to report that this was not a huge issue.  The weather was just so nice, we didn't want to spend any more time inside than necessary.

Saturday brought with it a nice family gathering here in our little yellow house to celebrate Mother's Day.

 

Here's The Princess with her beloved Great Grampy.
He's obviously no fun at all.

Sweet little Piggy, soaking up the lub wherever she can.

Nana and the Blurs!

Sweet sis, J, and her little ones, K and E.  E was ready for a nap at this
point, but I still have no idea how J always looks so adorable in
every picture that's taken of her.  Love ya, lady!

And, like, OMG!  Look who's back!  Grumma came over to play!

And she even brought Grumpa!
(They're both too excited to keep still.)

All the mommies left with coffee can planters full of begonias to match what I'm growing in my garden this year.  Of course, I kinda neglected to take pics of those.  Oh, well...I'll be making up a few for myself shortly, so I'll post them then.

I really need to get the camera out more when the whole family is together.  The problem is that I get all caught up in the visiting and don't realize until later that I've missed taking pics of half the people who were here.  But I suppose it's better to miss pics in favor of visiting, rather than the other way around.  Not pictured above are Grampy, Great Grammie and Da (aka The Hubbs).

Sunday was our little family day.  It was right around seventy degrees and sunny, perfect for a day at the state park.

First up: family bike ride.  Thanks to Grumma and Grumpa, we now have
two trailer hitches for The Princess's tagalong (tandem trailer), so we were
able to switch off pulling her around the 4-mile loop.

Oh, and somebody got a hair cut.  Here's our squinty
girl being silly while we ate a picnic lunch after our
bike ride.

And after lunch we took a stroll around the lake and marsh on this pretty
boardwalk trail.  We're working very hard with The Princess to help her
be more independent and more successful at following verbal instructions,
and walking at the parks is a big part of this.

All in all, even though there was no swimming, this turned out to be a great weekend.  I'm already getting excited for the next one, since The Princess and I will have Monday off for Memorial Day.  That means we get a whole extra family day!

And the extra bonus: Memorial Day weekend is always when we celebrate Little Yellow House Day...I closed on the house the day after Memorial Day in 2005, so we'll have to see if the weather holds for our annual cookout.  :)

Little Yellow Facelift

For a long time, I've wanted a front porch on the house.  The problem with that, at the moment, is money...and the thought of relocating lots of plants. 

Here's the front of the house now.  Could definitely use something...but what?

How about a pergola-style entrance overhang, some shutters and a trellis?  And, of course, a red door. 

Stay tuned...hopefully at least some of this will be done this summer. 

Best Mother's Day Ever

Hoo, boy!  We've had another week of go-go-go around here.  That's cool, though, because the Hubbo family tends to thrive on a busy schedule.

The Princess had some GI issues this week, so she wasn't quite herself for a few days.  No days home from school, but plenty of loafing about and waiting to feel back to normal.

My girl and me on Thursday, about the time she decided she was feeling
almost back to normal.

Saturday was nuts.  At 7:00 in the morning, I went to the local hardware place in the next town over to pick up my annual Mother's Day gift: annuals for my garden.  I ended up with four flats of begonias, three white and one was a mix of reds and pinks.

After flower shopping, we all went for a bike ride around the neighborhood (including a stop at the playground), swimming and for a hike together.

It was much warmer than we had expected - a nice surprise.

After our family outings on Saturday, I ventured out to a local bar to
see Bear play and sing.  A few people from work were there, and
Bear and Chris did a great job.  I'm not usually a bar person
(unless there's karaoke), but I had a really nice time.

On Friday, there was this really cute gift bag on the table when I got home.
I've been wondering what's inside all weekend, and I couldn't have been
happier when I opened it this morning.  My girl made me a pillow at
school, and I absolutely love it.

Today, we all slept in a bit later than normal because we were up late last night.  After lounging around for a bit and walking the puppies, we opted for a 4-mile bike ride in one of our favorite state parks, followed by a refreshing swim.  It was in the mid-80's, and I don't think I've ever had a nicer Mother's Day with my two loves.  After our ride, we had the perfect lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, veggie chips and Kool-Aid, picnic-style at the park.  It's gonna be  hard to top this Momma's Day.

This afternoon, I spent a good while planning out the placement of all 192 begonia plants in our garden areas.  We currently have 33 planters in and around the front garden area, and by August, they'll be beautiful.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided it would be a good idea to throw a thunderstorm our way, so I didn't get to plant them all as quickly as I wanted.  Looks like there's a break in the rain now, though...I'll see what I can get done before I lose the light. :)

Oh, and to all you mommas out there, I hope you had a wonderful day.

Free Comic Book Day, Bike Rides and May the Fourth Be With You

I bet you're beginning to wonder where we get all this time on the weekends.  The wonderful thing about our life is that The Hubbs is able to be Mr. Homemaker Dude while The Princess is in school and I'm at work.  That really cuts down on the encroachment of errand-running into family time.

This was another big weekend.  Somebody may have kind of bought two new mountain bikes with a recent unexpected bonus from work (no names mentioned...ahem).  And that somebody may have done so on Sunday of last week, just before five solid days of rain.  Yeah.

Our new his-and-hers Schwinn Sidewinder 26" mountain bikes

So...guess what we wanted to do when we woke up on Saturday to find the sun shining cheerfully through our windows?

There's The Hubbs, towing The Princess on my new bike, giving it a shot.
You see, I've always towed her in the past, so this is his maiden voyage.
Next order of business: find a couple more trailer hitches so we can hook
her up to any of our full-sized bikes with the tandem trailer.  Because,
let's face it, he probably doesn't want to keep riding the
hot pink chick bike. :)

Batgirl, ladies and gentlemen,
complete with hot pink cape!

In honor of Free Comic Book Day (the first Saturday in May each year),
we dressed up in our comic-y finest: Captain America, Wonder Woman
and, of course Batgirl, and toured the local libraries and comic book
shops to collect all the free comics we could get our grubby grabbers on.

In the end, we got 21 free comics.  My only regret is passing on the Hello
Kitty book at our first stop.  Never did find another copy, and it looked
so cute!  And that's our puppy, Sookie, photobombing in the upper left
corner.

After a yummy, homemade pancake breakfast, we
headed out to Wally World this morning for a staple
or two.  Doesn't The Princess look extremely
sophisticated in this very grown-up helmet?

On our way home from swimming, we stopped at a small nature preserve
area that we've only been to once before.  It's a nice, short trail that's great
for certain little girls who need to blow off some steam.
What I want to know is this: who determines what is a weed?
Because this dandelion is pretty.

Trees are getting ready to spread their leaves and throw some shade.

Certain little girls, blowing off steam. :)

Pretty little yellow flowers in a marshy area.

Moss is so cool if you look at it up close.

Birch log

Dainty little flowers

This nature preserve has an old foundation in the middle of it.  Not sure
if these flowers were left over from previous landscaping, or if they're
growing there wildly.  Either way, they're pretty.

And this is from our front yard - our first tulip
bloom of the year!

Last but not least, here's our own little Jedi wishing you a very happy
Star Wars Day with her light saber.  

Happy Geekend, y'all!  It's not every year we have Free Comic Book Day and Star Wars Day back-to-back, so I hope you were all able to take advantage.  May the Fourth be with you!