All Hail, Oh Mighty Fire Pit!!

ripping out the grass

The Fire Pit!

It is here.  Finally.  The fire pit we've been talking about for years.  Its done.  Easy peezy.  Ok, not easy at all really.  More like blood, sweat, and tears.  The first step involved Jake renting a mini excavator and ripping the grass out.  Where did the grass go?  Well, I'll tell you.  Jake would dump it in a wheelbarrow and I would run it to the dump trailer and throw it in.  After a couple of hours I thought I was maybe going to die.  I told Jake I was his mexican laborer (I apologize if that offends anyone) while he sat up in the tractor.  Good thing my dad had me move buckets of dirt as a kid.  Also a good thing I go to Cross Fit.  I told Jake he's lucky he married me because I don't know many women who could have done that.  Lest you think I'm exaggerating...when he took his dump trailer to dump it the grass weighed 2000 pounds.  That's right, 2000 pounds.  I'm amazing.  And don't think that Jake helped with most of it.  It was all me.

After this first step I will admit that Jake did most of the work.  We had to spread out gravel and then sand.  Jake had pity on me and moved those wheelbarrows, bless his heart.  Then the pavers went down, and now we have a fire pit.  Hooray!  This really was a family project.  Zack especially helped.  It makes me secretly giddy that Zack is big enough to actually, really help.  This child labor thing is amazing.

Now when it cools off at night, like it does in this paradise we live in, I just turn on the fire.  Did I mention it's a gas fire pit?  It is because we're too lazy to light fires frequently.  I figured to get our money's worth I better make it as easy as possible.

So, consider yourself invited to our amazing fire pit.  Wander over any night.  We will be chilling (or should I say warming) by the fire, most likely eating ice cream:)

Daredevil Girl

Sage waterskiing - so cool!

Last week I was gone at girls' camp for a few days (in case you were wondering, I love love love girls camp - I would go every year if possible).  While I was gone Sage decided to make giant strides forward in her activities of choice.

Sage has been slowly working on riding her pedal bike for a while now.  On Monday she finally got serious about it and figured it out.  On Wednesday night there was a kids mountain bike race at Soldier Hollow.  The same one Zack and Kate have done before.  Well, apparently Sage spent the day at my friend's practicing her uphill bike skills so she could do the race.  Yes, she practiced.  For the race.  My three-year-old.  She was apparently quite serious about it.  So she got to the race and took off up the hill with all the other kids.  Didn't even look back.  She had a small wreck, but in her words, "I was ok because I had my helmet on."  First mountain bike race?  Check.  Took me thirty-four years to do my first race...

The next day my awesome friends took my kids out on their boat.  We used to have a boat, but Sage was a baby when we sold it, so its not like she has lots of experience boating.  She loved it.  All of my kids did (now they want to get rid of Tiny and get a boat - whatever).  My friends have an EZ-ski kids waterski thing and some of the kids were doing it.  Sage told them she wanted to go, so off she went.  Big grin on her face.  No fear.  Waterskiing?  Check.

Yes, Sage is definitely more adventurous than Zack and Kate.  She seems to have suddenly become more confident and willing to try new things.  This is new territory for me.  It scares me to death and I think its awesome all at the same time.  Stay tuned for more stories as I'm sure this is just the beginning...