Last Weekend Fun

We've been having lots of rainy days lately. Seems like the weekends I work it's beautiful weather and the weekends I don't, well are cold and gloomy or rainy. Last Saturday was a rainy day. TBall was cancelled, Isaac's new school picnic was cancelled, and Kyle's softball was cancelled.

We did some chores around the house Saturday morning which felt great to knock off our list. Then we headed to the science museum. With tons of other people. Lately when we've been going it's been just before closing so we have the whole place to ourselves but not this day.

The kids got to do some hands on activities: Isaac made a balloon rocket.

Mary & Emma made buttons:

Then we went to watch an ocean Omni movie.

Sunday was pretty dreary as well. The CSA we signed up for (Treasured Haven Farms) was having their spring bonus farm day so we made the hour and fifteen minute drive up north to visit the farm.

The kids got to run around the greenhouse while we picked out some herbs and veggie plants. We didn't take much cuz we don't have much room. I was planning on a pot garden this year, but this trip sparked us to go ahead with our eventual plan of a raised garden bed. So once we got home we measured and ordered the size I wanted off amazon.

We ended up getting:
Chives
Cilantro
Jalapeño pepper
Sweet banana pepper
Egg plant
Broccoli

The farm was pretty muddy but the kids did get to see and ride the tractors

And see the turkey and chickens.

Our garden bed arrived Wednesday evening so we picked up some soil and put it together on Thursday morning.

We are in process of' backyard woodchip removal' project. Luckily the thick layer of weed barrier makes this a project that can be spaced out over time because it's not a muddy mess when it rains. We will leave the barrier til we're ready to lay sod.

Upon removing a spot to place the garden I discovered under this weed barrier is another layer of woodchips and ANOTHER layer of plastic weed cloth! Oh joy. With numerous steaks in the ground. This backyard project is going to be fun once we actually get to it. ::eye roll::

Finally got to ready ground/dirt and got the box in place. Kyle filled it with the bags of dirt as I got our veggies planted.

I already had two tomato plants, a strawberry planter and mint plant. I moved the cherry tomato plant to the garden and left the other in the pot.

Here are my herbs:

We have basil inside in the click and grow planter I got for Mother's Day.

Plumbing work

Well we can mark another item off our 'to-do' list. We had a plumber come today to switch out all the galvanized piping and replaced with pex. We did this in our old house (blog here) when we finished our basement, always stinks having to redo something we've already done, but new house - old home - new issues. We had pretty bad water pressure in this house. If you were washing your hands while someone flushed the toilet your stream of water reduced to a mere trickle. Not any more!!

They cleaned up a heck of a mess that was above the hot water heater. We had thoughts of putting in a tank-less hot water heater to reduce the space this one takes up... but after reviews and learning more about them we decided against it. Plumber highly discouraged them and he even wouldn't install them. But now it's nice and cleaned up and new requirements make them insulate the hot water line. This wasn't the case 6 years ago when we did our other basement. The hot water heater has some years left, but at least the mess of pipes is cleaned up for when we do need to get a new one, and we might consider moving it then.

Luckily all the piping going to the second story was copper so we left that as is. They removed some sketching saddle valves and replaced the main shut off valve. Which after seeing inside he thinks that was probably most of our water pressure issue.

We also had them fix this catastrophe of an outdoor spigot. The before picture is first and the after is second.

We were also going to have them install our dishwasher. We had upgraded our other appliances but hadn't done the dishwasher yet. It wasn't that bad and was low on our list. But since we were getting the plumber here we decided to go ahead and buy it so they could just install it. It randomly arrived on Mother's Day. I was started to wonder if we'd get it in time and Lowe's hadn't called. Then I get a call while we were at Yum on Sunday saying they were 30 minutes away. 

We gave our old one to some friends, they came last week to get it so we've been doing hand washing for a few days. Well when they took a look at it today and turns out the Bosch models sit on the ground with no space below and the location of our electrical line (and water line) were not going to work with this model. He said he'd be happy to come back after we get the electrical switched around but that he couldn't do that part of it. I said it was okay and I'd take a look at it later that night. So I got to looking at it and he was nice enough to leave me two of the plumbing parts we needed. I had started on it before Kyle came home and by dinner time (well a late dinner due to installation) we had our dishwasher installed. Ourselves, again, only the third one I've installed, haha. But we wouldn't have been able to install it without the plumbing line moved anyway so not like we could have gotten it done earlier. It was kind of a buggard to get in. They are making them tight fitting to reduce sound so there was literally NO wiggle room. I had to drill some extra holes, move the electrical cord and install a box. I was just telling Kyle he should have gotten a photo of my 31 week pregnant belly body on my hands and knees getting this thing in. He of course helped once he was home and feeding the electrical wire back up was a two person job. We ran our first load tonight, well it's still going (can't hear it, but the little red light tells us it's running) so I'll see how it did in the morning. It has a top third rack for silverware which is nice and I think we'll enjoy having. Seems to hold a bit more too. (this photo still has the protective film on the front, I'll get that off tomorrow) 

School Chicks

At the start of May Isaac's preschool class was watching baby chick eggs hatch. This was Tuesday May 3rd when they started hatching and we got to see them when we picked him up from school. At this point there were only 5 that had hatched that day. 

The girls also got to see polka-dot their class guinea pig, he was a hit. 

When we picked him up on Wednesday there were even MORE that hatched and it was OUR turn to take some home to chick-sit over night. 

Here are many in the incubator, we didn't take any of these home but it was fun to see them all waddling around and even one coming out of an egg.

We got our three and loaded them up to take home.

The kids were enthralled and they were the entertainment of the evening.

Saying goodnight before bed


Isaac taking pictures with his little camera:

And the next day. It was fun hearing the chicks cheep overnight.

The chicks trying to rest but too much excited with the kids watching them


Saying goodbye to the chicks as they get ready to get loaded onto the bus with Isaac.