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

Video Games, Dead Magnolias and Fire!

Wow. That's a lot of Sims2 games. All of that got me $24 for trade in. That might be able to buy me one of these games new, but oh well. I just added it to the store credit I already had. This has been an eventful few days recently. First, I discovered that there might be a baking/cooking competition at my unit. That sent me diving into my baking books to see what I could make to win. I have a few ideas, but I'm not allowed to share (yet). I'll keep you posted on how that goes. But I'm pretty excited about it. Apparently, the person who brought the contest to my attention has decided to have a throw down with me on who will do better. Another thing is that our Magnolia tree might not be doing to well. We think it is suffering from heat stress. It looks pretty dead to me though. Actually, most of our flowers aren't doing too well. Anyway, I had Friday off and that was spent working around the house. I was finally able to put my "new" lawn mower to good use and it works wonderfully! That night though, I refilled the little gas cans and placed them in our garage for the night. Well, I forgot to move them to the shed after I was done mowing the rest of the Saturday morning (it's a big lawn. It takes me about 5-6 hours with my push mower to cut all of the grass). We went out for the day and came back to a house smelling like gas. After airing the house out, I moved all of the gas and equipment out to the shed. We went out later to try and find some shorts for Savannah (all she seems to have is skirts) and upon returning to our house, it still smelled of gas. Once again, we opened the windows to air the house out. Well, Cait jumped on the Internet (which reminds me, I need to stop her from looking at it when things aren't right. It just freaks her out even more) and found that one possible cause would be a build up of sewage gasses that could cause our house to explode. Well, that's not too good. I contacted Station 3 of the Camden County Fire & Rescue and ended up speaking with the station Chief. I presented my problem and requested that if possible could they send someone to check it out. All I was told was that someone would be there soon. 20 minutes (give or take) after that, Cait and I hear the low rumbles of diesel engines coming down the street.

Looking out the windows showed the ambulance and fire truck that you see in the picture. All we were looking for was someone in a county truck to come out. Definitely not emergency vehicles. Oh well, that's what you get for talking to the actual firehouse Chief. After a review of our air system and a tour of the house, the fire fighters stated that they believed it was the fumes from the 2 gas cans. However, they also believe that the fumes had become attached to the filters in our returns and that we should buy new filters. Following their advice, the next day there was no smell of gas in the house. Of course there was the obligatory FaceBook post (from Cait) stating that the magnolia tree was dead and the Fire Department had just left. Shortly after that post came the worried calls, texts, and responses from friends and family. Maybe we should have posted about the tree earlier...That's been the most exciting thing that happened recently. Mostly.

On another front, Cait is looking at starting her own bow making company. After spending too much money on some bows for Savannah, Cait found a simple way to make bows. Sunday afternoon was spent at Jo-Ann's obtaining all of the ribbon and stuff to make said bows. Although there is quite a bit of ribbon in the cart, the final total of items was a bit more (for the clips to keep the bows in the hair). I'll be creating a section on this blog dedicated to the bows that Cait has crafted. By the time I left for work this morning, she had crafted 3 bows and was planning on making more while I am at work. I can't wait to see what she has made. I've been told that her day has been filled with taking care of Savannah and making bows. Her page should be up in about a week or so. And with that, I leave you with a picture of Moog yelling.

- Brent

Magnolia tree

Here is the info on the Magnolia tree that we planted. We pulled the info off of this link.

Name: Magnolia, Jane (Magnolia x 'Jane')
Zone: 4-7 (for some info about the zones, click here or here)
Type: Flowering Tree
Height: 10'-15'
Spread: 10'
Growth Rate: Slow
Sun: Full Sun
Soil: Various (acidic, loamy, moist, rich, sandy, silty loam, well drained soils)
Shape: Rounded
Description: A member of the "Little Girl" group of hybrid magnolias developed in the mid-fifties at the U.S. National Arboretum. Hardy shrub or small tree. Impressive reddish purple flowers outside, white inside opening late in spring to avoid frost damage. Flowers are a gorgeous tulip-shape with a lightly scented fragrance. Leaves are dark green and somewhat leathery in appearance. Great choice for any accent, specimen, or border use. Grows 10'-15' high. Grows best in full morning sun and partially shaded afternoons. Prefers rich, moist, and well-drained soils.

Busy, busy, busy!

Wow. What a busy couple of days it has been. I apologize about not posting yesterday. This will encompas the past 2 days. And a little before that. Let's take a trip back a couple of days. We're going back to Saturday night. We have this pile of yard trash that needed to be "disposed" of. So, we had a fire. Sounds pretty easy right? Not if what you're trying to burn is a) full of dirt and b) full of moisture. The picture is when we started to burn our Christmas trees. I know, its April and we still haven't disposed of them. But that is no longer the case. I will say that Christmas trees that have been baking in the sun for 4 months burn really fast. We put a big dent in the pile, but it was taking to long. Whats left is going to be tossed into the woods out back.

Moving on to Tuesday. Not a lot done outside, but there was plenty to do inside. We're hosting a party this Sunday (after church of course) and we're working on getting the house ready for guests. Part of that is going to be painting the hallway (well, I'm not sure we needed to do this for the party, but it is something we've been meaning to do). But in order to do that, we wanted to remove the wall paper first. The picture is the wallpaper. Imagine that covering an entire hallway. **shudders**  I found a rental company in town and was able to rent a wallpaper steamer for a day. So, when Cait went to her bible study, I put Savannah to bed and got to work.  After about 3 1/2 hours, I had only removed 4 panels. I must say that removing wallpaper is not all that fun. That was the big project of Tuesday.

On to Wednesday. I managed to get the kitchen tidied up before heading off to work. When I got home for lunch, Cait had managed to remove one panel with much pain on her part. The problem with the wallpaper steamer is that all of the components get really hot. Which can result in some pain. We decided to just paint over the rest of the wallpaper. We went to Lowes that evening and picked out our paint and took a look at the garden section. We finally found something to plant in the empty spot in our garden. A magnolia bush. I'll provide the details in another post. We got it into the ground and covered and put our last bag of mulch over the large plot of dirt...only to discover that we needed more mulch. Once again...off to Lowes. You know you've been there to many times when the employees ask what you're back for. But we got some more mulch and got it spread out. It looks really good. I'm going home for lunch now. I'll post the info about the magnolia after I get back.

- Brent