Planter project

On a recent trip to the Del Mar fair, GM and I saw some cedar wood planters that we thought would be fun to have. And perhaps necessary, as I have found that there is a phenomenon that occurs as you get older whereby the ground beneath you is actually farther than it was when you' were younger. Honest! It's true, you'll see. So by having some of these planters, you can garden without actually bending over. Of course I had to bend over 10 or 12 thousand times to build it, but that doesn't count.

Anyway, I went on-line and found some planters (www.simplyplanters.com/search/index.cfm?Ntt=cedar&Ntk=all&source=googleaw&kwid=Cedar planters&tid=exact), but after looking at the pictures, decided to just build one from scratch. Men are like that. It's the same thing like asking for directions. Men get tools, buy wood and stuff, and can quite easily create an inferior product for 2 or 3 times the cost of what you could have bought it for. Not including the cost of all the tools we need.

So being a man who takes pride in adhearing to the whole man code, I made 3 trips to the lumber yard and Home Depot (of course) to gather the required materials (men are hunters and gatherers!). I did not actually know what all the materials were, of course, as I didn't want to waste precious time making a plan (another man code).

Anyway, I had some time to kill Sunday after Church and thought I'd get started. Well despite it being 100° outside, all-in-all it went rather smoothly and I actually completed it (well sort of, I want to add a shelf underneath, but.....)

GM and I went to the Home Depot and purchased the planting mix Monday (today) and, after finding a place to put the thing, which I had not given any previous thought to (another man thing), planted some beets. GM loves beets and has already consumed the batch she recently canned.

All's well that ends well, just don't ask me for the plans!

River Trip Prep

Well I guess gas is cheap enough that we can take the wave runners to the river this year (at least according to GM).
So yesterday Doug (from work) and I began the hours and hours of time it takes to get all that stuff ready for a one day trip.





So the first thing we realized was all 3 boats needed new batteries, so off to N.C. Yamaha for $300.00 worth of batteries.



Then a defect was found in the steering cable of everyone's "favorite" boat and a mail order replacement wast quickly ordered (a mere $150.00)
Hopefully it will get here in time to install.





The final straw was figuring out that the problem we've been having with one of the red boats will require the engine to be rebuilt ($$$ undetermined at this blogging)
We're not sure if we (Doug) can accomplish that before the trip, which led us to the obvious male conclusion.



Stay tuned to see if the cost of divorce also needs to be calculated into the price of this trip............

Holy Moly! Who are all these people?

The Kelly house was a mass of people(GM counted around 40, but they wouldn't stop moving long enough to be sure!) on Saturday, July 4th.
As most Kelly events it seemed to center on food. There was tons of hot dogs, hamburgers, BBQ chicken, and all the fixin's. I'm still eating hamburgers, but told GM that the one at lunch today was the last one for me. Lot's of yummy deserts, led by a couple of huge mud pie things that Gail made. (We're still eating that too!).
The pool was full of kids all day, along with Tate, who couldn't seem to get enough of the water.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Too Cute!

Bonnie looking good













Pool Fun!