Family Photos

I opted for black tops and wrecked jeans for our family photos. Black because Brent and I have lost a significant amount of weight this year and black is kind to a more lithe silhouette. I also wanted to do a quiet nod to Black Lives Matter. The wrecked jeans were fitting because, let's face it, 2020 has been a complete mess. It also gave me an excuse to buy Brent some hipster jeans to replace the sad, baggy, worn-out ones he's been hanging on to. My favorite family photo to date was taken a few years ago on a beach, so I thought we'd return to that happy place. I didn't want to hire a photographer, I asked everyone to be patient and just snapped these with my old iPhone but I have to say, I'm pretty darn happy with how they turned out.  

First the family group photos:

Then the sister photos:

My mom once received a Christmas card from a family with several daughters with their legs crossed in the same direction and she has gushed about it so much I've tried to recreate it... but I can't seem to quite get it right! This photo is okay, I just don't know that it is gush-provoking. 

Next up were Liesel's individuals:

The amount of photos may appear like favoritism towards my oldest girl but Liesel truly enjoys being in front of a camera. She's incredibly patient while I get just the right shot and is up for trying anything. Draw a huge heart in the sand? OK! Her sisters were really anxious to put on their swimsuits and play. 

This is far and away my favorite. I can't get away with posing her in cutesy little toddler shots anymore. I felt like this one captured how she's a tad more serious as she grows into adolescence and yet the wind whipping a couple of locks of hair speaks to her ADD. She's thoughtful, and almost completely put together but not quite. That's Liesel 100%

This was another series of shots it took a while to get right. Dance poses can be really dynamic but you have to get them just right or it looks awkward. I was happy even the prep for her big leap looked pretty.

Her shirt flew up really high in those initial attempts but she tucked in the tank top just enough to get this one.

Another one that took some finagling. Her elbow covered her face and then her hair. She couldn't do much to adjust once she got that scorpion pose and she could only hold it for so long. We did this one over and over and Liesel never complained. She wanted a good photo too!

I kept promising everyone we were just about done and then I'd think of more poses. Yet again, Liesel didn't mind. The idea for this one came from Pinterest. Theoretically, you wet the object (in this case, a roll cutter) and then roll it around in sand and it looks like you are peering out of a perfectly shaped cave at someone on the beach. Well, as you can see, the sand didn't stick but the photo turned out pretty great nonetheless. Liesel tried wetting and sanding that thing more than once and she was delighted with the result. This is her favorite photo:

Next are Ireland's individual photos:

She's such a sweet and sentimental girl, her photos really reflect those aspects of her personality. I asked her if she wanted pictures with her glasses on or off and she immediately responded, "ON!". Aside from differentiating her from her older sister- people don't ask if they are twins as much since she's had glasses- but she's very proud of the fact she's bookish. 

Ireland tells me it was actually quite hard to balance on top of that log!

And now, Brigitta's individual photos:

Not only was Brigitta anxious to get into the water, but the seagull over her shoulder was squawking loudly. Just after I took the photo above, I said, "You want to chase him, don't you?" Gita admitted she did so I let her run after that stupid bird and actually, I kind of love the photos I got as she chased him with her hair flying behind her.

Finally, Sydney's individual photos:

This is the kind of cutesy toddler photo I don't feel like I can get away with for Liesel so much. It's just better with smaller feet! This one actually took me so long to get just right (her feet kept sinking as the waves washed over her) that Sydney was really done. 

I caught just a couple more photos of her by the water and called it a day. 

I really don't have many photos with Brent and I asked Liesel to take a few. 

Whatever pose we did, we'd give each other a quick little kiss. Afterwards, I realized some of these looked way more saucy than they actually were. Even though I've lost weight, I still have some love handles and here I asked Brent to just be sure to cover that up with his hand.

When we quickly kissed, somehow his hand lost some serious altitude (which I don't remember feeling) and this looks like we are about to have a throw down right there in the sand. What I thought might be a cute couples photo ended up looking waaay more passionate than I intended- although Brent like this one a lot and felt it was totally appropriate for a Christmas card to all our friends and family. "You're my wife! I have every right to kiss you! I'm not ashamed of that!" Well let's just say this is not the one I chose for the Christmas card. 

In spite of the trials and tribulations we've encountered so far in 2020, Brent and I still have each other for great conversation to discuss it... 

...laugh about it...

...comfort each other...

...and ok, yes, kiss when the day is done.

In the Weeds

Like many people who were confined to their homes for lockdown, we had the opportunity to look around and really consider some improvements. Brent and I have worked on the yard every year but it never felt like we could really get ahead. As soon as we fixed one problem, 3 more cropped up. With us both working from home, we had a bit more time to really focus. We put the truck to good use and picked up mulch from a local Boy Scout troop. We spent $350 on 5 truckloads for approximately 22 yards. It got to the point the scout master laughed when he saw us pull in. The backyard hadn't been properly mulched in years. We'd done a bit here and there but this time we did a full PhD- we Piled it High and Deep- to really keep down the weeds and make everything look clean and tidy. 

From there we moved on to something much cheaper- pulling weeds and trash trees. Since we had nowhere to be, I could slum around in my crappy t-shirts and sweatpants all I wanted and get back to work as soon as I logged off for my job. I went out everyday for weeks and cleared weeds until it looked tidy and kempt. 

Sydney took this photo. This is what I looked like for a good chunk of the summer.

Before: Back berm.

After: Brent pulled a lot of trash trees. We were blown away how that cleared the view.

Side yard Before and After:

Around the fountain was kind of a constant battle. I weeded it couple of times but when the first fall leaves fell, it had yet again sprouted more. Here's the After and Before:

Someday we will get that fountain working- I'm sure it will be so pretty!

It always blows me away how much better the fire pit looks with a little weeding and sweeping the dirt away.

Both of them done!

The bed to the side of the garage was a BEAST! As if pulling weeds out of the dirt wasn't hard enough, they cropped up in between the stones of the walkway.

Liesel told me one of our neighbors said he saw us working and felt really bad for us. Everyone else in our neighborhood uses professional landscapers and he even though about offering to help. Throughout the summer, he said he was really impressed with the progress we made- our yard looked just as good as all the other homes in the neighborhood. 

We also ripped out a patch of very pointless bushes, a flower bed where a tree used to be and a raised garden. Our yard doesn't need one more flower bed- I feel like we have too many as is. The raised garden was on the east side of the house and the wood was splitting out so the dirt was spilling out of the bottom. In the spring we are going to try and seed those areas. As excited as we were to finally get our feet under us, Brent and I are weirdly more excited for next year. If we can just mulch, weed and seed the areas we ripped up, the yard will not just look nice, it will actually be (dare I say it?) maintainable! 

We love having a large yard, especially with lockdown, but it can be an overwhelming amount of work. I think we finally made a good-sized dent and in the future the yard shouldn't be so all-consuming. We can look at stamped concrete to replace the aging walkway and maybe look at installing a bbq area and a new pergola where I'd like to put a dreamy hammock. Oh the possibilities!

Jump Around! Jump Around! Jump Up, Jump Up and Get DOWN!

 I have always wanted a trampoline. The movie Big came out when I was 11 years old and I think this scene sums up the magic of jumping without abandon. My favorite part is when the camera takes a street view and you can see Susan do seat drops in her party dress through those big, fabulous windows.

Big (1988) - Trampoline Scene from Žarko Simović on Vimeo.

When I was in college, I attended a backyard wedding reception where there was an in-ground trampoline and well, that just upped the ante. Now I didn't just want a trampoline, I wanted an IN-GROUND trampoline. Mid-April Brent and I realized (along with the rest of the world) this whole COVID-19 thing wasn't going to go away anytime soon. Like many people, we started looking around our home and our yard for ways to keep the girls entertained. I was getting some hefty paychecks thanks to a lot of overtime so I felt now was time to get that trampoline I've always wanted. 

The only problem is a lot of other people were thinking exactly like we were. In-ground trampolines were backordered until Mid-July. I planned to buy it with my last April paycheck and that's when the backorder date shifted to the end of August. The whole family was bummed. We were hoping to have it installed in time for Brigitta's baptism when there would be lots of family in town to enjoy it (not to mention Reagan's boyfriend Doug to help install it!). Somehow the girls managed to survive the summer without it and it eventually arrived. We contacted the village to get permission to dig and contacted the utility company to make sure we were ok.

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The video of 4 guys installing a smaller trampoline made it look so easy (although I may have just been charmed by the Australian accent). Ireland helped me put the frame together. Brent and I negotiated a bit over the exact spot. We looked at it from all angles, including how it would look out our bedroom window. 

In the lower right you can see the boxes the trampoline parts were delivered in and the girls newest toy. They were long and narrow- but to the girls they were space ships when they laid on their bellies and then time traveling machines when they laid down on their backs.

I spray painted the outline and started digging. I should note there used to be a playset with sand pit so digging out the sand and bricks that edged it was job 1. There was also a layer of mesh to contend with as we cut through the sod.

Layer 1: Sod, mesh and sand

We painstakingly measured that we were down 6 inches and then measured and spray painted the inner hole, the bounce hole. Ireland was again keen to help out:

Layer 2: Tree roots

We found lots of odd things, especially as we dug out the sand pit: screwdrivers, legos, a shoe, matchbox car, toy knight, etc. We though we'd gotten it all out when we were deep in the tree root level and found this guy:

We dug all the way down to dinosaur remains!

Layer 3: Large stones

The digging was really getting old by now. Turns out 3' is actually pretty deep! Who knew? I thought this was the worst layer but then we hit something that just about broke our spirits. 

Layer 4: Compacted clay

I'm pretty sure I sprained a wrist on this layer. We could angle the sides so technically we were working with the least amount of square footage yet, but this was the worst... the WORST! Progress was hard won, for sure. Were it not for my determination to finish projects, I might have given up but slowly we finished. Now we needed to create a soak-away so water would drain properly. Brent took this on pretty much by himself. 

He even broke the Maddock axe in the process! I wasn't kidding about that compacted clay...

Oh yeah, and he broke a shovel too:

They 4 guys on the instructional video with cute Australian accents said it would take two people a long weekend to complete. A solid week of digging through the crust of the Earth down to its core, we were finally finished... with this part. When Ireland stood in the soak away hole, she was completely underground. To this day I can't believe we dug that all out by hand.

I grabbed 7 pennies for each of us to throw in the bottom of the soak away: one for each of us to wish on and then one for luck.

We put a lining in the soak away hole, filled it with landscape rocks and covered those with more lining. Then we lined the large hole with several layers of weed barrier. 

Ireland helped me screw the black retaining wall onto the frame (which ended up being a lot harder than the 4 guys with cute Australian accents demonstrated on the instructional video).

We dropped it in and thank heavens it was level but it was sticking up just a couple of inches above the ground. Technically only the pads are supposed to be above ground but I'd had it. I mean REALLY had it and there was no way I was going to pull that sucker out just to dig down a couple more inches. I reasoned the grass would cover the couple of inches once we put the sod back and I further reasoned that I had long ceased to care about perfection at this point. I was sick of this project. I was bruised, bloody and so tired I practically fell into a coma every night from the exertion. I was tired of being dirty all the time. I was tired of the neighbor kids staring at me while I worked. I was tired of everyone saying, "You're not going to dig that out yourself, are you?" I wanted the trampoline to be DONE! 

Brent was surprised I wasn't going to be a perfectionist about this and we went about finishing the installation. I'm not kidding when I tell you I'm pretty sure I was working with a sprained wrist. I put my CrossFit wrist wraps to good use which helped, but I was in a lot of pain. I was able to assist Brent, but he really did the hard stuff when it came to stretching those springs and getting them in the tiny holes. He tried it out first, then I did, then we tried it together. We looked in each others eyes as the thrill of jumping on a trampoline returned to us, just as it did for Susan when she jumped on a trampoline with Josh in the movie Big. We laid down and I started singing Chasing Cars. It was sooo very fitting. 

We'll do it all

Everything

On our own

We don't need

Anything

Or anyone

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Jumping privileges were only extended to girls who had finished their summer workbooks. Ireland got there first, then Brigitta, Sydney and at long last, Liesel (with a lot of encouragement from her friends). 

I must have been so relieved Liesel finally finished, I forgot to snap a photo! Our yard became really popular with the neighbor kids, really fast. The girls started planning their day around when they could jump on the trampoline. I love looking out the window and seeing them on it. This place has become my dream home just a little bit more, and I am living for it!