Dental Hygiene

We've started to brush Joey and Barkley's teeth.  The toothpaste is meat-flavored, and the dogs love it.  It's gotten to the point where if we are brushing our teeth, Joey will come and sit by the vanity in the bathroom expecting his teeth to be brushed.  We made a couple videos of brushing the dogs' teeth (yes, this is what we've digressed to...dog-teeth-brushing videos...)

It has been a weekend of projects for us.  Ashley decided to redo one of our outdoor showers.  The wood had rotted about a bit and had become quite soft at the bottom.  She's become a very adept carpenter.

I think she just has to finish the door, do some painting, and we'll be showering outside again in no time :-)  Actually, the shower is quite handy if we've been swimming in the ocean, but it also can serve as a great place to wash dogs.  I finished up laying some sod and installing a flagstone path in our backyard that goes down to our beach.  It was far more work than I had anticipated, and I've very happy to be done with it.  First up, the new sod.

 Here's a shot of the entire sodded area of the backyard.  We've done from the deck all the way out since May. 

The grass has taken very nicely--it's far easier here in the south where it's humid to install sod compared to Colorado.  Next is a picture of the walkway.

It's hard to tell, but the path runs all the way down to our fence.  Since Tuesday, I've moved a pallet of sod (about a ton), two pallets of flagstone (almost three tons) and two one-ton bags of gravel.  All this had to be done using a wheel-barrel since we can't get a forklift through our fence.

Bode's first week of school was a smashing success.  He managed to find the school, found all his classrooms, and even submitted his assignments.  He's also purchased his gym t-shirt and has all his supplies--he even got a calculator for his math class.  We'll see how things go this week when the real work starts.  Bode spent today preparing by playing on his computer.

Pleasant week to all.

The Rezeks

Jon and Meghan stopped by for a quick visit on Friday.  They now live in North Carolina--are residents of New Bern, and their house was flooded last year during the big hurricane that struck.  They are just about done with their rebuilding.  They also have a condo in Orange Beach (reference the Dec 2018 blog post), which is about a two hour drive from our house.  We had a very nice visit--hung out, dinner, and some wave-running, which was cut short due to some weather coming in, but they did get to see some dolphins.

We went out for some yummy seafood for dinner, and then Bode was nice enough to take a picture.  It is hard to believe that I have known Jon for 30 years come November.

I have taken to bird-proofing some of the garden.  We will see how this goes.  I have some nice beans growing, some pumpkins starting to emerge, and I also planted some spinach and cilantro, but haven't yet seen their buds.

The okra has really been coming in; unfortunately, we haven't really done anything with it, other than look at it.

I wonder if the garden is attracting reptiles because yesterday, we had FOUR snakes in the yard; fortunately, Ashley was able to kill two of them.

The big project for the next couple of weeks will be more sod in the back yard and hopefully a flagstone walkway/stairs leading down to the dock.  I've dug out most things; below is the prep work.  First, where the sod will go.

Next shows the stairs.  I'm not exactly sure I will correctly build the stairs like a professional landscaper, but I think Ashley and I should be able to figure things out. 

Close to three tons of flagstone, two tons of gravel, and one ton of sod will arrive on Tuesday; hopefully Ashley can get everything to the back yard without too much trouble.

Bode starts the sixth grade tomorrow.  We picked up his class schedule, and he seems very excited.  He has band, world history, math, language arts, earth and space science, and gym class; that sounds like enough to keep him busy.  We'll see how everything goes tomorrow.  Pleasant Sunday.