Ben's New Bike

Sharing is never as fun, right? So Ben is now too tall for what we use to call "the big boy bike". We went as a family to the bike store and Ben picked this little red number. He says it's really fast.

And yes, we do have spring fever.

Neil just adjusts the finish line to suit his purpose.

Before & After

For everyone who has been a guest at our kitchen table and was kind enough to not express out loud their fear of contracting a communicable disease from our chairs, they've been given a new lease on life.

Okay, really only three of the four, cause you can never do a home improvement project without at least two trips to the hardware store.

Videos for Aunt Donna

Digging out (Part 2 as predicted)

I took my turn at the driveway. And just as I was thinking to myself, 'you fool, look at everyone else out here has a snow blower.' The neighbor from across the street (who seems to have an incredibly high cylinder index) brings his snow blower over and offers to finish the driveway. Here we are working together:

Brian took a second picture which he thought was funnier cause it looks like I am just standing around, but really I'm still having to brace myself against the wind. Brian now thinks I have some kind of feminine wiles to make this happen given this was the first conversation I've had with this particular neighbor. Who knows maybe I was really working those fat jeans with my sweat pants on underneath.

As I type Brian has finished our sidewalk. Only took the whole morning and one neighbor's snow blower.

Digging out (Part 1 of a series I assume)

February 2, 2011: Here's what it looks like after Brian spent a 1/2 hour digging us out of Chicago's big blizzard. Now the boys are helping so things should really get moving.

Field of Dreams

Some of you may have heard about Brian's aspirations to have an ice rink in our backyard. After a number of days spent to no avail and what later looked like some unhappy grass, here's what he came up with:

So, you're saying 'What? This is not their backyard.' And you're right. It was easier to just break the law and shovel off the pond across the street. Before we receive angry comments, this pond is the smallest and shallowest in our neighborhood. Plus one of the neighbors brought out his girls too, so it became a movement.