Painting at Petroglyph

The girls and I spent a few hours being creative this morning. We painted a purse, a cupcake, and a covered butter dish at "Petroglyph Ceramic Lounge." Millie had received a gift certificate to Petroglyph for her 8th b-day, but had never used it -- until now. That's nearly two years of waiting!!! We invited Big Bro. along; however, he politely declined. We did see several men there painting pieces of pottery with their daughters, so M. would not have been the only guy present. :-) The finished products will be fresh from the kiln on Wed. night, so we will be eager to see how things turned out. We had soooo much fun -- we will definitely do this activity again. Hey, who knows? Perhaps M. will actually decide to go with us the next time we get in touch with our artsy side. :-)

I am including a slideshow of the backyard project, from start to finish. Well, the project is not quite finished yet, as we have to add lighting & plants (lots of plants!), but at least you will be able to see the finished patio. We started working on the demolition in May, and it has taken three months to get to this point. Our next major project will be adding a walkway & many more plants in the side yard. We have plans drawn up to make it look like an English garden. We won't be able to plant anything until September, so perhaps we will have a little breather before the next phase begins. I doubt it!

Independence Day 2008

Despite a few showers and overcast skies, we enjoyed a spectacular afternoon/evening with our "T" relatives and Washington/Oregon friends. The food was tasty, and the fireworks display was "stunning." Our son is becoming quite the pyrotechnical expert; however, I'm still not sure if we got quite enough BANG for our buck! I'm pretty sure that I saw a lot of $ going up, up, up in a puff of smoke... Cha-ching!