More Gardening 2011

So this year’s garden has yielded SO MANY tomatoes!  It’s been fun to pick off the big, juicy, ripe tomatoes.  I won’t ever have a garden without Cherokee Purple tomatoes in the future.  They taste so yummy!  Kind of smokey, look really dark and pretty when you cut into them. 

I have had more mishaps with gardening tasks this year… Earlier in the year it was bees.  On Sunday, I went to plant some knock-out roses Ava picked-out for me on her date night with Daddy.  Planting the very last roses, I caught my hand on a thorn.  It was about a ½ tear below the base of my index finger on my left hand.  A few hours later, I noticed that my middle knuckle of that index finger felt like it was bruised.  I thought that was odd, because I had not done anything to injure it.  It started to swell, later, to the point where it was too painful to use or push down the tip of my finger.  I couldn't bend my finger or make it straight, it was that swollen.  I looked-up rose thorn allergy on-line and found there is a “Rose Thorn Disease”.  It appears that some roses carry a fungus that can really be harmful.  The message board I looked at mentioned it was necessary to have an up-to-date tetanus shot.  I waited overnight to see if the swelling would subside, but it didn’t.  I called the advice nurse Monday morning, who suggested I get a tetanus shot.  I felt kind of dumb walking into the doctor’s office for a simple rose thorn puncture!  But I received a tetanus shot and two days later my index finger is no longer swollen.  I will be steering clear of roses and thorns from now on, that much is certain. J

Peace, love and “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn,”

Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

Not my garden, but I loved what Pike's Nursery did with these plants.  They look like stripes!

Can you "spot the hot?"

I love that these random flowers bloom in our driveway cracks.  I'm still not sure what they are, but they teach me to "bloom where you are planted!"

Holy backyard mushrooms, Batman!

Mushrooms up close

These are Cherokee Purple tomatoes.  So yummy and beautiful, too!

These tea roses just love where they are planted!

Can you spot the hot?



The Wall

These are some pictures of the retaining wall Doug is in the process of building.  This wall has been a long-time-coming… We didn’t want to pay someone to do it, because it would’ve cost somewhere around $20k.  It was necessary to do this wall, though, as the footings of our house are exposed on the southeast corner.  People can’t walk from the front yard to the back without feeling like they might lose their balance and tumble toward the creek. 

The water has continued to erode away the soil on that side of the house, when we have a heavy rainfall (and the creek rises).  We’ve never flooded in our house, the entire time we’ve lived here, nor has our house ever flooded before we lived here.  Even throughout the 2009 floods here in Atlanta, the water never touched our house. 

The wall will be approximately 4 feet high (9 railroad timbers high) for the majority of the run.  Toward the front, where the yard goes uphill, he may need to make it 5 feet or so.  We plan on leveling off the yard, as well, which will increase the usable yard we’ll have.  Wahoo for not losing lawnmowers over the edge of our yard!

Doug started the wall on July 1^st, as he had every Monday in July off (but was paid for them, due to budgeted days with Fulton County Schools).  Doug is currently working on “level 3” out of 9, installing “dead men” (timbers that run perpendicular to the wall, to reinforce its strength).  It took him quite a while to chop out a six-foot tree root with an ax.  Unfortunately the area where this root was located was not accessible to use a stump grinder, nor could he use a chainsaw, as the mud would just gum up the blade.  L

We are eating, sleeping and breathing this crazy retaining wall.  We’re both ready for normal life to resume, ready to stop talking about this crazy wall!  It is shaping up nicely, though.  I will be sure to post updates as they occur.

Peace, love and shiver-me-timbers :-),

Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

Our friendly turtle!  It doesn't look terribly big, but it actually was!  After seeing this turtle, a few weeks later we noticed two little baby turtles that buried themselves in the sand of our creek.

Mr. (or Mrs.?) Turtle

 These are BEFORE pictures.  Hoping to be able to provide AFTER pictures soon!  This is the failing retaining wall that was put in before we bought the house.

Tying into the existing concrete silt filter on one side, busting out the other side in an attempt to reroute the creek away from our house.

One hard workin' man... 

Our resident bullfrog.  There are at least two that live in this area...

Mr. Frog.

  

Now with the drain pipe behind the first layer of timbers.

Landscape fabric to hold back dirt.

Junction of drain pipes.

Backfilled dirt at the corner, toward the back of our house.

Our backyard is a construction zone, complete with dirt and gravel piles.  Neighbors love us, I'm sure!



Liam Donuts

Donuts are special treats around our house.  On Saturdays, for an extra special treat, we might hop into the mini-van, still in our jammies, and run through the Dunkin Donuts drive-through for some donuts.

This is a typical picture of a donut, after Liam has had his way with it.  As you can see, he doesn’t prefer the cakey part, but does seem to like frosting…

Peace, love and icing on top,

Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

Ava's Dentist Appointment

Ava went for another teeth cleaning about a week before school started.  Fortunately they were able to fit us in!  (The day her original appointment was scheduled, the kids in the "Camp" class were going to Whitewater.  I didn't want her to miss the fun at Whitewater...Laura at Dr. Kerr's mentioned that she should go to Whitewater - nice! - and they would try to fit her in within the week before school started.)

I picked Ava up for her dental appointment in a rental car.  That week, Doug and I both had our cars serviced...The Sienna for a bad air compressor ($900 later) :( and Doug's F-150 for a bad window mechanism that wouldn't let his window roll up ($400 later).  Between that, having one last tree cut down before continuing on with the creekside wall / landscaping, it was a VERY EXPENSIVE week! 

On the way to the appointment, I asked Ava how her teeth were feeling.  She mentioned that her "choppers" were hurting her.  I had to chuckle at that...  Praying it wasn't a cavity of any kind, we made our way to the dentist.  The hygenist looked at her mouth and advised it was most likely her six-year molars coming in.  I guess I hadn't thought of that!  They did an x-ray on her, to determine how her teeth were growing in and if the pain was, in fact due to the six-year molars. 

The x-ray was pretty cool!  The pain is definitely from the growth of her six-year molars.  We could see that they will be popping through soon,  We could even see where her 12 year-molars were.  Dr. Kerr mentioned that we will be set if her teeth keep growing in the way they are now, that her teeth are well-spaced.  Hallelujah for that!  Doug mentioned that if she does need braces, though, that we WILL be getting them when she is young, so she doesn't have to go through that when she's older.  He didn't have them until he was in his mid-30's. 

She remains cavity-free, is a great tooth-brusher and has very healthy teeth.  What a blessing!

Keep smiling, sweet girl!

Peace, love and bubble gum-flavored fluoride treatments,
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

Baseball Day

The teacher in Liam's "new" class at school has really taken the "theme" of the week and ran with it.  I love this!  Every Friday, they seem to have a different theme.  They ask the kids to come in dressed up based on the theme.  A few Fridays ago they had Baseball Day.  Thankfully we've received some hand-me-down clothes from our local baseball star, Matthew Quinn.  :-) 


Here are some pictures of Ava and Liam before they headed into school.  Liam was the only kiddo in full baseball gear, including baseball pants.


We picked Ava and Liam up from school and headed to Michigan after a quick change out of the baseball uniform.  :)


Peace, love and "Play Ball!"
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Slugger Liam

Liam's fellow classmate Frankie, dressed in his baseball cap.

The Murdock Mustang Kindergarten Class List

I signed-up to receive PTA notifications from Murdock Elementary, the school Ava will be attending in less than two weeks!  I received a notification for a "Class List Party" on Friday, August 4th from 5-7 p.m.  Wow, I didn't realize there were PARTIES to celebrate such postings?  It seems there is formality for things like this in our school district.  I welcome it and find it surpisingly comforting that there is such structure and encouragement of all things school-related!  Back in my day, we snuck up to / rode our bikes to the elementary during the late summer months and checked the outside window of our classroom, where a list was posted.  If our name wasn't on one classroom, we wouldn't be in that class that year.  We ran to the next classroom to see if our name was on that classroom's list.  Question answered.  Once we found our name on the list, we played a little on the playground and ventured back home. 

I must say I have been seriously impressed with Ava's school, to date.  We honestly lucked out in this category.  When Doug and I were looking for our first home, we weren't too familiar with this area.  Because Doug worked at Georgia Pacific on Powers Ferry (and I worked at Sprint near Cumberland Mall in Atlanta), we wanted to stay as close in as possible.  Young and naive, we landed at 2402 Hembree Station Court, not realizing the goldmine of a school system into which our future daughter would eventually enroll.  :)  The high school has had the top SAT scores for something like eight years running.  People actually move into houses in this area for the schools alone.  Wow.

The elementary definitely has their act together, too.  A few months back we went to a "Day in the life" type orientation, where the kids and parents actually walked the path the kids would take during a normal schoolday.  While being oriented around the school, if Ava saw a sign that had a similar symbol as one appearing on her Bingo card, she could place the sticker in the space on the card.  A neat way for the kids to familiarize themselves with the school. 

I am now officially enrolled in PTA text message distributions, PTA e-mails and even automated voicemails from the school principal.  I'm impressed.  So, fast forward to tonight.  We went to the outdoor covered area at the school, checked the "list" and learned that Ava will be in Ms. McKenzie's Kindergarten class.  Having perused the school Web site, her name was familiar...she is actually noted on the Web site as being "Teacher of the Year" during 2011.  A fellow mom who saw me looking at the list mentioned that Ms. McKenzie is AMAZING and kept going on and on about her.  :)  The same mom was also writing down her child's entire list of classmates, counting them to see how many students were in the classroom.  I asked why she was writing the names down and she replied "Because I'm neurotic."  LOL.  Glad to know there are others out there like me... I was wanting to do so, but thought someone might think I was a nut job for writing down their kid's name.  So I wrote down the list of students in Ava's classroom.  I'm sure the list below will prove handy for Valentine's Day, etc.  :)

The PTA was also there, providing cookies, lemonade and water.  While walking around, we met a little girl named Ansley White, who is one of Ava's future classmates.  She was a sweetie.  :)

Gal Amir
Christina Andreev
Milena Bihm
John Burwell
our very own AVA CAREY! :)
Hannah Green
Preston Haon
Ariana Hawkins
Riley Johnson (boy)
Isabelle Lacasella
Cullen McEarchern
Dayla Ortiz
Jun Park
Marek Pearson
Meila Reaves
Rodrecius Richard
Isla Waggoner
Cody Wang
Jack Weatherall
Ella Wheeler
Ansley White

I am sure some of these names will crop up on future classmate lists.  It will be interesting to see who her classmates will be in future years.  There are SIX Kindergarten classes at this elementary, so I will definitely be curious to see which names repeat themselves in Ava's class lists over the years. 

Peace, love and sharpened #2 pencils,
Shelly, Doug, the student and Liam

P.S. - Go Murdock Mustangs!