Let's Go Wayyy Back

Okay, so before I can talk about Colorado, or getting to Colorado, or my sister's wedding, or the family reunion, or the sisters reunion, or the actual move, or the birthdays that have transpired, I am going to go back to preparing to leave Georgia.

Which involved mountains of soil, buckets of paint, and loads of caffeine.

Remember that one time in 2009 when I mentioned our back yard expansion? And how we started it? And then remember the part where my leg broke and then I had surgery and then it was too hot so we quit working on it?

Yeah, so it turns out we had to finish what we had started, but after nearly a year of neglect we had to rent another Bobcat to re-clear/grade the new area. Just the type of major project you want to do when facing several stressful months, but whatever.

I should have snapped some better "before" pics, but I didn't. Here it was after the first sections of fence came down (in 2009):



And there was our first load of fill dirt, also 2009:



And here is Perry driving like a psycho in what was about to become the new section of yard:


...and then continuing his psychoness (not a word) with a machete:


To be fair, Boone had plenty of psycho moments (hours) between the two rentals and most of the month of May, I just don't have photographic proof. But here he is manning it up in the bobcat:



Seriously, the testosterone level in that back yard was through the roof. Those two were so pleased with themselves at the end of Day 1 that they could hardly stand it. So they sat (hahaha):



Just to give you an idea, you can see where the fence ends on the right side of the picture, so you can sort of gauge how much area we cleared to expand the yard.

Fast forward to 2010 when our backs were against the wall and we had to finish it, and here it was re-graded and cleared with the fence up. I'd like to add that I hand nailed about 40 linear feet of fence all by my little self. Nail guns are for pansies. Also, smart people.



And then we laid sod. And we saw the sod, that it was good. Enough. Amen.


Anyway, that's the yard. Moving on to the buckets of paint part...

So by the time we left the house, I had literally painted every single room in the house, some more than once. Painting the kitchen, the office, and the laundry room was a big pain, but painting the kids' rooms was really hard emotionally. Maybe because I had put so much time and effort into doing them the first time, and maybe because I felt like I was erasing the last 4 years and realizing how much they changed while we were in GA.

In any case, it was not fun to go from this:




...to this:




Or this...



..to this:



And really not fun to go from this:



...to this:



Alas, it had to be done to make our home "rent-able", and I think it's a nice neutral (but not totally boring) color. Yes? Yes.

Anyway, it just made me kind of sad to close this chapter in our lives, because I felt like I was closing down the "family with LITTLE kids" phase. Don't get me wrong, there are parts of that phase that suck royally, and I don't miss diapers and pregnancy and spit up and highchairs. But for whatever reason I was bummed to realize I was in a new category and I already wish I had done some things differently when my kids were all at home all day. But I suppose most parents feel that way when they look back, so I've tried not to beat myself up over it.

Especially when I look back at the totally wicked rooms they had;)

There were a few other repairs/maintenance issues that had to be dealt with before we left town, but these were the biggies and we were SO happy to be done with that house. It also made us really glad that we are renting the first 2 years here so that we don't have to think about yard expansions and paint and new toilet seats and garage door opener issues.

Wow. All that typing and I have you caught up to May. Almost. Still have end of school year stuff, which is not at all interesting to any of you, but I want to document it, sooooo...sorry. Feel free to skip the next post.

Peace out.