In planning this family weekend, it was evident... the only person missing would be Kristen... it was, however, going to be Mother's Day weekend - what better excuse to fly her to Cleveland. Somehow, the ENTIRE family (except for Sue) found out about "Sue's gift" and managed to keep it a secret. Kristen flew in on Thursday night and we celebrated her birthday. Here she is with my most favorite purchase from my California trip in March. Happy Birthday, Sis!
My Dad strongly encouraged Todd to take Friday off... apparently, he wasn't too confident in my ability to run the two-man auger with him. After seeing them in action, I'm quite happy that I wasn't flailing on the other side of that monster. That gorgeous piece of machinery was picked up by yours truly in my Scion - I'm not sure that the men at the rental place had seen a lady in awhile...
What was supposed to be a rainy Friday ended up being gorgeous... Todd and Jim knocked out the post holes, finished getting the footers and posts in and returned the famed auger - all on Day 1! Mom, Kristen and I did our best to move the lumber to the back yard. We were successful, but left with bruised hips.
Friday evening, it was SHOWTIME! We welcome Sue & Doug... brought in their bags and acted like it was any other visit. Kristen was hiding upstairs. I had mentioned to Sue that I had another gift that we were excited to give her. She sat down an covered her eyes - I asked Todd to go get the gift. He even managed to ask "Where is it?". Perfecto! Doug had to give his approval for "early gift giving" - he is typically very opposed; however, he KNEW Kristen was upstairs and was forced to cave. When Sue opened her eyes, it made all of the deception and scheming worth it... Instead of missing Kristen (who lives in NYC) for the weekend, Sue was able to have her whole family there to celebrate Mom's Day.
Photo captions: Surprise! - I love you! - Doug knew too?!?
The Moms have a rather established love for Bahama Breeze. There was no discussion on where we would go for dinner on Friday night - off to the Breeze we headed...
Saturday turned out to be another [unexpected] gorgeous day. The gentlemen of the family worked diligently on the deck... Bottom left caption, "Why did I let my daughter talk me into diagonal decking?!?".
To quote Kristen, "The novelty of moving lumber has vanished". The ladies were caught relaxing in the sunshine... those are Kristen's feet visible from the end of a hammock! That was Buoy's post for the entire weekend - until the rain came, at least. Mind you, the birds (i.e. Flying Pigs) were very put out during the weekend - the red-winged blackbird was consistently telling us what he thought of our deck building and dog under the feeder!
Sunday was not as enjoyable and not recorded for the memory books. The guys fought through the sporadic rain and managed to get all of the decking finished. My Dad and I fought more cold misting weather on Monday and finished up the bigger set of steps and the railing. Here is the [almost] finished deck...
Once the crew was gone, the weather (Tuesday) was gorgeous again - of course! Todd and I enjoyed my last unemployed night by grilling out and having a nice glass of wine on the new deck.
Next visit from Dad will bring the balusters, closing in the bottom and hopefully more outlets. Until then, Todd and I have some furniture to assemble!
Back to work,
Jamie - Queen of the Gifters
1 comment:
Jamie is the "queen" of surprises, and it was a great one. What a wonderful weekend:-))
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