Vacation (of a sort)

Lots has been happening in our little corner of St. Louis & most of it in our back yard! Mom & Dad came up for Max's birthday & stayed for a week. Max had a great time hanging out with Mum-mum & Pop-pop. Every morning Max would charge downstairs with strict instructions not to follow, he would wake up Mum-mum all by himself. He & Pop-pop would walk to the store to get a newspaper & look at all the cars & trucks & play in the gazebo in the park for awhile.

Later he would play outside with Mum-mum.
Followed by nice cold watermelon from their farm.

But it wasn't all fun and games! Ian & Dad were hard at work fixing our deck. I say fixing, it was more like rebuilding. We had replaced boards here & there since we bought the house 2 years ago but the people who built it never sealed it & replacing the whole floor was inevitable. I was pretty nervous walking across it. Then we discovered the posts needed to be replaced as well. And parts of the rail. And I wanted steps on the east side of the deck since Max's swing set is on that end of the house & the only steps were on the west side. So after Max's party, we got to work. Yes, I did say we. While Ian & Dad were pulling up boards & I got the fun task of helping move them to the ever growing pile of rotten planks. ( And boy, were they rotten!) Then I followed behind them, yanking nails & screws out of the joists. Luckily none of those needed to be replaced! Dad & Ian worked their tails off & got it most of it done by the time Mom & Dad had to leave on Sunday. Ian finished up a few remaining items & next week it will get a nice coat of water seal! Too bad its too hot to enjoy it! 105 degrees! Yikes!

Posts replaced, rail removed for steps & floor demolition in progress!

Look at that nice new floor! No body's gonna fall through that!

Look at those steps! Three cheers for Dad & Ian!

Now that the deck is finished I can finally start planning for spring planting! I know its early but I have some interesting plans for flowers & veggies!

And now you know why I posted everything at once!