Get Yourself To The Butterfly Lounge

  As I sit here, listening to podcasts I just heard someone say that you don't need a pool to have a pool party. Interesting. On to business! Today class, we will be talking about the past month or so (pictures may not be included), plans for the future (like what's going down in August) and some other stuff. Let's do this!

  Bad clichés aside, we've had a pretty busy month. Let's start with what's helped us get through a good portion of it. ---> That's right. We now subscribe to Netflix (for the third time). We watched all available seasons of Dexter (and ended up renting seasons 3 and 4 from Blockbuster), and now Cait has moved on to Dr. Who. It's also great because there are a ton of kid's shows on there. Savannah (and I) watched all of the Phineas and Ferb, Backyardigans and a slew of VeggieTales. The only downside is that it is interfering with my latest video game obsession.

Portal 2 (and the Orange Box for that matter). Thanks to the wonder of instant gratification (aka the Internet) I was able to download the demos to both Portal and Portal 2. Needless to say I was hooked. And so was Cait.  So now we trade off on who gets to play (and when) or what we're going to watch. I do question Cait's logic though. Either that or her video game awesomeness leads her to go to places in video games that the user was not meant to go. The portal games are logic / thinking / puzzle games. It involves using your portal gun to allow objects / people to move in unique ways to solve a series of puzzles before progressing to the next level. It is highly addictive. If you're in the neighborhood and want a demonstration, feel free to stop by and either Cait or myself will be glad to show you the virtues of the games. :) 

  To kick off our summer work list, we decided to tackle a couple of big projects. First was to redo our front garden. Most of the plants were dead and it was overrun with weeds. So the picture is what it now looks like. Well. mostly. There are some plants that need to be replaced already and the black anti-weed matting that we put down isn't working as well as we hoped. So, we still need to weed, but not nearly as much as before. On the plus side, the bumblebees LOVE this garden. Everyday I usually see two or three bumblebees going about their business. We also replaced our dead magnolia tree with a 7 year old tree. Same species as before, although we paid considerably less for this one. It was purchased at a local nursery whereas the previous one was purchased at Lowes. We've been talking about what to do with the large patch of weeds in front of the rest of... the front... of the house. I think we're pretty much in agreement of what we want to do and continue with the theme and colors of what's pictured here. In addition to this, we're trying to figure out what we want to do for the patio that we're going to be putting in this summer. What we're looking for is a cement mold that is flat on top allowing us to place chairs and a table on top with out too much rocking or loss of footing. We did purchase an outdoor dining set and place settings as well. Our house is going to be the place to be by the end of summer. Of course that's around November out here.

  If you happen to drive by our house now, you will notice something quite different. Our house is now green. I know what you're thinking, "A green house? Have you gone blind?" The answer is no. The photo to the left represents a couple of things. First is that we don't actually have a picture of the new house color. That will be corrected soon. Second is that we're not completely done. I need to replace a board on the back of the house and then paint. Plus I need to get all 12 shutters primed and painted. That will be done before this weekend. So, I'm not to concerned there. But once we've completed everything, I will share it on facebook, all 3 of my twitter accounts and here. No need to deprive you of the pictures. And my Picasa Web Albums too. Can't forget those. 

  Another change we've made is that we now use TruGreen for our lawn care (weed killer, fertilizer and lawn nuisance control). The results so far have been amazing. At the start of the year, most of the color in my front yard was from weeds. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of that. Thankfully we found a coupon and got a discount on our first application. That was about 6 weeks ago (which means that it's time for our next application) and the results have been amazing. Almost all of the weeds in our yard are dead and my front lawn is pretty. Except for the dead spots that need to be reseeded. But that shouldn't be to hard to do. In addition to that, the lawn gets watered with well water which is full of good nutrients for the plants and yard. By the end of the summer, I'm looking to have a nice full lawn with little or no dead spots.

  Let's talk about my current personal project. I am currently working my way through the bible a few chapters at a time. All of my notes, thought, questions and summaries are posted on one of my other blogs, On Fire For The Lord. This blog is a way for me to keep on track of my reading and to try and look deeper into the bible. So far, I've got a few posts up and will post as I read the sections I've got laid out. Please stop by and take a look.

  My new audio interest is the podcast of my favorite baking blog! Joy the Baker teamed up with a group of her friends and made homefries.com. The podcast mentioned at the beginning of this post? Got it from homefries. It's pretty fun to listen to the various people talk about this and that and everything else in between. This picture is courtesy of Joy the Baker and homefries. You should head on over and take a look. You can subscribe to the podcasts (for free!) or share it with your friends!

  And now onto future plans! And my apparent love of the exclamation mark! But this August, we will be going to Disney World!!! In case me in a Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey hat didn't give that away. We've been planning this for a few months now and I got word a couple of days ago that my leave had been approved. Now, Disney does not have the same offer as a couple of years ago (Active Duty Military got a free 5 day pass with park hopper and water park access). But we are able to purchase tickets at ridiculously low prices through MWR. We anticipate visiting three of the four parks and one of the water parks. Or maybe both water parks. Who knows?!? Once we told Savannah where we were going, that's all she would talk about! Every day she asks when we're going to go see Mickey Mouse. If it was up to her, I'm not sure we would ever leave Disney. I know that this is going to be a much needed break and hopefully, the August time frame will allow us to beat the worst of the summer crowds. Hopefully. We did learn some things from our last visit concerning Savannah and hopefully the heat won't be too bad for her. We did get her a little personal mister from Target and she loves to play with that. All we need for her now is a battery operated clip on fan. Well, I know the Disney trip will warrant their own posts but we've still got some time left before I have to worry about those. I will also be tweeting from Disney, so be sure to follow any one of my 3 accounts. I'll provide them when the time draws nearer. That's concludes today's post. As promised, here is the Portal picture:

- Brent