Weekend relaxation

Is there really such a thing as relaxation when you have a new house? Nope. But I was doing wishful thinking when I titled my post.

We have been busy this week. I finished the master bathroom and the kids bathroom with painting. Touch ups are still needed, but I am going to do all paint touch ups with white all at once, so it is done for now. I am finished painting for awhile. I need a break. That does it for the upstairs walls, anyway. All that is left is the hallway, and then we come downstairs, so that is good.

Thursday this week we had the oil company come by and give us a proposal about filling our oil thank and what that will cost monthly/yearly. I will spare you the details. It is very expensive, as we knew it would be. I hope the oil prices don't climb any higher. I don't know how people will afford to heat their homes. It is getting scary. But it looks like the boiler is working fine (a plus since we were worried) and all looks well. They will be back next week to clean it and put new oil in our tank.

Friday I took the car to the shop (big excitement) and finally got our trunk fixed. As some of you might remember, our trunk hydrolics quit right before we moved, so we have had to hold up the back hatch while we load. That hasn't been fun! But we got a note finally from Toyota that said that many cars were having that problem so it could be fixed for free. Yeah!

Firday was also the girl's physicals. Finley had her two year physical and Arlington her school physical. Arlington is 37 pounds and 42 inches. She is in the 40%tile for both height and weight. That was good to see! We were very happy to see she was 42 inches because that is a magic number when it comes to roller coasters! We have plans to take her to Kennywood, so this allows her to ride some things she is going to LOVE! Finley was small, of course. She was 22 pounds 4 ounces and 33 1/2 inches long. She is in the 5%tile for weight and 40%tile for height. She and Cainan are the same height now, but Cainan is a pound heavier. Finley has always been our pickiest eater and most active child, so we weren't surprised by her weight. She did not pass her hearing exam, though. This is also not really a surprise. Finley has had "odd" hearing since she was a baby. I remember one time I dropped a pan on our tile floor by accident and she never even budged. And we would clap our hands behind her and she wouldn't jump or turn. The doctor thought she was just not easily startled, but we are keeping an eye on it. She is going for a formal hearing test in a few weeks to see if anything is going on, or she is just fine. I think she is fine because her language skills are just fine. She says over 100 words and talks in 5 word sentences. But it seems like when she is 20 feet or more away, I have to really yell to get her to respond. It could be nothing related to hearing - it could be her attention span and craziness! So we will see.

Today we are getting a few chores done. Mat is finishing the fire pit area so we can roast marshmallows. I am doing some more clearing of our large boulder. Just little bits here and there. We also did our fantasy football draft with the Pletcher clan. We did it by skype conference this year. Not as fun as being in person, but the years we don't go to the lake, this is the best we can do. 12 people play - we are a large bunch now! My football team is awesome (not). I have a few key players, but mostly I like to collect Steelers and weirdo players for fun. Last year I almost made it into the superbowl, so you never know!!!!

And guess what? Stupid deer ate some of my new flowers. Up here the deer population is bad. People are fighting against controlling them, so they are out of control. We have three areas - Lyme, East Lyme, and Old Lyme. This is where the investigations and discovery of Lyme disease came from. Aren't we lucky? Ticks are bad here. But anyway, the deer are seen quite often in our yard. Well, I moved my plants just the other day into the ground from their pots, and those little stinkers ate every flower. UGH! I can't believe it. Well, yes I can, but I am STILL MAD. So now I am going to have to either net them (ugly) or move them somewhere else. They are deer resistant plants, but we were told the deer will eat anything!

I wanted to share some pictures of "before and after" of our boulder. We are no where near done with what we want to do with it, but are already heading in the right direction. Here are the shots. (below are more pictures of the kids!)

Here is the before - see the tree area (right above where our excavator at this time had just starting clearing the yard? ) The rock is behind those trees on that little hill.

Here is the after!!! The excavator has lowered the yard and made it flat - then Mat and I alone cut down all the trees, cut back all the brush and starting raking it out. I even planted two flowers on the one side of the rock (you can't see). Stay tuned......



So that is it. Next week at this time we will be in Pennsylvania for our visit. We are looking forward to that. Tomorrow we are trying a new church to see if it is the right one for us.

Enjoy the few pictures!