All the Things

I do hope to take on the gigantic challenge of blogging the Hawaii trip--but it might not be until after the wedding. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep up on the other things going on around here . . . like the boys' landscaping business. They had a BIG job that took four days of some version of the six of them working about 10 hours per day to rebuild a retaining wall out of railroad ties. They came in just inky when they were finished (look at their feet compared to their legs)! No poison ivy though, woot! 

Getting paid the moola apparently means upgrades to the gaming systems. Brennen bought a big TV and an XBOX a few months ago with his shoe sales earnings. Graysen, after setting up Noah's tiny dorm-sized TV at the apartment, felt kind of bad for his bro-to-be and offered to give Noah his larger-than-Noah's "travel" TV, taking Noah's smaller one to replace it, and then upgrading above (both literally and figuratively) his brother's TV to this screen approximately the size of their bedroom door. Good grief! It's bigger than our one family TV that we've had for years--we've never had more than one TV in the house, until the past several months and its riches from the boys' work efforts. At least they are hanging out together when they play :) It's like LEGOs but with more graphics and explosions . . .

We also upgraded our living room couch, having gifted our previous one to the new apartment :) A couple years ago, when the downstairs couch needed to be replaced, we spent actual HOURS at the furniture store trying to find an adequate replacement. The boys fell asleep on one of the couches while they were waiting for me to decide. And in the end, I ordered one online from Costco. BUT this time, Buck and I walked into the discount furniture section to the area I remembered sleeper sofas once could be found. I spotted a gray one. We sat on it. We pulled off the cushions, checked the bed, which drew the attention of a salesman. He said, "You want it?" I said, "Sure!" And then he hit some things on his Ipad and we walked out five minutes later :) Lol, Buck's head was spinning. He still can't believe what happened happened so quickly! It was a discontinued model at about 1/3 of the price I'd seen online. They had one new in the box on the "shelf," so we didn't even have to take home the one everyone had been sitting on in the showroom. Delivery was free and available within two days (I figured we'd be couchless most of the summer given the lack of availability we'd encountered on our last visit). It's not the most favorite couch I've ever owned, but it is certainly sendable with the next apartment dweller in a couple years. Win, win!

With all the newfound space in our living room, Caelan got to build a plant shelf that arrived in the mail as a wedding gift. The girl likes plants, so she was assigning seats to her various potted friends while she tapped away with her tiny hammer and gloves :) So much fun to pick out things you like and have people send them to you!

Another fun event took me to my nephew's t-ball game on a warm Saturday morning. I got to cheer him on while catching up with the family. His grandma was there and when my brother mentioned M could very well live in this community his entire life and graduate high school with the same kids he was playing ball with that morning, I added that his future wife could also be out on that field right now! I said, "I'm rooting for the tiny girl with the long brown hair and pink helmet." And his grandma said, "I picked that one, too!" Lol! Great minds think alike :)

Later that day, Graysen and I drove over to celebrate Chase's high school graduation. I didn't take a single picture! But I did notice how similar his baby pictures look to my nephew's . . . is there one of A with a giant wooden block? Because Chase has one like that, and I had to do a double take :) It was a nice open house with delicious food and good conversation--although a lot of it was about motorcycles :) It was good to see Gabby, too. She and Chase are very cute together--but I have no pictures from this particular even to prove it. Lol, go look at her graduation pics a few posts back. Lots of cuteness there! 😁