We've been very busy lately. First Mom and Dad were very generous! They sold their Yamaha baby grand piano (a very beautiful sounding piano too, I loved playing on it) and bought Mom an awesome digital piano (a Yamaha Clavinova top of the line). She had been wanting a digital piano mainly because she likes to play sometimes when Dad is asleep or taking a nap. Now she can because it has headphones - and a bazillion other features! They also did some good wheeling and dealing and were able to get us a VERY nice Yamaha upright!!WOW!! It really is nice sounding and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy playing piano. Way too cool, can't thank them enough for this! Though I do think Mom had some ulterior motives - now she can give the kids piano lessons and they have a place to practice. haha
Before the piano showed up, we decided we'd better finally buy new carpet for where we are going to put it - we've had the money saved up for quite some time, but same as always, it gets put off and put off and put off. So we now have some nice new carpet in that room. It's a little darker, more brown, but it looks FANTASTIC!
For many years now we've been talking about building a deck out back. Once again, we've had the money saved up, just too many other things going on and next thing we know it's too late in the year (cold, raining, etc) and we say we'll do it next year. This year we got a little more motivated and sent the dimensions of the area to my Uncle Paul who has been building houses in Florence (Oregon) for 30+ years. He sent back directions, plans, and a parts list. He also said if we build it before mid-June, they would come up and help us. Well, I looked at the plans and was positive I could do it myself, but no WAY we're gonna pass up help from a professional! The arrived Friday morning, we got it framed by the end of the day, then finished it Saturday. It's AWESOME! We love it!! HUGE Thanks to Aunt jean and Uncle Paul! If it weren't for them, 1) we probably still would have lumber sitting in our driveway, 2) no WAY we would have gotten it done in two days, more like two weeks! (and you think I'm kidding...)
I also created a slideshow of the progression of the deck. It's best if you change the speed to fast in the lower left corner.
Lastly, we decided this year we would get the kids a nice swingset. We LOVE those Rainbow gym/fort/swingset things. They are very rugged and fun. But they also START at like $4500! The one we would have wanted to get was about $7500!! Just a tad out of our price range. So we got a really nice one from Toys R Us for a fraction of that price. Took me about two weeks to build it just because of other things going on. It's almost done, I just need to put the slide on. As I was finishing it yesterday, Riley & Maddie were having lots of fun climbing and swinging on it.
This last weekend Riley turned 5! 5!!! Man, how did that happen so fast? He wanted it at Safari Sam's, a great place with a HUGE indoor jungle gym thing they can climb on, in, around, etc. It was a great time, we all had a blast. And Maddie turns 2 in a month! How time flies...So it's been a busy year so far, especially these last few months. And I'm sure it's going to be a busy summer, but busy in a good, fun way. :)
