MLK Day Photo Dump

Monday of this week was a holiday here in the United States, honoring Martin Luther King.  I actually forgot about the holiday until the previous Friday, so it was a nice surprise to get an extra day with the family.

We started the day by making our to-do list. My wife and I are fairly task-oriented, so on days we want to get crap done, we make a list.

Our list included updating our finances (we recently started using Mint.com to automate our finances, which you can read about here), writing a post about my time with Dave (homeless), who I met in a Target parking lot, and doing some work.  On weekends or holidays, I love the feeling of being in the flow while I work, especially if I’ve gone for a run, had a nice shower, and eaten a good breakfast.

Another item on our list was to finish a home improvement project: we decided to add some stepping-stones to our front lawn, which meant making a trip to Home Depot (which also meant planning around Abby’s nap schedule).

Abby loves driving her cart! This outfit killed me — so cute!

Abby loved being in the cart, and squealed with happiness as we rolled her around.  We found some nice stones, and loaded them into the cart.  It got a lot harder to push around at this point!

Heavy cart!  Abby is in charge.

After putting Abby down for a nap, we started the project.  You may recall that we acquired a duplex as an investment property at the end of 2011, and we’ve found that the area in front of our house is sometimes wet and icky.  In the picture, it is the area to the right of the car.  We usually end up walking in the grass when we get in or out of the car, so Sarah decided enough was enough, and got the ball rolling.

The grass in front of our house — sometimes icky

We ended up using some yarn to give ourselves borders to work from, and placed the stones in the proper location.  I’m used to Excel or Word, where it is easy to align stuff.  In the outside world, it’s not point-and-click!

Trying to get our stones nice and straight

A few minutes after we started work, one of our neighbors (Fritz) dropped by.  He’s a nice and friendly older gentleman, and always looks spiffy like he does in this picture.  He talked to us while we were working, and at some point, decided to jump in and help.  It was fortunate because he actually had a lot of the tools we ended up needing.  I don’t think we could have finished without him!

Fritz evaluating our work

It actually took longer (and was harder to do) than we anticipated.  Isn’t that true for most household projects?  Jeez.

We finished in about 2.5 hours, and there’s still some work to do.  We need to put some gravel beneath the stones.  We’ve been told this will help as they settle and keep them from cracking later on.  Maybe we’ll finish this weekend.

Sarah and Fritz, hard at work 🙂

In the evening, Sarah went to dinner with some friends, and daddy and Abby had some time together.  I contemplated taking Abby out to dinner, but then thought that maybe people would think we were mommy-less and pity us (although as Sarah later pointed out, we might have gotten a free meal out of it!).

So I decided to call Caleb, and invited ourselves over just as they were about to sit down and eat lamb.  It was tasty!

Abby was a little apprehensive, as they have two dogs and her mommy wasn’t around.  Here’s what she looked like as she tried to figure out what was going on.

Abby looking pensive…

She ended up getting better as time went on.  After dinner, we went home and re-united with mom.

All in all, it was wonderful day.  Below are some more pictures — click to enjoy.

Abby loves driving her cart!

Heavy cart!

Abby loves to play with boxes! You can almost see her first two teeth here

The grass in front of our house

Trying to get the stones aligned …

Trying to align the stones was not easy

Getting ready

Fritz overseeing the work

Sarah was starting to get tired!

Sarah and Fritz hard at work

Abby cautiously watching the dogs (slightly out of the picture)