Memorial Day at the pool...

Sunday was a beautiful 90 degrees with lots of humidity. The entire neighborhood was out at the pool and the kids had a blast. On Monday Shawn and Logan went golfing in the AM with Grandma Closer and then we spent the afternoon at the pool again.

Summer has officially arrived

Our HOA pool officially opened today. Although the weather was cool...and the water kind of green and dirty...the kids came straight off the bus and made a b-line to check out the water temperature - it was a beautiful 80 degrees (warmer than outside). We had a nice evening eating dinner at the pool and sipping some adult beverages. It should be a GREAT summer!

 

Carter's Last Day of Preschool

My luck finally ran out.

Over the past couple of years I have averaged between 65,000 and 80,000 flight miles per year - mostly business trips. Overall I have been spared the nightmares that you read about on the front page of the newspaper. I have experienced the occasional flight cancellation/delay, or sitting next to an obnoxious passenger, and even a middle seat due to a last minute booking on a Monday AM flight to LAX. This week my luck ran out! I booked a flight from MSP to CLT via ATL - trying to save some Corporate dollars. We left MSP on time...arrived in ATL on time...and even got to the vicinity of CLT on time...but then the weather Gods arrived. Upon our approach to CLT a major storm blew in closing the airport. We circled for about 90 minutes until our fuel was low and we had to divert to Spartenburg - don't even ask me where that was. We stayed in Spartenburg for about 2 hours to get fuel and wait for CLT to open. Finally at 10:30pm CLT was opened and we were off for our 26 minute flight. We actually did arrive in CLT around 11pm. And as soon as we landed another significant storm blew in and they closed the ramp due to lightening. So in the middle of the night...in the middle of a storm...we sat on the tarmac for almost 2 hours. Even after the ramp opened there were too many planes waiting and not enough gates. So one by one they would pull you in - deplane - pull the plane out and then let the other plane in. Long story short - left MSP at 1:15pm and arrived in CLT at 1:45am. A direct flight would have gotten me there around 4pm. Finally I got to my hotel and fell asleep around 2:30am and had the joy of getting up at 6am for an all-day mtg. Oh the joys of air travel.....the only saving grace was that I was in first class and there was satellite TV on board :-)

House: Before and After

Try this again - the formating on the original post was off.....

Before:

 

After:

The "after" picture does a pretty good job capturing the changes. It is hard to see the top garden above the wall or the bushes/perrenials in front of the house. At this time we are holding on removing the brick  - originally we were going to replace it with ledgestone...but the wall makes such a big difference we are going to live with it for awhile and then make up our mind on next steps. It will be fun to watch all the plants (70+) grow up over time and fill in the landscaping as well.

Great Soccer Pictures - We Won!!!

One of the dads on Logan's team is a great photographer and captured these action shots from the game last Wednesday. The boys are improving everyday and they won their first game against Bloomington 3-1. Our boys technically are too young to play traveling as it is a U9 league...but they are all playing up to get more playing time and skill training. We set the expectation that they would most likely lose every game....but they are playing competitive and finally pulled off a win. They were soooooo EXCITED and jumped on each other in a BIG pile at the end of the game. It was definitely a memorable moment. Now their confidence level is also high.

Fun Run

We had one of our regular HOA events this AM - Fun Run and Brunch. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest - light drizzle and cool....but it could have been worse. The adults - and bigger kids - did a 3 mile run around the northside of the Association. The kids then had a 1 mile run/bike/rollerblade/etc. My assumption was that the parents would join them...but no...the starting gun shot off and away they went by themselves around the river and through the woods (literally). Logan ran the whole mile and the kids were awarded with "Territory Blue Ribbons" at the finish line. Carter was being shy and stayed at the lodge and played. I was surprised that there were 3 year-olds runing the mile. CRAZY!

After the run we had a great brunch with the neighborhood. The pool has been repaired and is filled with water - it opens next week and all the kids are counting the days! Hopefully it will stay warm - LET SUMMER BEGIN!