Bufford's mother stopped by for a visit yesterday! What a fun woman. Her and Sue, Tom's mother, went on the repo bus tour in Corona looking for houses to buy. After all the headaches Tom caused her growing up she still loves him and thinks he's a good boy.
After 2 weeks our grass was growing like a pasture.
After 2-1/2 weeks our grass got its first hair cut. I was going to wait until 3 weeks but Wayne couldn't stand it any longer. He mowed our lawn Thursday night and had me and Sue edging it in the dark. This picture was taken on Friday morning.
Our house doesn't look like a repo any more! Amazing what grass can do for a house!
We had the pleasure of having the missionaries over for dinner tonight. We had Round Table pizza at the request of our favorite neighbor, Wayne, who also joined us. Elder Brady is from Pleasant Grove, Utah and wants to be a high school teacher/ football coach or a physical therapist when he grows up. Elder Fuller is from Austin, Texas. He is just enjoying being a missionary. Elder Fuller's spiritual thought for the day is 3 Nephi 14:24-27, Build your house upon a rock and when the floods come and the winds blow your house will not fall. Wayne thought of his spiritual thought after the missionaries left so I'm posting it here for the missionaries to read:
"God sent an angel down to earth to check on his people. When the angel returned, it told God that only 5% of his people were being good and 95% of his people were being bad. God wanted a second opinion so He sent a second angel down to check on his people. The second angel came back with the same report. So God decided to send a nice little note to the 5% percent of his people that were being good. Do you know what the note said?.....
Neither do we. We didn't get one either. Elders, what did it say?"
Thanks to the missionaries for sharing their spiritual thoughts and adventures! Thanks to Wayne for keeping it lively as always!
Other than our grass is still growing great, this has been a bad week for me. I tried to post the photos for my temple anniversary on Monday, however I kept getting an error. I tried again on Tuesday and still "error". On Wednesday the middle button of my mouse stopped working and the keys on my keyboard started sticking. This is horrible for working in autoCAD. On Thursday I got a speeding ticket and my friend, Sarah, backed into my car and dented both of our bumpers. On Friday my internet stopped working just when I went to get some drawings off of a client's ftp site. So no email or internet for the rest of the day. I think I have had a streak of bad luck. I certainly hope its over. Im going to buy a new keyboard and mouse today to give it a fresh start. 
My bumper.
Sarah's bumper.
Our bumpers seriously looked so much worse after this happened because they were both majorly dented in. My gas cap door wouldn't even close. But, after an hour or so we went back to look and both of our bumpers had popped back out. Amazing! Tom says I'm lying but Sarah can back me up on this. After this happened, we were laughing so hard because we just couldn't believe it. We had both had bad days and this just seemed to top it off. You can read about Sarah's bad day on her blog http://www.sarahnkip.blogspot.com/
July 14th was the 1 year anniversary of me going to the temple for the first time. It was a great day! The temple was packed with friends and family and afterwards we had everyone over at our house for lunch. When the in-staters left we took some pictures with my family here from out-of-town and went to the beach for dinner at the Crab Cooker. Good memories!
Chris, Allen, Nancy, Karla, Carolyn, Teri, Tom, & Me out on the golf course in our backyard.
Tom & I at the Crab Cooker.
Carolyn, Karla, & Chris walking on the pier at Newport Beach.
Allen & Carolyn under the pier
Allen & Chris under the pier
Karla & Carolyn under the pier
Chris, Carolyn, & Karla on the pier
Tom & I under the pier
Sunset at Newport Beach on July 14th 2007
It has been 1 week since we planted the grass. Look how green it is already! I do have to clarify that the petition was a joke. I guess you have to know Wayne to catch the sarcasm.
This is our next project, the master bathroom. We will be putting in a wall mounted toilet, wall mounted vanity, wall mounted faucet, and slate shower. The toilet and shower fixtures have already arrived. The faucet has been ordered but has not arrived yet. And the vanity still needs to be ordered.
Also, we got a bid to put in a block wall along the property line (front and back yard). The bid was $5,700 for the block wall including footing with stucco and brick cap + $1,200 to remove the trees. Does that seam high to you or does that sound good?
Tom & I have big ideas for our little house. In our jobs we work with other peoples' money and have large crews working on projects. We seem to forget that we don't have the same resources when it comes to our own house. Tom also likes to start projects with no deadline of finishing these projects. One of these many projects has been our front yard. Our plans are to build a small retaining wall along the property line, build a covered patio along the front of the house, with a flower bed in front of the patio, add some lighting in the yard, a water fountain, a brick mail box, a stamped concrete driveway, and a slate door step. Tom started working on cutting back the hill for the retaining wall about a year ago. Since then we have not watered, mowed, or weeded the front yard because it was all going to get ripped out, right? Well, my neighbor, Wayne tells me that the other neighbors started sending around a petition to sign to get us to start working on our yard. Wayne assured me that he was holding out on signing the petition for two reasons: 1) because he didn't want to hurt our feelings, and 2) because he was afraid he'd have to help work on our yard. Well, despite not signing the petition, Wayne has helped us work on our yard. He has taught me everything I know about sprinklers. My mom must have signed the petition or at least heard of the petition because a couple of weeks ago she was also here helping with the yard. While she was here we took several trips to Home Depot buying sprinklers, grass seed, and soil topper. We even rented the roto-tiller! She had to leave before the grass seed was actually planted though. And if it weren't for Wayne, work on the front yard might have stopped there but Wayne has not let me stop. So, yesterday we finally planted the grass seed! I know it doesn't look like much now, but it will! Tom and I were so tired after planting the grass seed that we went inside at about 7 pm calling it a day. Unfortunately, we still had piles of weeds, dirt, and rocks on the sidewalk left to clean up. However, the trash cans were full for the week and we were out of energy. Then, at about 8 pm Wayne showed up with his trash can and 3 other neighbors' trash cans to help encourage me to finish the job. My neighbor, Bob, even came out to encourage me to finish. Bob also lent his pitch fork for scooping up the grass and dirt, hose attachment for spraying off the driveway, and flash light because by the time we finished it was completely dark outside. I've already watered the new lawn seed twice today. It looks like the neighbors are going to have to rip up their petition. Thanks to all of those who helped get the yard to this point. Special thanks to my mom and Wayne for pushing us to finish planting the lawn this year!
Notice the hill cut back, the nice level yard, the painted box for the sprinkler valves, the flagstone at the sprinkler box, and the new hose pot.
Logan helping Tom start the project of cutting back the hill about a year ago.
Wayne admiring our work last night after we finished.
We had an amazing Fourth of July with the Robins & Richins. It was all of the little moments added up that made it so great. We played a half of a hole of golf with all of the kids too. It was fun to be out on the grass just hanging out. I don't know who won or who lost but I'm pretty sure Mat cheated because I saw Kat carrying his ball and then dropping it into the hole at the end. Dinner was an amazing feast. We had enough food to feed an army. Sue was in the kitchen preparing everything and Tom was at the Bar-B-Que cooking all the meat. Tom set off a few bottle rockets in the backyard and then we rushed off to Santana Park to watch the fireworks. In the first picture you can see a chain link fence behind us. That was the edge of the area fenced off for the fireworks. We were so close to the fireworks that we could see them leaving the ground. I would have to say this is the closest I have ever been to a fireworks show. We were nearly under them. We laid back on our backs and watched the fireworks explode above us. After the fireworks show we went back to the house and had cheesecake and ice cream. The kids painted lots of pictures which I hung on my office door. Liam painted a great picture of the fireworks show which I scanned in and posted below. The trampoline was a hit, the cats got lots of attention, and Tom was very popular with the little girls. We nearly had a little fight over who got to sit on Tom's lap at the fireworks show. Luckily they were all able to fit on Tom's lap.
Liam's painting of the fireworks show.
Liam and Allie in the Hawaiian outfits we bought for them when we were in Hawaii.
Aren't they cute!
Liam pretending to sleep. These kids have so much energy. They run non-stop. I needed a nap on the hammock!
