The story of a bird

For those of you who remember, we had a robin build a nest right next to our slide in the clubhouse portion of our swing set. It started out with 2 eggs, then it grew to 4. We knew this location would be a challenging one with a cat and a 1 year old kid running around, so we had to keep a close eye out for the eggs, and keep the cat confined to indoors for a few weeks. Unfortunately, it was just too tempting for Brylee, and she had a great time throwing the eggs down...cracking 3 of them. With one egg left intact, we decided to up our security. The bird in the egg acquired the appropriate name of "Lucky". The days kept going and going and we thought Lucky would never hatch. Either he got too shaken up by Brylee, or it was a bum egg. But then one morning he finally decided to hatch! The kids were so excited and relieved to have him out of that egg! Here he is on his birthday...
We all couldnt believe how fast Lucky grew. Every day he got bigger and looked visibly different. Here he is at day 3...

day 5...

day 7 (he finally opened his eyes!)...

day 9 (growing a lot more feathers)...

day 11

and day 13, he finally decide to fly the coop. Here he is right before jumping out of his nest and sending the girls screaming for their lives! Guess he had enough pictures!

He hopped out of his nest, over to the railing, down off the deck and over to the fence.

Our empty nest. ):

Of course his parents were going bonkers chirping at him. We thought it best to go inside to allow the flying lessons to commence. We kept a close eye out for Lucky from indoors, but he hopped right into the neighbors yard into some tall grass and we lost sight of him. We knew he was okay and nearby from watching his parents sitting on the fence and chirping at him.

Some time went by and we hadnt seen Lucky in a while. We thought he might have hopped through the fence into the neighbors yard. Then something frightening happened. The cat got out! Someone left the front door opened and he B-lined it straight to the birds! The parents must have set off some alarm because all of a sudden all these birds came out and started chirping and swooping down at the cat to try to stop him. I watched him inch toward the neighbors house, and then I knew....Lucky had hopped down into the window well! I ran out at the same moment the cat jumped down into the window well. Sure enough, there was Lucky, about to become dinner. I grabbed the cat just before he pounced on poor Lucky. That was the first time I heard him chirp! I thought the birds were going to attack me, so I went back inside with the cat to watch, and debate how Lucky was going to make it out of the window well. It wasnt long after, we saw him hop back around the fence into our yard. He made it, safe and sound! The kids ran out to see him again. He still couldnt fly, but he let us take one last picture of him...

After that, he hopped along the fence towards the back of the yard and most likely into the nature preserve. That was the last ime we saw him. It was awesome to get to watch him grow! Thanks Lucky!

Memori-able weekend

I really wanted to do something fun for Memorial Weekend. It was such a nice day that Saturday, I just felt like getting out and going to the beach! Lake Michigan wasnt my first pick, but the other, cleaner water beaches werent open yet, or were too far. So we ended up going to North Beach off of Lake Michigan. I always wanted to check this beach out. Its all the rave in the Wisconsin travel brochures and every time we drive by it, it looks so inviting. It does have really nice beach sand and a huge play area for the kids and most importantly...bathrooms, which is a huge plus when you have a newly potty trained little guy! Unfortunately, the temps were quite a bit cooler right next to the lake with the breeze that was blowing. (It was so calm at our house!) So we didnt end up staying for too long. And, note to self...picnics at a breezy beach dont go so well, unless you literally like SANDwiches! Brylee enjoyed it more than I had expected, and was perfectly content just sitting in her little camp chair, covered in a blanket and sipping her drink. The girls have been taking swimming lessons, so they have really gotten much braver in the water...a little too brave. Madi and Katelin were up to their necks out in the waves when I had to call them back in closer! Alissa even looked like she was enjoying it, and she usually hates getting her face wet!

Ryan was helping Zack "jump" over the waves!
Zack got so cold after being in the freezing water and cool breeze, that his lips were purple, but he still didnt want to leave. So he started burying himself in the warm sand to warm up.

Then it turned into a sand castle.

After we had all had enough of the cold water, we decided to move our little party to a cleaner, and warmer indoor pool. Zack was beat and just wanted to sleep, so he and Ryan went to the van to take a little snoozer while I took the girls to the huge playground for a while. Afterwards we headed over to the Y and swam for about an hour indoors, and then went home to crash.

The next day, we had a little surprise for the kids. Since they didnt have school on Monday, we decided to set up this...

Our camping experiences have been non-existent since we moved here, (something about lots of bugs and no mountains) and the good ol tent was just collecting dust down in the basement, so I figured it was time to pull it out and have a camp out in the backyard. Its the perfect place after all...close to indoor plumbing and everything. We decide to have tin-foil dinners (in the BBQ) and s'mores. Sadly, that plan didnt go quite as planned when we ran out of tin-foil...and then propane. Since it was Sunday, we had no other choice then to improvise. We finished dinner in the oven, and pulled out our portable camp stove to roast the marshmallows. It worked. See now, if we hadnt been in the backyard, this might have been a real tragedy! (:

S'mores faces.

Once in the tent, one of our nice neighbors contributed by providing a real camp fire smell, and another one provided fireworks! We didnt even ask them too...arent they just the best!? We had a quick game of Uno Attack with the kids, and Alissa must have inherited my late night silliness, because she decided to do this with her cards...

Funny enough, Alissa won the game. Strange how Uno can be like that when you trade hands of cards 4 times!

All of us girls being silly.

Remember last year how Zack got eaten alive by mosquitos? Well, looks like things havent changed much. He must have laid down on top of one, because when he sat up that whole side of his face had been devoured! Alissa may have inherited my late night silliness, but Zack got Ryans mosquito attracting blood! So just remember kids, Mom gave you all the good stuff! (:

We did a search through the whole tent, because who can sleep knowing that guy is in your bed, and turned up the culprit and one of his little friends. They now sleep with the tulips. Here he is still happy, before the swelling kicked in. The next morning, he couldnt even open his eye. Must be allergic or something.

Good thing we got all of our fun in, because on Monday, the rain came.

Happy Memorial Day! (late)

Projects

Some of you know about the things we have been working on in the yard, and have asked for pictures, so this is for you. For those of you who dont know, here is a list of some of the spring projects we recently got done:

• stained the swing set
• rubber chips for the play area
• laid new patio and steps
• made permanent location for trampoline with extra rubber chips
• poured gravel by the trees in back
• planted 3 new fruit trees
• planted grass to fill in spaces around the new projects

The first thing on our list was getting the rubber chips put in. The kids havent really been able to use their play set much because of all the rocks, dirt and weeds. Every time it would rain it would flood around the swing set and make it all muddy, so it was off limits. So the first thing Ryan did, was install two new drains to solve that problem. Then we laid fabric and had 5000 lbs of recycled rubber playground chips delivered. Of course it was an all day job wheelbarrowing it all from the driveway to the play area, but the kids enjoyed every minute watching their play area get transformed and playing in the chips.

One bag down, 1 1/2 to go! Zack getting free rides to the play area... helping unload...

and getting free rides back.

Brylee doing what she does best...taste testing! One project down!
We found out we had a few extra chips, so we decided to move the trampoline and put them around that. It was always a pain having to move it to mow the lawn, and now we wont have to! Imagine lush grass around it once it finishes growing!

The next project was going top be getting a new concrete patio poured. I really wanted a place to put a table and our BBQ on. After getting a few price estimates, we decided to go the cheaper route...MUCH cheaper, and just install one with pavers instead. And yes women, I did it mostly myself, again. Please, hold your applause! Ryan did do the hard labor part of digging out all the dirt to make it level, and making many trips to the store and hauling those blocks to the back yard, so lets give him credit as well. Again, imagine it when the grass is done growing.

After getting it done, we discovered our back yard wasnt as level as we thought. I ended up having to make 3 steps as well. Anyone know what to put in between them to lock them together and prevent weeds from growing? Next up was tackling the weed problem back by the trees. For those of you that dont know, we have a "nature preserve" behind us, complete with 2 sets of train tracks, and a nice view of the flour mill. Not that we dont love watching the train and seeing the trucks go in and out of the flour mill, but we decided to plant three maple trees along the back after we moved in, with a line of shrubs behind them. When they grow to full size, there will be no more view of the train, and hopefully it will cut out some of the sound as well. The gravel was to fill in between the trees and shrubs. Good bye weeds!

Did you spot the fruit tree? (There was one in the wheelbarrow picture). In case you are wondering, we got two kinds of apple and a peach. It is so relieving to finally get the yard to a place where we just have to maintain it, and we have the whole summer to sit back and enjoy it! Sometime we will have a BBQ so you can come enjoy it with us...you know, after the grass finishes growing!