Bear with me: this is a long one!
Our Anniversary Trip
My husband and I recently shared our 7th anniversary. He traditionally takes the whole week off work, and we hang out together as a couple and a family. This year, we decided to leave the kiddos with my parents (thanks, parents!) and drive into the mountains!
Colorado Summer weather > Texas Summer weather. By a lot.
Why Colorado? Well, the weather, honesty, and also because Colorado Springs is close enough for us to drive to it in one day without feeling like all we did was drive. And it wasn’t terribly expensive, either, so that was a big plus.
While we were in Colorado Springs, we also visited the surrounding areas of Manitou Springs, Old Colorado City, Cripple Creek, and something else whose name I can’t remember.
I ate two FANTASTIC BLTs at two different restaurants, we saw mountain scenery that took my breath away (and I’m not even kind of nature-y, really!), drove up Pike’s Peak and ate hot donuts, walked a ton, and generally enjoyed being in each other’s company (d’aww!).
Both of us had been to Colorado in the past, but we’d never been there together, and we both enjoyed it. 10/10–would do again!
Fixing Up the Driveway
When we returned, we were promised flagstone from my fantastic in-laws whose yard had just been worked on. They did a bunch of work and ended up tearing out/picking up flagstone that they wouldn’t need any more.
I was more than happy to take that off their hands! I wanted to add a standing/walking area by the driveway so I don’t have to step in the grass when I get in/out of my husband’s truck and I wanted a pathway from the driveway to the front walk.
We’ve put a lot of work into the exterior of our house this summer (all new siding, all new paint, rearranging the flowerbeds’ stone border, planting new flowers, occasionally mowing the lawn…), and this was a nice piece of easy sweat equity: it took about an hour to unload and arrange all the pieces, and my dad was nice enough to come help us lay the stones down. We didn’t do it “right” in that we just dropped the stones on top of the grass, but the grass will eventually die and the rocks will naturally sink down. Right? Maybe?
New stones! Bonus: old grass that needs to be bagged or blown back into the yard
A path leading to the front walk!
And now I don’t have to stand in wet or itchy grass when I get the girls in and out of their car seats or when I step in or out of the truck. Everybody (mostly me!) wins!
Vinyl Signage
Today, my older daughter is officially a year older! Yikes! So now she’s three, and she’s going to start going to half-day preschool in August. (I’m trying not to freak out!)
I keep seeing cute “First Day of School” chalkboards and dry-erase boards, and the more I see them the more I think I want to do those for my girls! But I don’t want to buy them, I want to make them. (Why by something for $5 when you can make it for $25 in materials and countless minutes of your time, right? #CraftingProblems)
After seeing two version in stores and looking at tons of pictures online (looking at you, Pinterest and Etsy), I decided what I wanted on my own boards.
I opened up Silhouette Studio and got to work. I designed two boards: one for the first day and one for the last day. They’re both going to be in color, but at the time of taking these pictures of my laptop screen (I’m very high-tech in that, I know), I hadn’t made any decisions. I still haven’t yet cut the pieces or anything, but I have the cut file, I have the vinyl, and I have two chalkboard options:
Husband likes the blue one because it’s cheaper, but I worry the rose gold frame will forever mark this as 2017. I have a few weeks to figure it out, but I know laying all that vinyl is going to be one hell of a project. So I really need to get it started soon… maybe tomorrow.
And that’s the haps around here. Maybe tomorrow I’ll let you know about #BabyShive’s birthday cake and family dinner. Or maybe that’ll happen next week. Or never. Who can tell?
Enjoy
shive talking 