Operation: New Patio. Phase III

Saturday ....
after a 'lazy morning' around the house: catching up on laundry, dishes, cleaning the floors, and paying bills. we went for a quick ride down at Pt Defiance park - it was idiot central.... too many people out driving their cars, unaware of cyclists in the bike lane. it was so warm and muggy in the couple mile ride down to the park, but we were welcomed w/ an incredibly sweet cool breeze off the narrows. i joked about hauling my trainer down to set up in the shade in the breeze. :)

after all that - we got the framework for the new patio built! and we still had enough energy to sit on the couch and watch a movie!

One of the joys of summer ...

fresh local produce ....
and fresh from the garden catnip!


momma must love the kitties a lot to pick out this extra special plant from the farmer's market months ago ..... and then anxiously await the first harvest.

ain't life grand?! i think it was a hit!

link, putting those extra digits to good use.

Operation: New Patio. Phase II

[ok, photos back, for now anyway. leave it up to the software engineer to break the software. this is apparently a reported bug in blogger - the disappearing pictures. seriously, if QA reported a bug w/ steps to reproduce it like this - i would slap their hands and say "well, don't do that! add pictures the way you are supposed to!"]

Saturday's activities included: Tia and Barbara loading the trailer and hauling off the first load of concrete. Here's the second (and bigger) load:

It weighed in around 3000 pounds.

We rented a cool little tractor for andy to play with. It was lots more fun than digging, but left andy feeling like he'd been run over by a truck on sunday. dennis did a great job supervising, (and as always working too hard).

The new patio is gunna be awesome! can't wait to have people over for BBQs after riding bikes all day! yay!

Operation: New Patio. Phase I

What a fun friday night activity.

Left with too much time on my hands, i come up with activities such as these.

though destroying concrete was rather satisfying. this thing didn't bust apart nearly as easily as we had hoped. we had to be creative in our application of chisels, slegehammers, pry bars, and the general principles of physics.

we were successful! and the kitties were throughly entertained.

little Linker not so little anymore

Link, pound kitty number 4. In october, when he came home:

Link today:

i still call him "little linker", though andy laughs that he's not so "little" anymore. he's still the big baby of the family. he still has fluffy soft kitten fur. i hope he keeps it. :)

my sweet new wheels!

check out my sweet new wheels! andy got me a new mountain bike for my birthday, and it rocks!


i didn't have any good suggestions for anyone for what i wanted for my birthday this year. my mom after rattling off a bunch of suggestions the week before my b-day, struggling to come up with something, threw in a "how about something for the wedding? do you need anything ... ". i think i cut her off: "NO! something for wedding?! that's not a present!". then we both laughed, since it was the only suggestion that i had any sort of an opinion on .... and it was a pretty strong opinion.

so around birthday time (may 1), andy decided that i needed a new mountain bike frame. which i did. my old bike was a frame we picked up on ebay for much less than $100. andy or his folks had an old (ancient) fork, and there were plenty of components laying about to build me up a bike. it was enough to help me learn some basic dirt riding skills, and gain some positive mountain biking experiences. i even won my first mountain bike race this spring! i was the only beginner woman to show up. :)

so, a couple of weeks of andy scoping ebay and craigs list, to see what people were selling, and how much things were selling for. talking to a couple shops to see what a complete new bike might cost us. a couple weeks of figuring out what size frame i needed. (we concluded that i needed a "medium and a half". i was almost too big for a M, but much too small for a L). and i rode a couple bikes in parking lots and over speed bumps to get ideas of what kind of suspension i would be happiest with.
finally we were ready to buy! so more watching ebay and craigs list.

the bike arrived at about 4pm, on the thursday we were driving to elkhorn. ignoring that fact that we should already be on the road, and we had a 6+hr drive ahead of us, we opened the box slapped the bike together and i got to ride it up and down the street a couple times.

the bike was in desperate need of some andy TLC. and this weekend she was ready to go! yay!



on saturday, we went out to banner forest, between port orchard and gig harbor. this is a place i love to ride! there's some fun single track, a little up and down, and no serious climbing. there's nice wooded trails, and some crazy sandy big rocks trails. in general good "tia-friendly" trails to challenge me, but yet not enough to freak me out.

we rode a few familiar trails. and then took a left where we've always turned right (or was it a right where we normally go left?), and discovered some sweet new single track! lots of tight twisty turns (which in general i suck at, and need lots of practice). i love my new bike!! i already feel more comfortable and confident. and my skill set has improved in amazing ways since i last rode these trails this time last year. several sections i remember having to stop and practice until i got flustered with last year, i rode through on the first time this weekend!

when i'm riding my mountain bike, i think about how it's good to stuff you're not good at .... and especially with people who are better than you. andy's incredible patience is going to pay off soon; i'm going to be challenging him to ride faster! :)
next goal: keeping up with andy's dad, dennis, in the pool! HAHAHA! (the man has a 7ft wingspan, and is quite possibly part fish).