Patio: Making Progress

Adam has made great progress with the patio over the last week. Here are some pictures:

The before:

And here are a couple of the "in progress" photos:

The patio base...

A close up of the base for the brick oven...

I'll add some additional "in progress" photos at the end of tomorrow.

Summer Fun Starting Early

It's been gorgeous here in the Northeast this week. We've hit the 80's almost every day! Yesterday, Chance, Kobe, and I took advantage of the good weather and spent the day in the yard cleaning up sticks and raking. We took a break at one point and I snapped a couple of pics...

This weekend, Adam and I are starting our first summer project. We are putting in a new patio and brick oven in the backyard. Very excited! I'll be sure to document the process and will post some pics of our progress. We're hoping to get the patio done this weekend, the brick oven will take considerably longer.

The Head and the Heart

A couple of months ago, Uncle Gary and I were shooting the breeze on g-chat when he mentioned that he heard a band he thought I'd like, The Head and the Heart. He told me to look up a particular song on YouTube and see what I thought. I did and I liked what I heard...So I shared it with Marc and Jen who also thought they were pretty swell.

Turns out that band from Seattle is currently on tour and they're in Portland tonight! Tickets are cheap - $20 - can't beat that. So we're heading north to check 'em out live. I'll let you know what we think!

If you're interested, here's a version of that first song I heard, Lost in my Mind. Happy Friday - hope you're going out and doing something fun this weekend. :-)

GRANITE STATE OF MIND (Jay-Z Parody - The SSP)

Finally, a snow day!

Most of you reading this blog live in New England and I don't have to tell you that this winter has been lacking one important component: snow! Mother Nature finally came through with some snow on this first day of March. The dogs and I just took a little break from work and went out to enjoy it. Here are some pictures for you.

Mario the Stario

A friend of mine shot a quick video of Mario and me this weekend at the barn. I love how happy he looks here!

Day Off

We're just chilling and enjoying a day off today...

Skunk, 1 Chance, 0

As a rite of passage for every dog, Chance had his first encounter with a skunk this morning. Chance lost. Actually, Chance could care less...Amy lost. It occurred at about 5:00 this morning. As is the morning ritual, Adam let the boys out while he was getting ready for work, when he let them back in, that familiar aroma filled the house.

The "good" news? Kobe had a similar encounter last summer and in researching how to get rid of the stink, we did come across a good way to accomplish this.

-Get on an outfit that you don't care much about, cause you'll be tossing it in the trash when you're done. This includes gloves if you've got 'em.
-Get a roll of paper towels and start wiping your dog down - this takes off a lot of the oil from the skunk spray.
-Next, wash your dog with some water and a mild detergent. We use dish detergent.
-Towel dry if it's winter and you feel badly for your shaking puppy dog.

Chance is quite proud of himself, he doesn't think that he lost:

Bunny Sitting

Some friends of ours had to go out of town due to a family emergency, so we agreed to care for their rabbits while they are away. For those of you that don't know, we lost our bunny Lily to an owl (we suspect) late last summer. So, we've been bunny-free for awhile. Anyway, these bunnies are a breeding pair (they're meat rabbits)...But, as you know, when a critter comes into our house, while they're here, they're spoiled.

We keep them in the mudroom and we let the boy hop around for awhile at night. They don't have names, but we call the boy (the brown one) Tucker and the girl (the white one) we call Crazy Lab Rat Bunny - because, well, she's mean. Here they are:

(Look at those ears! So darn cute.)

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope that you all enjoy this day. This song reminds me of my love.

Chance wanted to say "hi"

We're baaaaaack. Stay tuned for future updates.