Playing, Exploring And More Renovating

Dominick and I are ripping out the old countertop and sink and replacing them with new ones. 

I'm helping Tanner register for dual enrollment next semester. I'm helping Aravis with a project about India and to make moon sand out of sawdust and other random ingredients from the torn up kitchen and I'm helping Xury not to kill the kitten. The girls got some old toys out of storage and have been playing out on the patio while we work.

 There are toys strewn everywhere, sawdust tracked throughout the house, kitties chasing each other through a box fort in the play room and the contents of my kitchen counter are piled on the dining room table. It's a little nuts around here. 

In fact, we've been enjoying lots of full days lately. The kids set up a tent on the patio, which soon led to bringing a TV out on the patio, which then led to watching movies from the pool......not a bad way to live, if you ask me. I think the novelty was more exciting than actually watching TV while being in the pool because they were usually out and back up on the patio relatively quickly. Aravis and Xury have been eating, playing and watching TV in the tent all week. 

One day last week, we somehow managed to visit two parks, 

two thrift stores, a river walk, have a picnic lunch, stop for milkshakes, stop at Target and end it all with a trip to the mall. We got an awesome deal on a American Girl backpack that looked like new at a thrift store and great clearance deals on clothes for the kids at the mall. Despite all the stops, the day still managed to feel leisurely and adventurous.

It was fun exploring new playgrounds.

The younger two played, while the older two sat in the shade and enjoyed the breeze.

Xury found a rock wall just her size.

"I did it!"

Aravis and Xury went on an adventure that involved the ocean and a ship and this truck.

Apparently, it was a long ride.

After the playground, we took a walk along the river walk and watched the boats and waves.

Xury, who never looks at the camera, was so proud to be standing posing with the big kids. I was a nervous wreck because, as you can see, there are no railings on this part of the dock.

We took a walk over the water, under the highway and beside the train tracks. We saw trucks, trains, boats and fish. It was an almost perfect day.

At home, we've been working on building a shelf for the kitchen. Our countertops have been stacked on the bedroom floor waiting to be installed. Our old counter had an empty spot underneath and an odd island thing being held up by what I think was a deck rail. 

So, Dominick has been building a shelf to fill the empty spot under the counter.

We had no idea how to do it and we couldn't find anything specific on the internet so we had to figure it out ourselves. We found suitable boards and I did the measuring while Dominick did the cutting and assembling. We were so excited when we put it together and saw that our planning seemed to work. It looks like it's going to be exactly what we were hoping for.

Xury's been helping us measure.

While the baby was napping and Dominick, Tanner and I were watching a zombie apocalypse movie, Aravis occupied herself building this.

Yes, that is a box fort with a second story. She's very proud of that. 

 It even has a window box with flowers. Inside, she made a cardboard kitchen and cardboard couch. It's quite impressive. 

And, while my husband was throwing out some things from the backyard he discovered our latest wildlife encounter, this gopher turtle.

One of our neighbors wandered over and was happy to share his wealth of knowledge about gopher turtles with us. I was in my pajamas and really wishing I was not meeting my neighbor for the first time in my pajamas but was glad for all the interesting facts he shared with us. Gopher turtles are protected so it's against the law to relocate them. They dig tunnels and burrow under ground, hence the name gopher turtle. After a few minutes he wandered back over to our neighbor's yard and so did our neighbor.

So, it has been very busy and productive and fun and just a little nuts around here and I wouldn't have it any other way.